Big_Bear wrote:>>> reductio ad absurdum (actually Victor, you use this quite a bit.)
I'm not gonna disagree with you. I do use it a lot. However, in this case I didn't need to reduce that one far. He made a sarcastic comment suggesting those upset about the outcome were incorrect in being upset. This suggests he believes the outcome is correct. That's about the extent of my reduction there...
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>>> undoubtedly true. This is also true in almost every legal case.
>>> Again, true. But judgments must be made on reasonable evidence. Our system is called on to make decisions based on what is reasonable.
Yes you are correct. The only point I'm trying to make is that individuals who seem to think they know which witness is lying (possibly none, possibly all of them, that's the funny thing about memory) and what actually happened are undoubtedly wrong. Mainly because they aren't basing their statements on anything.
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>>> This is quite a lot of speculation about what did happen and about what didn't happen.
No it isn't. We know he wasn't shooting anyone (that isn't speculation). We know he wasn't armed (that isn't speculation). We know he wasn't driving a vehicle (that isn't speculation). And we know he physically appeared threatening to an armed police officer (my fault for not using a direct quote, but if you were to read Darren Wilson's transcript he describes Brown as making him feel like a kid trying to hold on to hulk hogan, and other colorful metaphors).
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>>> May I quote you? "We are never going to know what actually happened." You are stating that you not only know what happened, but why. That's quite a leap.
I guess that's my own fault. What I should have said was "That's the justification for why he got shot". You're right, we don't know WHY he got shot, but we do know how the officer justified it, and we know the grand jury found that justification to be acceptable. That would be a more accurate statement.
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>>> It would seem stupid if a police officer saw a physically threatening person and then just pulled his gun and shot him. The evidence does not seem to support that scenario.
Seeing a physically threatening person and feeling physically threatened are two different things. Who's going all reductio ad absurdum now? :)
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>>> Perhaps you're referring to another post. I didn't see anything here that resembles gloating.
Perhaps you read that post differently than I did. Seems like mocking the individuals upset about the ruling by claiming they are only upset because they think Brown had a right to steal stuff is... gloatish. Perhaps a different word would be in order.