Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Racist Dad...

[Samuel]

Rayshard Brooks shouldn't have been drinking and driving and falling asleep in the Wendy's drivethru, but he's a different skin color away from this being a "Lol Floridaman" story. etc.

I think they are going way overboard with the Rayshard Brooks charge of felony murder on the cops.  From what I have read, the guy stole a taser and shot one officer, then ran away, turned and pointed it at the officer who then shot him (the taser has 2 charges from what I read).  There have been other cases where lawyers have argued a taser is in fact a deadly weapon so the shooting could be justified based on that.

It seems a much different situation than choking a unarmed man for 9 min on the ground.

(I also probably am biased here, not on race, but on the drunk driving, which I view as attempted murder.  I had a very close friend killed by a drunk driver)

I think it's more likely that the officer will get a settlement from the county for malicious prosecution than be convicted of felony murder.

[Paul der Krake]

In times of deep societal unrest, when I long for clarity in my own thinking, there's one thing that's always worked for me. And that is turning to Twitter accounts of one trick pony authors who plastered their own face on their book covers.

Tune in next week to learn which picture menu restaurant I choose to impress first dates. The answer may surprise you.

[Padonak]

Picture menus are awesome. I wish they were more common in the US like they are in Asia.

Also, a first date at a restaurant, especially a more expensive one, is very rare these days. Maybe more common among rich people from this forum. MMM privilege.

[2Birds1Stone]

Pretty sure Robert Kiyosaki is not white. It doesn't rule out that he might have benefitted from other kinds of privilege.

In Hawai'i, he may have been better than white. But I think the real estate transactions that made him wealthy all took place on the mainland.

Lol yeah. Kiyosaki would be a pretty interesting last name for a white man.

IMO the problem with Kiyosaki is that he sees wealth as the ultimate validation. And I suspect that
He has little regard for how that wealth came to be.

You don't have to be white to be blinded by white privelage.

[mathlete]

In times of deep societal unrest, when I long for clarity in my own thinking, there's one thing that's always worked for me. And that is turning to Twitter accounts of one trick pony authors who plastered their own face on their book covers.

Tune in next week to learn which picture menu restaurant I choose to impress first dates. The answer may surprise you.

Twitter is garbage and Kiyosaki is garbage. Your point is well taken. For my own personal sanity as well, I limit my Twitter engagement and do not follow guys like Kiyosaki. But this thing has me thinking about how pervasive his voice and the voices of people like him are in the PF community.

I used to listen to a podcast called, "The Real Estate Guys". After I heard about this Kiyosaki stuff, I went back and listened to a few recent episodes. They talk about Kiyosaki all the time. And while I'll give them the benefit of assuming they don't cosign the dumbass things he recently said, the show is absolutely loaded with prosperity gospel and self-made mythology.

IMO, a toxic overweighting of personal choice and personal responsibility (boostraps) is pervasive in the PF community. This is bad because people in the PF community are often older, rich, own land, and have passive income or flexible work arrangements. That is to say, they're high propensity voters.

So in a small way, I do think it's important for us, as members of the PF community, the resoundly reject bullshit like this.

[PKFFW]

.....But of course that dilutes the messaging so the BLM organisers focus on "police brutality" though there is simply no evidence of that here in Australia.

I'm married to a Sergeant in the NSW Police Force and have a brother in the Federal Police, so as you might assume, I'm generally pretty supportive of Police here in Australia.

However, your statement quoted here is absolutely incorrect.  There is plenty of evidence of police brutality in Australia and much of it is very obviously directed at Indigenous Australians.  Anecdotally, I have met quite a number of Police Officers through my wife and brother as well as my job in the emergency services and I could quite literally count on two hands the number of Police Officers I have met, who have not very obviously displayed a blatantly racist view toward Indigenous Australians.  Many openly brag about times they have beaten Indigenous Australians.  Furthermore, there has been at least one Royal Commission into the matter that found rampant brutality and, frankly, little has changed since.

Having said that, you are correct that the 430 deaths in custody is a misleading figure to use as evidence of Police brutality.  For starters, the overwhelming majority of those deaths have occurred while the person was in custody of corrective services and not the Police.

[DadJokes]

IMO, a toxic overweighting of personal choice and personal responsibility (boostraps) is pervasive in the PF community. This is bad because people in the PF community are often older, rich, own land, and have passive income or flexible work arrangements. That is to say, they're high propensity voters.

I'm a little confused by this statement. I'm probably misunderstanding what you mean.

It's possible that people in PF community focus on personal responsibility because that's the only thing anyone has control over. Do you want PF voices to get on their blogs/podcasts and complain about how life isn't fair, or do you want them to teach people how to help themselves?

I lump in DR & FIRE bloggers/podcasters in the PF community as well, so that might be the disconnect.

[PKFFW]

I'm a little confused by this statement. I'm probably misunderstanding what you mean.

It's possible that people in PF community focus on personal responsibility because that's the only thing anyone has control over. Do you want PF voices to get on their blogs/podcasts and complain about how life isn't fair, or do you want them to teach people how to help themselves?

I lump in DR & FIRE bloggers/podcasters in the PF community as well, so that might be the disconnect.

There's a difference between teaching people how to help themselves and making a judgement that anyone who does not "succeed" are lazy, do nothing, whingers who deserve a face punch or some other form of punishment, metaphorically or otherwise.

[js82]

I'm a little confused by this statement. I'm probably misunderstanding what you mean.

It's possible that people in PF community focus on personal responsibility because that's the only thing anyone has control over. Do you want PF voices to get on their blogs/podcasts and complain about how life isn't fair, or do you want them to teach people how to help themselves?

I lump in DR & FIRE bloggers/podcasters in the PF community as well, so that might be the disconnect.

There's a difference between teaching people how to help themselves and making a judgement that anyone who does not "succeed" are lazy, do nothing, whingers who deserve a face punch or some other form of punishment, metaphorically or otherwise.

Yep.

It's good to get people to make the best decisions they can possibly make relative to their current situation, and to help them believe that they have the ability to improve their current situation by approaching life with a sense of empowerment.

It's generally shitty to 1) assume that wealth is the sole determinant of personal worth/success, and 2) that one's financial position, be it good or poor, is solely the product of one's decisions, and not an aggregate of factors including decision-making, where one started off life(having rich parents/no debt from college helps!), and all the breaks that happened along the way - be they good or bad.

You can teach people how to make good decisions without blaming them for stuff that may not be fully within their control.

[DadJokes]

I'm a little confused by this statement. I'm probably misunderstanding what you mean.

It's possible that people in PF community focus on personal responsibility because that's the only thing anyone has control over. Do you want PF voices to get on their blogs/podcasts and complain about how life isn't fair, or do you want them to teach people how to help themselves?

I lump in DR & FIRE bloggers/podcasters in the PF community as well, so that might be the disconnect.

There's a difference between teaching people how to help themselves and making a judgement that anyone who does not "succeed" are lazy, do nothing, whingers who deserve a face punch or some other form of punishment, metaphorically or otherwise.

I haven't gotten that vibe from the PF community as a whole. I probably don't read/listen to the right people, or the wrong people in this case.

I'd say that people like DR expect people to help themselves, especially once they have the information they need. The FIRE movement is generally geared toward middle class people, who I would agree have no excuse.