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Why it is Important to Practice Stoicism.
This point got buried in a semi-related thread, but I think it deserves it’s own.
Last week, 75-year-old Martin Gugino was shoved by a member of Buffalo New York’s emergency response unit. I live in upstate New York and this story has almost surpassed the George Floyd murder as the number one topic that every idiot on social media has to give their opinion on. I was pretty disgusted by the video when I first saw it. It’s pretty graphic. Then I started approaching the issue from the perspective of logic and reason. Stoicism is important because emotions tend to blur the truth. Be like Mr. Spock when approaching these situations. Reason. Logic. Stoicism.
Look at how this is being covered by the local media:
The cops brutally assaulted a 75-year-old man. This was an innocent old man who was minding his own business, and besides, who on Earth would push a man that old? What possible harm could this man have done? All of Buffalo’s emergency response unit has resigned as a result of this. Governor Cuomo has been very outspoken about wanting these men fired. I’ve seen all opposing opinions on this immediately shot down as heartless, ignorant, boot-licking, etc. But let’s look at this through the lens of reason, logic, and stoicism.
I’ve heard that the police should have handled this better. I’m not so sure about that. If a police officer shows up to a domestic disturbance call, his goal is to deescalate the situation. He probably shouldn’t just charge in and beat the meth-head who hit his wife. But we are not talking about normal police officers here. If riot control is called in, the situation has already been escalated. Protester or pedestrian, you need to move. This is the last step before the military drop in and you are in a dangerous environment. And you really shouldn’t be touching them. Which brings me to…
Do not touch an officer. Label me a cop sympathizer, I don’t care. “But James, this old man just touched them, it’s not like he threw a punch. And besides, how could he harm anyone at his age?” Oh boy, we’ll get back to this one in a bit. I think the officer probably did go easy on this man. If this was a young person, they probably would have been met with significantly more force.
So what kind of 75-year-old man attends protests? My grandfather went to the VFW in his spare time. I can’t imagine something like a protest even crossing his mind. So, who is Martin Gugino? Here we go, this puts everything into perspective:
“Peace activist”
“Western New York Peace Center”
“Very devoted to principle”
This is a washed-up Marxist loser who has wasted his entire life. This man-made no dent in the universe. When Martin Gugino is on his deathbed (apparently he has recovered from this incident), he will look over his life and I can guarantee he will have nothing outside of his politics and ideology. No agency and purpose. I have no sympathy for losers like this. And what exactly was this man doing when he was touching the officers?
Trying to interfere with police communications. I’m sorry, but this is obvious. I don’t want to hear that this was just a coincidence. Nobody “scans” people with their phones like that. People should be asking questions instead of reacting when they see things like this. Why was a 75-year-old man at a BLM protest? Why would he touch an officer? When you start looking through the lens of logic and reason, these questions add up. Practice stoicism, or else the truth will be buried.
Published in Journalism
According to a post linked at CTH, not “interfering with communications.”
Trying to gain access to the officers’ communications devices. Duty one? Personal ones?
Remember, Antifa and its allies are trying to find out where cops live.
Goes back to the story of our old friends Adam and Eve. Adam (the thinking nature of man) was given dominion. Eve (the emotional nature of man) listened to the serpent (the senses) and ate of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (The emotions led the human to, “Something’s got to be done!”) Adam (the thinking nature of man: your friends logic and reason), instead of taking control, also took a bite of the forbidden fruit and followed the emotions rather than being in charge. And this is how man gets kicked out of Eden (a pleasant and productive state of mind).
He learned that his “white privilege” existed only in his mind.
I need to be convinced that he wasn’t trying for a pratfall and executed it poorly. The “shove” does not look very forceful to me.
Silly me. I just thought Gugino was just verbally harassing the officer and commenting on the officer’s riot gear, and just gesturing while holding his phone. It didn’t make all kinds of sense, but it does now.
One traditional Jewish homiletical approach begins by noting that the Divine prohibition was “Do not eat.” In Eve’s conversation with the serpent, she adds “do not touch.” at which point the Midrash tells us that the serpent pushes her into contact with the tree—and she then she doesn’t die from that. (So did the serpent invent the scientific experiment? Hmm.)
In any case, Eve has connected her prohibition with His actual prohibition in her own mind. When her prohibition is falsified, she doesn’t back down but violates the Divine prohibition as well.
But once she has eaten, she will die. Did Adam eat so as not to once more be alone?
And he does take several steps back before falling. Maybe he was pulling for a technical foul.
This is appalling.
I’m going to skirt the CoC here. What kind of pussy would find that video to be “tough to watch”? For crying out loud, there are vastly more disturbing images in Disney kid’s movies.
I think that this is ridiculous faux outrage. These snowflakes need to grow the heck up.
This is the Leftist mindset. These idiots are allowed to do any old obnoxious thing that they want, and they are sacrosanct. Even a cop can’t push them out of the way. Actually, even a white Catholic schoolboy can’t smirk at them.
This is what you get from the feminization of society.
Did they know what death was?
Jerry,
When I first saw the video, the guy’s head was lying in a pool of blood on the sidewalk. That was the part that got me, not the shove. The aftermath, not the act. Head trauma is something that I have a very difficult time watching regardless of the situation. When I put all the pieces together, I no longer felt any sympathy whatsoever. I agree with your point, though. People need to toughen up.
That was clearly a block on Gugino. The officer should be shooting one and one.
James, great point. I have the advantage of being a really cold, calloused, disagreeable dude. I can see someone lying in a pool of blood dispassionately. I can actually look at much more disturbing images than that, without much of an emotional reaction. Maybe that makes me a good stoic.
Such images do, typically, make me interested in what happened. If what happened was reasonable, then I don’t get upset. Here, the behavior of this old guy was pretty obnoxious, and the shove by the police was quite mild.
I do wish that he hadn’t been hurt. The lesson to be learned, though, is not that police are monsters. The lesson is that old geezers ought not to confront police.
I’m kind of reluctant to say this because head injuries can be no laughing matter, but I slipped on a wet spot in our kitchen once and went flying, landing on the back of my head–similar to Gugino. Much blood, but no loss of consciousness. Called our doc expecting an emergency room visit, and was asked a couple of basic questions. Was told there are lots of blood vessels in the skull so, yes, you will bleed a lot, but no need to go to the hospital absent other indicators.
This is really scary stuff that I really don’t know much about. Thanks for the info, I now have something new to learn.
It’s the Antifa/professional protester game plan to create the disturbance, goad the police into a physical response, get it on video and post it on social media in the hopes of going viral.
This technique has a long history, Antifa simply plagiarized the old soccer flop:
Nick Sandman must be watching this going “Hey, I know that guy’s brother.”
Apparently, close up photographs of Gugino lying on the concrete in a pool of blood show two sets of mask straps over his ear, and some sort of tubes running from his mask. I wonder if anyone bothered to get a sample of the blood.
The more I read about this case (I too am a resident of Western New York, and it’s all over the place) the more it feels like a setup.
Yeah. The more I hear about this, the more it smells. Just look at Gugino’s Twitter. The guy’s entire life is devoted to “the cause.”
Reaching toward a cop’s belt is never a good idea.
I’m all for stoicism. Not to mention reason and logic.
Spock, that’s a bridge too far. He’s a character. Writers put words in his mouth and direct actions. All in a constructed setting. It’s entertaining but it doesn’t teach stoicism.
Humans have to live in a clunky, messy, complicated society. We have to control our emotions. We have to control our actions. We must be cognizant of how they effect other people. In short, we must suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune, while holding tight to our humanity.
Am I a stoic? I try to be. I often fail. I’ve come to accept that.
Without commenting on this case specifically, I’ve seen 75-year-olds take a bad step and fall without any force or obstacle whatsoever. Many elders simply lose their balance and motor skills.
When I first saw this video, I was less disturbed by a man in the way of riot police being pushed than by the delay before at least one officer stopped to check on an old man who fell.
But the recording was abridged, so perhaps they had been told someone was coming to check on him. Or riot training emphasizes the necessity of maintaining an unbroken shield wall. A threatening crowd might have been just out of sight of the camera.
A loss of suppleness in the spine can result in being toppled by a relatively minor shove above your center of gravity.
The first time I saw the video, it was heavily edited. It only showed the shove and the man lying in blood. Didn’t show Gugino approaching the cops or scanning their devices/touching them. Darn, they almost had me!
Here I am reminded of the wisdom of Judge Roy Bean as portrayed by Paul Newman (The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean 1972) after he was criticized for shooting feared albino outlaw Bad Bob in the back.
Gugino was in the wrong place.
When riot cops form a line, an individual crossing the open zone towards that line has to be made to return to the crowd. If he does not, it invites forward movement or flanking by the crowd which is a threat to the police phalanx (think Cannae) but if conspicuous violence is deployed, that too might spark the crowd. That individual greatly complicates things, especially if he resists directions. The decision to give him a forceful shove instead of a blow seemed like a measured choice under the circumstances.
I agree fully. I’ve seen bad kung-fu movies with more realism than that fall. The death is looking to martyr himself for a cruel red god.
Maybe frail 75 year olds shouldn’t go to protests? They should also avoid skydiving.
I just want to know who’s going to protect and serve in this new normal? The police are being railroaded by these commie agitators across the country and are having to resign their posts or worse.
Who wants this job going forward? It’s worse than thankless. It puts you at risk for false accusations potentially leading to criminal charges and long prison terms.
Similarly, who wants to build a business — any business — in the torched parts of Minneapolis, for example? Who wants to serve a neighborhood where your neighbors loot and pillage and destroy your efforts?
This cannot end well.
I wonder if Mike Pence is dusting off Spiro Agnew’s law and order speeches.
“the community”.