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Originally Posted by jamesqf
Casual observation suggests that at any given time (that is, whenever I happen to be in one) there are likely to be more people shopping at the local Whole Foods than in the WalMart grocery section.
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I never know if you're being purposely deceptive, or simply enjoy being disagreeable. Walmart net sales in 2017 is 485.87B, Whole Foods is 16.03B. Over half of Walmart's revenue is groceries, or over 15x larger than Whole Foods.
Your argument that a foreigner's perception of US citizens being overweight due to selection bias is absurd. What reason is there for casting doubt on the reality of the US weight problem other than patriotic pride?
Here's an old chart (it's much worse now) showing the US propensity to deny reality even as the problem gets worse.
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And which imaginary utopia do you live in, then? Though I agree it's not strictly random, it's more like "That guy looks like a lowlife scumbag, let's hassle him and see what happens", with me having been that lowlife scumbag more times than I care to recall...
I agree that it's disgusting. It's also true. Not only do they look for easy prey, they work to create more crime, by e.g. supporting the insane "War on Drugs".
Perhaps where you live, cops spend their time on burglary, assault, and so on. Hereabouts they seem a lot more concerned with things like doing sting operations to catch bars serving underage drinkers.
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I've been to prison and have never lived in utopia. Police respond to the description of the suspect given to them by dispatch, not by "random hassling". Also, if you were a lowlife scumbag, then being "hassled" by the cops is warranted. How many of those times were you falsely arrested with charges brought against you?
The legitimacy of the war on drugs is a completely separate discussion and has nothing to do with the topic of which categories of people are breaking the law. Police aren't trained on legislating law, they are trained to enforce it. If you have a problem with laws, then take it up with your congressperson.
There is much room for improvement in the way law enforcement is conducted, but the claim of racism or capitalism being the primary cause of disproportionate criminal representation is worse than nonsense. It's worse because it can only serve to distract from the real problems, and merely prolongs it as we waste time wallowing in ignorance.