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Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

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Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no expectation of danger while spectating at the Boston Marathon. There also is no expectation of getting struck by lightning while spectating at the Boston Marathon, yet that is much more likely to happen than getting hit by a terrorist's bomb.

There might be some level of expectation of getting hit by lightning during a lightning storm at the Boston Marathon.

Perhaps then we can say there should be some expectation of terrorism as long as the US continues to elect leaders that pursue this sort of foreign policy in the Middle East.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#242

As terrorists, these guys sucked. The Swedish guy, even the Columbine schoolboys had a much higher body count. Still, in economic cost, it was a creditable effort, not on the level of 9/11 but not bad, for two presumed amateurs to shut down Boston for a day. When you do that, you're giving these guys a lot of power. Imagine if London had shut down every time there were IRA attackers on the loose. One comes to expect…

You know I had never thought of the financial damage aspect but you're right on about that.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#243
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and your neighbors packing assault weapons does not make you "free". It makes you "the Taliban".

That's a weak point. You could just as easily say it makes you "the Northern Alliance", "the French Resistance", "the Black Panthers", or "the Swiss". Weapons do not dictate ideology.

Point wasn't about ideology but way of life. For example, one of the great things about living in a largely gun-free society is that my probability of getting murdered in a drive-by revenge killing tomorrow is pretty low, since I do not belong to an armed faction responsible for an assault on an opposing faction last week.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#244
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is inexcusable, this is madness. So, you're worried more about a few dead people rather than all those people you never heard of dying in hospitals, in motor accidents, and other cause of death? They are someone's aunts, uncles, sons, daughters, friends, lovers, etc. Maybe we should connect our emotion to the logic rather than the other way around.

So the logical thing is to ignore mass murderers until their body counts approach deaths from cancer.

No, ignore them until the "cost" of ignoring them outweighs the cost of doing something.

The question is how to calculate those costs.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#245
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This main point is ridiculous. Our response to deaths should scale exactly proportionately to the number? I shouldn't let the death of a friend upset me disproportionately more than the death of a stranger? A reasonable statement would have been, "Let's not let these deaths be cited as an excuse for tyranny." But what he said was more along the lines of, "Let's not be very upset about these deaths, because then they…

Well, that's a different issue than what Bain was attempting to argue, but I'll indulge. You said, "Our response to deaths should scale exactly proportionally to the number? I shouldn't let the death of a friend upset me disproportionally more than the death of a stranger?" You're misrepresenting what he said. He never compared the death of a stranger to the death of a loved one. What he said is that it's silly to ra…

Every death or injury is a sad thing, but the fact is that many happen every day, and we should not let these few upset us disproportionally more than the others.

I disagree with you, but I think you're being thoughtful about it.

This is the problem I have with RMS.

Some deaths are more meaningful. Some events are more important.

If a man has a gun pointed at your face, do you ignore it because your singular death won't reach the number of yearly deaths for cancer or car accidents? By RMSs absurdly detached logic, you ignore the gun in your face.

Intention is everything in this issue. A pair of men running around blowing up people and emptying entire magazines in busy neighborhoods trying to murder their pursuers is so qualitatively different from any other quantitatively comparable event where people are killed and hurt without similar intention as to be virtually incomparable. RMS is admonishing us for not comparing the raw body counts.

He would have us walk ignore the gunman with the gun to our head while wearing a hazmat suit and SPF90 sunblock because quantitatively the flu and cancer result in a higher body count than just little old me and I shouldn't be so selfish and not walk around with those protections or I might add to the tally for those kinds of deaths.

Once you start just adding up bodies and comparing the tallies, you've lost the narrative.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#246
post #4

It took hundreds of police and probably millions of dollars to catch a teenager who didn't even bother to leave the area or go into hiding - and even TWEETED after the event. If we were attacked by real, organized terrorists, we are screwed. I really do not get all the celebration and back-patting, it's disturbing. Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks for guns, the most basic bill fa…

The Miranda issue was puzzling to me. Apparently ( http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforceme... ) the public safety exception to the Miranda warning was created in a ruling that clarified that statements obtained from an un-Mirandized suspected in response to questions asked by police in the heat of the moment (e.g. "Where's the gun?") were admissible. The spirit of the exception was that the threa…

You cannot call for public safety exemption when there is no threat to public safety and the police already stated that there was none.

But let's not kid ourselves, Eric Holder and co give zero fucks about the law or our rights. Fast and Furious anyone?

The problem with this exemption, from what I understand (please correct me if wrong) is that any testimony in this questioning WOULD be admissible in court over some nonsense post 9/11 legalese in some crazy ass bill somewhere.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#247
post #42
post #29

As unfeeling as his statement might sound, he's entirely correct. I told a family member today that the saddest thing about this whole Boston incident isn't the (still very sad and senseless) loss of life and limb, but that it's undoubtedly going to be used as an excuse to further degrade civil rights nationwide in the coming years, to continue to justify state-sponsored human suffering like Guantanamo, and to furthe…

You're wrong. The saddest thing is the loss of life and limb.

Not if the resulting erosion of civil liberties eventually leads to more than ~4 innocents' deaths.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#248
post #39
post #29

As unfeeling as his statement might sound, he's entirely correct. I told a family member today that the saddest thing about this whole Boston incident isn't the (still very sad and senseless) loss of life and limb, but that it's undoubtedly going to be used as an excuse to further degrade civil rights nationwide in the coming years, to continue to justify state-sponsored human suffering like Guantanamo, and to furthe…

going to be used as an excuse to further degrade civil rights nationwide in the coming years I don't necessarily disagree, but I look forward to RMS's anti-terrorism proposal.

Is terrorism actually a problem in the US though?

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#249
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, intention is what's important, a guy who's gun accidentally goes off and hurts a few people is not the same as a guy who's actively shooting into a crowd.

It's about mitigation too. It's a classic problem. Let's say you have a guy like Ted Bundy, hypothetically, and you have this huge manhunt and you catch him a few days after his first attack. OK, now you look at the cold, hard numbers and you see that you've spent an enormous amount of effort catching a guy who's only killed a few people. On paper that might look crazy. But in the case of the real Ted Bundy he killed…

this is certainly the most intelligent arguement to RMS' case.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#250
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a weak point. You could just as easily say it makes you "the Northern Alliance", "the French Resistance", "the Black Panthers", or "the Swiss". Weapons do not dictate ideology.

Point wasn't about ideology but way of life. For example, one of the great things about living in a largely gun-free society is that my probability of getting murdered in a drive-by revenge killing tomorrow is pretty low, since I do not belong to an armed faction responsible for an assault on an opposing faction last week.

I think it's disingenuous to bring up the Taliban and then deny you were saying anything about ideology. It was an emotional appeal that buries your true point. You know who else did that? Hitler.
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