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“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

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Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#401

Post by whiddershins »

mynameishere wrote: post #383
sneak wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not bad guys" arguments. If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a position of trust, at that! It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops. Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and responsib…

I agree with you except about UC Davis. I'm on a locked-down computer right now so I can't promise this is the correct vid, but if you see the unedited thing, those kids were 100% in the wrong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhPdH3wE0_Y

I am astonished you think spraying people with pepper spray is the correct solution in that situation. Inconvenience is not a justification for violence. And that's what the protesters were doing. Causing inconvenience. If you can't cause inconvenience, civil disobedience isn't all that effective. Civil rights protesters were urinated on!! and had bleach poured on their faces !! by shop owners in the south. This is more of the same. That sort of violence against protesters was widely condemned then, why not now?

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#402

Post by cgag »

yogo wrote: post #225
sneak wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not bad guys" arguments. If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a position of trust, at that! It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops. Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and responsib…

These things are still pretty rare. Unfortunately, once you start raiding barber shops and pool halls with so much heat something like this is bound to happen. I still find it to be an honorable job with honest guys that put their lives on the line; however, statistically there's always going to be some hot-headed trigger-happy guy involved. Plus even if they're not on the force they're in some neighborhood as the un…

If you participate in a SWAT raid on a barber shop on any level, you are not an honorable or good person.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#403

Post by gohrt »

wdewind wrote: post #352
programmarchy wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. This ruling, and others like it hint at a fundamental flaw in constitutional law and how most people perceive their relationship with the state, particularly in regard to social contract theory. These rulings call into question the very legitimacy of state authority. Let's assume for a moment there is a social contract with the state. Then, as in all contracts, there is a reciprocal obligation. Specifical…

I disagree. I think you are assuming Warren has a broader impact than it does. The state does have an obligation to protect the public at large, and to do so uniformly (unless a special relationship is created). The state has not ruled it has no constitutional duty to protect you, it has ruled it has no constitutional duty to prevent every crime that occurs. Again, if the opposite were held true the state could be su…

Actually, our cake was taken away, and we can't eat it, or whatever.

The public is caught in a catch-22: it is illegal to defend ourselves physically against attackers (we can be held liable for harming an attacker, and often for posessing a self-defense weapon, and so criminals are emboldened, knowing we are defenseless), and yet the police provide no guarantee of protection against crime, and in fact are frequent perpetrators of violent accidents against civilians.

Like sheep to slaughter we go.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#404

Post by gohrt »

wdewind wrote: post #260
ryanSrich wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's the joke. They can construe, manipulate and torque that to mean whatever they want or rather the lack of whatever they want.

No they can't. It's pretty defined actually. A really simplified way to understand it is: the police have specifically said "we will protect $PERSON from $THREAT." Take for instance a hypothetical domestic violence case. Say the victim reports an incident, and then is later murdered. Because the victim reported the first incident does not imply a special relationship under the law. But, if the police told the victim…

> This is why you very rarely would find an officer promising protection:

Then we must update the motto: protect and serve.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#405

Post by gohrt »

ctdonath wrote: post #377
Ovid wrote: post #23

Is this really the America that America wants? The article mentions one case where a judge refused to issue a search warrant for a narcotics investigation and instead the police brought representatives from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and raided the place with a swat team to conduct an alcohol inspection. What did they find? Two sample bottles of beer that weren't labeled as samples and a bo…

So for now, in the Fourth Circuit, sending a SWAT team to make sure a bar’s beer is labeled correctly is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Oh, it goes much, much farther than that. The US Supreme Court has ruled (see Raich ) that the federal government is justified in sending an armed raid into a terminally ill old lady's home because she allegedly was growing six marijuana plants under her doctor's supervisio…

> if the court had not ruled that way, a pending related case (Stewart) would have permitted felons to home-build their own machine-guns

This is false. The related case would have left machine-gun building a matter of State law. Pure-Federalism is not the only possible form of governance, and it's not the US Constitution's approved form.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#406

Post by gohrt »

timmaah wrote: post #44
sgaither wrote: post #9

We have to ask ourselves: where is the money? Our rights aren't being lost to a sprawling military-police state just because there's a Big-Brother wannabe conspiring to destroy the constitution. Police departments grow the same way our project departments grow in engineering companies: by managers arguing for bigger budgets and spending more, sometimes wastefully, to justify bigger budgets come next fiscal year. Thes…

Just think of how fun the bottom 1/4 of the U.S. will be once the border patrol gets to double its numbers.

Bottom in economic status, or Bottom as in South?

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#407

Post by gohrt »

matwood wrote: post #345
tsotha wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article implies the cop was undercover. Look at it this way: If you knew your buddy was a cop, would you break the law in front of him and put him in an awkward position? I'm sure the cop's job did come up. And I'm sure he lied. Who would bother to check?

I live in a town where they decided to crack down on the minor home poker games. One of the players in town as a cop. Everyone at the games knew him to be a cop because he liked bragging about his drug busts. He played poker with the same group of people for months. One day he showed up to the game with SWAT and news cameras and led everyone out on the 11pm news. So yeah, when it's something as minor as $20 home poke…

The hypocrisy is sickening. Cops going arround breaking the law and then arresting whoever joins them.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#408

Post by gohrt »

Tomis02 wrote: post #360

> Llovera’s suspected crime? Cockfighting. Well, he had it coming. Excessive use of police force for sure but I can't feel sorry for the guy, only for the animals harmed before and during the police raid. Edit for the downvoters: the fact that you're not affected by the suffering of animals, even for the ones that you barbarically eat, says a lot about your degree of civilization.

Care to wager how many of the cops that destroyed Llovera's house, and euthanised his chickens, were vegetarians?

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#409

Post by gohrt »

pico303 wrote: post #300

I wonder if anyone is considering or doing any kind of studies correlating the lack of investment in government (i.e. low taxes) and these kinds of problems with law enforcement? It seems like if we're investing less in government, which means less in police, fire, and the agencies that train and oversee them, we're not going to get the quality of service from our law enforcement officers that we're accustom to. Shor…

That doesn't compute. Spending goes up, not down, to buy all the war toys and pay back the campaign contributers.

No one is complaining that the fire department sucks.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#410

Post by gohrt »

balsam wrote: post #146

Has anybody had a difficult relationship with her parents? This, essentially, is what the dynamic is. Except the government is not actually parents and thus the guilt of hurting their children under the rationale of protecting them, though it exists, doesn't last very long. But the good thing is, their children will eventually forgive them too.

No one forgives them. But ultimately, destroying the lives of 10% of Americans is an epic tragedy, but leaves the vast majority unaffected.
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