4 ms·

1: Abusing the police != being rude to the police. You're conflating the two. Saying "Leave me alone, you useless pigs" is not interfering with police business;

by emmett 17y ago

1: Abusing the police != being rude to the police. You're conflating the two. Saying "Leave me alone, you useless pigs" is not interfering with police business; it's hard to imagine an example use of speech that would be. 2: That's true, but the whole point of the article is that even though it might be inconvenient to you to challenge the police when they abuse their power, it is still an abuse of power. This whole question is specifically addressed in the article. 3: This article is specifically about systematic abuse of police power. That's a real problem. Its truth has no dependence on them complimenting the police who don't abuse their power. This is completely irrelevant to whether the article's argument is true. In short, your 2/3 of your arguments are irrelevant to the article completely. Your first point, while engaging the article, is essentially contradiction by assertion (you provide no evidence that the kinds of abuses discussed in the article could ever be considered interference with police work). So that's a very very weak point. That's probably why you were voted down.

lionhearted 17y ago
Thank you for the reply, this is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping we might have. > 1: Abusing the police != being rude to the police. You're conflating the two. I was trying not to. In the original comment, I wrote, "I don't know at what point yelling at police officers starts getting in the way of that work, but there is that point somewhere." I'm not sure where the line is, and I'm not making a judgment call on Gates' arrest. I did mention the officer wrote in his report (which may be false or falsified - I don't know) that Gates followed him into the streets yelling at him. At some point, a person doing that is crossing a line from protected speech into interfering with police work. Again, I don't know where that line is - it's a particularly sticky subject. Police should probably err on the side of letting people air their thoughts in the form they choose. > 2. ... This whole question is specifically addressed in the article. Very briefly - and I get worried that some young person here, who is really idealistic, gets into trouble by asserting their rights to an officer while in college or whatever. For my part, I can't stand customs officials who go over the line and search me repeatedly and generally waste my time, but I'm extremely friendly and respectful and talk about the local sports even though I can't stand that scum. Y'know why? Because they'll mess with you if not. My part of the comment isn't an apology for bad policework, it's a practical note so people whipped into a frenzy don't get into trouble. [Also note - the two times I mouthed off to customs officials, I got an arduous, detailed search afterwards. I learned that real life lesson the hard way] > 3. This article is specifically about systematic abuse of police power. That's a real problem. Its truth has no dependence on them complimenting the police who don't abuse their power. This is completely irrelevant to whether the article's argument is true. Right! Systematic - that means happening all over the place. I don't think it is - the article points out a few brutal abuses of police power and doesn't give statistics for how common it is or put it in context of other nations. Our officers in the USA are pretty good. I'm a big rights guy - very big - but implying there's a huge problem when in fact it's a few isolated incidents would be a bad thing. Or who knows - maybe there is a systemic problem, but the article just has a few anecdotes and no statistics. And certainly, all of those anecdotes and no statistics are hostile. > In short, your 2/3 of your arguments are irrelevant to the article completely. Your first point, while engaging the article, is essentially contradiction by assertion (you provide no evidence that the kinds of abuses discussed in the article could ever be considered interference with police work). So that's a very very weak point. That's probably why you were voted down. Well, I'm voting you up for taking the time to respond. Thank you for the discussion, and I look forward to more whenever you please.
- xiaoma 17y ago
  >"Systematic - that means happening all over the place. I don't think it is - the article points out a few brutal abuses of police power and doesn't give statistics for how common it is or put it in context of other nations." Amnesty international does that. http://www.amnestyusa.org/us-human-rights/page.do?id=1011100 http://www.amnestyusa.org/us-human-rights/page.do?id=1011100 This article was focused on the issue of how little most Americans care about the excessive powers granted to their police. Your own reaction only serves to emphasize the point. If you really don't see anything wrong with having the largest prisoner population in the world (beating out Russia and China both in absolute and per capita terms) the second highest rate of executions, hundreds of people being tased to death by officers, officers being able to arrest people in their own homes for exercising their rights, and widespread surveillance on citizens without warrants, then reason.com may not be the site for you.
  - bokonist 17y ago
    If you really don't see anything wrong with having the largest prisoner population in the world The U.S. also has a very high crime rate compared to China and the European countries. More criminals means more people in prison. The American legal system is like the bad parent who alternates between being over-lenient and being violently strict. Much of the time policing is actually far too lax. Most people selling drugs are never caught, most gang killings are never tracked down, and most home burglars are never captured. This lax policing allows too much crime, and eventually the police are forced to react. They do so in a blunt and ham-fisted manner. Cops break into the wrong homes in an attempt to make headline grabbing drug busts. Think of it in terms of math: which has a higher prisoner population, the country that catches the perpetrator of 98% of crimes, or the country that catches perpertrators only 10% of the time? The answer is the second country has a much higher criminal population. The lower probability of getting caught increases the amount of crime, which means total jail population is much higher. Asian countries like Singapore and China on the other hand are the consistently stern parent. In Singapore there is a 99% chance of getting caught if you murdered someone. Thus there are virtually no murders, and a very small prisoner population. Both sides of the law and order debate need to realize that American law enforcement is simultaneously too tax and too heavy handed. This is not a contradiction, its the reality. Many American cities (Philadelphia, Baltimore) have homicide rates that have been unseen in Western civilization since medieval times. This is a huge problem. It needs to be addressed. Any proposed reform that tries to lower police abuse without also lowering the crime rate will result in failure ( and by increasing crime, will in the long term actually increase police abuses).

by emmett 17y ago

lionhearted 17y ago

Thank you for the reply, this is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping we might have. > 1: Abusing the police != being rude to the police. You're conflating the two. I was trying not to. In the original comment, I wrote, "I don't know at what point yelling at police officers starts getting in the way of that work, but there is that point somewhere." I'm not sure where the line is, and I'm not making a judgment call on Gates' arrest. I did mention the officer wrote in his report (which may be false or falsified - I don't know) that Gates followed him into the streets yelling at him. At some point, a person doing that is crossing a line from protected speech into interfering with police work. Again, I don't know where that line is - it's a particularly sticky subject. Police should probably err on the side of letting people air their thoughts in the form they choose. > 2. ... This whole question is specifically addressed in the article. Very briefly - and I get worried that some young person here, who is really idealistic, gets into trouble by asserting their rights to an officer while in college or whatever. For my part, I can't stand customs officials who go over the line and search me repeatedly and generally waste my time, but I'm extremely friendly and respectful and talk about the local sports even though I can't stand that scum. Y'know why? Because they'll mess with you if not. My part of the comment isn't an apology for bad policework, it's a practical note so people whipped into a frenzy don't get into trouble. [Also note - the two times I mouthed off to customs officials, I got an arduous, detailed search afterwards. I learned that real life lesson the hard way] > 3. This article is specifically about systematic abuse of police power. That's a real problem. Its truth has no dependence on them complimenting the police who don't abuse their power. This is completely irrelevant to whether the article's argument is true. Right! Systematic - that means happening all over the place. I don't think it is - the article points out a few brutal abuses of police power and doesn't give statistics for how common it is or put it in context of other nations. Our officers in the USA are pretty good. I'm a big rights guy - very big - but implying there's a huge problem when in fact it's a few isolated incidents would be a bad thing. Or who knows - maybe there is a systemic problem, but the article just has a few anecdotes and no statistics. And certainly, all of those anecdotes and no statistics are hostile. > In short, your 2/3 of your arguments are irrelevant to the article completely. Your first point, while engaging the article, is essentially contradiction by assertion (you provide no evidence that the kinds of abuses discussed in the article could ever be considered interference with police work). So that's a very very weak point. That's probably why you were voted down. Well, I'm voting you up for taking the time to respond. Thank you for the discussion, and I look forward to more whenever you please.

xiaoma 17y ago
>"Systematic - that means happening all over the place. I don't think it is - the article points out a few brutal abuses of police power and doesn't give statistics for how common it is or put it in context of other nations." Amnesty international does that. http://www.amnestyusa.org/us-human-rights/page.do?id=1011100 http://www.amnestyusa.org/us-human-rights/page.do?id=1011100 This article was focused on the issue of how little most Americans care about the excessive powers granted to their police. Your own reaction only serves to emphasize the point. If you really don't see anything wrong with having the largest prisoner population in the world (beating out Russia and China both in absolute and per capita terms) the second highest rate of executions, hundreds of people being tased to death by officers, officers being able to arrest people in their own homes for exercising their rights, and widespread surveillance on citizens without warrants, then reason.com may not be the site for you.
- bokonist 17y ago
  If you really don't see anything wrong with having the largest prisoner population in the world The U.S. also has a very high crime rate compared to China and the European countries. More criminals means more people in prison. The American legal system is like the bad parent who alternates between being over-lenient and being violently strict. Much of the time policing is actually far too lax. Most people selling drugs are never caught, most gang killings are never tracked down, and most home burglars are never captured. This lax policing allows too much crime, and eventually the police are forced to react. They do so in a blunt and ham-fisted manner. Cops break into the wrong homes in an attempt to make headline grabbing drug busts. Think of it in terms of math: which has a higher prisoner population, the country that catches the perpetrator of 98% of crimes, or the country that catches perpertrators only 10% of the time? The answer is the second country has a much higher criminal population. The lower probability of getting caught increases the amount of crime, which means total jail population is much higher. Asian countries like Singapore and China on the other hand are the consistently stern parent. In Singapore there is a 99% chance of getting caught if you murdered someone. Thus there are virtually no murders, and a very small prisoner population. Both sides of the law and order debate need to realize that American law enforcement is simultaneously too tax and too heavy handed. This is not a contradiction, its the reality. Many American cities (Philadelphia, Baltimore) have homicide rates that have been unseen in Western civilization since medieval times. This is a huge problem. It needs to be addressed. Any proposed reform that tries to lower police abuse without also lowering the crime rate will result in failure ( and by increasing crime, will in the long term actually increase police abuses).