Therefore, the opinion of a random officer should not be rejected outright
Society being what it is, I don't take a cop's word on anything. We expect our experts to be proficient in the matters of their livelihood, but they have a way of not living up to our expectations.
Since they have the badges and the guns though, and I personally wish to avoid any Imperial Entanglements, I will smile and nod and then find out whether the officer was right or not at a time of my choosing whereupon I won't risk arrest.
Just_Bri_Thanks on
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
The arrested retired badass would do it again, it seems:
but that would mean you'd expect policemen to be legal experts
I'll make a small correction here, but an important one: it's "that means" not "that would mean". This principle is commonly established in Western democracies and has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States.
the wikipedia article says that the reason for the law is to prevent people who feign ignorance from getting away with crimes. We've done enough to educate them about the law so they can't use ignorance as an excuse. Therefore, we expect them to be legal experts (even if they aren't), at least about that subject matter.
So if we don't expect policemen to be legal experts, can we fault them for misinterpreting the law? I think we expect them to be legal experts, and we therefore expect their statements to have some sort of legal backing. If you believe no cop is informed by legal truth, then you can expect them to misinterpret the law.
If you expect something and your expectations are fulfilled, then there is no fault. The system is working as predictably intended.
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
If ignorance of the law does not excuse me as a common citizen, then it doesn't excuse the police. If that means they have to be legal experts, then so be it. We do expect them to have a high degree of education and near constant training, after all.
Edit: and hell, if they can detain me or worse in matters of law, I would expect them to know what that law is.
Therefore, the opinion of a random officer should not be rejected outright
And even so, such a distinction isn't yours to make. That's up to whomever this review board is going to be composed of to determine whether the pepper-spray was a valid tool given the situation:
Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.
"When you start picking up human bodies, you risk hurting them," Kelly said. "Bodies don't have handles on them."
After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques.
"What I'm looking at is fairly standard police procedure," Kelly said.
Such a distinction is not mine to make, but apparently it's yours and a former police officer's? So a) ridiculously stupid hypocrisy, and b) ridiculously stupid moral myopia. ...
Also if you're going to quote a police officer commenting on the excessive use of force, maybe not a Baltimore police officer.
Which is different than quoting NY City policy or independent think tank's interpretation of pepper-spray how?
So a) the opinion of a random police officer was not rejected outright, b) my/our opinion was rejected outright in favour of that of a random police officer, when there is no reason to believe that 1) as random citizens also governed by the legal principle of ignorantia legis non excusat, we are less knowledgeable than said random police officer and 2) as random citizens we have less of a right to make moral judgements on the moral correctness of acts performed by peace officers empowered by us to police our society, c) there is clearly a difference between citing a police officer versus an independent, knowledgeable legal authority such as a think tank or an established legally binding code such as municipal law on the correctness of another police officer's actions, and d) this isn't a random police officer; he's a police officer from Baltimore, which is hardly a police force that's winning accolades from the ACLU.
So it's a false appeal to authority in multiple ways, and now ED!'s all hurt about the fact that I'm calling him out on it, and because I'm bringing in all these "facts" and "legal principles" into play, I'm an Internet dick.
So if we don't expect policemen to be legal experts, can we fault them for misinterpreting the law? I think we expect them to be legal experts, and we therefore expect their statements to have some sort of legal backing. If you believe no cop is informed by legal truth, then you can expect them to misinterpret the law.
If you expect something and your expectations are fulfilled, then there is no fault. The system is working as predictably intended.
I think you were putting yourself and your argument in danger there by making every other sentence a fallacious argument, so I'm using bare logic to put the thread back on track.
Rephrasing the "rejected outright" thing, what I'm saying is that just because an argument comes from a policeman does not mean it has less legal value. I know this the equal position of the argument you were trying to make too, but in pushing your point - that policemen are not the end-all when it comes to police procedure - you pushed too far and said that policemen are untrustworthy sources compared to civilians or etc. on police procedure, which makes your argument just as logically unhealthy as his by your rubric, which is emphasized by point d. Surely the same rubric that makes think tanks trustworthy legal sources are present in law enforcement officials to some degree over random internet people, or everyone is equal under the principle of ignorantia sum latin and nobody's statements should be devalued just because they hold some bad title.
And assuming bias of an individual from a group is itself bias. Do you prejudicially reject opinions that may be biased?
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
So it's a false appeal to authority in multiple ways, and now ED!'s all hurt about the fact that I'm calling him out on it, and because I'm bringing in all these "facts" and "legal principles" into play, I'm an Internet dick.
Man you are a real piece of work. I know one of the pitfalls in discussing issues on this forum is dealing with folks who place way too much weight in their ability to be "right" on a message board, but you are certainly grinding that stereotype into the ground.
It's not an appeal to authority. It's "this is the police response. . ." The only one labeling it as such is you because it keeps you in a position to continually flex w/e it is you are interested in flexing. So either your purposefully misrepresenting what is being said, or genuinely believe in your own grouse; either way it's not something to be proud of.
And you're not dropping any "facts" or "legal principles" into the conversation; you're finger wagging some point that is relevant to maybe a larger issue, and irrelevant to the point at hand: the use of the actual quote. If you want to argue about how it's improper for a retired member of the Baltimore police force to comment on police policy because of Baltimores own history with police brutality (I'll let you figure out which fallacy that one is), that's fine; but it's not an argument that is salient to the use of the link at this point is really only serving to derail discussion about the topic at hand.
At this point your inability to converse with some modicum of civility and respect damns anything relevant you might actually have to say.
"Get the hell out of me" - [ex]girlfriend
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I just don't see how we could be expected to take a random officer's word with more weight than the accepted uses as laid out by the NYPD playbook and the National Institute of Justice to which I previously linked. It's hypocritical to say one is a valid source and the other is not.
Moreso, it exposes ED!'s bias, which is why I'm sick of this conversation. The links I provided show the police violated standard procedure. The quote he brought into the conversation is a cop who is trying not to downplay the seriousness of the accusations of brutality. It doesn't matter what our arguments are at this point; he's just going to tell us it's not our place.
Guess what ED! If it's not our place it's not yours, so stop posting about this.
So it's a false appeal to authority in multiple ways, and now ED!'s all hurt about the fact that I'm calling him out on it, and because I'm bringing in all these "facts" and "legal principles" into play, I'm an Internet dick.
Man you are a real piece of work. I know one of the pitfalls in discussing issues on this forum is dealing with folks who place way too much weight in their ability to be "right" on a message board, but you are certainly grinding that stereotype into the ground.
It's not an appeal to authority. It's "this is the police response. . ." The only one labeling it as such is you because it keeps you in a position to continually flex w/e it is you are interested in flexing. So either your purposefully misrepresenting what is being said, or genuinely believe in your own grouse; either way it's not something to be proud of.
And you're not dropping any "facts" or "legal principles" into the conversation; you're finger wagging some point that is relevant to maybe a larger issue, and irrelevant to the point at hand: the use of the actual quote. If you want to argue about how it's improper for a retired member of the Baltimore police force to comment on police policy because of Baltimores own history with police brutality (I'll let you figure out which fallacy that one is), that's fine; but it's not an argument that is salient to the use of the link at this point is really only serving to derail discussion about the topic at hand.
At this point your inability to converse with some modicum of civility and respect damns anything relevant you might actually have to say.
That sort of commentary doesn't help either. Impropriety is a straw man, hippofant is arguing that if we are excluded from determining police procedure, then it stands to reason that you could use these same excusion criteria to debunk the opinion of a retired police officer.
Stop postulating about subconscious reasons behinds continuing the argument and stick to the actual argument. That's the reason why these things span multiple pages - you obligate a response by putting out accusations which are assumed true if unrefuted.
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I just don't see how we could be expected to take a random officer's word with more weight than the accepted uses as laid out by the NYPD playbook and the National Institute of Justice to which I previously linked. It's hypocritical to say one is a valid source and the other is not.
It's not a random police officer. It is the guy who authored a cities own Use of Force guidelines, the SAME type of guidelines outlined in the NIJ and NYPD links. You think he's unqualified to speak on these matters considering the criticisms leveled at B-More's police force, and that's fine; however someone found him qualified enough to actually write the guidelines in the first place, and NPR seemed to think he was well representative of the opposing view.
That's the reason why these things span multiple pages - you obligate a response by putting out accusations which are assumed true if unrefuted.
I think you were putting yourself and your argument in danger there by making every other sentence a fallacious argument, so I'm using bare logic to put the thread back on track.
Rephrasing the "rejected outright" thing, what I'm saying is that just because an argument comes from a policeman does not mean it has less legal value. I know this the equal position of the argument you were trying to make too, but in pushing your point - that policemen are not the end-all when it comes to police procedure - you pushed too far and said that policemen are untrustworthy sources compared to civilians or etc. on police procedure, which makes your argument just as logically unhealthy as his by your rubric, which is emphasized by point d. Surely the same rubric that makes think tanks trustworthy legal sources are present in law enforcement officials to some degree over random internet people, or everyone is equal under the principle of ignorantia sum latin and nobody's statements should be devalued just because they hold some bad title.
And assuming bias of an individual from a group is itself bias. Do you prejudicially reject opinions that may be biased?
Second, I didn't reject that officer's opinion. I object to ED!'s claim that it's not "my distinction to make" as to whether there was wrongdoing on the police's part in this instance. As a moral human being and as a citizen, it is my innate duty to distinguish right from wrong. It is no less my distinction to make than it is his or that police officer's. What I do reject is ED!'s ridiculous argumentation, that I'm somehow not allowed to say, "That was total bullshit!"* because some guy said that it's cool in his book, when previously, he's rejected OTHER GUYS who have said it wasn't cool in their books (from outside the forum, as has been cited by posters like Vanguard, and from we posters ourselves).
As for the rest of it, I'm not even going to bother indulging it. You're engaging in false equivocations, as though the principle of ignorantia legis non excusat makes all individuals equal in knowledge when it is actually completely irrelevant, and trying to disjoint the requirements of legal expertise and non-bias. One cannot cite the guy who wrote the book for a police force that's earned a reputation for operating outside the lines of legality as an expert, then separate his opinion from the fact that he wrote the book for a police force that's earned a reputation for operating outside the lines of legality. Either his role grants him expert status and opens him up to bias, or it does neither. You can't have it one way and the other.
* Which, by the way, is a ridiculous meta-position to take in a forum entitled "Debate and Discourse."
You know this argument with ED! is going to keep going in circles (As I predicted it would last night!) if everyone insists on talking around him without trying to actually understand the underlying point as to why he might be making these arguments? Even if you disagree with him immensely if you don't try to understand exactly where and when his thinking diverges from yours you're never going to make a meaningful bridge to where you might actually make a convincing argument.
Do you want to just keep patting yourselves on the back that you're "right" or would you like to, perhaps, have a more productive discussion that might, I dunno, change something?
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Yes, they do to a personal attack! That's why they have no place in decent conversations. If people walked away like they should as soon as someone started , we'd all be a lot less stressed and this forum would be dead. Put those guns away.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Taken from a post of mine on another forum since it seems relevant to the subject under discussion:
For real fun, compare and contrast how the media reported on the Arab Spring protests in Tunisia and Egypt (Tahir Square) to the Occupy Wallstreet protests all across the western world. Apparently, if the middle east regimes had thought of announcing that they needed the protesters to leave the square because of bylaw infractions, or public health issue western governments would have been totally fine with crackdowns on the protesters who were in clear violation of the law.
I just don't see how we could be expected to take a random officer's word with more weight than the accepted uses as laid out by the NYPD playbook and the National Institute of Justice to which I previously linked. It's hypocritical to say one is a valid source and the other is not.
It's not a random police officer. It is the guy who authored a cities own Use of Force guidelines, the SAME type of guidelines outlined in the NIJ and NYPD links. You think he's unqualified to speak on these matters considering the criticisms leveled at B-More's police force, and that's fine; however someone found him qualified enough to actually write the guidelines in the first place, and NPR seemed to think he was well representative of the opposing view.
Then... why does his comment... contradict those guidelines?
What I do reject is ED!'s ridiculous argumentation, that I'm somehow not allowed to say, "That was total bullshit!" because some guy said that it's cool in his book, when previously, he's rejected OTHER GUYS who have said it wasn't cool in their books (from outside the forum, as has been cited by posters like Vanguard, and from we posters ourselves).
Now you're just pulling things out of thin air. I never said that, just like I never said cops were worried about themselves looking bad for removing students or dismissed the NYPD/NIJ links or whatever other nonsense you wish to ascribe to me.
You can determine the right/wrongness of the police's actions all day; however the official distinction is NOT up to you, unless you are somehow on this review board or in a position to pass down career changing judgement on these officers. Anything other than that is just faceless avatars expressing their opinion on the internet.
Then... why does his comment... contradict those guidelines?
Ok, I found this video linked to one of the videos of Captain Ray Lewis and he says some things in this video that I think we will find interesting, particularly Fallout2man, about the mentality of a officer carrying out his duty when he has been charged with dealing with peaceful protest. Also interesting and brought up in this thread as well, his comments on Fox news.
Because one is a cop. You may not like that as an answer, and it is not an answer that excuses or grants one the ability to use such tactics whenever/wherever - but that is the reality of it. THAT is the difference.
I'm afraid you're wrong about that.
This is the truth. Cops are not above the law. They do not get to ignore it to suit their own purposes or the purposes of their superiors. That's not how things work.
What I do reject is ED!'s ridiculous argumentation, that I'm somehow not allowed to say, "That was total bullshit!" because some guy said that it's cool in his book, when previously, he's rejected OTHER GUYS who have said it wasn't cool in their books (from outside the forum, as has been cited by posters like Vanguard, and from we posters ourselves).
Now you're just pulling things out of thin air. I never said that, just like I never said cops were worried about themselves looking bad for removing students or dismissed the NYPD/NIJ links or whatever other nonsense you wish to ascribe to me.
You can determine the right/wrongness of the police's actions all day; however the official distinction is NOT up to you, unless you are somehow on this review board or in a position to pass down career changing judgement on these officers. Anything other than that is just faceless avatars expressing their opinion on the internet.
Then... why does his comment... contradict those guidelines?
For real fun, compare and contrast how the media reported on the Arab Spring protests in Tunisia and Egypt (Tahir Square) to the Occupy Wallstreet protests all across the western world. Apparently, if the middle east regimes had thought of announcing that they needed the protesters to leave the square because of bylaw infractions, or public health issue western governments would have been totally fine with crackdowns on the protesters who were in clear violation of the law.
I think the people behind these protests both knew the comparisons with the Arab Spring protests would exist, and that the American authorities would make hypocrites of our foreign policy during them by over-reacting to the protests. Anyone who has paid attention to policing during protests knew that the police would come down hard. It's their standard operating procedure.
OWS seems to be mostly working to expose police incompetance.
It's kind of hard to avoid the distraction of people who wield physical power when struggling against the people with economic and political power with physical power, the only power available to those with no economic or political power.
That was posted on the first page, but if we hadn't of spent the next eight pages arguing with ED! it might've gotten more exposure.
Anyway, that means OWS is working and becoming more legitimate.
OWS seems to be mostly working to expose police incompetance.
I had this thought too. OWS might have started out as a protest against economic injustice, but I think their most important result will be to show how shockingly horrible the police have become.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited November 2011
Yes, the image of the police is going to be profoundly changed by all of this, but I do not think that will be their only accomplishment. The protesters have shown incredible restraint and not let their demonstrations turn into riots. They are going to continue until there is a breaking point.
Occupy Oakland is going to attempt a total West Coast shut down on 12/12.
In response to coordinated attacks on the occupations and attacks on workers across the nation:
Occupy Oakland calls for the blockade and disruption of the economic apparatus of the 1% with a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12th. The 1% has disrupted the lives of longshoremen and port truckers and the workers who create their wealth, just as coordinated nationwide police attacks have turned our cities into battlegrounds in an effort to disrupt our Occupy movement.
We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local port. Our eyes are on the continued union-busting and attacks on organized labor, in particular the rupture of Longshoremen jurisdiction in Longview Washington by the EGT. Already, Occupy Los Angeles has passed a resolution to carry out a port action on the Port Of Los Angeles on December 12th, to shut down SSA terminals, which are owned by Goldman Sachs.
Occupy Oakland expands this call to the entire West Coast, and calls for continuing solidarity with the Longshoremen in Longview Washington in their ongoing struggle against the EGT. The EGT is an international grain exporter led by Bunge LTD, a company constituted of 1% bankers whose practices have ruined the lives of the working class all over the world, from Argentina to the West Coast of the US. During the November 2nd General Strike, tens of thousands shutdown the Port Of Oakland as a warning shot to EGT to stop its attacks on Longview. Since the EGT has disregarded this message, and continues to attack the Longshoremen at Longview, we will now shut down ports along the entire West Coast.
Participating occupations are asked to ensure that during the port shutdowns the local arbitrator rules in favor of longshoremen not crossing community picket lines in order to avoid recriminations against them. Should there be any retaliation against any workers as a result of their honoring pickets or supporting our port actions, additional solidarity actions should be prepared. In the event of police repression of any of the mobilizations, shutdown actions may be extended to multiple days.
Now that the movement has grown bigger, I think more strikes are the answer. More days of action like #n17.
Are we honestly questioning whether the police are expected to know laws?
Yes. Yes they are. So are we. We're expected to know all the laws. That's why ignorance isn't an excuse. Laws have to apply regardless of your knowledge of them or it's kind of useless to create them.
I wonder if a random day would have more effect. So at some point next week, there will be a shut down but we're not going to tell you when until the day before. Is there a reason why they pick a date so far in advance?
I wonder if a random day would have more effect. So at some point next week, there will be a shut down but we're not going to tell you when until the day before. Is there a reason why they pick a date so far in advance?
What I do reject is ED!'s ridiculous argumentation, that I'm somehow not allowed to say, "That was total bullshit!" because some guy said that it's cool in his book, when previously, he's rejected OTHER GUYS who have said it wasn't cool in their books (from outside the forum, as has been cited by posters like Vanguard, and from we posters ourselves).
Now you're just pulling things out of thin air. I never said that, just like I never said cops were worried about themselves looking bad for removing students or dismissed the NYPD/NIJ links or whatever other nonsense you wish to ascribe to me.
You can determine the right/wrongness of the police's actions all day; however the official distinction is NOT up to you, unless you are somehow on this review board or in a position to pass down career changing judgement on these officers. Anything other than that is just faceless avatars expressing their opinion on the internet.
So, essentially, "might makes right," stated a little differently? Why am I not surprised you are apologizing for pepper spraying non-violent protestors exercising their first amendment rights?
Of course, "might makes right" is hypocritical 99%+ of the time. I imagine if the situation was reversed, and someone KOed a cop, you would be quite a bit quicker to offer "official distinctions."
I wonder if a random day would have more effect. So at some point next week, there will be a shut down but we're not going to tell you when until the day before. Is there a reason why they pick a date so far in advance?
You can't flash mob a last protest movement.
Large protest movement I'm guessing, and yeah fair enough. However that's not what we're talking about here, it's a very different beast to the initial OWS stuff in that we're now talking about organisations that would presumably already have lines of communication set up for things like this when it comes to Ports and things. I would expect there's a system in place to alert people due to severe weather, when it's unsafe to be working at a Port.
Two things of note on the economic basis for reduction of inequality, in case someone missed it thanks to 500 pages of moronic back-and-forth:
1. Income inequality is anathema to the income flow model. It's an established fact that wealthier people spend less of their income as a percentage than do poor(er) people; they typically save or directly invest the lion's share of their income. That's income that's taken out of the income flow model, and isn't turned into consumption. You could argue that it becomes consumption indirectly, because it turns into capital which turns into investment which results in consumption, but iirc the rate at which this happens is much lower than if you gave the same amount of money to someone earning much less.
Basically, wealth that goes to the top earners gets "stuck" up there and taken out of the income flow, which will eventually become a drag on growth for everyone.
2. My Comparative Economic Systems professor made a pretty good observation in class recently: all the "smart capitalists" know that inequality is harmful in the long run. All the CEOs spending money to lobby Congress against measures to reduce inequality (ie. government stimulus, social programs, investment in education, etc.) are either stupid, or morally bankrupt to the point that they put short-term benefit (ie. quarterly profit numbers) ahead of the long-term health of their firms. It's not an irrational course of action, though: they have ample opportunity to reap the rewards and hoard the cash while the getting's good, and in any event have generous golden parachutes to fall back on if things go south sooner rather than later.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I wonder if a random day would have more effect. So at some point next week, there will be a shut down but we're not going to tell you when until the day before. Is there a reason why they pick a date so far in advance?
It might be, but considering they want to shut down the entire West Coast they need some time to organize and energize the base. Not to mention that the Holidays will be in full swing, which I'm sure bumps things back a week later than they would like.
Or maybe that date is strategic? December 12-24 is the crunch time for getting gifts. Do the volume of shipments increase this time of year? Anyone know?
Yes, the image of the police is going to be profoundly changed by all of this, but I do not think that will be their only accomplishment. The protesters have shown incredible restraint and not let their demonstrations turn into riots. They are going to continue until there is a breaking point.
Occupy Oakland is going to attempt a total West Coast shut down on 12/12.
Now that the movement has grown bigger, I think more strikes are the answer. More days of action like #n17.
Yeah, no.
The left (and OWS is primarily a movement of the left despite the branding efforts) has always hated cops and always will hate cops. This isn't going to change anyone's mind about them.
Either you already hated cops or you didn't care and will continue not caring.
The cops haven't done anything to OWS they haven't been doing for decades.
You are correct that the protesting will continue until there is a breaking point but it most likely won't work in your favor.
I see a repeat of 1968, where the protesting starts interfering with the lives of average citizens and the police are given free reign to end the protests by the majority of citizens.
Never overestimate the amount of inconvenience people are going to put up with and remain neutral towards you.
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Society being what it is, I don't take a cop's word on anything. We expect our experts to be proficient in the matters of their livelihood, but they have a way of not living up to our expectations.
Since they have the badges and the guns though, and I personally wish to avoid any Imperial Entanglements, I will smile and nod and then find out whether the officer was right or not at a time of my choosing whereupon I won't risk arrest.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/20/ret-police-captain-to-be-arrested-in-solidarity-was-the-proudest-moment-of-my-life/
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
the wikipedia article says that the reason for the law is to prevent people who feign ignorance from getting away with crimes. We've done enough to educate them about the law so they can't use ignorance as an excuse. Therefore, we expect them to be legal experts (even if they aren't), at least about that subject matter.
So if we don't expect policemen to be legal experts, can we fault them for misinterpreting the law? I think we expect them to be legal experts, and we therefore expect their statements to have some sort of legal backing. If you believe no cop is informed by legal truth, then you can expect them to misinterpret the law.
If you expect something and your expectations are fulfilled, then there is no fault. The system is working as predictably intended.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
If not for the incredibly long history of police incompetence.
First of all, that does not compute.
Second of all, I'll remind you of the context.
So a) the opinion of a random police officer was not rejected outright, b) my/our opinion was rejected outright in favour of that of a random police officer, when there is no reason to believe that 1) as random citizens also governed by the legal principle of ignorantia legis non excusat, we are less knowledgeable than said random police officer and 2) as random citizens we have less of a right to make moral judgements on the moral correctness of acts performed by peace officers empowered by us to police our society, c) there is clearly a difference between citing a police officer versus an independent, knowledgeable legal authority such as a think tank or an established legally binding code such as municipal law on the correctness of another police officer's actions, and d) this isn't a random police officer; he's a police officer from Baltimore, which is hardly a police force that's winning accolades from the ACLU.
So it's a false appeal to authority in multiple ways, and now ED!'s all hurt about the fact that I'm calling him out on it, and because I'm bringing in all these "facts" and "legal principles" into play, I'm an Internet dick.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expect
I do expect policemen to be legal experts, as in I consider that reasonable, due, or necessary. (Definition 4b)
I don't expect policemen to be legal experts, in that I do not consider it probable or certain. (Definition 4a)
Furthermore, the question here is not of simply being a legal expert, but being an unbiased legal expert.
Rephrasing the "rejected outright" thing, what I'm saying is that just because an argument comes from a policeman does not mean it has less legal value. I know this the equal position of the argument you were trying to make too, but in pushing your point - that policemen are not the end-all when it comes to police procedure - you pushed too far and said that policemen are untrustworthy sources compared to civilians or etc. on police procedure, which makes your argument just as logically unhealthy as his by your rubric, which is emphasized by point d. Surely the same rubric that makes think tanks trustworthy legal sources are present in law enforcement officials to some degree over random internet people, or everyone is equal under the principle of ignorantia sum latin and nobody's statements should be devalued just because they hold some bad title.
And assuming bias of an individual from a group is itself bias. Do you prejudicially reject opinions that may be biased?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Man you are a real piece of work. I know one of the pitfalls in discussing issues on this forum is dealing with folks who place way too much weight in their ability to be "right" on a message board, but you are certainly grinding that stereotype into the ground.
It's not an appeal to authority. It's "this is the police response. . ." The only one labeling it as such is you because it keeps you in a position to continually flex w/e it is you are interested in flexing. So either your purposefully misrepresenting what is being said, or genuinely believe in your own grouse; either way it's not something to be proud of.
And you're not dropping any "facts" or "legal principles" into the conversation; you're finger wagging some point that is relevant to maybe a larger issue, and irrelevant to the point at hand: the use of the actual quote. If you want to argue about how it's improper for a retired member of the Baltimore police force to comment on police policy because of Baltimores own history with police brutality (I'll let you figure out which fallacy that one is), that's fine; but it's not an argument that is salient to the use of the link at this point is really only serving to derail discussion about the topic at hand.
At this point your inability to converse with some modicum of civility and respect damns anything relevant you might actually have to say.
Moreso, it exposes ED!'s bias, which is why I'm sick of this conversation. The links I provided show the police violated standard procedure. The quote he brought into the conversation is a cop who is trying not to downplay the seriousness of the accusations of brutality. It doesn't matter what our arguments are at this point; he's just going to tell us it's not our place.
Guess what ED! If it's not our place it's not yours, so stop posting about this.
That sort of commentary doesn't help either. Impropriety is a straw man, hippofant is arguing that if we are excluded from determining police procedure, then it stands to reason that you could use these same excusion criteria to debunk the opinion of a retired police officer.
Stop postulating about subconscious reasons behinds continuing the argument and stick to the actual argument. That's the reason why these things span multiple pages - you obligate a response by putting out accusations which are assumed true if unrefuted.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's not a random police officer. It is the guy who authored a cities own Use of Force guidelines, the SAME type of guidelines outlined in the NIJ and NYPD links. You think he's unqualified to speak on these matters considering the criticisms leveled at B-More's police force, and that's fine; however someone found him qualified enough to actually write the guidelines in the first place, and NPR seemed to think he was well representative of the opposing view.
No one has an obligation to respond to anything.
http://www.policeforum.org/dotAsset/1491727.pdf
http://www.policeforum.org/library/critical-issues-in-policing-series/MassDemonstrations.pdf
First, the fact that the police are not in an acceptable position to oversee themselves is well-established in the United States, with many municipalities instituting civilian oversight of police forces: http://www.sfgov3.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/occ/Complaints/NACOLERosterAug07.pdf NGOs almost universally support civilian oversight of police in all countries: http://www.altus.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45&Itemid=64&lang=en. The notion that the police cannot police themselves is not a wildly out-there conjecture I've devised.
Second, I didn't reject that officer's opinion. I object to ED!'s claim that it's not "my distinction to make" as to whether there was wrongdoing on the police's part in this instance. As a moral human being and as a citizen, it is my innate duty to distinguish right from wrong. It is no less my distinction to make than it is his or that police officer's. What I do reject is ED!'s ridiculous argumentation, that I'm somehow not allowed to say, "That was total bullshit!"* because some guy said that it's cool in his book, when previously, he's rejected OTHER GUYS who have said it wasn't cool in their books (from outside the forum, as has been cited by posters like Vanguard, and from we posters ourselves).
As for the rest of it, I'm not even going to bother indulging it. You're engaging in false equivocations, as though the principle of ignorantia legis non excusat makes all individuals equal in knowledge when it is actually completely irrelevant, and trying to disjoint the requirements of legal expertise and non-bias. One cannot cite the guy who wrote the book for a police force that's earned a reputation for operating outside the lines of legality as an expert, then separate his opinion from the fact that he wrote the book for a police force that's earned a reputation for operating outside the lines of legality. Either his role grants him expert status and opens him up to bias, or it does neither. You can't have it one way and the other.
* Which, by the way, is a ridiculous meta-position to take in a forum entitled "Debate and Discourse."
Do you want to just keep patting yourselves on the back that you're "right" or would you like to, perhaps, have a more productive discussion that might, I dunno, change something?
Yes, they do to a personal attack! That's why they have no place in decent conversations. If people walked away like they should as soon as someone started
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Awesome.
I was thinking of making up a post of various awesome people we've seen in Occupy, his picture would definitely be in it.
Then... why does his comment... contradict those guidelines?
Now you're just pulling things out of thin air. I never said that, just like I never said cops were worried about themselves looking bad for removing students or dismissed the NYPD/NIJ links or whatever other nonsense you wish to ascribe to me.
You can determine the right/wrongness of the police's actions all day; however the official distinction is NOT up to you, unless you are somehow on this review board or in a position to pass down career changing judgement on these officers. Anything other than that is just faceless avatars expressing their opinion on the internet.
See above.
This is the truth. Cops are not above the law. They do not get to ignore it to suit their own purposes or the purposes of their superiors. That's not how things work.
Okay, got anything to answer my question?
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/retired-police-captain-on-his-arrest-as-part-of-ows/6ruj41r
Wooooah.
Listen to the video right after that.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/19/us-lobbying-banks-idUSTRE7AI0YA20111119
Anyway, that means OWS is working and becoming more legitimate.
I think the people behind these protests both knew the comparisons with the Arab Spring protests would exist, and that the American authorities would make hypocrites of our foreign policy during them by over-reacting to the protests. Anyone who has paid attention to policing during protests knew that the police would come down hard. It's their standard operating procedure.
The frission is one of design.
OWS seems to be mostly working to expose police incompetance.
It's kind of hard to avoid the distraction of people who wield physical power when struggling against the people with economic and political power with physical power, the only power available to those with no economic or political power.
Occupy Oakland is going to attempt a total West Coast shut down on 12/12.
Now that the movement has grown bigger, I think more strikes are the answer. More days of action like #n17.
Are we honestly questioning whether the police are expected to know laws?
Yes. Yes they are. So are we. We're expected to know all the laws. That's why ignorance isn't an excuse. Laws have to apply regardless of your knowledge of them or it's kind of useless to create them.
Maybe I'll get to see a general strike in my lifetime. That would be something.
You can't flash mob a large protest movement.
So, essentially, "might makes right," stated a little differently? Why am I not surprised you are apologizing for pepper spraying non-violent protestors exercising their first amendment rights?
Of course, "might makes right" is hypocritical 99%+ of the time. I imagine if the situation was reversed, and someone KOed a cop, you would be quite a bit quicker to offer "official distinctions."
Large protest movement I'm guessing, and yeah fair enough. However that's not what we're talking about here, it's a very different beast to the initial OWS stuff in that we're now talking about organisations that would presumably already have lines of communication set up for things like this when it comes to Ports and things. I would expect there's a system in place to alert people due to severe weather, when it's unsafe to be working at a Port.
1. Income inequality is anathema to the income flow model. It's an established fact that wealthier people spend less of their income as a percentage than do poor(er) people; they typically save or directly invest the lion's share of their income. That's income that's taken out of the income flow model, and isn't turned into consumption. You could argue that it becomes consumption indirectly, because it turns into capital which turns into investment which results in consumption, but iirc the rate at which this happens is much lower than if you gave the same amount of money to someone earning much less.
Basically, wealth that goes to the top earners gets "stuck" up there and taken out of the income flow, which will eventually become a drag on growth for everyone.
2. My Comparative Economic Systems professor made a pretty good observation in class recently: all the "smart capitalists" know that inequality is harmful in the long run. All the CEOs spending money to lobby Congress against measures to reduce inequality (ie. government stimulus, social programs, investment in education, etc.) are either stupid, or morally bankrupt to the point that they put short-term benefit (ie. quarterly profit numbers) ahead of the long-term health of their firms. It's not an irrational course of action, though: they have ample opportunity to reap the rewards and hoard the cash while the getting's good, and in any event have generous golden parachutes to fall back on if things go south sooner rather than later.
It might be, but considering they want to shut down the entire West Coast they need some time to organize and energize the base. Not to mention that the Holidays will be in full swing, which I'm sure bumps things back a week later than they would like.
Or maybe that date is strategic? December 12-24 is the crunch time for getting gifts. Do the volume of shipments increase this time of year? Anyone know?
Yeah, no.
The left (and OWS is primarily a movement of the left despite the branding efforts) has always hated cops and always will hate cops. This isn't going to change anyone's mind about them.
Either you already hated cops or you didn't care and will continue not caring.
The cops haven't done anything to OWS they haven't been doing for decades.
You are correct that the protesting will continue until there is a breaking point but it most likely won't work in your favor.
I see a repeat of 1968, where the protesting starts interfering with the lives of average citizens and the police are given free reign to end the protests by the majority of citizens.
Never overestimate the amount of inconvenience people are going to put up with and remain neutral towards you.