We need a reasonable way to separate "sound advice to reduce your chances of being victimized" with "if you don't do this, it's your fault."
If the officer had said, "Provocative clothing can draw unwanted attention," no one would have batted an eye. t2t10 has a point. That is precisely the advice I give my daughters.
When they give you a uniform -- any uniform -- they explicitly tell you "You watch your mouth when you're wearing this." I even got that speech when they gave me a fast-food uniform as a 16-year-old boy.
Because all people are equal in the eyes of the Law, certain words have no business coming out of an officer's mouth. Words that imply some people are "less than," words like bitch, slut, skank, ho, cracker, spic, kike, gook, coon and their modern variants have no business being spoken under the color of authority.
The word slut literally means "a woman unworthy of respect because of her sexual behavior" and for an officer of the law to be callous enough to use that word in a discussion of rape shows that he is incapable of providing justice to all women. When it comes to rape victims, there are no women unworthy of respect.
Beyond the uniform though, there's a basic issue of manhood here. When I turned 17 and began to put on some grown-up muscle and the last little bit of adolescent squeak left my voice -- not to mention the rough background I come from -- women began to be afraid of me. I don't mean they'd run screaming like I was Jason Voorhees, but if I was out ofter dark, an it was just me and some woman alone at the ATM, or in the laundromat, or a parking garage, they'd get a little tense, a little nervous, they'd walk a little faster...
I didn't like it. I didn't understand it at first because I'm a little thick about things like this, but it came to me.
"Because it's not just you, moron. OK, maybe because of the rough way you look, it's especially you, but all men make women a little nervous when they're alone with a stranger. We're generally twice their size. We carry the brute strength to casually beat them down. This has not always turned out well for them in the past."
I grew up a little when I understood that. I learned to treat women I didn't know with a certain deference, like the best men I grew up with did. Around women I did not know, harsh language dropped entirely out of my speech. I began to use words like "please," "thank you" and "ma'am." A sincere genuine "ma'am" does wonders to signal good intent, that I am trying to live up to our best rules and traditions, even if it means reaching back to out-of-date social conventions. Even younger women who still think it's a little goofy to hear appreciate it.
Because I am a grown man possessing raw physical power, the word "slut" -- which means women undeserving of my respect -- does not belong in my vocabulary. I may tell you I do not believe a woman has carried herself in a dignified fashion. I may tell you I believe an outfit leaves too little to the imagination. Grown men do not use words like "slut" or "whore."
Punks do. And that punk in Toronto has no business wearing a uniform or carrying a badge.
OK, sorry, I get it. You poor dude. She got sole custody, didn't she? Can I have the talking stick now? Is it time for the sweat lodge yet? How's that "Ladie's Night" lawsuit going?
Brotherhood is powerful, dude. You're in a safe place here. We understand.
That "Don't dress like a slut" comment came right out of the bad old days of rape legal defense. Defense attorneys used to work two arguments:
1. Every woman consents to be raped. "You cannot thread a moving needle," was quoted in every courtroom, and to some extent still is. She wouldn't have been raped if she had really objected to it. She wasn't resisting. If it really was so terrible, a good woman would have made him kill her first.
2. Even if she didn't consent to be raped, she provoked it. She came on to him. She dressed slutty. She was drinking, so she was looking for it. She asked for it, she got it, she deserved it. He's the real victim here. She's one of those bad women who prey on men's natural weakness. Look at what her accusation is doing to his good family...
Does dressing like a slut mean an unvoiced consent to sexual advances? No. Does it mean someone dressed like a slut deserved getting raped? No. Does being female absolve you of all consequences? No.
Yup, you're trying to sound reasonable, but there's that second argument again. There are consequences to dressing sexy, and she's responsible for them. Mess with the bull and you'll get the horn. Some women are sluts, some women dress like sluts, some women are asking for it...
Do you really think how a woman is dressed matters to a rapist? "Oh, well that's a tasteful and professional look from Donna Karan, so clearly this woman is off-limits to me..." You don't have to be dressed slutty to get raped. You just have to be weaker than your attacker.
Of course, what really worries me is this mind-set you've got going that a woman shouldn't be absolved for provoking a rape. "Well, she turned him on, so she got what was coming to her." Follow that train of thought long enough, and you end up dressing the women in burkas -- and it's still not enough.
Come on now, 'fess up a little. Time for some soul-searching maybe. When you see a hot woman, and you know you can't have her, it makes you just a little bit frustrated, and maybe a little bit angry, doesn't it?
At my work, I'm responsible for various chunks of municipal infrastructure that carry Big Important Messages such as "We need a doctor right now," "This cop needs help," "This firefighter's in trouble," etc.
When I was hired, I had to sign a fifty-page document that agrees to the following. The cameras pick me up when I get within 100 feet of the office, they stay on me every minute of every day and the video is archived for years. I agree to audio recordings at any time. My ID badge is trackable and my movements recorded. While I am acting as a representative and employee of this company, all communications of any kind are company property. I have no expectations of privacy at all while I am acting on behalf of the company. All phone calls -- cell, landline and voip -- are recorded. Every keystroke is logged. All emails and IMs are stored. For the 9-12 hours a day that I am doing my job, there is no such thing as a "personal" conversation.
If I make a mistake of any kind -- whether it had consequences or not -- the company is within their rights to fire me on the spot without recourse. I have agreed to mediation, meaning I cannot take my employer to court and I will lose any disagreements. If I make a mistake anyone notices, the company will cheerfully feed me to the customer's lawyers.
All of this because my actions carry a risk of liability for the company and a theoretical risk to human life.
Why on Earth shouldn't someone who carries live ammunition be held to at least the same standard? If Seal Team Six can do their jobs on camera with a live mike, why can't local law enforcement?
And by the way, that "Slut Walk" comment came from a Toronto police officer who implied that a woman deserved to be raped because she dressed like a slut.
A Toronto police officer who told a gathering of university students that women could avoid sexual assault by not dressing like "sluts" has issued an apology.
Mark Pugash, director of communications for the Toronto Police Service, said the officer would send a written letter of apology to faculty and students at York University for inappropriate comments made at the university's Osgoode Hall Law School.
The officer in question sent a written apology to the school later on Thursday.
Pugash said the officer had also been disciplined internally.
The comments were reportedly made during a campus safety meeting on Jan. 24.
Speaking as a brother, a husband and a father of daughters, the boy that made that comment has no business being allowed out on his own, let alone wearing a badge.
I don't care if a woman is a professional crack whore, a rape victim deserves your utmost sympathy, respect and compassion. You treat both the victims and the topic at large as if God and Mary Magdalene were personally going to hold you accountable for absolutely everything.
If you can't understand that, you have no business being in mixed company, let alone mine. I hope to God you don't share a uniform with anyone in my family.
When I got hired at my current job, I had to sign a 50-page policy that included notice that all emails, phone calls and videocameras were the property of the company and that while I was employed, the company could use my audio and image for any purposes they chose.
When I got caught in the background for a company commercial, no one came to me or my guys for signed releases. They already had them from the day we were hired.
There is a camera in my office. My ID is trackable. When I pick up the phone or keyboard, the company has made me sign a piece of paper saying all communications of any kind are company property. I explicitly have no privacy rights while at work and EVERY SINGLE THING I do is documented three ways from Sunday, and all I do is maintain infrastructure. If a single card, if one dime, goes astray I will be held accountable.
Why should people who carry live ammunition be held to any lesser standard? If Seal Team Six can do their jobs while on camera, why can't Barney Fife?
It's not about the size of the rulebook, it's about the amount of discretion -- and therefore power -- in the hands of men with no life experience and IQs that have been legally capped at 105 (Jordan v. New London). Men who are now being officially trained at the academy to ignore and even despise the public. Men who brag about committing felonies while above the law.
Think I'm being harsh? Don't take my word for it. Head over to the forums at "Officer.com" and listen to these men brag about the laws they've broken and the bribes they've taken.
I get your point about writing the law so narrowly it becomes unwieldy, but in view of current events, it's long past time we remove discretion from the hands of men purposefully chosen because they are too small to carry a badge.
I grew up on military bases in a military family, but yeah, I know, I'm just a "cop hater." How did I get that way? Easy. I had one officer become unhinged and begin screaming profanities at my six-year-old daughter when she asked him about the snow outside (Exact quote: "I'm not your fucking weatherman.") The other involved the arrest of my 70-year-old mother-in-law at the airport for not following the commands of a police officer. No one bothered to find out she didn't speak English and had no idea what a boy barely old enough to shave was screaming at her.
Yeah, I know. If you're not a cop you can never understand the stress and pressure and danger these men go through. I'll try to make that argument to my Marine Corps captain buddy who just got stopped for DWB after coming back from Iraq. I grew up among uniforms during the Vietnam War. What I routinely see out of civilian law enforcement these days makes me ill.
It is long past time we pull these men back under discipline.
I'm really hoping this is a viciously satirical post, but I'm falling victim to Poe's Law.
If you're aping Jonathan Swift, congratulations, you got me.
If you're not, and you're actually as old as your user id would seem to indicate, then might I suggest that in your Last Will and Testament you request that they put an all-steel fireproof shovel into your coffin with you before they put you in the ground?
It'll make things easier when you get to Hell and they tell you to start digging.
Before anyone starts spouting off about how we shouldn't apply "Western" values to Asia, I'd like to point out that whoever wielded the knife here was in screaming violation of Chinese medical ethical standards:
"A Great Physician should not pay attention to status, wealth or age; neither should he question whether the particular person is attractive or unattractive, whether he is an enemy or friend, whether he is a Chinese or a foreigner, or finally, whether he is uneducated or educated. He should meet everyone on equal grounds. He should always act as if he were thinking of his close relatives. [2]"
They started caring when every inspection began to net them 5000 dollars. If I could get $5000 for knocking on doors and harrassing people, no one from here to Pacoima would be safe...
Because Sarah Palin, that's why. Because Glenn Beck. Because Creationist Museums where people ride their pet dinosaurs. Because a large chunk of the US actually got excited about the world ending last Saturday. Because.02 cents is not.02 dollars. Because we're fighting two majors wars and a skirmish in three countries most US citizens can't find on a map.
Because everyone gets to vote. Everyone needs to go to college?! If I had my way, college would be free and citizenship would require degrees in history, economics and science. Why on Earth wouldn't we want the electorate in charge of the largest supply of nuclear weapons on the planet to be as well educated as possible?
You feel your opinion is correct. Of course you do. Here's why you feel this way.
You feel you have an inherent right to exist, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," etc. You have that self-evident inalienable right, you absolutely do.
Whether you've articulated this or not, you have an instinctual understanding that Life on Earth springs from control of real estate. Crops, meat, minerals, literally all wealth of any kind ultimately comes from the agriculture and mining of land. "Intellectual Property" is just "I'll tell you a funny story or count up the bags of corn if you'll give me some."
You have a right to live. To live, you need some access to land either directly or by proxy.Therefore, you feel you should be able to have some land that no one can ever take away from you.
Here's your dillemma.
If you're like most people in America, you were born without property. This means you need to trade labor to live, either as a janitor or a surgeon. Now, this often get framed as "You need to be willing to work and not be lazy," but that's not entirely true. Being willing and able to work doesn't get you anything, as our current armies of the overqualified and overeducated unemployed will tell you. What you need is to get a job, and this has two problems. First, there aren't enough jobs to go around, and second, needing a job makes your life subject to someone else's approval.
Yes, yes, yes, this is the time some 17-year-old Horatio Hornblower will barge in and say "Start your own business in your garage." This of course assumes you have a garage, but more importantly, most small businesses do nothing more than give local employers an excuse to peg you with a 1099 instead of a 1040. When people talk about small businesses being the engine of employment, what they overwhlemingly mean are franchises which are "independent" only by sophistry. I've been an "independent contractor." I've even run a small business that was wonderfully successful until the local major employer moved operations to the third world and I realized I'd been laid off just as surely as my customers had.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm not saying Tony Stark couldn't build something from nothing. I'm just saying that the people who could are so rare they end up in the comics books. Most genius inventors today end up like Preston Tucker and Philo Farnsworth, not Thomas Edison. Our drunk and bitter friend the Betamax would like to to know that business doesn't choose the best technology -- it chooses the best "connected" technology, and I don't mean networking. OK, OK, J.K. Rowling and Dean Kamen do exist. Tell you what, let's call the few geniuses "outliers" and concern ourselves with the 99.9% of the population who can't sit down in a coffee shop with a blank stack of paper and write themselves a billion dollars like Stephen King.
We can agree you have a right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit..." even if you're not a genius, yes? Good. Here's what's bothering you. If someone doesn't agree to hire you -- whether that's your fault or not -- then you and almost all Americans are homeless within 18 months. It's actually illegal to be homeless in pretty much every square inch of America now, so life as a bum is unpleasant. Yes, it's even illegal to sleep in your car. Let the highway patrol catch you twice at a rest stop and see what happens.
Now, you and I want to be able to tell ourselves, "Well, then I'll just grow crops and hunt deer on my land," which is exacly what my grandparents and father did as a boy. 30.06, a hoe and a line in the water, and that's good eatin'.
Property taxes screw that up. You can't pay property taxes with the racoons and possums my grandpa ate. Property taxes kick that feeling of "A Country Boy Can Survive" right to the curb, and it's no end of unsettling to realize that it'll be the local Sheriff come to your house with a shotgun to tell you "Git off mah lan'." Of course, it's even worse than that. Hunting and fishing licenses came into being specifically beca
sovereignty "Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory.[1] It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided."
The first law, of course, if always "This is my land...":-)
I get your point, I really do. If you feel this way about property taxes, how do you feel about eminent domain? How do you feel about easements? What about squatter's rights?
Also, I know of medium-sized towns where every square inch of property in the town is owned by one family. Let me assure you these places are not bastions of freedom where the blessings of liberty apply to all. How would you feel if $some_trillionaire bought an entire state? An entire country?
Also, if the government (government, as in We the People, of by and for) doesn't ultimately control the land, then what is your claim to it? You say this is your acre of land? How? Oh, you paid someone for it? How did they get it? They paid someone for it, and so on? Hmm, Mr. Running Crow here says you've received stolen property, that he was driven off his land by force, by the Government. Just because you paid for stolen property doesn't mean you haven't committed the crime of receiving stolen property, else we'd have to let every professional fence out of jail.
Oh, you live in Europe? In say, Scotland? Clan MacDonald would like a word...
Thank you, Ms. Palin. Yes, you live in Alaska on land so barren no human being has ever laid claim to it, not even the Inuit? This land is yours because you got to it first? OK, so the Moon, or at least the Sea of Tranquility, belongs to the United States? How do you lay claim to this land? Did you make it?
Oh, you claim it because you have lived here so long, and your family has worked this land and has fought for it. Fought for it by serving in the government's army, you mean?
You've stumbled into an old, old argument the philosophers have been chewing over for literally thousands of years. Ultimately, it boils down to this. You own this land by agreement. This is your land because everyone else in the group agrees it is, and if they don't, then the best you have is a house under siege. The ability to demand, defend and grant rights over real estate is in fact referred to as sovereignty, and that is a function of government. Those few individuals on Earth who can claim that they own this land, and can back that claim up without appealing to some other authority, are referred to as "kings."
Like it or not, "private property ownership" is a function of government. Ultimately, this is your land because the guys with the most and biggest guns say it is. The only other logically consistent argument is the one Thomas Paine espoused, basically that no one can claim to own any part of a world that they had no hand in creating.
Yeah, I know, this means Ayn Rand was a spoiled little rich girl who sat around bemoaning the loss of the family fortune and smoking crack. Shocking, I know.
OK, i just hit the stop button on my walkman. Um, you do know MTV doesn't play music videos any more, right? OK, going back to Yes "Owner of a Lonely Heart" on this cool new metal type tape...
Yep. Slaughterhouse Five is science fiction. So's Frankenstein. A Christmas Carol is a horror story, as is MacBeth. Lot's of famous stories properly belong to genres that they are not usually associated with. SciFi and Horror usually get so little respect that when an awesome SciFi/Horror story comes out, people tend to pop them out of the genre in their mind.
Of course, even SciFi and Horror look down their noses at Fantasy...:-)
True, the plaintiff can't appeal, but the defendant can. Defendant corporations can even ask that the case be moved to the civil court system so they can be properly represented by their attorney. Once you're there, you need a lawyer, and again, see "victory, pyrrhic"...
Here's the problem with small claims court. You're responsible for collecting your own judgements. If you're suing "Bob's Restaurant and Bar," you can show up with a deputy and clean out the cash registers if necessary. If you're suing "Bob's Auto Yard," you can show up with a deputy and seize a car off the lot. If you're suing Bob, you can garnish Bob's wages.
Suing a multinational corporation is a somewhat different affair. If they don't have seizable assets within your jurisdiction, and they decide to blow off your judgement, your options rapidly dwindle. Once they decide to appeal, you find yourself in Big Boy court paying your own legal fees and any victory you might have had instantly becomes pyrrhic...
Slashdot Mirror
We need a reasonable way to separate "sound advice to reduce your chances of being victimized" with "if you don't do this, it's your fault."
If the officer had said, "Provocative clothing can draw unwanted attention," no one would have batted an eye. t2t10 has a point. That is precisely the advice I give my daughters.
When they give you a uniform -- any uniform -- they explicitly tell you "You watch your mouth when you're wearing this." I even got that speech when they gave me a fast-food uniform as a 16-year-old boy.
Because all people are equal in the eyes of the Law, certain words have no business coming out of an officer's mouth. Words that imply some people are "less than," words like bitch, slut, skank, ho, cracker, spic, kike, gook, coon and their modern variants have no business being spoken under the color of authority.
The word slut literally means "a woman unworthy of respect because of her sexual behavior" and for an officer of the law to be callous enough to use that word in a discussion of rape shows that he is incapable of providing justice to all women. When it comes to rape victims, there are no women unworthy of respect.
Beyond the uniform though, there's a basic issue of manhood here. When I turned 17 and began to put on some grown-up muscle and the last little bit of adolescent squeak left my voice -- not to mention the rough background I come from -- women began to be afraid of me. I don't mean they'd run screaming like I was Jason Voorhees, but if I was out ofter dark, an it was just me and some woman alone at the ATM, or in the laundromat, or a parking garage, they'd get a little tense, a little nervous, they'd walk a little faster...
I didn't like it. I didn't understand it at first because I'm a little thick about things like this, but it came to me.
"Because it's not just you, moron. OK, maybe because of the rough way you look, it's especially you, but all men make women a little nervous when they're alone with a stranger. We're generally twice their size. We carry the brute strength to casually beat them down. This has not always turned out well for them in the past."
I grew up a little when I understood that. I learned to treat women I didn't know with a certain deference, like the best men I grew up with did. Around women I did not know, harsh language dropped entirely out of my speech. I began to use words like "please," "thank you" and "ma'am." A sincere genuine "ma'am" does wonders to signal good intent, that I am trying to live up to our best rules and traditions, even if it means reaching back to out-of-date social conventions. Even younger women who still think it's a little goofy to hear appreciate it.
Because I am a grown man possessing raw physical power, the word "slut" -- which means women undeserving of my respect -- does not belong in my vocabulary. I may tell you I do not believe a woman has carried herself in a dignified fashion. I may tell you I believe an outfit leaves too little to the imagination. Grown men do not use words like "slut" or "whore."
Punks do. And that punk in Toronto has no business wearing a uniform or carrying a badge.
So what about the male versions?
OK, sorry, I get it. You poor dude. She got sole custody, didn't she? Can I have the talking stick now? Is it time for the sweat lodge yet? How's that "Ladie's Night" lawsuit going?
Brotherhood is powerful, dude. You're in a safe place here. We understand.
Bitches, man.
People openly carry large amounts of cash all the time, and yes, they still happily send muggers there to jail without blaming the victim.
Maybe this has something to do with the basic common decency we watched them demonstrate so impressively lately...
I can't tell you what a relief it is to know that not only do we not share a uniform, we don't even share a flag. Thanks for the post.
That "Don't dress like a slut" comment came right out of the bad old days of rape legal defense. Defense attorneys used to work two arguments:
1. Every woman consents to be raped. "You cannot thread a moving needle," was quoted in every courtroom, and to some extent still is. She wouldn't have been raped if she had really objected to it. She wasn't resisting. If it really was so terrible, a good woman would have made him kill her first.
2. Even if she didn't consent to be raped, she provoked it. She came on to him. She dressed slutty. She was drinking, so she was looking for it. She asked for it, she got it, she deserved it. He's the real victim here. She's one of those bad women who prey on men's natural weakness. Look at what her accusation is doing to his good family...
Does dressing like a slut mean an unvoiced consent to sexual advances? No. Does it mean someone dressed like a slut deserved getting raped? No. Does being female absolve you of all consequences? No.
Yup, you're trying to sound reasonable, but there's that second argument again. There are consequences to dressing sexy, and she's responsible for them. Mess with the bull and you'll get the horn. Some women are sluts, some women dress like sluts, some women are asking for it...
Do you really think how a woman is dressed matters to a rapist? "Oh, well that's a tasteful and professional look from Donna Karan, so clearly this woman is off-limits to me..." You don't have to be dressed slutty to get raped. You just have to be weaker than your attacker.
Of course, what really worries me is this mind-set you've got going that a woman shouldn't be absolved for provoking a rape. "Well, she turned him on, so she got what was coming to her." Follow that train of thought long enough, and you end up dressing the women in burkas -- and it's still not enough.
Come on now, 'fess up a little. Time for some soul-searching maybe. When you see a hot woman, and you know you can't have her, it makes you just a little bit frustrated, and maybe a little bit angry, doesn't it?
At my work, I'm responsible for various chunks of municipal infrastructure that carry Big Important Messages such as "We need a doctor right now," "This cop needs help," "This firefighter's in trouble," etc.
When I was hired, I had to sign a fifty-page document that agrees to the following. The cameras pick me up when I get within 100 feet of the office, they stay on me every minute of every day and the video is archived for years. I agree to audio recordings at any time. My ID badge is trackable and my movements recorded. While I am acting as a representative and employee of this company, all communications of any kind are company property. I have no expectations of privacy at all while I am acting on behalf of the company. All phone calls -- cell, landline and voip -- are recorded. Every keystroke is logged. All emails and IMs are stored. For the 9-12 hours a day that I am doing my job, there is no such thing as a "personal" conversation.
If I make a mistake of any kind -- whether it had consequences or not -- the company is within their rights to fire me on the spot without recourse. I have agreed to mediation, meaning I cannot take my employer to court and I will lose any disagreements. If I make a mistake anyone notices, the company will cheerfully feed me to the customer's lawyers.
All of this because my actions carry a risk of liability for the company and a theoretical risk to human life.
Why on Earth shouldn't someone who carries live ammunition be held to at least the same standard? If Seal Team Six can do their jobs on camera with a live mike, why can't local law enforcement?
And by the way, that "Slut Walk" comment came from a Toronto police officer who implied that a woman deserved to be raped because she dressed like a slut.
http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110217/police-slut-comment/20110217/?hub=OttawaHome
A Toronto police officer who told a gathering of university students that women could avoid sexual assault by not dressing like "sluts" has issued an apology.
Mark Pugash, director of communications for the Toronto Police Service, said the officer would send a written letter of apology to faculty and students at York University for inappropriate comments made at the university's Osgoode Hall Law School.
The officer in question sent a written apology to the school later on Thursday.
Pugash said the officer had also been disciplined internally.
The comments were reportedly made during a campus safety meeting on Jan. 24.
Speaking as a brother, a husband and a father of daughters, the boy that made that comment has no business being allowed out on his own, let alone wearing a badge.
I don't care if a woman is a professional crack whore, a rape victim deserves your utmost sympathy, respect and compassion. You treat both the victims and the topic at large as if God and Mary Magdalene were personally going to hold you accountable for absolutely everything.
If you can't understand that, you have no business being in mixed company, let alone mine. I hope to God you don't share a uniform with anyone in my family.
there will always be cases of injustice but that is no reason to condemn the entire system.
Um, isn't that PRECISELY a reason to condemn the entire system?! Isn't that pretty much the ONLY reason to condemn an entire system?
When I got hired at my current job, I had to sign a 50-page policy that included notice that all emails, phone calls and videocameras were the property of the company and that while I was employed, the company could use my audio and image for any purposes they chose.
When I got caught in the background for a company commercial, no one came to me or my guys for signed releases. They already had them from the day we were hired.
There is a camera in my office. My ID is trackable. When I pick up the phone or keyboard, the company has made me sign a piece of paper saying all communications of any kind are company property. I explicitly have no privacy rights while at work and EVERY SINGLE THING I do is documented three ways from Sunday, and all I do is maintain infrastructure. If a single card, if one dime, goes astray I will be held accountable.
Why should people who carry live ammunition be held to any lesser standard? If Seal Team Six can do their jobs while on camera, why can't Barney Fife?
It's not about the size of the rulebook, it's about the amount of discretion -- and therefore power -- in the hands of men with no life experience and IQs that have been legally capped at 105 (Jordan v. New London). Men who are now being officially trained at the academy to ignore and even despise the public. Men who brag about committing felonies while above the law.
Think I'm being harsh? Don't take my word for it. Head over to the forums at "Officer.com" and listen to these men brag about the laws they've broken and the bribes they've taken.
I get your point about writing the law so narrowly it becomes unwieldy, but in view of current events, it's long past time we remove discretion from the hands of men purposefully chosen because they are too small to carry a badge.
I grew up on military bases in a military family, but yeah, I know, I'm just a "cop hater." How did I get that way? Easy. I had one officer become unhinged and begin screaming profanities at my six-year-old daughter when she asked him about the snow outside (Exact quote: "I'm not your fucking weatherman.") The other involved the arrest of my 70-year-old mother-in-law at the airport for not following the commands of a police officer. No one bothered to find out she didn't speak English and had no idea what a boy barely old enough to shave was screaming at her.
Yeah, I know. If you're not a cop you can never understand the stress and pressure and danger these men go through. I'll try to make that argument to my Marine Corps captain buddy who just got stopped for DWB after coming back from Iraq. I grew up among uniforms during the Vietnam War. What I routinely see out of civilian law enforcement these days makes me ill.
It is long past time we pull these men back under discipline.
I'm really hoping this is a viciously satirical post, but I'm falling victim to Poe's Law.
If you're aping Jonathan Swift, congratulations, you got me.
If you're not, and you're actually as old as your user id would seem to indicate, then might I suggest that in your Last Will and Testament you request that they put an all-steel fireproof shovel into your coffin with you before they put you in the ground?
It'll make things easier when you get to Hell and they tell you to start digging.
Before anyone starts spouting off about how we shouldn't apply "Western" values to Asia, I'd like to point out that whoever wielded the knife here was in screaming violation of Chinese medical ethical standards:
The Chinese Counterpart to the Hippocratic Oath
"A Great Physician should not pay attention to status, wealth or age; neither should he question whether the particular person is attractive or unattractive, whether he is an enemy or friend, whether he is a Chinese or a foreigner, or finally, whether he is uneducated or educated. He should meet everyone on equal grounds. He should always act as if he were thinking of his close relatives. [2]"
They started caring when every inspection began to net them 5000 dollars. If I could get $5000 for knocking on doors and harrassing people, no one from here to Pacoima would be safe...
Because Sarah Palin, that's why. Because Glenn Beck. Because Creationist Museums where people ride their pet dinosaurs. Because a large chunk of the US actually got excited about the world ending last Saturday. Because .02 cents is not .02 dollars. Because we're fighting two majors wars and a skirmish in three countries most US citizens can't find on a map.
Because everyone gets to vote. Everyone needs to go to college?! If I had my way, college would be free and citizenship would require degrees in history, economics and science. Why on Earth wouldn't we want the electorate in charge of the largest supply of nuclear weapons on the planet to be as well educated as possible?
You feel your opinion is correct. Of course you do. Here's why you feel this way.
You feel you have an inherent right to exist, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," etc. You have that self-evident inalienable right, you absolutely do.
Whether you've articulated this or not, you have an instinctual understanding that Life on Earth springs from control of real estate. Crops, meat, minerals, literally all wealth of any kind ultimately comes from the agriculture and mining of land. "Intellectual Property" is just "I'll tell you a funny story or count up the bags of corn if you'll give me some."
You have a right to live. To live, you need some access to land either directly or by proxy.Therefore, you feel you should be able to have some land that no one can ever take away from you.
Here's your dillemma.
If you're like most people in America, you were born without property. This means you need to trade labor to live, either as a janitor or a surgeon. Now, this often get framed as "You need to be willing to work and not be lazy," but that's not entirely true. Being willing and able to work doesn't get you anything, as our current armies of the overqualified and overeducated unemployed will tell you. What you need is to get a job, and this has two problems. First, there aren't enough jobs to go around, and second, needing a job makes your life subject to someone else's approval.
Yes, yes, yes, this is the time some 17-year-old Horatio Hornblower will barge in and say "Start your own business in your garage." This of course assumes you have a garage, but more importantly, most small businesses do nothing more than give local employers an excuse to peg you with a 1099 instead of a 1040. When people talk about small businesses being the engine of employment, what they overwhlemingly mean are franchises which are "independent" only by sophistry. I've been an "independent contractor." I've even run a small business that was wonderfully successful until the local major employer moved operations to the third world and I realized I'd been laid off just as surely as my customers had.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm not saying Tony Stark couldn't build something from nothing. I'm just saying that the people who could are so rare they end up in the comics books. Most genius inventors today end up like Preston Tucker and Philo Farnsworth, not Thomas Edison. Our drunk and bitter friend the Betamax would like to to know that business doesn't choose the best technology -- it chooses the best "connected" technology, and I don't mean networking. OK, OK, J.K. Rowling and Dean Kamen do exist. Tell you what, let's call the few geniuses "outliers" and concern ourselves with the 99.9% of the population who can't sit down in a coffee shop with a blank stack of paper and write themselves a billion dollars like Stephen King.
We can agree you have a right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit..." even if you're not a genius, yes? Good. Here's what's bothering you. If someone doesn't agree to hire you -- whether that's your fault or not -- then you and almost all Americans are homeless within 18 months. It's actually illegal to be homeless in pretty much every square inch of America now, so life as a bum is unpleasant. Yes, it's even illegal to sleep in your car. Let the highway patrol catch you twice at a rest stop and see what happens.
Now, you and I want to be able to tell ourselves, "Well, then I'll just grow crops and hunt deer on my land," which is exacly what my grandparents and father did as a boy. 30.06, a hoe and a line in the water, and that's good eatin'.
Property taxes screw that up. You can't pay property taxes with the racoons and possums my grandpa ate. Property taxes kick that feeling of "A Country Boy Can Survive" right to the curb, and it's no end of unsettling to realize that it'll be the local Sheriff come to your house with a shotgun to tell you "Git off mah lan'."
Of course, it's even worse than that. Hunting and fishing licenses came into being specifically beca
Here it is:
sovereignty
"Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory.[1] It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided."
The first law, of course, if always "This is my land..." :-)
I get your point, I really do. If you feel this way about property taxes, how do you feel about eminent domain? How do you feel about easements? What about squatter's rights?
Also, I know of medium-sized towns where every square inch of property in the town is owned by one family. Let me assure you these places are not bastions of freedom where the blessings of liberty apply to all. How would you feel if $some_trillionaire bought an entire state? An entire country?
Also, if the government (government, as in We the People, of by and for) doesn't ultimately control the land, then what is your claim to it? You say this is your acre of land? How? Oh, you paid someone for it? How did they get it? They paid someone for it, and so on? Hmm, Mr. Running Crow here says you've received stolen property, that he was driven off his land by force, by the Government. Just because you paid for stolen property doesn't mean you haven't committed the crime of receiving stolen property, else we'd have to let every professional fence out of jail.
Oh, you live in Europe? In say, Scotland? Clan MacDonald would like a word...
Thank you, Ms. Palin. Yes, you live in Alaska on land so barren no human being has ever laid claim to it, not even the Inuit? This land is yours because you got to it first? OK, so the Moon, or at least the Sea of Tranquility, belongs to the United States? How do you lay claim to this land? Did you make it?
Oh, you claim it because you have lived here so long, and your family has worked this land and has fought for it. Fought for it by serving in the government's army, you mean?
You've stumbled into an old, old argument the philosophers have been chewing over for literally thousands of years. Ultimately, it boils down to this. You own this land by agreement. This is your land because everyone else in the group agrees it is, and if they don't, then the best you have is a house under siege. The ability to demand, defend and grant rights over real estate is in fact referred to as sovereignty, and that is a function of government. Those few individuals on Earth who can claim that they own this land, and can back that claim up without appealing to some other authority, are referred to as "kings."
Like it or not, "private property ownership" is a function of government. Ultimately, this is your land because the guys with the most and biggest guns say it is. The only other logically consistent argument is the one Thomas Paine espoused, basically that no one can claim to own any part of a world that they had no hand in creating.
Yeah, I know, this means Ayn Rand was a spoiled little rich girl who sat around bemoaning the loss of the family fortune and smoking crack. Shocking, I know.
That they do. Got the entire works of Rush and Styx on mine. :-)
OK, i just hit the stop button on my walkman. Um, you do know MTV doesn't play music videos any more, right? OK, going back to Yes "Owner of a Lonely Heart" on this cool new metal type tape...
Yep. Slaughterhouse Five is science fiction. So's Frankenstein. A Christmas Carol is a horror story, as is MacBeth. Lot's of famous stories properly belong to genres that they are not usually associated with. SciFi and Horror usually get so little respect that when an awesome SciFi/Horror story comes out, people tend to pop them out of the genre in their mind.
Of course, even SciFi and Horror look down their noses at Fantasy... :-)
http://xkcd.com/793/
I saw the best minds of my generation studying physics, sneering at the engineers...
Seriously? A poetry reference? On Slashdot?! Are things starting to fall apart? Has the center not held? Is this the long slouch to Bethlehem? :-)
I would, but he's got the best prices in town. :-)
True, the plaintiff can't appeal, but the defendant can. Defendant corporations can even ask that the case be moved to the civil court system so they can be properly represented by their attorney. Once you're there, you need a lawyer, and again, see "victory, pyrrhic"...
Here's the problem with small claims court. You're responsible for collecting your own judgements. If you're suing "Bob's Restaurant and Bar," you can show up with a deputy and clean out the cash registers if necessary. If you're suing "Bob's Auto Yard," you can show up with a deputy and seize a car off the lot. If you're suing Bob, you can garnish Bob's wages.
Suing a multinational corporation is a somewhat different affair. If they don't have seizable assets within your jurisdiction, and they decide to blow off your judgement, your options rapidly dwindle. Once they decide to appeal, you find yourself in Big Boy court paying your own legal fees and any victory you might have had instantly becomes pyrrhic...
Hey, sometimes people own houses that get in the way of your planned strip mall. Thank God for eminent domain!