Freedom of speech is gone in America

[thursday 1]

yeah, welcome to the real world. Your naive trusting of the filth will get you into ..... you'll probably find out yourself.

[Ken of Kentropolis 0]

Yeah right. I'm really worried....

[thursday 1]

don't be, just be open minded and aware.

[Ken of Kentropolis 0]

I am generally open minided and aware.

I believe it is you that is not.

[thursday 1]

hahaha, goodbye.

[me jane 0]

 Originally Posted By: Ken of Kentropolis

If you live your life without causing trouble, there is no need to be worried about stuff like this. Surely.

I agree with some of the others, Ken. It's easy to get caught up in stuff by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I lived in Germany for a year and during my leaving party at a bar the police were called because of noise complaints by residents as the party was still going on after hours. While the police were talking to the manager I took a photo of them with him and the policewoman tried to confiscate my camera. I didn't want to give it to her cos it had all my pics of my last week in Germany. She told me that if I didn't give her the camera I would have to go to the police station. Her partner was still talking to the manager and when she turned to get him, me and my friend legged it and hid down a side street. Then we found a taxi and escaped. Of course I was in the wrong but hardly a dangerous criminal.

There are hundreds of wrongly convicted people in jail for all sorts of reasons. The "it won't happen to me" attitude is naive.

[spook 0]

 Originally Posted By: Ken of Kentropolis

If you live your life without causing trouble, there is no need to be worried about stuff like this. Surely.

what on earth?
what about rodney king? what about the current situation in burma? gee, lets give the state unfettered powers, because they would never ever abuse them in any way right?

[Ken of Kentropolis 0]

I'm not talking about Burma, I'm talking about the United States.

 

Yes, Rodney King. Good example. But how many hundreds of thousands of other examples do you have? Do very limited examples of things like this mean that the whole police force is "out to get you"? Of course it doesn't.

 

Would you rather there be no police at all? I bet if you were in a sitation that you needed them you'd be glad to see them. Or might that be hypocritical? Perhaps you would just refuse their help.

[me jane 0]

The police do a very difficult, thankless job and I'm not complaining about then at all. There are bad people in every profession and the police force is no exception. Even the good people have bad days and behave in a less than professional manner.

 

Also people make mistakes. There are two very famous cases in the UK of 4 and 6 people being wrongly convicted of being IRA terrorists (two separate bombings) and being jailed for over 20 years. Both groups have since been released having wasted half their adult lives.

 

I read an interview with a death row executioner a few years back and he said that in his personal opinion about 30% were wronglyy convicted and a further 20% didn't deserve to die.

 

When I changed jobs in Japan a few years back I made friends with a group local foreigners at the pub in my new town and we exchanged phone numbers. The following week I found out that one of those guys had been arrested for dealing drugs and in the weeks leading up to his arrest his phone had been tapped. I would never go near drugs in Japan but what if one of our phone conversations had been misconstrued?

 

My point was just that your "it won't happen to me" thinking is naive. Keeping out of trouble will not necessarily keep you out of trouble.

[spook 0]

ok then, so given that you act in a perfectly reasonable way at all times, have you never ever been subject to a abuse of power by an authority figure? you have never ever felt your rights have been infringed?

you must be a very lucky person. i will try and act more reasonably in future to avoid any conflict.

[2pints-mate 0]

 Quote:

have you never ever been subject to a abuse of power by an authority figure? you have never ever felt your rights have been infringed?

You know..... I don't think I have.

Tell me some examples where you have please.

[spook 0]

nothing major, but excessive use of force by police on a few occasions - a few years ago there were a few large parties in one street which the cops shut down - the result was a couple of hundred people milling around on the street. i was sober.

the cops asked a bunch of girls i was talking to to move on. yeah, we didn't exactly hustle to leave, but we were literally just standing on the street talking. one of the cops decided to take action out of the blue and dragged a chick by her hair towards a paddy wagon. i stepped in and then i got pulled towards the wagon by a couple more cops. in the end someone else intervened and we all left. i thought it was a completely ridiculous use of force, especially by a male policeman on a girl, and when we were merely loitering.

 

wow, not exactly the most chilling example, but i don't agree with ken's point that police always act in a perfectly resonable manner, and that we should trust them to set the boudraries or reasonableness. i don't have a problem with cops 99% of the time. i regard them as performiing an essential public service, and they do a commendable job. but it is perfectly legitimate to question whether their standards are correct. to give them unchecked reign is ludicrous

 

to draw a long bow - 15 years ago snowboarding was regarded as a distinctly riff-raff element and was banned at many resorts. if people had just accepted this then no one would be snowboarding today. now it is a booming mainstream sport and lifestyle.

 

societies which don't allow norms to be questioned will stagnate. i'm not saying it is always ok to protest violently, or for extremes of behaviour to be tolerated (democratically elected politicians define what is acceptable behaviour when they pass laws. if laws become outdated and no longer in keeping with societ's values, then they are updated).

 

i just don't agree with the principle that if you act reasonably you will never be subject to an abuse of power.

[soubriquet 0]

A couple

 

At school, just before O levels we had sports day. A bunch of us wigged off to revise. All of the rest lied and told the beak they were ill. I told him I went home to revise. I was the only prefect sacked. A few weeks later I was given the nod that an apology would get my badge back. No thanks, not if lying is part of the qualification.

 

My first Sunday morning leave as a boy soldier in the Engineers. Lance Corporal Savage on the gate refused me exit. I'd read Orders and he had not. Orders allowed me to go, so he had me on a charge of insubordination.

 

I spent less time in the army than at school.

[spook 0]

one more thing.... i generally don't have any problems with authority, but i put that down the the fact that i have been quite privileged in life so far. my folks worked hard to ensure we were comfortably middle class, i was lucky enough to go to uni, and i've more or less been gainfully employed. i'm eurasian, so i copped a bit of flak growing up, but i definitely recieved much better treatment than other asian or aboriginal kids.

it's easy for someone like me to have a lot of faith in the sytem, thats largely because people from similar backgrounds to myself wrote the rules.

put yourself in someone else's shoes and maybe 'reasonable' changes

[Tubby Beaver 209]

well you are talking with one. What would you call standing on the pavement watching a fight in front of you? None of my mates were involved we were all standing around, we were mere feet from the entrance to a nightclub and pub that we had just came out of. Well the Judge who heard the case certainly had the same "account" as he threw the crown's case out!!

 

Why can it not happen? Where have you been living all your life? Inside a bubble?

[me jane 0]

 Originally Posted By: spook

put yourself in someone else's shoes and maybe 'reasonable' changes

Very true. Read some of the stories here. You have to scroll down the page a bit and then it is a list of murders with comments from those involved. A lot of people there are fearful of the police with good reason. The police may being doing their best in a difficult area but out of fear, self defence or whatever other reason they draw their guns more often in areas like this.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/homicidereport/

[2pints-mate 0]

 Quote:

Where have you been living all your life? Inside a bubble?

Me? Far from it.

Sorry but some of you guys are sounding more than a little paranoid, going way far the other extreme.

[spook 0]

nah, i'm a big fan of the police, but they are human too. in trying circumstances they can act badly. or, some of them are just pr1cks and love the power, just like there are wankers in every occupation.

my financee won't pull over for cops at night until she gets to a petrol station with other people around. she's been intimtated by male officers late at night and in my mind is rightfully paranoid.

my point is simply that i don't trust them blindly. kentropolis was saying this, and i reckon it's ridiculous

[Mantas 3]

I know a couple of the local cops personally. They're great blokes. Honest and tough. Family, community men They give a different side to the story. Some of the shit they cop from the press and the public is totally unbelievable and unwarranted. It's all because of a few bad apples.

There was a young probationary constable working out of the same station as them. He was molesting young girls systematically around town. He was caught and he's now in prison.

 

Good cop, bad cop, working side by side.

[samurai 0]

I have a warrant out for my arrest in Montana for not paying a traffic violation. I got a ticket for running a stop sign in a neighborhood, between a baseball field and the local super market... on my bicycle.

 

I told the judge I wouldn't pay it.

 

She said; yes you will.

 

The next week I graduated Uni and left town. That was 6 years ago. I have no plans of ever returning to that town, and if I ever do, I can simply pay a fine and accept that I was wrong to run a stop sign on my bicycle. (Assuming I fear getting pulled-over or any other infarction that would result in showing police my ID.)

 

That's country-folk cops being bored, imo. A warning would have sufficed. Instead, they asked for my driver's license and gave me a ticket. That's one mark on my driving record... increasing insurance rates.

 

In that same town, I also have two friends who lost their driver's licenses for riding their bikes while drunk. Yes, DUI while peddling bicycles. Insurance rates through the roof now that they are "high-risk" drivers, too. All for trying to be safe college kids on the town.

 

In the country, away from the big city, where there is no crime, cops must still justify their job. I've experienced that. And I just left. Thankfully their jurisdiction ends at the state line.

 

yeah, college kids are punks. But legitimacy should still be founded.

 

The formality reads; "Moving violation." Not punk, or smartass, or drunk, just- "moving violation."

 

I like cops. I really do. But the Bozeman police have seriously over-stepped their boundaries, imo. And I won't pay for their f*king lunch. Yeah, I mean lunch. As I ran the stop sign, I waved at the same cop while he was eating his lunch next to the park. Then I got a ticket. And it is, really, just that simple.

 

(perhaps I should mention he had a supervisor onboard doing a ride-along. He watched on to make sure his new deputy was performing. He watched from next to the squad car with his clipboard... checking whateer it was he was checking on his piece of paper as if there was some protocol to giving bikers tickets.)

 

Later that same week I published an article in the University Newspaper. And respondents to that article is where I had learned that there were college kids all over town with traffic violations on their bikes.

 

Fack BZ cops. Bozeman is a very small town in Montana. And the cops haven't got sh*t to do.

 

(go ahead snowjapan, tell me I was wrong. And, assume I care.)

[SnowJapan 178]

"go ahead snowjapan..."

 

Who do you mean there?

[Tubby Beaver 209]

maybe the community in general as opposed to the mods....maybe not though, but I don't see the connection

 

BTW 2pints, I was replying to Ken's post, not yours.

 

However don't class me in the paranoid group, I have first hand experience of doing nothing and getting arrested.

 

also to back up my earlier post, where Ken doubts that the Police would agree that "I was doing nothing", I'd forgotton that the charges were thrown out as there was some very nice, clear CCTV coverage of the whole thing that should that a) I and all my friends were not fighting and that the Police were heavy handed in the arrest and that some of the charges against us were very dubious

[SnowJapan 178]

I think so, we've got nothing to do with this!

 

 

Anyway, back to work...

[nippontiger 8]

If I get caught riding my bike drunk, and my employer finds out I will be SACKED from my job!!! My boss insists on reminding us of this every time we go out drinking and then get on our bikes to go home!

 

Anyway, I too have been arrested (in England), for a crime I hadnt committed. The police wanted to charge me on the night, but due to having a solicitor, I was not charged (actually, my solicitor objected on a technicality). In the end, the police said that they believed my version of events and I was never charged. I have no complaints about the police behaviour throughout this episode.

Unfortunately, I think that if the same thing had happened in Japan, I would have been held for a month, with no access to a lawyer, I would have been sacked from my job, before being found guilty of anything and the police wouldnt have let me go until I signed some kind of "confession", then I would have been sent home after spending 6 months in in jail, never allowed to return. Thinking about this makes me seriously consider whether or not I want to stay in Japan long-term.....

[samurai 0]

sorry for my "snowjapan", I just meant other posters as we flame the war.