So harassing community members who aren’t doing anything illegal or dangerous by copying sharia morality police is “building ties with the community” and “promoting public safety”?
No. It’s not. It’s getting off on hassling people for doing things they have a right to do that harms nobody.
Your high horse is a carnival carousel at this point.
Who wouldn´t find a thoroughly documented case of citizens standing up for their rights enjoyable?
A lot of this discussion has wondered away from the facts.
“The women had been biking in the downtown area with their shirts off because of the heat, Brilla told CTV Kitchener.”
“But towards the end of their ride, at approximately 9 p.m., Brilla said they were stopped by a male officer who told them to put their shirts back on.”
They were riding around a downtown area, and started at a time of day when it was still hot. So it wasn’t three in the morning on a country road. and in July it was likely still light out.
I don’t want to defend the cop here but it is possible they were about to ride past a bar full of frat boys or a church full of born again families and the cop thought convincing the ladies to pull on a tube top would reduce his disorderly conduct citations for the evening and then went about it exactly the wrong way.
But they shouldn’t have to do anything. Their is no law against them being topless in public.
That some frat boys aren’t mature enough or some fundie’s fear of bewbs is their problem, not the women, not the cops.
Or does the cop’s attempt to avoid future work trump their right to be topless in public?
Ours pretty much can, thanks to the Criminal Justice Act. I mean, I know they all do, everywhere, hence the story, I just wanted to gripe, I guess 
I haz the jealous. It was ten deg.C here in Newcastle today. England is horrible.
Why would a topless woman represent “a disturbance of the peace”?
So, you miss the point.
They don’t have to do anything. they are within their legal rights to be topless. The cop was wrong to tell them they had to put on shirts. He could have made a legitimate request that they put on shirts, but that isn’t what he did, he tried to require it.
The discussion above was whether the officer was just being a dick or did he have some other motivation. It’s hard to tell without his side of the story but here are soe of the possibilities:
I would put my money on 3 with a sprinkling of 1 and 4. My point above is that 2 is really not completely implausible. Again everybody is really just guessing.
More to your point, I do think is legitimate for an officer to make a request of a citizen if it could help preserve the peace. They can ask you to avoid an area or take the confederate flag off your car, or whatever. It should be a request and be explained and have some legitimate justification and clear you have every right to say No.
Even if that was the Cops motivation here he completely screwed the pooch when he tried to require they follow an instruction.
Again, that isn’t my guess as to what happened here.
Is it a disturbance of the peace if I’m walking around with a folding knife and opening and closing it without specifically menacing someone? Possibly.
Is it a disturbance of the peace if I stand on a street corner howling about how the end is nigh? Maybe.
Is it a disturbance of the peace when I walk around wearing a shirt covered in ethnic slurs? Most likely.
Where I live though, it’s legally none of the police’s damn business. A badge is not a license to tell people what to do or how to live their lives. “Keeping the peace” is not a law on the books, it’s just a guiding principle for enforcing laws that actually exist.
1996, so 19 years (but who’s counting? I miscounted in my initial post ).
I have never seen nor heard of such a public disturbance. Not to say that they aren’t possible or absolutely haven’t happened, but not one has come to my attention through the media or other means, which is why I said I doubt it.
@GilbertWham, I can sympathise. When the temperature here dips to 10° between June and August, we complain bitterly. Mind you, when the temperature hits 10° in March or April, we are out in shirtsleeves. That’s to say that 10° looks good in March, so bear in mind that there is horrible, and then there is absolutely effin’ horrible, and 2-3 months at - 20 to -30 degrees is the latter.
Ummm, I think you’re missing the point. Although we do indeed have the legal right to bare our breasts in public, the behaviour of the cop demonstrates that we must actually “fight” in order to exercise that right.
Just because there is a law on the books does not mean that everyone enjoys its benefits.
Arguably, the right to bare breasts may seem less important than something like, the right to vote, or the right to refuse an unauthorized search of one’s home… but it is nevertheless a right. And all those women whose pictures were taken off social media because the appearance of their breast was in a picture might ague that it is an important right.
I’ve given this some thought.
What would be wrong with taking your top off for “self-promotion”? Well, it would be deceit, of course. So he thought he had some reason to think these women were deceitful.
So we might think that he thinks women who takes their tops off are of low morals and therefore likely to engage in deceit. We might think that he thinks women are likely to engage in deceit. Both of those would make him sexist, but it’s not very charitable to leap so such negative conclusions.
But he did reference her being a singer as part of his justification. Maybe he just thinks that people who are seeking attention are likely willing to engage in deceit to get it.
And who else is seeking attention? Why, it’s internet forum posters! Else, why would we post.
Since he is an internet forum poster, and it is reasonable to assume that people seeking attention are engaging in a deceitful practice to do so, I think we can safely assume that he doesn’t believe anything he’s said here, but is merely stirring things up to get attention. Having come to this conclusion, I feel much better about the entire discussion.
You forgot your second question mark.
I disagree with this bit. The act of “seeking attention” seems to me to be an individual’s emotional problem (egoism) , in contrast to communication of information as an actual social activity, or any other exercise.
Not that I think this difference has anything to do with people’s rights to not wear shirts!
Well, perhaps I should instead say that it is as safe to assume that an internet forum poster is doing things for attention as it is to assume that a singer is doing things for attention.
You still maintain that assumption without basis. Good for you?
It wasn’t done for your enjoyment, either.
If she were to release pictures for general consumption it is , otherwise you would just being a creepy, gawking perv. More women would probably be fine doing so if so many men weren’t creepy, gawking pervs.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Haha yeah, because ‘safety’. LOL good one.
I’m going to attempt to translate this to thinking-with-penis-speak:
The advice Dan Savage always gives to men who say things like, “I asked my wife about a threesome and she said no / said we could do it but I couldn’t have sex with the third / etc.” is that the only possible way that their wives will ever come around on the issue is if they first believe that their husbands will respect their boundaries. Do not bring it up over and over, do not apply pressure, stick to whatever rules are set. You might get the result you want and you might not, but there is no other way.
By analogy, there are many men who would like to see some topless women around when they walk down the street in the summer. That is okay, it is okay to appreciate how other people look. But no one is going to do it if you are making them feel uncomfortable for doing so.
So STOP making stupid jokes about it (there is just no chance your joke is clever enough to be worth making). STOP talking about how great it would be. STOP gawking on the rare occasion it does happen. STOP suggesting that women who do it must have trait X or trait Y (whether those are positive or negative traits). And STOP being a sexist prick in general. When women actually believe that men aren’t creeps there is a chance that more of them will feel comfortable doing this.
This route also has the advantage that if you pull it off, you actually won’t be a creep.
Seriously, did nobody listen to P!nk?
“I’m not here for your entertainment”
