You may question them, but the fact remains that the law allows officials to give such orders in certain circumstances, and courts have held such laws to be constitutional.
There are obviously times when we have a moral obligation to disobey lawful orders. This is not one of those times. Nothing about a 10pm curfew is in any way remotely similar to or even on the road to the holocaust.
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Yes, precisely. Everything about that arrest was wrong. Protesting it is absolutely correct. That doesn’t make this arrest problematic.
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How does a court’s opinion of an old-timey document relate to my actual comment?
Being told you cannot leave your house after a certain time or else you will be arrested is totally antithetical to any definition of freedom. You know… that thing that Americans are always banging on about that supposedly separates the US from all those other places?
The authorities and government are constantly excusing away their bad/unconstitutional behaviour by telling us that if we’re not doing anything wrong then there’s no reason to be afraid and hide. Maybe they should take their own advice if they believe that what they’re doing is not wrong?
The fact that they constantly crank up that fog-of-war machine to defend their own is proof that they’re doing things that are unethical and wrong. Civilian apologists for their behaviour give them an excuse to continue that behaviour.
It looks to you like a “banana republic death squad,”
No, that’s what it looks like because that’s how arrests are made by such groups.
but what distinguishes such squads from the police
Uhhh, he said it’s like a death squad, not police=death squad
is what happens after they seize you, not how they seize you.
Yes. If they’d summarily disappeared this guy then L_Mariachi could say “the police are a death squad”, but since they merely arrested him in the style of a death squad, saying “like some banana republic death squad” is totally accurate.
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Wait, they couldn’t physically see him, so he was “disappeared”!
Also, can I do anything I want as long as I have my hands up? " I was kicking the officer in the shin, but I had my hands up the whole time, so he shouldn’t have arrested ."
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“Lawfulness” is a concept that requires some reference point. Our country has decided that that reference point is the Constitution, as interpreted by the courts. I’m not quite sure how that is irrelevant to your comment that you question the lawfulness of the order. Perfectly reasonable people disagree with what the Constitution says and with how courts have interpreted it, but that doesn’t change the fact that, as of now, the curfew order was lawful.
I wasn’t quibbling with the idea that the arrests were like a banana republic death squad (even if I’m not entirely sure what that means). Assuming that the arrest was indeed like such a squad, I don’t understand how that matters. It’s not the way that a death squad seizes you that makes their actions so horrific.
Why weren’t the camera crews arrested too? Presumably they were also violating the sacred curfew.
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How they seize you?
Doesn’t seem a more than a little tone-deaf on the part of the Baltimore police to arrest that man in that fashion --considering what touched off this protest?
Who’s in charge? We are.
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Yes, it was almost certainly tone deaf. Illegal? No. Kidnap? No.
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“disappeared”!
That word wasn’t used anywhere in the OP. “Disappeared” is a very specific euphemism for being murdered by authorities in custody or sent to prison, never to be heard from again. I wouldn’t characterise the word as weatherman did since you can’t get ‘undisappeared’.
Also, can I do anything I want as long as I have my hands up?
How does one protest a curfew without breaking the curfew? Is protest not a protected human right? Assaulting a cop is an unambiguous crime. Peacefully protesting is an unambiguous human right.
The nonsensical, unconsidered and unashamedly presented opinions on anything to do with race-based protests are testimony to America’s challenge on this matter.
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I would disagree with the idea that he was even arrested in the style of a death squad:
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He was arrested on national TV.
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His lawyer was on TV tonight. Lawyer acknowledged visiting him, and that arrestee stated he was not harmed in any way beyond having been arrested.
If this is what you associate with being “arrested int he style of a death squad” you are doing a SEVERE injustice to the hundreds of thousands if not millions over the past 70 years who have GENUINELY been “arrested” in the “style of a death squad.”
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The Constitution once said that blacks were only three fifths of a person. Sometimes even the highest laws get it wrong.
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You’re right in one sense: the fact that Kent wasn’t summarily executed and dumped in the Chesapeake is good. Well, it should be the expected outcome, but that standard seems increasingly to be setting the bar too high. So, he’s still alive and that’s good.
But you’re wrong in another sense: The form of the thing matters. Looking like a third world dictorship is a problem. Especially when other parts of the state actually do function like a third world dictatorship (see: nepotism, cronism, revolving-door, extraordinarily high death toll by the police, excessive spending on ‘defence’, one law for the powerful and connected but different law for the weak, etc)
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The United States Constitution explicitly provides for ‘the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’" in the First Amendment.
What happens when one constitutionally protected right is impinged upon by a judge’s interpretation of the constitution? Is it better to look at the rules or have someone summarise them for you according to their views?I’ll side with people not power, but you’re free to suck the vagina* of authority of you like.
I’m not quite sure how that is irrelevant to your comment
Because my original comment to you was that having to follow orders is a contradiction of the concept of freedom. Then you’ve taken us down this rabbit hole of constitutionality. The law is not a fixed quantity and is open to interpretation. It certainly seems to me that if the law is based on the constitution, then denying people’s constitutionally protected right to peaceful assembly seems unlawful.
(even if I’m not entirely sure what that means)
So… you’re going to have a multi-comment back-and-forth on a topic without actually even knowing what you’re talking about? Why am I not surprised this ‘discussion’ isn’t going anywhere?
It’s not the way that a death squad seizes you that makes their actions so horrific.
Ah, no. I can tell you’ve literally never talked to a person from a country that has such squads. Obviously extrajudicial killing is a pretty horrific part of their toolkit but the fear and paranoia caused by arresting people in such a way is a major part of how they keep people compliant en masse. If Americans let this creep into your reality as a normal part of policing then the next abuses will be far easier to excuse away.
Look, I’m sorry I’m coming across as a know-it-all asshole. That’s because I am one, but on this subject it’s justified. Don’t allow the powerful to have more power when they already have most of the power.
*just doing my bit to balance this out.
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He didn’t see or hear the humvee? The humvee?
That’s just not a police vehicle. That is a military vehicle, and I guess I understand the local shortage of teachers and public services somewhat more now.
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I just fail to see how the speed, the vehicle involved, or the police being in riot gear makes this seizure worse than any other seizure. Apparently, people think those aspects make this arrest look like a third world dictatorship. I’m not sure why.
He questions the current judicial interpretations, and also the deference given the executive branch re: their conduct during these riots/matters.
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I was being sarcastic about the use of “kidnapped” when someone had been arrested, and the idea that having your hands up somehow protects you from arrest if you’re breaking the law (however illegal you may feel the law is, shock at being arrested seems a bit naive).
Well that’s weird then, your original comment doesn’t use that word. Maybe if you’d use the word in the OP I wouldn’t have jumped on your straw man of a comment?
If you think that First Amendment rights are or should be absolute, I’d think you’re in a very small minority. Throughout our history as a country, we have allowed for limits on the right. There are arguments to be made about where those limits should be drawn, but ultimately we need an operative rule, and we have decided that the courts provide that rule.
Your original comment was that you “question the lawfulness of orders for people who’ve not committed any crime to stay in their house.” If you meant something broader than lawfulness, like a higher concept of freedom, then sure, the Constitution is irrelevant. But accepting your statement at face value, the Constitution and courts’ interpretation of it are directly relevant to the question of whether the orders are “lawful.”
Again, I don’t understand how the method of the arrest creates fear and paranoia. Arresting people for no reason or indiscriminately, or on the basis of manufactured charges is clearly frightening. Extrajudicially killing people is obviously frightening. But how quickly they put you in a humvee is not particularly frightening (assuming you’re not injured in the process), or at least no more frightening than being arrested in the first place.
I agree that powerless need to be empowered, that minorities are routinely and systematically discriminated against, and that those protesting have every justification for protesting. But the argument against the powerful in this case has been overstated. It wasn’t kidnap, it wasn’t illegal.
