What exactly are you on about? Who is ‘cowering behind the law’? As far as I can see, that would be the poor terrified riot-cop.
This stuff happens all the time.A friend of mine was arrested 12 hours after a (peaceful) protest, at home, alone with his 5 year old son, because his questions ‘caused upset and distress’ to a local councillor (the question was ‘What do you think of cuts to logal services’, BTW). We recently had a student go through the courts because he called a Tory MP a ‘coward’. This is the exact same thing, and no amount of ‘rules is rules’ posturing changes the fact that the charge is trumped-up bullshit designed to intimidate people who are irritating the powerful. What will happen, is that it will most likely be thrown out of court. after, of course, costing the target of the charge a lot of time, money and stress. It’s using the law to bully & harass your opponents and it’s reprehensible. Logic games and armchair-lawyering about it is beside the point.
Is there a specific term for “Postulating an extreme response to a hypothetically role-reversed thing which didn’t happen and claiming that as justification for the reaction to a thing which did happen?” Something in Latin, maybe.
I don’t know enough Latin pejoratives, unfortunately.
It’s not a game. It’s logic.
As for your friend, it sounds unjust, but that’s not relevant. Come back when he somehow justifiably kissed an MP and was arrested for it.
It is a game, and you’re playing it.
I didn’t make any point for you, you just created a new one 
dje!!! What how could you not,srly.
Well, in the U.S., it’d at least be battery. From a strict common-law perspective, this would have crossed the line from assault into battery when she made contact with his helmet.
(Now that you know the clear rules, I’ll muddy the waters again: (1) there are some states where “assault” is defined the same way “battery” is usually defined, (2) sexual assault definitions vary widely, but in general involve touching rather than apprehension of touching, and (3) media for whatever reason seem not to distinguish between the assault and battery, instead calling pretty much everything “assault” whether contact occurred or not. This is what makes studying for state-specific bar exams such fun!)
Interesting way to put it. From the article:
De Chiffre, however, feels it is the police who overstep the line, and told La Repubblica in November: “I wanted that policeman to remember what happened to Marta from Pisa. Last July, she was beaten, with no consequences for the officers.”So no, it doesn't seem likely the weak would see justice, regardless how the powerful are judged. That's the context for this: that police are generally excused for dealing out serious harm, while so much as a kiss from a protestor can be regarded as assault. That's what makes the latter not some protection we all enjoy, but a cruel punchline.
No, for the same reason the pic below doesn’t show a (non-sexual) assault, even if it might credibly be criminal assault if it were in a different context, with different actors.
Ok. I’m a cop. Have been on the line at protests. This is just silly. Remove her, fine (particularly with the licking touching lips stuff), but an arrest? Really? Someone (not necessarily that specific cop, might not have been his decision) needs to learn about priorities and discretion. I would have just shook my head and had a good story.
Also I have actually had some fairly positive interactions with protestors. We had what could have been “counter-protesters” at TABD, really just a couple of loud mouthed frat boys. They were insinuating that they were on “our side.” I had to explain that we didn’t have a side and were there just as much to preserve the first ammendment rights and safety of the protesters as we were to make sure that the miniscule minority in their ranks that would resort to criminal damage to property or violence were kept in check. Frat boys baffled, protesters amused.
Well, maybe it’s just that Canada takes the cake on this:
- (1) A person commits an assault when
(a) without the consent of another person, he applies force intentionally to that other person, directly or indirectly;
(b) he attempts or threatens, by an act or a gesture, to apply force to another person, if he has, or causes that other person to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; or
(c) while openly wearing or carrying a weapon or an imitation thereof, he accosts or impedes another person or begs.
Still, in that US definition the idea of “offensive” is pretty wide open.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:93, topic:16696”]causes that other person to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose
[/quote]
That’s brilliant!
“Hello, officer? I had a purpose but a bad man could effect it!”
I’ll leave the ‘Special Purpose’ joke to Navin.
Doubtful, very doubtful, if civil statute is anything like common law regarding assault.
I remember sending a fan letter to John Nash, ending with the advice “Don’t play games in the John. But I think you should be able to kiss whomever you like, because there aren’t enough kisses in the world.”
In training for the WTO protests, we had endless discussions about what is and what isn’t violence. I went into that protest pretty confident that I could do violence upon an institution without doing any violence to individuals within that institution. It was an important distinction to me, but there was no wide consensus that I could see on the day of the event.
What was pretty obvious then and now, is that the institution makes no such distinction. Interrupt their business as usual, and you’ll be punished for doing violence to their corporate person. It’s a double standard so deep that it’s easy to miss.
The photograph would have a different impact if the cop inside the riot gear were female, and the kisser had been male. Its propaganda value would have been much less. But the power dynamic on the street- unarmed protester confronting an armed and armored hired gun- that wouldn’t have been world war three, it would have been business as usual.
So if someone doesn’t fight back, it can’t be sexual assault?
Based on the conviction of scientists who did not properly convey the probability of an earthquake, perhaps Franco Maccari should be convicted for not foreseeing the act of kissing and thus failing to properly protect his charges.
Quick edit for typo.
I was going to post that Kent State picture too. While kissing the riot helmet of a cop is arguably “sexual assault” it’s about as much of an assault as sticking a flower in the gun of a National Guard soldier.
