(Since it’s pretty much guaranteed someone will give this response, why not get it over with?)
TIFTFY.
Of course people are going to resist being beaten by law enforcement, especially when they’re not actively committing a crime. Self-defense is a right, not a privilege. If the only crime the law enforcement officers can come up with to press charges is ‘resisting being attacked and beaten for no apparent reason by a gang of criminals who happen to be wearing uniforms’ and they feel the need to make it a felony, that’s pretty grim.
Sure, there are times when criminals resist arrest, and cops absolutely should be able to defend themselves. But does anyone actually know how often that really happens, compared to the charges? Or how often the police did not instigate the violence themselves with excessive force? What is the burden of proof? If that is all unknown and no proof is needed, then both sides can claim that they’re right.
Given that morality and ethics are supposed to be ‘innocent until proven guilty’, it seems overbalanced in an immoral direction already, and making it a felony would just make that worse. Require it to be moral and ethical and it wouldn’t be so bad, could make things better. Unfortunately, as it regards events that occur heat-of-the-moment, that’s unlikely to be realistic.
You do know that lots of people get arrested, brutalized, and sometimes murdered by the police who have literally committed no crime whatsoever? Also, cops arrest people they suspect of committing crimes, they do not decide if someone is guilty, the courts and juries specifically have that privilege of deciding on someone’s guilt. You really need a lesson on how our justice system is meant to work. Arrest =/= guilt. The cops are rigging the system by attempting to make resisting arrest a felony.
Which was my point. You and the other fred are asserting that arrest equals guilt. Not in our system, it does not. If you think that, you’re wrong. If a cop thinks that, they are wrong.
And to @shaddack’s point about the complicated nature of the law?
I do think interrogating the nature of law matters and struggling to change unjust ones matter. For the most part, drug laws have proven deeply unjust. If all you care about is following the letter of the law, you’re an authoritarian. Justice should be the final goal, not rule following.
When my dad was dying of cancer, I sourced him some marijuana as palliative care. Technically I committed a crime. Mom was an accomplice. In your world, should we be arrested, beaten, imprisoned?
Similarly, it can happen that a pharmaceutical that you can not officially get where you live is a harmless way to keep you functional and productive. Is it good or bad to source and use it then, and why?
And the suspects shot by the police for no reason?
I’d appreciate it if you didn’t put words in my mouth, btw.
[ETA] The murder of officers has gone down dramatically since the 1970s:
While it can still be dangerous (and cops should benefit from good pay, benefits, and access to mental health care) it’s far safer now to be a policeman than it was in 1974 and 2000 or so. There are probably many reasons why this is so.
Here are statistics we have for civilians shot by officers:
If we take one representative year, 2014, over 600 people were shot by officers while 126 officers lost their lives in the line of duty. Take that as you will.
But again, BACK TO THE POINT, making resisting arrest a felony is gaming the system.
But I am still technically a criminal. So are many others in my position.
Why not just give them the drugs? The cost of production is negligible. You can get rid of the problem for few bucks a person, and get rid of the violence with ease.
The cost of the drug war is astronomical. You can reduce it by at least an order of magnitude by giving up and handing the stuff out to those who need it. At the same time, doctors will not have problems prescribing painkillers, which will help many others who now have to suffer because of stupid laws.
I fully expected to see fred one having been banned, but no. Maybe they just forgot their password.
I’m done with both Freds, however. Once someone starts using words like “savages” to make their case, I’m right the fuck out, because you can’t debate that sort of thing. [ETA] God speed to @shaddack who soldiers on with this!
I am tangentially involved in some DIY medical electronics and other instrumentation that may be used for lowering healthcare cost.
The prescs can be addressed too; many are fairly simple molecules that a moderately skilled chemist can cook up, but it is of course illegal again.
There was even that case of that retiree arrested for illegal medical practice. His crime? Using his mechanical skills for repairing neighbors’ dentures.
A lot of assistive tech is expensive to get off the official market, but easy to make for a moderately skilled locksmith. Still, as medical devices, it is illegal to Just Do It. If you’re unlucky and need it, you have to find a locksmith who doesn’t care or doesn’t know the law.
Many solutions to the medical cost problems are extralegal. Many ways of helping others, of being “good”, result in you becoming a criminal (and contradicting your “just don’t do the crime” advice).
Shouldn’t be. But too often they are made so.
Watch C-SPAN for a while, you’ll lose the remains of respect to those who make the laws.
Probably because laws are for accountability, not magic marks in books to prevent crime. (That said, felonizing “resisting arrest” sounds like a hideous idea.)
This is all pretty naïve. You can be arrested for following the law becuase the cops were wrong to arrest you. You can be mistakenly arrested. You can be wrongly/mistakenly convicted. You can be wrongly/mistakenly but legally incarcerated or executed.
This happens all the time. And good/lucky experiences with the legal system don’t refute other people’s bad/unlucky experiences. And if we live in a place where injustice prevails under the law, we all share some responsibility for evil done in the name of the law or as a result of it.
Yes. That risk is part of the job. The profession of cop is as safe as it is because people took these concerns seriously enough to make training and certification requirements for being cops.
