So you invoke a Trascendentalist poet… to insult me by insituating I’m “small-minded”… you suggest I’m “seeking approval” with my statement of what I base my morals on… and you accuse me of blind conformity and slavish behavior.
I am flabbergasted. Petty insults? Honestly?
Entering a home with a warrant is a legal action. It is not “breaking into” anything.
The homeowner who you claim had “done nothing wrong” had in fact aimmed a lethal weapon at the officers legally executing their warrant. If you argue that this was an appropriate action because it was a legal one under castle doctrine, then you must likewise admit that the police executing their warrant was also an appropriate action because it was a legal one.
Moreover, as both parties believed the other to be intent on harming them, both had cause for self defense. If one was in the wrong, the other necessarily was as well. As there is no evidence of malice aforethought on the part of either party, there is no evidence of murder, and as no deaths were caused in the commission of a felony, felony murder does not apply.
OK, let me rephrase the question. When you say people should restrain the police when they endanger people or that people should search police cars, did you mean people should do it all on their lonesome or organized collectively?
Attempting to defend your home right after a break in the new intruders are specifically aware of, exercising no modicum of awareness and using subterfuge. None of these facts withstand the pure logic that death must follow the pointing of a weapon at law enforcement officers even if that’s the sane thing to do and you don’t know who they are.
Oh gosh @Glitch don’t misunderstand me, I agree with your impassioned defence of terminology. Only you have the courage to put yourself out there as protector of the facts. I’m in awe, not disagreeing!
It is our responsibility each as individuals, I think there is an obligation to act. But doing so in organized groups is more effective, if you have the option. People need to use their discretion with the numbers involved. What might work with one or two police might not work against a dozen (which is why I mentioned their radio). Citizens often let themselves feel intimidated but they outnumber police by a large margin.
Personally, I have tended to act alone, due to lack of allies.
I think that the judge who signed the warrant bears a lot of culpability here as well. Basing it on a statement from, not just an admitted felon, but a currentlyhigh admitted felon? Of course, if you thought that the police were untouchable…
Yea, those ideas didn’t really work in Ferguson. When they circle the wagons, the only power that can get through is the lawsuit. Occasionally the media can be shamed into doing their job, but that’s rare any more.
If you had been paying attention, you would understand I think that whether this is murder is a matter of law, and that your belief that the police were doing “something wrong” is an opinion unrelated to the actual nature of events and their legality.
How so?
The headline of this article refers to murder. I pointed out that these events do not constitute murder.
You then proceeded to try to compare this story to a hypothetical break-in of a home by a private citizen. I pointed out that this imagined scenario was not comparable, in that the police did not break into a home - they were legally empowered to enter it.
You said you’d “be surprised to discover that the Keystones can forcibly enter any house whenever they want, and have no culpability for anything that happens”, which is completely unrelated to anything I had said up to that point. The police can forcibly enter any house when they have a warrant, and they are culpable for their actions, but shooting an individual who has a weapon leveled at them still does not warrant murder - it is manslaughter at best.
You then said “They killed someone doing something they never should have been doing”, and I replied that this was merely your opinion, and that the police were not doing something they “never should have been doing”, at least in legal terms, as they were empowered to execute their warrant and to defend themselves from the threat of lethal force they encountered.
I mentioned “felony murder” in response to almost identical argumentation delivered by a separate poster, and I introduced the topic into our particular sub-discussion because it is the only case I can think of in which the officers executing their warrant could be said to have committed any form of murder given what we know of these events.
I suggest you re-examine your understanding of what “moving goalposts” means. I was doing the exact opposite - I was proposing a possible explanation that would favor your argumentation, in direct opposition to my own position, and explaining why it didn’t apply in this situation.
The headline of this article refers to murder. I pointed out that these events do not constitute murder.[/quote]
The headline talks about murder, everyone else is talking about murder, but YOU are talking about a very specific, very personal definition of murder which coincidentally this case doesn’t meet.
You then proceeded to try to compare this story to a hypothetical break-in of a home by a private citizen
No, I specifically did not compare it to a ‘private citizen’. I said ‘a member of the public.’ Which the police are. They are also members of the police, and as such are granted extra powers, but with that comes extra responisibilities … like not murdering innocent people.
they were empowered to execute their warrant …
… a warrant which should never have been issued and which should not have been executed. Which, funnily enough is what I said. There are plenty of fuckups to go round here, we don’t have to limit ourselves to pointing the finger at just the one cretin.
I was proposing a possible explanation that would favor your argumentation, in direct opposition to my own position, and explaining why it didn’t apply in this situation.
I don’t consider myself a vigilante. My perspective is that government is not a position of privilege, but rather one of service. Most accountability is fundamentally that government report to citizens to tell them what they can and cannot do. Whatever authority they think they have, comes from the individuals who put them there. This is a very hands-on approach, and requires some degree of vigilance from everyone. Obviously, if people trust them, they will get taken advantage of. I do not expect accountability to go both ways - that would be naive. But I do demand that it do so, because this is what we have to do. We need to be aware, able and willing to discharge responsibilities and follow up on results.
Assuming that they should have any sort of autonomy or agenda of their own would be disastrous.
Ok, that makes you sound comparatively reasonable. Now, what’s with the stories about personally disarming police officers? Or exhorting others to restrain the police? That sounds like a prescription for suicide by cop.
When you say “didn’t work”, do you mean that they didn’t work for anybody? Or that they just didn’t work for some people? Mobbing against The Man is no excuse for poor tactics, I read about this sort of thing happening at demonstrations all of the time. If adversaries can communicate and surround you, your tactics are lacking. Getting in somebody’s face and shouting righteous indignation is just soapboxing. If police tactics work for them, some version of them can work for you.
Media shaming, as in broadcast media? Is there any reason why they still exist? How about your own media? Streaming media is so cheap and easy now there’s no excuse. Why wait for entrenched powers to put their same old sleazy spin on things?
The police have resources that ordinary citizens do not – to hold the police with all their power and reach to the same standard as a homeowner who thinks his house is being robbed – AGAIN – is insane.
