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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Second_Titan who wrote (3758)	4/25/2001 8:24:29 AM
From: gamesmistress	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23153

IMO the civility that you speak of is becoming much too rare, and can't be taken for granted, which is why here in NJ, home of Racial Profiling and Driving While Black, videocameras were installed on state troopers' cars to record every incident. Amazing how professionally you behave when you know your every move is recorded. :-/ Plus, any attempt by motorists to claim "abuse" or "harassment" is quickly decided - so far always in the trooper's favor. Apparently, internal controls cannot be depended upon, so we now have external, objective controls. C'est la vie.

To: Second_Titan who wrote (3758)	4/25/2001 8:51:34 AM
From: Think4Yourself	Respond to of 23153

An important thing to remember about police officers is that they deal with the "bottom" 10% of the population on a daily basis. The dumbest, most violent, drunk/drugged dregs of society are their regular contacts. I am amazed that they can keep their attitude as good as it is. Couldn't/wouldn't do it myself. Used to work for a part time officer in South Carolina. The stories he told were unbelievable in that the population simply couldn't be that stupid. One day he told me in advance about a sting operation. I went and watched. Here is what they did: On a deserted stretch of interstate at 11 PM, about a half mile from an exit that pretty much went nowhere, they put up the following temporary sign: Police Drug Checkpoint 1 mile. After the exit the highway went around a blind turn. They set up a roadblock at the bottom of the exit, and put an unmarked car on the other side of the interstate, equipped with a camera. They caught dozens of folks taking the exit, throwing drugs out the window, or turning on the median. I ask you, when have you EVER seen a police checkpoint of any kind on an interstate?

To: Second_Titan who wrote (3758)	4/25/2001 11:15:20 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 23153

Q007 and JQP, I wish that I could share your apparent beliefs that the cops are almost always benevolent keepers of the law and that the complainers are almost always lying and exaggerating. I think you might have had a different experience with a few cops if you were poor, lived in a tough neighborhood, drove an old car, were uneducated, or had some other aspect that indicated that you were not one of societies powerful. The main point that I made, however, was that regardless of whether it is a few bad cops corrupted by power or some bigger minority, the protections of the constitution were mostly to protect the rights of individuals FROM THOSE WHO WEILDED GOVERMENTAL POWER. If you erode those protections then more and stronger abuses will follow; you can count on it. Human nature is such that whenever unfettered power is provided it is ultimately abused. Those who seek power are often the ones you least want to hold it and those who secure power often change for the worst when they hold it. The videotape of the cops in action proves that cops that know they are videotaped are smart enough not to abuse their power on camera. That isn't surprising. My experience is that when no one is watching and they feel they can get away with some things, there is a different attitude among many of them. There have been citizen "sting" operations where the shoe has been on the other foot and the officer did not know he or she was being videotaped and the results were reversed. I've seen this on the TV news magazine programs more than once, and it was enlightening. I have also had personal experience, both in the military and out. When I was younger I was stopped several time by cops who made no effort to be polite and who were aggressively rude. One of my high school friends was a sherriff and he had a major problem in his force when he reported a fellow officer who had beaten up a handcuffed prisoner. The other cops never disputed the truth of his statement but he was shunned for years for turning on a fellow officer, even though that officer had clearly abused his power. Finally, when I was in the army and took a ten day personal extension on my leave before going overseas so I could see my neice born (the army called it awol gg) I turned myself in at the Presidio. It's an army post in the San Francisco Golden Gate park area. I was assigned to the "special processing detachment." Many of the people there were charged with more serious offenses including offenses like rape. The mps had a special processing room where they introcuced you to the place by making you strip naked, get in a front leaning rest position, stay there till your arms couldn't hold you and then when you fell, throw you up against the wall and pound on your body. There were naked guys on benches with their backs turned so they couldn't see what was going on and these mps would slam their batons down on the benches between them and start screaming. While on the bench you could hear punches landing on bare flesh and hear guys crying and begging. I've never seen so many grown men blabbering with snot running out of them. There were about 10 mps in that room and for years I had all of their nametags memorized because I had intended to look them up if they handled me too roughly. One of them took a dislike to me early and screamed "I want him! I want him!" when I didn't show what he considered an appropriate attitude. For some reason he never followed up but he sure did with some of the others. The place was later busted but only because they had unknowingly had the son of a congressman and his buddy in there and the buddy called the congressman while they were beating the congressman's son with a rubber hose. The congressman had some other army people go down there and they caught them in the act. The 10 guys in that room with the clubs enjoyed themselves. They had power, they wanted power and they were sick with it. As a side note, according to the master sergeant that ran the place, I have the distinction of being the only person to have ever been sent there for awol, gone through special processing, gone awol from there and then turned myself in there a second time. He found it so unusual that he actually called me in and talked to me about it. He clearly knew what went on in the special processing basement because that's why he was so surprised that I came back after my 2nd three day awol. When I told him I wasn't worried about going overseas but I was tired of listening to loud music and waiting to go he gave me long look and got me processed out that day. Sometimes you get lucky. I think tha many who have been in the service will attest to what happens to ordinary people when they are given power. It often changes them as they feel the need to exercise that power, often just for the sake of the exercise itself. I guess what I am saying is that my own experiences and my own view of human nature are such that I don't trust those in power to exercise restraint, I don't trust their fellow officers or other governmental employees to monitor and restrain them and I think that the long term effects of eroding the constitutional protections afforded us by the founding fathers, and zealously protected by the federal courts for many years, is wrong. This country has achieved it's freedom for individuals by protecting the weak from the strong, even at the expense of allowing the guilty to go unpunished and unaprehended at times. That's the cost of individual freedom from governmental intrusion and control over all of the rest of us.

To: Second_Titan who wrote (3758)	4/25/2001 10:50:02 PM
From: S Shaw	Respond to of 23153

Quehubo007: Most large police departments have proven that they are unable and unwilling to weed out their own. Case in point was the Blue wall of silence in the NewYork Police Dept. when one of their own put the end of a toilet plunger up a guy's rectum and his fellow cops decided to stonewall it for a while until they realized they might have to swing in the breeze too. In LA, the only reason Rodney King, who admittedly isn't someone I'd want for a next-door neighbor, made the waves he did is because the cops that whacked him didn't realize they were being taped. Judges are afraid of cops since they want to get re-elected and they want the FOP endorsement. And don't even think for a minute that a prosecuting attorney is going to indict a cop since he too wants the same FOP endorsement. Throwdown guns and dope are more prevelent than most of you will ever want to believe. I have personally observed cases where cops ultimately admitted to perjured testimony and nothing was done to them. Until the public is outraged by abuses, they will continue. Sadly, they usually are directed at a segment of the population who have a muted or no voice at all in the grand scheme of things. The most recent US sup.Ct. decision is another result of conservative judges with life tenure. Ever since Nixon's appointees the federal courts have taken a turn to the right that has only been accelerated since Reagan was in the Whitehouse. The war on drugs was an excuse to curb the bill of rights. I laugh when the NRA screams about the right to bear arms is being gutted. Had they gotten all whacked out of shape when the 4th Amendment was being dismantled maybe the powers that be in Washington wouldn't have been so quick to ration the bill of rights. I'll get off of my soapbox but I'll leave you with two thoughts. A) Criminals don't have rights, people do. B) There have been a multitude of sins committed on the alter of justice and done in the name of law and order. ESS