Eh, I guess I’m simply wrong in my expectations of how people should behave…
Nothing wrong with being wrong…
“Of course, Officer, I really appreciate you doing your job and keeping the kids safe…”
You are simply wrong. Many people in this thread have tried to show you that. Actually, it seems that what you really don’t want is anyone mentioning to someone in authority how you, in particular, are behaving.
And, yes, you should appreciate the police doing their job and keeping the kids safe. I’ll just ignore your sarcasm there, if you don’t mind.
My original premise, simplified was “It’s unethical to report some crimes directly to the authorities.” If I am simply wrong, then you are stating that “It’s always ethical to report all crimes directly to the authorities”. Maybe that’s true, maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to say, but as a person who had relatives rot in prison for anti-Soviet activities, I take personal offense to that.
Yes, it is ethical to report crimes to the appropriate authorities. For one thing, those authorities are presumably the ones with training to investigate and determine if a crime, in fact, has occurred. They also are the ones presumably with the training to apprehend the individual(s) responsible for said crime.
I don’t see why anyone should care what you take offense to when you now offer up something that happened, apparently, in the USSR to excuse something in the USA.
Please avail yourself of a course in logic.
Left out two things.
Should read:
Should read:
Maybe you should take a course in logic. Suppose, for example, that your municipality passes a law against breathing, drinking water, being Monty, or whatever it is you do at your leisure as crimes punishable by execution. Does it automatically mean that, I, as your neighbor, while potentially engaged in the same activities as you are, can with a clear conscience report you to the authorities? I’d think not.
Laws are rather arbitrary constructs of fallible human beings, as such fellow human beings have equal rights in their evaluation. If you feel that a law is unjust, that the law is just but the punishment excessive, the police force corrupt, or whatever your reasons might be, how can it ethical to support such a law by reporting a crime of breaking it to the authorities? The laws of the land and their execution are the key differences between the living conditions in USSR and USA, North Korea and South Korea, China and Taiwan. In USSR it was illegal to read certain books, in USA it’s illegal to have a beer when y ou’re 19 years old, in Japan you can’t show pubic hair on TV, and in Germany you can’t be a Nazi. Every country has it’s set of draconian laws that somebody will consider incredibly unjust. It is your duty as a citizen of your locale to fight any law you consider unjust through whatever means you have available.
As evidenced by my posts, it’s rather apparent that I already have. As evidenced by your posts, it’s readily apparent that you haven’t.
As my municipality is currently in the Republic of Korea, itself no longer a dictatorship but an actual democracy with constitutional guarantees, such a law would not be passed.
Ah, I see the root of the problem. You assume that those individuals who reported you were engaged in the same behavior that you were. That is not always the case.
Fine, then answer me these questions, if you will.
Do you believe that as a country that is entirely democratic, Korea is incapable of passing a law you disagree with?
Do you believe that a person should still report the crimes if he or she disagrees with the law?
If yes, do you believe that a person should never disagree with their government for the sake of community safety?
I’m sorry, but by the rules of formal logic, your position is a lot harder to prove. I’m stating that some crimes should not be reported directly to the authorities by a third party. If we let A represent crimes that should be reported, and B all crimes on the books, then what I am saying is “Some elements of B are not in A.” To prove my case, I have to find at least one element of B that is not in A. Your counter argument is essentially “All elements of B are in A”, correct? (All crimes should be reported) For you to prove your case you have to find something fundamental inherent in elements of B that make it an element of A. For example, if all laws were infallible. You have not proven your case, whilst I gave you an outrageous (and improbable) hypothetical proof of mine (Breathing made illegal).
Kinda hard on the old tax base, huh? I suppose you’re just being silly here, but on the off-chance you’re serious: when compliance with a law carries the same penalty as successfully-prosecuted disobedience, you can expect widespread disobedience. So? Anybody pass a law against your continued existence lately? Is it on a referendum anywhere? If so, where? Just joking. By introducing the concept of wrongheaded laws inimical to public health and happiness, you’re shifting your ground. Unless copyright infringement, fraud and theft are essential to your survival, you’re essentially chucking your original argument.
You’re shifting ground here too, but it doesn’t matter. If you and your neighbor are busy committing the same crime (and I’m talking about real crimes here, not hypothetical Bizarro-World Sanitation codes that force everyone to eat dirt), I really don’t care if he rats you out or an honest person does, except that I hope he doesn’t escape punishment either. His conscience may be muddy, he may even be reporting you to eliminate the competition so he can break the law more profitably. I don’t care. His reporting you to the cops is a good thing.
So your new argument is that people should oppose evil laws? Well, that makes sense, but you wouldn’t believe the nonsense some guy was arguing here just a little while ago. Evil laws should be opposed by everyone by any ethical means, and just laws should be upheld by everyone by any ethical means. Which means nothing. If there’s an actual law that’s pinching you somewhere, what is it? You’re not getting much sympathy for the oppressive effects of the criminal code with respect to fraud and theft.
The calculus that goes into reporting possible criminal behavior isn’t that complicated. It’s part how-much-do-I-support-this-law, part do-I-know-and-like-or-dislike-this-guy-or-his-victim, part if-I-don’t-report-this-minor-violation-what’s-the-risk-that-they’ll-escalate-to-something-I-do-care-about-later, and part is-there-a-reward. A smart society depends not on perfect ethics for cooperation in law enforcement, but self-interest, which is the best protection against unjust laws.
That was my point all along though, I never changed it. However, some people on this board apparently felt it was inappropriate to ever let ANY crime go unreported. I don’t think I’ve used any absolutes (and if I have, I appologize), and I’ve said “certain activities like copyright infringement” I meant to say “certain cases of copyright infringement”. Not ALL copyright infringement, but some. Not ALL theft, but some. Not ALL scams, but some.
In the original thread, the poster saw a message board where people were supposedly offering copyrighted content for download. Somebody suggested that he report it to the FBI. Now, to me that seemed a little nosy and hypocritical, since a) Offering to download something might or might not be a crime, while letting people download might be, there’s no way to check that you can actually download the content (and the content is what it purports it to be) without downloading and potentially breaking the law yourself. b) The person had no way of knowing if the content was distributed without a license or permission of the copyright holder. Some content is available for free by intent.
Now my personal beliefs is that copyright should be a strictly civil matter. But regardless, if everybody reports every suspicious website to the FBI, that’s OUR tax dollars being spent checking out claims that could or could not be true.
There is also a legal principle that says that if you don’t make an honest attempt to protect your copyright, you can effectively lose it and the content becomes public domain (Sorry, can’t find a cite right now). Now, how can a court make such a determination if the copyright holder is bypassed entirely in the relationship between the government and the infringing party. Some company somewhere might be sitting on a truly great piece of music and not releasing it to the public, and if we just keep arresting anybody who pirates it, it’ll never be in public domain.
I was on your side up to here Monty. IMO police do not have the right to pull you over, and search your car just because it looks like a car that may or may not have committed a crime. This sounds a lot like the ‘driving while black’ syndrome. Police should need more evidence then 'a red honda civic with a muffler tip was here and I think it was a red honda civic with a muffler tip that did <insert crime here>" A car looking like another car is, in my books IANAL, probable cause.
That’s irrelevant to the validity of my assertion.
I’m glad you put that bit in there about it being your opinion. AFAICT, the courts have fairly often agreed that the police do have the right to pull someone over if they match the description of someone who did commit a crime. Another thing is that I did not say the police have the right to search someone who may not have committed a crime. “May or may not” =/= “did”.
No, it does not.
See above comment following the AFAICT abbreviation.
Y’know, I increasingly have come to realize that I once had an amazing experience.
I was walking home at about 1 a.m. when the cops approached me and started asking me a lot of questions. I really wanted to go home and sleep, but I answered completely and honestly, in part because I was getting pretty scared . All they told me was that I matched a description. Then then asked me to walk over to a nearby liquor store with them, which I did. The owner looked at me and said “that ain’t him,” at which point it all made sense and I was free to go.
This all sucked up an hour of my time, very late on a very cold night. And yet, I never once thought that I had just been the victim of The Man. I accepted without any question the rationale that my matching the description of a criminal made it reasonable that the cops should want to sort things out. In fact, I only really felt bad for the owner, who had clearly gotten his hopes up about the cops having a suspect.
My reaction to it was, I have come to understand, quite naive and very unusual. I should instead have become angry at those fascist bastards who oppressed me.
I’m starting to think that the key difference of opinions here is that some, like me, feel that large collectives and communities are something to bear and endure - an unfortunate side effect of overpopulation and urbanization. I feel that most things people term as “fruits of modern society” are actually “fruits of a few individuals here and there” with the majority of society not bearing any fruits at all. People in groups cancel each other out.
Others, however, feel that society has intrinsic merit and is actually a good thing - something to support and strive for. People in groups are greater than the sum of individual parts.
I am afraid I am in a very small minority. I apologize for wasting everyone’s time.
Never said it did, I was just trying to be friendly, oh well, guess that doesn’t work so well.
[QUOTE=Monty]
I’m glad you put that bit in there about it being your opinion. AFAICT, the courts have fairly often agreed that the police do have the right to pull someone over if they match the description of someone who did commit a crime. Another thing is that I did not say the police have the right to search someone who may not have committed a crime. “May or may not” =/= “did”.
[QUOTE=Monty]
The OP, in his experience, did get searched. You said it was because he was not a random person but someone who fit a description. The courts may very well have said ok to pulling over someone who matches a description. That matters little to me or this arguement. I thought the arguement was about what was right, not what was legal. IMO it is not right to pull someone over for matching a rather vague description.
[QUOTE=Monty]
No, it does not.
[QUOTE=Monty]
Well I think it does. I have provided as much proof as you have. Good job both of us.
To me the police have to much power if this pulling over and searching is allowed on the vaguest of descriptions. Not being an american, I am not overly familiar with US laws, however I am Canadian so I know a little.
I don’t like cops at all. I’d stonewall them basically on general principles. Anything to make their jobs harder. Why do I dislike them so much? The very nature of the police make their relationship with the citizenry a hostile one. Their job description consists of arresting people. And the vast majority of their arrests are for “victimless” crimes instead of criminals that actual rob and murder.
Until they change our entire criminal justice system so that they only go after REAL crooks instead of hassling people for small fry crap like smoking marijuana or soliciting a prostitute, I will not cooperate with them unless it involves what I think is an actual crime with an actual victim. This is my way of being Civilly Disobedient. If a cop asks to search the trunk of my car, I say no. If he insists on keeping me there while he calls in a drug dog to try to generate probable cause, go right ahead. I’ll waste his time just like he’s wasting mine. Maybe that hour he spends is an hour where he won’t be hassling anyone else. That’s a good deed in my mind.
Amen! There’s too many people wandering about who can’t seem to develop their own personal sense of what’s right and what’s wrong and rely on society to provide them with rules and regulations on how to live their own life. An approach without merit, if you ask me. I’d rather not live in a world where the only thing stopping a person from killing me for no reason are criminal, civil or religious rules.
I’d argue that, in this case, the victim did report you. A library is a public resource, and the person who reported you was using that resource. If you had been, say, uploading a virus into the libraries computer, it would have made it impossible for that person to make use of that resource. Obviously, the person was a bit of a prat for seeing something other than Hotmail on your screen and immediately thinking, “Hacker!” but under your initial proposal, their actions were entirely appropriate.
This is an even worse example, as you were reported by someone who was unambiguously the victim of a crime: the fast food restaurant whose drivethru was being messed with. They incorrectly identified you as the perpetrator, which is unfortunate for you, but again, by your proposed standards of ethical behavior, they did absolutely nothing wrong.
I agree that there is a wide gulf between “legal” and “moral,” and that blind obediance to all laws is not by itself ethical. But I think your proposed solutions are far too simple to be effective. They are, in their own way, just as black-and-white as the system you are complaining about, and as such, not terribly useful in figuring out how to live morally and ethically.
That makes you prejudiced.
Please let us know when (if it happens) that you get prosecuted for obstructing justice.
As with most prejudices, possibly because of irrationality.
Interesting assertion. I’m under the impression that their relationship with criminals is a hostile one; however, their relationship to the communit at large is one of protection and service.
I hope that you are aware that this is only one part of their job description.
It’s a matter of opinion and debate that those are victimless crimes. Apparently, you are aware of that and thus your use of the quotation marks.
The police have no more or less power to change the laws than you or I do. Please learn who actually issues legislation. Regarding your stance on not cooperating with the police, see my comment above about obstruction of justice.
If the cop already has probable cause, he can search the thing.
It’s also an hour that you kept him from being available to prevent or assist the victim in a robbery or murder–you remember those, don’t you, those real crimes?
A cite with statistics please?
Really? What are your qualifications to evaluate that approach?
What about ethics? ISTR you complaining about ethics. Why should anyone, then, follow your proposed system of ethics when it’s not one they created?