# Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942 "2014-10-10T07:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 122
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2421 "2015-05-02T23:38:03Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > You seem to be rather fond of proclaiming that you don’t know and can’t know things. Yes. This is a good thing – you should try it, rather than knee-jerk to the assumption that the cops are correct in every situation. Maybe they are, but you couldn’t possibly know that at this point, and assertions that you do just make you sound foolish. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2422 "2015-05-02T23:40:29Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The fact that you compare the people protecting us from the Freddie Grays of the world to common criminals is baffling. The people “protecting us” in the Freddie Gray case are charged with, among other things, an illegal arrest. I see no particular reason to assume that police are somehow magically invulnerable to prosecution when they commit a crime. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2423 "2015-05-02T23:44:55Z")
The Thin Blue Line…between civilization and people selling loosies. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2424 "2015-05-02T23:47:47Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > The two groups are synonymous, as illustrated by this classic example of how even the most cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs wacko bird can occasionally stumble upon a valid insight\*: > > > [@](#): > > > > “Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… We’re after power and we mean it… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.” > > \*So, remember, there’s hope even for you! If you discount the meth-fueled rantings about Objectivism, a lot of what Rand said makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2425 "2015-05-02T23:48:50Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The fact that you compare the people protecting us from the Freddie Grays of the world to common criminals is baffling. Oddly, the only folks who broke any laws in that situation were the police. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2426 "2015-05-03T00:16:18Z")
You can’t even prove you exist, how the heck are you going to prove _that_! ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2427 "2015-05-03T01:29:08Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You can’t even prove you exist, how the heck are you going to prove _that_! Nothing really exists, if you average it out. ---
**Author:** ![bashere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bashere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bashere)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2428 "2015-05-03T02:00:05Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > As do I. Mine tells me that order and peace imposed from above by the consent of all Yes. Sort of. The will of the people is expressed by their elected representatives (the whole “from above thing” was argued about, and you’re side lost badly). There are lots of rules about this, that have been imposed from above. One of them is that you don’t get to randomly shoot people who run from cops. Do you get that? > [@](#): > > are better Better for whom? You? Not really, but lets go for that. So, my people (I’m not black, or jewish, by the way, so this isn’t currently happening) are being beaten. It’s better for you, because order. So, to make it stop, I put a knife in your eye. Now, is it still better? As you’re dying, will you think “well, at least the survivors will have a better life than if we talked about the problems”? Then I have to choice but to knife you, as long as you believe that. I must, then make it much worse for you than it is for me. So, in a real way, the rioters didn’t light the fires. You did. > [@](#): > > than people causing mass violence and destruction whenever they don’t get their way. Mine tells me that I don’t get to ignore the laws society has agreed on simply because I don’t like them. But it’s been explained to you over and over again that we have rules. We don’t get to shoot people, even bad people, who walk outside the lines of the cross walk. We don’t get to let people who ran away from the police die in the back of a cargo van. We do not let police be judge, jury, and executioner. We the people have decided this. It has been handed down to you from the people above you. It is the the law. You have repeatedly misstated the law. You have repeatedly made a mockery of it. You have insisted, while those above you have not, that the law allows police to injure in anyway they wish those who disrespect them or run from them. You are wrong, which is fine. You are, however, lying, which is not fine. The law does not allow the things you have asserted it does. It punished those. I get the sense you are very small and cowardly (which is fine) and don’t know anything about things like physical altercations. There is a point at which one side has “won” the fight; the other is not able to put up a fight. For instance, when one side is shackled. Now, in the land of the small and cowardly, one can keep hitting then. The fucker deserved it for being big (and let’s be honest, black). In the land of the not-small\* and not cowardly, we don’t do that. We, in fact, have rules about that. Lots and lots of them. You seem to be oblivious to all of them. Which is fine. Your chicken hawking is pretty fucking chickenshit, so no one would _really_ care, but you’re one of those little critters\* who, having no experience, will make more and more draconian laws about those big scary (black) folks. Which will lead, through a series of events being played out in Baltimore, to a knife through your eye. Vengeance begets vengeance, and so we made a whole bunch of laws to stop that vengeance, mainly by making the state (via the court system, not law enforcement) do it in a controlled, open, just and deliberate manner. When in the course of human events that doesn’t happen, things go bad and billions in property damage occurs, and brave (and quite a few simply unlucky) men and women die so that you can be a cowardly little chickenshit who doesn’t understand the law, its purpose, or how it works. > [@](#): > > Mine tells me that those who think they can do whatever they want deserve whatever they get. > Mine tells me that we’re all better off in a world with more Darren Wilsons and fewer Michael Browns. Yours is wrong, then. The rest of ours tells use that the deserve what society (you know, that people above you thing you mention?) have decreed as just. We do not live in a world of cross outside the lines, die (if black). Well, we do, but that’s not what we agreed on. You may wish it to be so, but we took a vote, and you lost. Darren Wilson was fired for failing to understand that. The DA who prosecuted him broke his oaths to keep Wilson out of jail. And you, my chickenshit acquaintance, need to learn how the law works. - My apologies to the small. I mean, small of spirit. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2429 "2015-05-03T02:19:53Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Alright, so what’s _your_ reason for supporting petty criminals over the people? Petty criminals are the people too, numbskull. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2430 "2015-05-03T03:12:59Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > At this point, it should be obvious to anyone with the slightest iota of a self preservation instinct that not treating the police with the same respect one would a mama grizzly is not going to end well for you. To an extent you are right… and that situation is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Hypothetical: we get very clear video of a day in the life of a particular cop. He stops 10 cars for speeding. The first 9 are black drivers who are calm and respectful, and he gives them tickets. The last is another black driver, same general age/appearance/demeanor as the first 9. But when the cop asks him to roll down his window, he mutters “fucking honky cops”. The cop then beats him savagely and arrests him on trumped up charges. Now, clearly the guy took actions which he could have avoided which contributed to his beating. And some liberals in this thread might be tempted to use hyperbolic language and claim that the cop was so racist that he would beat up black people for literally no reason whatsoever, which was clearly disproved by the fact that the cop did NOT beat the first 9 black drivers. So in your opinion, who was at fault? Who was responsible for what happened? ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2431 "2015-05-03T03:26:56Z")
From the bits of his posting history I have been regrettably exposed to, I pretty much assumed that **Smapti** was something like fourteen years old, probably the spoiled kid of a good old-fashioned northwest white supremacist family. Nothing else could explain the simplistic cocksure worldview, the self-righteous attention-seeking through bad behavior, the self-assured ignorance, and the smug superiority complex that invariably happens when a teenager suddenly realizes that whenever he offends someone, it’s just more proof that he’s the smartest person in the world. (All this combined with a young, hormone-addled brain’s complete inability to detect when it’s making a fool of itself.) Then I noticed that **Smapti** joined the boards in 2002. So, I have no idea what his excuse is. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2432 "2015-05-03T03:29:39Z")
I apologize for skimming. I saw there was a new page in this thread, clicked, and soon stopped reading in disgust. Unbelievably disgusting views are in evidence. > [@Smapti](#): > > … that police officers be lynched for giving criminals what they deserve. The egregious acts we’ve been seeing against blacks, many guilty only of old age or homelessness, are “giving criminals what they deserve”? (And FYI “lynching” is what whites did to blacks; I’ve read of no moves to lynch cops.) You need counseling, **Smapti**. But **Smapti** is not the only dunce in the thread. > [@Steophan](#): > > Pro-crime is a stretch, but there’s definitely an anti-law enforcement view here, with people taking the position that it should be made more difficult for the police to do their job, because too many criminals who resist arrest or attack the police are getting hurt. For “criminals” read “blacks (_all_ of whom Steophan claims are criminals)”, for “resist arrest” read “reach into car to get document the cop asked for” or “play with a toy”, and for “getting hurt” read “shot dead.” BTW, you’ll be forever known here as the Doper who thinks unconscious racism is impossible. We see a lot of ignorance here at SDMB, but yours may win the top prize. ---
**Author:** ![Crazy\_Canuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazy_canuck/32/5282_2.png) [@Crazy\_Canuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazy_Canuck)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2433 "2015-05-03T03:57:46Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > In short, pretty much everyone is at heart a lying scumbag who will do what they can get away with, and we need the police and government to stop people getting away with stuff. My cite - the whole of human history. The problem is that the police are also humans, who by your own words, are lying scumbags who will do what they can get away with. Given what they can get away with, why do you trust them? I sure as hell don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2434 "2015-05-03T04:45:06Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The people who start riots and destroy property to demand that police officers be lynched for **giving criminals what they deserve**. Bolding mine That’s not the job of the police. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2435 "2015-05-03T07:55:54Z")
> [@Stealth\_Potato](#): > > So, I have no idea what his excuse is. [Broken and cannot be fixed.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17877437&postcount=936) ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2436 "2015-05-03T12:47:41Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > [Broken and cannot be fixed.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17877437&postcount=936) He was raised in isolation with only a wire and wood model of a rhesus monkey to nurture him. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2437 "2015-05-03T13:06:57Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > He was raised in isolation with only a wire and wood model of a rhesus monkey to nurture him. Did you know they figured out how to fix those monkeys? No, you don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2438 "2015-05-03T14:27:32Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Did you know they figured out how to fix those monkeys? > > No, you don’t know. But he is not one of those monkeys, he was just raised by one. The damage is done. It is not clear whether any kind of remedial action can be effective. You might be able to fix the monkey, its victim is a whole 'nother question entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2439 "2015-05-03T15:25:12Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > For “criminals” read “blacks (_all_ of whom Steophan claims are criminals)” Well that should win a prize for selective quoting… My point was that almost all people commit at least some crimes, and I asked **iiandyiiii** why he though black people were the exception to that. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/2440 "2015-05-03T15:27:15Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Did you know they figured out how to fix those monkeys? > > No, you don’t know. My guess is they Shocked the Monkey. Cue cool 80’s rock bass rift. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=121) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=123)