I’m not attempting to assassinate your character and I wasn’t trying to be snide. (I did wonder if the post would come across that way.) You said the cops treat everybody like potential criminals and I thought your background was relevant because you might’ve come across them that way or it might just explain how you feel about it.
Subject to the rule du jour on what insults may be applied to other posters, you certainly may do so when addressing him as a poster.
And anyway, after rereading Marley’s post, how was that character assassination? You did use to be a burglar.
Thanks Frank. It’s also true that I wasn’t posting as a moderator and don’t moderate this part of the site. If I made that post in a cat photo thread, ivan astikov, you’d have a point, but it’s something you said about yourself and it’s related to the thread topic.
Edit: Resuming the topic, SmashTheState, I think Left Hand of Dorkness has it right. I’ve known my share of socialists, including one of my brothers, and you’ve got the same attitude I see from them. People are taking potshots at you, but your hostility prevents you from convincing others and you end up preaching to the choir only.
Thanks for the explanation. You can ignore my half-hearted insult above, now.
I see your point, but the fact is, I’ve now been keeping out of trouble for a year longer than my criminal career lasted, but living ‘on the fringes’ as I do, I’d still say my experience exceeds that of the average poster. And it’s not just me they have had this attitude with; I’ve heard it from the white sheep of our family, my non-criminal friends and associates, complete strangers, and see it every week on COPS and the like.
I admit I may just be looking at them through crime-tinted glasses, but when honest citizens are treated like dirt-bags until the police have ascertained otherwise, I begin to doubt if it is just me.
Oh, and decent cops shouldn’t be getting offended by my generalisations; they should be looking around at their colleagues and rooting out the fuckers giving them such a bad name.
As should those ghetto Negros that give their race a bad name, what with their crime-ridden lives and all.
Right?
Nonsense.
Just save SmoochTheState for me.
Since when are vandals, such as SmashTheState, honest citizens? Last I heard, vandalism was an offense.
Okay, you want honest questions, here’s one. What the heck is this? I think I have part of it figured out, but I’m really not sure about the last part.
And the next honest question (or two):
If the panhandlers are part of the union, do they pay dues?
And maybe this would be better in a separate thread. Want to start one?
Under Kanadian law, there are several exceptions where breaking the law is actually quite legal. One example is necessity. If one can prove to the court that one broke the law out of necessity to protect someone else’s life or liberty, then one can be found not guilty; for example, even though breaking down someone’s door when their house is on fire is break and enter, one can use the “necessity” defence in court. Likewise, there is what’s called “colour of right.”
Colour of right is quite popular with activists, for obvious reasons. What it means is that even though the Charter does not specifically state that such an activity is protected, it’s clear from the context and intention that it is intended to. So, for example, in my case, the Ontario Charter makes discrimination on the basis of source of income for housing an offence. The pedestrian underpass was used as shelter and protection from the elements by homeless people. We have a large sheaf of supporting affidavits from social work professionals that, while the bridge is not ideal, in the absence of resources for housing these people, it is necessary for their protection in the vicious winters we have in Ottawa. We can therefore argue colour of right on two grounds: (1) that fencing off the area is a violation of the Ontario charter, since it discriminates specifically against people whose income is from social assistance or disability payments; and (2) that it is endangering people’s lives to deliberately deny them shelter from the cold and snow and rain, thereby violating their Kanadian Charter right to safety and security of the person.
In order to make a “necessity” argument in court, one must first show that everything legal was done first before resorting to illegal means. As I have indicated repeatedly, we filed a lawsuit, did dozens and dozens of radio and television interviews, talking to city council, argued with police, took petitions, and in fact warned the city openly through the media that we would be forced into taking illegal action in order to save people’s lives.
Probably no one of these justifications is a “magic bullet,” but taken together the Crown probably felt that there was enough to make for a long and complicated trial in which we had everything to gain and nothing to lose.
We do indeed. The IWW is a real (and much storied) union, 105 years old this year. The Wobblies have a tradition of organizing the unorganized; during the Great Depression, the Wobs organized the men in work camps to fight for better conditions and, at one time, nearly every hobo riding the rails held a Wobbly red card. If you tried to hop a train and didn’t have your red card, the hobos would pitch you right back off.
Fortunately, because the IWW is a member-run union with only a single paid worker, dues are extremely reasonable; sub-minimum dues for people experiencing financial hardship (such as panhandlers) are $5 a month.
I don’t even want to imagine the ridicule and mocking if I started a thread specifically for discussion of the OPU.
Ah yes–the EF!ers used this justification too. It has the major advantage of dovetailing nicely with what activists wish were true.
Have you ever stopped to review activist court cases to find out how often it succeeds as a defense?
I have.
The answer is: pretty fucking close to never.
I’m all for a decentralized power structure in theory. My growing up didn’t consist of deciding authoritarianism was good. It consisted of realizing that wishes ain’t horses. I think you’d benefit from growing up, yourself.
I’m not stupid. However, to quote the IRA, “We only have to get lucky once; they have to get lucky every time.”
If “growing up” means watching people freeze to death because a bunch of yuppies would prefer not to see poor people and then just shrugging my shoulders, then I hope I remain a child forever. You can keep your “maturity.”
ESADIAF?
I’m gonna guess, “eat shit and die in a fire”… BTW, isn’t that last part frowned upon by THE MAN a.k.a TPTB a.k.a the Trans-global ModCon?
Call what you like, but you certainly don’t get to decide how I view the world. That decision is entirely my own. Besides, assuming that I am even jaded against the world, there’s no reason to automatically assume it’s because I was a police officer. I could well have been jaded before then.
The vast majority of cops I know do not view each member of the public as a criminal. Indeed, they’re usually busy dealing with actual criminals, the status of the average person doesn’t register because said people aren’t even a blip on the RaDAR.
Usually, one need do something to attract the attention of the police; they aren’t that bored to go out to find you for no reason and just wait for you to break some law.
I can’t help but notice that someone on the SDMB has an entirely different perspective on the place in question, and Mr Smasher of States has glossed over this post with nary a refutation.
Why bother? apollonia is promulgating the same bullshit and class prejudice that I’ve been hearing for hears from the rest of the civil servants and suburban soccer moms. Sorry if the sight of poor people makes you frightened, but that’s your problem, not ours. If you want to exist without seeing poor people, go live in Disneyworld. We make no apologies for our existence.
And yet you’ve not noticed that you haven’t yet gotten lucky once, nor has anyone in the long history of this sort of smug self-involved activism.
Luck has nothing to do with it. It’s not like you’re going to one day find the judge who thinks, “You know what? That ridiculous flimsy excuse for a legal argument is TEH AWESEOM! Case dismissed, and smash the state!” That judge doesn’t exist. You will fail every single time EVER that you try this strategy.
You apparently think that not getting charged for failing to cut the lock on an underpass constitutes a success in the effort to keep people from freezing to death. Growing up means setting aside such illusions, and figuring out things to do that actually make the world a better place.
Which is what I’ve done: I’ve found something I can do with my life that’s much less glamorous than getting arrested for a failed Quixotic “direct action”, but that actually makes lives better.
I think it’s too late for you; you’ll probably die smug. But maybe some of the teenagers your ilk influences will wise up.
If it’s a heavily travelled underpass, not well lit, has homeless people aggressively panhandling and openly using drugs, isn’t that kind of a recipe for a more serious crime to occur?