Got it. And I made that known back on the third page.
Sam
Doesn’t it stand to reason that if I find someone to be a complete asshole on a message board, I would most likely find them to be an asshole off the boards?
It’s a pretty simple assumption to make.
Zenster, that’s crap. It doesn’t matter what King did before the tape started. What matters is that the cops continued to beat on him after he was subdued. In the trial, the defense pointed to such ridiculous things as a slight movement of his leg that were supposed to show he was still resisting. The guy was prone on the ground. You seriously believe that all those big, bad cops couldn’t get the cuffs on him at that point without beating the tar out of him? Yeah, King’s a bad guy and he did some bad things. Guess what? Their job is to arrest him, not punish him. Any attempt to justify the beating based on what King did before is vigilantism.
Quite possibly, but when you extrapolate that to the statement that EVERYONE, including family and friends on the boards, must find him an asshole, too, is what gets me annoyed. Simple respect for his wife, son, and his sister ought to preclude smart-ass comments about Airman’s family life.
Should read first, not third.
And yes Worldeater, it’s a good assumption. Apparently Airman is nothing like this in person, although I only have 2 character references at this point…
Sam
Actually, no.
Argumentum ad hominem is the fallacy of dismissing a person’s arguments simply because you dislike the person, or believe their character to be bad, rather than because the argument itself is poor or illogical.
By contrast, my position (and GaWd’s, i think), was to make an assertion about Airman’s character based on the content of his argument. This is the precise inverse of an ad hominem argument. It is also representative of the way many reasonable people make character assessments, i.e. look at what a person says and believes, and make a judgment accordingly.
Of course, whether a person’s opinions on one particular issue(such as this one) should suffice to make a blanket judgment about that person’s character is another question. Usually, we weigh all of our specific observations together in order to arrive at an overall impression. However, we also give different issues different weight. For example, while i disagree with the death penalty, another person’s position on that issue is not sufficient for me to make a blanket judgment about their character. OTOH, if someone believes that women who wear short skirts and get drunk deserve “whatever they get,” then i would find that sufficient to make a negative assessment of the person’s overall character. This is an imperfect and subjective system, but it’s one that nearly everyone uses, in one way or another.
Zenster
Your Totse article was very interesting. Thanks for sharing it.
I’ll go with the facts in evidence. As in:
[sup]BOLDING ADDED[/sup]
I do not argue that excessive force was used, I just wonder how much of it King brought upon himself by his belligerence and resistance. Had the officers continued their assault upon King subsequent to cuffing him, punitive damages would have been in order. NO PUNITIVE AWARD WAS MADE. I think the jury made the right decision.
Libertarian, thank you. I found the TOTSE article to remarkably even handed in its assessment of how and why things went as they did.
You probably already knew this, but I meant that I had only seen the video in its entirety.
Attitudes like mine (I think he deserved what he got) are not nearly as rare.
And I expect we disagree on who is more responsible for the fucked-upedness of the world - the criminals like King, or the police who have to arrest them.
The police are condemned because they can’t stop on a dime when using justified force. The criminals are excused, when they don’t even try.
Regards,
Shodan
Irrelevant. The only thing that’s relevant is whether it was necessary to continue to beat on him in order to subdue him. They weren’t even trying to handcuff him; they were just whacking away with their clubs while he lay face down on the ground.
What, is it OK to beat the shit out of a suspect as long as you don’t handcuff him? Who the fuck do you think makes the decision when to handcuff the suspect? (Or in this case, the decision to keep wailing away on him before even trying to handcuff him.)
Well if the officers did nothing wrong, then King shouldn’t have been awarded anything. Since he got 3.8 million, what does that tell you, Mr. They-made-the-right-decision?
Would you guys please stop with the little self-congratulatory circle jerk just because you found a blog that you like? You’re making me puke.
No, I didn’t know that was what you meant.
Yes, that was what I was saying. I get weary of people saying “he deserved what he got”. What he “deserved” was to be tried for the crimes he committed. NOBODY deserves to be punished by vigilante cops in the street. The policeman’s job is to use only as much force as is necessary to get the guy into custody, no more, no less. It is NOT their job to judge what the guy “deserves” and carry out sentencing on their own.
“Police” in general aren’t the problem. I think the majority of them are just doing a difficult job. A few bad ones are fucking things up for everyone.
Stop on a dime!!! Dude, they didn’t stop on a FOOTBALL FIELD. And they were hardly condemned; they virtually got off scott-free.
What in the blue fuck are you talking about? We have one of the highest incarceration rates in the entire civilized world. If you want to bitch about criminals getting off easy, start with those cops.
First off, if you bothered to read the article, it was pretty clear that the jury found the officers did not use excessive force but that their training and proceedures provided ample opportunity for it to be applied. This wasn’t a matter of “just following orders,” it was a case of officers not being given the correct methods and tools to subdue their suspect. IT’S WHY THE JURY FOUND THE CITY AT FAULT.
Second, take your smarmy “Mr. They-made-the-right-decision” shit and ram it straight up your ass.
While you’re bent over, ram this up your ass too.
Shodan said it very well. Criminals voluntarily engage in predation upon the public. They can avoid coming into contact with the law by not doing so. Police have no choice in the matter and must interpose themselves between society and the most mindless and pathological elements it contains. Try going on a ride-along program sometime, Blowero. It might open your eyes as to the shit officers have to go through on a daily basis.
That is unmitigated horseshit. Your stupid-ass blog website notwithstanding, I’m sure the city told them, “Hey guys, just keep whacking the guy (who’s already laying on the ground) with the club til he can’t move anymore.”:rolleyes:
Shodan has never said anything well. But I see you are welcoming him into your circle-jerk. Have fun with that.
Here’s my final word on the subject.
I said exactly what I meant. I think the cops should have gotten off, and I think Rodney King was totally, absolutely, and completely at fault for the whole thing. I then posted why I thought that.
You are free to disagree with me, as most of you have. You are free to condemn me, as most of you have. I won’t say that I’m real happy about that, but that’s the way it goes sometimes when you say things that aren’t particularly popular.
There is one thing that is completely unacceptable, though. That is the disparagement of my family. Do I insult your families? Am I not a big enough target? Leave my wife and son out of this. My opinions are every bit my own, so direct your vitriol where it belongs.
Whatever you say on the SDMB, as far as I am concerned, stays right here. My archenemy here, Reeder, is almost certainly a nice guy, no matter what he portrays himself as here. I bear him no ill will, but I will call bullshit when he says something I don’t agree with. That’s the deal. Gobear and I are very far apart on things like gay marriage and the like, yet we have it out here and then we have a beer and talk.
If you choose to condemn me because you disagree with me, that’s your prerogative. But I’m telling you, that is a gross misjudgment on your behalf. You have no idea what someone is like in person until you meet them.
So that’s it. I have nothing else to say. I reported the news, I gave my opinion, I supported it, and if you don’t like it, well, sorry. So be it.
Dave
Like shooting people 41 times, sodomizing them with plunger handles, smashing their heads into car hoods, or just a good 'ol fashion 4 cops vs one guy on the ground shit kicking.
99% are good in my book, but the bad ones can be bad.
You conservatives love trotting out that old shibboleth, don’t you.
That’s right, folks. Everyone who opposes police brutality is also a supporter of criminal behavior.
What some of the dopier Dopers don’t seem to realize is that the following two opinions:
-
Rodney King is a criminal and an asshole
-
There is no excuse for excessive use of force by police.
do not represent mutually exclusive positions.
And in case you don’t get it, this applies on a general level as well. I am full of admiration for cops who really see themselves as peace officers and who do their best in a difficult job. And i have little time for wife-beaters, drug-dealers, murderers and all the other assholes who make police work such a strain. My father is a retired cop.
But the difficulty of police work does not excuse brutality. If you can’t cope, don’t do the work. Good cops agree with this just as much as we evil leftists and liberals do.
I think yosemitebabe nailed it.
And I also think you guys should lay off Airman Doors. Yeah, he’s got a temper, but he’s also a pretty nice guy.
As for King-yeah, that beating from the police was wrong. The officers involved were wrong.
BUT…that does not make King the good guy. He’s an ass. He beat his wife. Shitheads beat their wives. Good guys don’t.
No. But you are one of two in this thread and I figured AD had gotten enough abuse already. I simply cannot see why anyone would want something done to a human being that you would not want done to a cat.
Which is why I say “hypocritical”. You would go ballistic if anyone did to a cat what you want done to Rodney King.
What the hell are those two comments supposed to mean? I don’t get it. Are you trying to insinuate that I’m as much of a hypocrite as you?
What, that some people think vigilante justice or extrajudicial punishment justice is A OK? Loud and clear. And neither have any place in my idea of a civilized society.
Well, Mhendo, I owe you a qualified apology. Dave is a great guy (despite his gruff demeanor he is just about the most stand-up guy you could meet), I can no longer defend his post as being merely facetious. I did not think he was being truly serious in endorsing police brutality. Now that he has clarified his position, I have to disavow any support of his initial post. Mhendo was right; I was wrong.
But Gawd is still wrong to have brought Airman’s family into the discussion.
I disagree with Airman on many things, but he is my friend and that trumps any other issues as far as I am concerned.
He’s probably psycho in person too, and they just say he’s nice because they are afraid of him!!!