One could easily argue that enforcing drug laws is enforcing morality, since those drug laws don’t seem to be based on much else.
I have to agree with you on this one, Necros. The best way to deal with the law isn’t to avoid it, but rather to change it.
OTOH, some discretion must be used. For example, jay-walking must be illegal, for obvious reasons. However, if I wanna cross the street and there aren’t any cars coming, I’m not gonna walk to city hall, get the law changed, then walk back just so I can cross the damn street. I’d much rather jay-walk. And it’s up to a cop whether or not he tickets me for it. Obviously, since the fact that I jay-walked didn’t make a difference to anybody, the cop should’ve let it slide. Obviously, since that club wasn’t hurting anyone, the cops should’ve let it slide. See what I mean?
If you don’t like a law, don’t break it, change it.
The only exception I can think of is the extreme–slavery, racial crime, etc. This is not the case.
Note: no profanity or other insults were unnecessary in making my point. You may now return to banging your heads against each other.
Ruffian, thank you for repeating my point. And at the same time, completely missing it yourself.
You’re welcome.
But Ruffian, the insults are the best part!
Here’s a scary attitude:
Let’s see, where have we heard this before? The Nuremburg trials, perhaps?
Just “doing my job” is the lamest, weakest, morally unfit statement I have ever heard. Sheesh!
Drain Bead,
OK ok. I will be much more careful in the future to make it clear that I am assuming something when I am. I thought the fact that I said I did not have a book or knowledge of North Carolina law was enough.
Usually I am very careful to say, “In Florida…” or “Here…” or " I can only speak for Florida, but…"
So I will say I was wrong to assure anything like that. Even though we still do not even know if I was wrong about it. I was wrong anyway in the fact that I should have said, “assumed”
That was a totally immature response. You have drawn a direct comparison between arresting and fining people for public lewdness and the extermination of millions of people. And do you honestly think that the punishment of those you defend amounted to much more than a hundred-dollar fine and time served?
Are you people who want the police to enforce laws selectively, using their own judgement, and let me emphasize, THEIR judgement, not yours, prepared for what would come of that? Or do you want the police to enforce only those laws that YOU like? HAH! I laugh derisively at your naiveté.
By enforcing the laws, preferably not arbitrarily, written by democratically elected officials they are doing their jobs. By preventing total anarchy they are helping keep this a reasonably nice place to live.
And do you think politicians would pander to the public’s prejudices if it did not get them elected? If you want the laws changed you get like-minded people to vote and work to change the hearts and minds of enough people who started out disagreeing with you. That was where those of us fighting the war in Vietnam succeeded. The anarchists just closed people’s minds and made our job all the harder, as well as causing unnecessary deaths as the war dragged on.
This is why I assume the most rabid anarchists on this board are teenagers. I was through all this thirty years ago, over more important issues than strippers and blowjobs.
Changing the law is an option – locally – unless one has a city counsel which listens patiently to the people, then does what the hell ever they have already decided to do, like ours. Voting them out is not an option because the majority of the voters here are old and voted them into office in the first place – time and time again. Both the Chief of Police and High Sheriff’s offices are political appointees – sort of. (Our sheriff got his position by first opening a doughnut store and then spending the first 3 years schmoozing his way around town by donating free doughnuts to city hall, the major political offices, charitable organizations and banks. Cool, huh? Our high sheriff was a doughnut maker!)
The ‘moral minority’ steps in each time someone tries to shut down the laws governing topless bars, porn stores or even regular bars. (No new bar has opened in this city in almost 10 years.) ‘Grandfather’ laws don’t work either i.e.: if you are a bar already established and a church is built within 100 yards of you, you get closed down. It doesn’t matter that you were there first. No bar may be built within 100 yards of a church. Of course, churches are popping up around here like popcorn.
Most political people seem to get cowed by the religious right and promptly stomp on the fun stuff that might show a bit of tit.
So what if your “democratically elected officials” made it “ilegal” for a black man to be out on the street after 7 PM? Is it OK if the police arrest him?
… if it [the law] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law.
Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”
It looks like there are two ideas going on here:
-
The police are idiots for wasting time arresting consenting adults for doing something that didn’t really hurt anyone.
-
The law against the displayed behavior is ridiculous and ought to be abolished.
When I first read the OP, I understood it to be related to Point #1, not Point #2.
To that end, I am saying that it doesn’t matter where in public the acts took place. If you don’t like Wal-Mart as an example because there is no age restriction for entry, then how about an R-rated movie. No one under 17 admitted without parent or guardian, right? (Granted, 17 is not 21.)
Anyone who goes to an R-rated movie knows that it is likely they will likely see a movie with violence and/or a realistic representation of sex on the screen. Does this mean they should also reasonably expect to see two live people having or simulating sex on the stage beforehand?
How about a comedy club? Probably I’d have to be 21 to enter. Should I reasonably expect to see live sex acts, or realistic representations thereof, just because I am going to a club at which I must be at least 21 to get into?
My point is just that the club in question was allowing and encouraging behavior that is illegal in that location. They got caught. I don’t see how that is a waste of the police force’s time. I also think that this behavior SHOULD be illegal in that particular location, since I do not think I should reasonably expect to see live sex (or realistic representations of it) when I go out to a dance club.
As for the last sentence quoted above, I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. What, only boys get to argue? Or should we women, with our lil’ ol’ brains, stick to fluff topics that are too sweet for men to bother with?
FreakFreely said:
I see what you mean, but I don’t agree with it. I think that in our society, people tend to treat minor law infractions like jaywalking as something that is irrelevant. But that doesn’t mean it is. I can understand that you feel the need to disregard it, and you’re free to do so if you’re willing to get a jaywalking ticket (and sometimes you might). But that doesn’t make it, in a strict legalistic sense, right.
FarTreker said:
So, which is it, Far? Are you the minority or the majority? If the majority of of voters want to do something, and your response is to note vote or sit around grumbling to yourself about it, then they’ll win. You can’t always expect other people to solve your problems for you. I know it’s shocking, but sometimes you might have to get involved yourself.
matt_mcl added some pithy quote. Which was nice, except I don’t, and many people don’t, follow HDThoreau as a great lawgiver. So WTF did your quote have to do with anything? Does anyone care?
If you favor direct action against the government, that’s fine. I think anarchists are a respectable political ideal. But just make sure that if you follow that road, remember what dropzone said:
I have several friends who are cops. Believe me, you do NOT want them deciding what is good for you. You’ll lose most of your rights.
This is precisely the sort of thing that I am talking about. When I was young laws like that were still on the books, were enforced, and were accepted by much of the white community. People who disagreed with the law worked toward changing the voting majority’s (white folks–blacks weren’t often allowed to vote, either) attitude. Where necessary, the mind of the national majority was changed and the federal government forced local jurisdictions to change their laws.
I quoted it because I thought it was interesting and thought-provoking, not because I regard its author as a definitive authority on any particular subject.
I’m interested to know, if I had just repeated what he had said without the bibliographical cite, would you have responded in this way?
[brief hijack] I’d just like to say, with great embarrassment, that FreakFreely caught me actually doing one of my greatest board pet peeves–repeating what others said. I must confess I didn’t see his post until after I posted mine. The sarcasm we batted back and forth was fun, though. 
My apologies to yah FF…now, back to the show…
[/brief hijack]
Dropzone,
Of course I agree with you about working within the system to change people’s minds/hearts and the the law. But what happens in the meanwhile? After all, the civil rights struggle has been going on for more than thirty years. Are you really saying that as long as Jim Crow laws were on the books, cops were right to enforce them?
While the original issue of strawberries and blow jobs may not be worth fighting for, it the the attitude of another poster I had a problem with. “Just doing my job” or “Just following orders” is a very weak excuse to me. And Matt’s Thoreau quote was germane to the discussion.
Yes, they were “right” to enforce Jim Crow laws, within their narrow job description. If they disagreed with the law they should have refused publicly to enforce it, telling all who would listen why they had taken that action. That is the basis of non-violent protest. The defendants at Nuremburg had no case, not because they did their jobs but because they did not NOT do their jobs. They should have protested because they knew what they were doing was wrong.
But any comparison between enforcing an insane dictum of a dictator (there were no extermination laws passed–the Nazi apologists have that much right) and enforcing laws that were passed by elected officials trivializes the former.
But like Necros said, you REALLY don’t want most of the cops I know to have any more discretion in which laws they enforce than they have already. It’s not called a “police state” because the Ladies’ Knitting Circle is running things. They will harass people they don’t like, make big shows of arresting people the vocal majority of the public doesn’t like, and skip doing anything that is hard work or dangerous, like breaking up smuggling rings. Does that sound familiar, like what this whole thread is about?
matt_mcl said:
Well, I wouldn’t have criticized you for using another person’s words to make your point. It would have been a bit facile to post a one-liner argument like that, but I would have at least given you credit for making your own point.
milroyj, you can’t expect cops to peer into their crystal balls and determine what might or might not be socially acceptable in the future. What if one hundred years from now, people finally realize that free speech is a bad thing? They will probably mock us as being backward and stupid, but does that mean we should have cops rebelling against the laws now?
Cops enforce laws. It is not up to them to decide whether they are “right” or not. It’s just like a soldier. When the revolution comes, and the US Army is guarding your family against rape and pillage, you don’t want the soldier guarding you to be wavering about his committment to you. You want him to do his damn job. And you don’t want cops making value judgments about you in order to protect you, either. You don’t want them to allow you to be murdered because they didn’t approve of how much you had to drink at the bar last night.