# What were you THINKING? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 357
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7511 "2026-07-09T13:06:36Z")
> [@mjmartin](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > Correct. It was dark out, all I could see was a vague silhouette of a figure in the car, and trust me, the colour that their skin might have been was not something that had even remotely occurred to me. > > Wolfpup, I apologize. I assumed you were a racist, because you behaved in exactly the way racists frequently do. It instead appears you are simply a craven, terrified of everyday, mundane situations. Then I, in turn, must apologize for characterizing you as a race-baiting shit-disturbing asshole just spoiling for a fight. It appears that you may just be an ordinary shit-disturbing asshole just spoiling for a fight. (Not really, though. It was pretty damn obvious right from the start that your shit-disturbing was all about race, without evidence.) I would also point out that neither of the situations I described were in any way “everyday, mundane situations”. Which is precisely why police responded. And finally, I would point out that the use of the word “craven” as a noun is outdated and archaic, but since you seem to enjoy using it in your sanctimonious holier-than-thou strictures, let’s go with it. Here are a few examples of the millions of signs appearing in the last 25 years or so exhorting your fellow citizens to be cravens … [![](https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/styles/webp_original_size/public/2025-08/25_0829_seesay_ssd-page-hero-1280x480.png.webp?itok=Fc2188zU) ](https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/styles/webp_original_size/public/2025-08/25_0829_seesay_ssd-page-hero-1280x480.png.webp?itok=Fc2188zU) [![](https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/mc/_external/2012_03/23089055d114a9923431b32461a714fa.jpg) ](https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/mc/_external/2012_03/23089055d114a9923431b32461a714fa.jpg) [![](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61KPTpUrghL.jpg) ](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61KPTpUrghL.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7512 "2026-07-09T13:12:55Z")
Waaaait…a surveillance state, _encouraging_ people to help them with the surveillance? _Inconceivable!_ Not speaking to the wisdom of these campaigns, just that quoting their slogans isn’t a flex. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7513 "2026-07-09T13:14:11Z")
Here, I think your avatar is on point. Did you feel like a good boy when the police patted you on the head for informing on another law-abiding citizen? ---
**Author:** ![mjmartin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mjmartin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmartin)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7514 "2026-07-09T13:16:25Z")
I can’t imagine living life with such fear of nondangerous, non illegal, situations as you apparently do. The fact that you would use posters from the Department of Homeland Security, one of the biggest infringers of civil liberties in human history, to justify your terror, is quite something. How on earth do you make it through a day in modern society without panic attacks from all the scary, “suspicious” things out there? ---
**Author:** ![mjmartin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mjmartin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmartin)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7515 "2026-07-09T13:17:33Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Does that make you correct in asserting that white people are automatically exempt from the tendency of some nervous-nellies to call the cops on unfamiliar parkers? No. Racism is not the only factor in such behavior. You may very well be right. I had assumed most people that behave that way are racist pieces of shit. Wolfpup has very clearly shown me that some of them are just scared shitless pieces of shit. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7516 "2026-07-09T13:30:04Z")
> [@mjmartin](#): > > shitless pieces of shit Well now _that’s_ a bit of a contradiction. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7517 "2026-07-09T13:31:52Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Did you feel like a good boy when the police patted you on the head for informing on another law-abiding citizen? What makes me feel good is living in a safe community that is pretty much entirely free of crime, and in this sorry world I’m happy to do what I can to contribute to that. > [@mjmartin](#): > > I can’t imagine living life with such fear of nondangerous, non illegal, situations as you apparently do. The fact that you would use posters from the Department of Homeland Security, one of the biggest infringers of civil liberties in human history, to justify your terror, is quite something. Vigilance is not the same as fear. As for Homeland Security, the abuses they’ve perpetrated – especially with the current hateful and racist regime – are all due to top-down policies. It’s not driven by citizen tips, although the tragedy of this hateful regime is that it empowers racists. But none of this has anything whatsoever to do with the situations I described in Canada. ---
**Author:** ![mjmartin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mjmartin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmartin)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7518 "2026-07-09T13:32:51Z")
Fair. Time for me to drop out. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7519 "2026-07-09T14:06:10Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > It’s not driven by citizen tips, Actually, quite a lot of official harassment _is_ driven by citizen tips. I’m too lazy to dredge up cites, but I’ve read an awful lot is news articles where the answer to “why is this random, law-abiding immigrant being harassed?” turns out to be "one of his racist neighbors called ICE/the police/etc. because he was “suspicious”. Often because his food smelled funny or his clothing looked funny. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7520 "2026-07-09T14:24:02Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > It’s not driven by citizen tips, > > Actually, quite a lot of official harassment _is_ driven by citizen tips. I’m too lazy to dredge up cites, but I’ve read an awful lot is news articles where the answer to “why is this random, law-abiding immigrant being harassed?” turns out to be "one of his racist neighbors called ICE/the police/etc. because he was “suspicious”. Often because his food smelled funny or his clothing looked funny.   Did you miss this part of my post: > [@wolfpup](#): > > the tragedy of this hateful regime is that it empowers racists America was once welcoming to immigrants. Today this criminal regime seeks to deport brown people under any pretext, and would like to do it even if they were native-born, contrary to the Constitution. Of course this empowers racists to come out from under the rocks beneath which they dwell, but that’s not the motive force. Policies imposed from the top down are. It’s the same thing that empowers CPB to turn away brown people trying to enter the US, and doing so with no apparent reason. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7521 "2026-07-09T15:07:41Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > How am I being naive. By engaging with that poster. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7522 "2026-07-09T15:40:09Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > By engaging with that poster. Touche ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7523 "2026-07-09T15:46:51Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > the tragedy of this hateful regime is that it empowers racists If we acknowledge that policing methodology is suboptimal because of heavy handed use of violence, racist policies, poor training in de-escalation, it makes the choice to call the police over non-violent, potentially non-criminal activity equally suboptimal. The police want you to say something if you see something, because it gives them cause to accost and search someone they perceive as sketchy. I had an ADA tell me straight up that they wanted cannabis to be illegal because its scent alone would let cops search people and find actual bad things like illegal guns. When we call the cops on someone, we are placing that person’s safety in the hands of the police, which is fine if the police see them as someone to protect, but much less fine if they see the person as someone to protect themselves from. And we don’t know which it will be when we make that call. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7524 "2026-07-09T15:53:54Z")
> [@mjmartin](#): > > I had assumed most people that behave that way are racist pieces of shit. […] some of them are just scared shitless pieces of shit. Well, and some of them are just rather cluelessly trying to help and/or check up on somebody who might be in trouble, but they feel that local LE are the appropriate “official” channel to do the reaching out. Illustrative example: I have also had the cops called on me once while I was **standing at a bus stop**. That time, it was because a disheveled-looking elderly woman with dementia had [eloped](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/7746) (Word of the Day ™) from her care situation in the neighborhood, and apparently I fit the profile. 😉 The cops were embarrassed about the mistake, although I certainly didn’t give them a hard time about it (hey, however many years down the road that very well **might** be me), and were clearly not thrilled to be tasked with going around asking random women outdoors if they’re an eloped dementia patient. But a lot of people nowadays do seem to think of local cops as basically neighborhood nannies: they’re expected to take the place of all interpersonal interactions between strangers. If you need to communicate with a stranger in your vicinity for any reason, whether or not you’re feeling personally frightened of them, you send the cops to do it. (That’s an exaggeration, natch, but more true than we might like to think.) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7525 "2026-07-09T16:03:00Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > If we acknowledge that policing methodology is suboptimal because of heavy handed use of violence, racist policies, poor training in de-escalation, it makes the choice to call the police over non-violent, potentially non-criminal activity equally suboptimal. If the former assumption is true, then yes, your conclusion is also true. Which leads to an escalation of increased criminality, less citizen engagement, and more police abuses, especially if police training and disciplinary standards are substandard. I choose not to live in such a place, and I resent being judged as if I do. > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > When we call the cops on someone, we are placing that person’s safety in the hands of the police, which is fine if the police see them as someone to protect, but much less fine if they see the person as someone to protect themselves from. And we don’t know which it will be when we make that call. I’m pretty confident that I do know, with a high level of certainty. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7526 "2026-07-09T16:09:01Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I choose not to live in such a place, and I resent being judged as if I do. You think because Canada’s policing problems are not as severe as the US, therefore there are no problems. You are delusional. Your unexamined white privilege is not only showing, it is hollering at us from the rooftops. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7527 "2026-07-09T16:21:42Z")
Canada as a whole has lots of problems. I’m talking about my specific community, and the police force therein. But I see that **mjmartin** has succeeded in his quest to cause trouble and strife, and has now apparently fucked off in gleeful satisfaction. ---
**Author:** ![mjmartin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mjmartin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmartin)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7528 "2026-07-09T16:32:39Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > But I see that **mjmartin** has succeeded in his quest to cause trouble and strife, and has now apparently fucked off in gleeful satisfaction. Yeah, it was me that made you write something that ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7529 "2026-07-09T16:43:08Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Canada as a whole has lots of problems. I’m talking about my specific community, and the police force therein. America as a whole has lots of problems. I’m talking about my specific community, and the police force therein. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7530 "2026-07-09T16:52:59Z")
I’m late to this conversation, but I will say it amazes me. @wolfpup is being unfairly maligned, for reasons already expressed. Plus, like @Kimstu , I have also been the target of suspicion by neighbors, and I’m a slight, white woman in her 60s who just happened to be taking a walk in the dark by myself in an area where that behavior was unusual. So I can assure everyone, there are places in the world where concern over unexpected behavior does not equal automatic racism. I wonder how much of the hysteria being expressed over the idea of calling the police is related to the sense of physical security that goes hand-in-hand with being male. As a woman, I’d worry that an unfamiliar vehicle/person that suddenly started parking in the same spot every night near me might be a stalker - not necessarily stalking me, but perhaps another woman in my neighborhood. That’s the kind of fear that women live with even in safe neighborhoods. Of course I’d check it out without calling the police if I could, but that might not always be a safe and available option. Grafting **wolfpup’s** situation onto my own, I could call the police and not worry they were going to go nuts and shoot someone, because that’s not how they behave here. In fact, I have had substantial interaction with the cops, having created and managed a “community and the police” project for East Hawai’i a few years ago. Our cops don’t just police the community, they ARE the community.\* If I lived in a different milieu, where police were potentially trigger-happy, and/or there was reason to consider that a down-on-their-luck individual had no place to go but where they were, I would alter my behavior accordingly to put compassion and common sense ahead of irrational fear. But not EVERY instance of calling the cops means that the caller is a racist POS. Good grief. \*[cite](https://ehcc.org/content/community-and-policing), though I don’t suggest anyone read it, much less all the accompanying links that flesh it out. There’s a ton of material there and I doubt it would be of interest to anyone not part of Hawai’i. It’s just there to provide evidence that I did indeed develop in-depth understanding of our local police-community environment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=356) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=358)