Hell's Handmaiden has dipped into the reality stream and come up with a net full of three-legged tadpoles...
Honestly, it is the first round of freshman, mostly, college papers I’ve seen in years. The subject is relativism. ...
Of the papers I’ve seen so far easily one in ten contains assertions in support of ethical relativism. Some of them contain quite strong assertions in favor of it. What is even more bizarre is that most of these defenders of relativism defend individual relativism, not cultural, and most tow the same basic line– that we can’t decide who is right or wrong so we just act how we feel like and, effectively, settle things by force.
Gee, I wonder where they got that idea. The news, perhaps?
I'd love to quote some of these papers but that would be wrong. I’m not even going to identify the school or the class title or the section number… or even the damned state. But ya know what? If I did quote from these papers, these damned relativists would be telling me that I shouldn’t have done so– telling me that my decision was wrong.!
Arghhh…..
I’d love to walk into that class and tell them that I’d posted every single paper online, complete with sarcasm, ridicule and whatever other snark I can manage. It isn’t that I’d actually like to do it. I’d just like to tell them that I’d done it and then listen to the whines of “that’s just not right” and “that’s wrong, man” and “you violated this or that principle or something”. Then I’d explain that if in fact they are relativists– individual relativists– as they argued in their papers then I am justified in posting their papers online. I am justified for no other reason than simply that I felt like it was the right thing to do.
I think I can put my thumb on the issue here. And while I can blame them for being purblind idiots for falling into this particular ethical trap, it's not like there wasn't a path beaten for them by many people, presumably older and wiser, who clearly chose not to know better.
The issue is not so much the idea that "right and wrong" are relative to the individual, the culture and the situation. All of these things are quite correct, and if you don't pay attention to whether or not the situation alters cases, you can easily end up doing the worst possible thing for all the "right" reasons. So the importance of the concept itself cannot be sufficiently stressed. The problem is that there still is a right and a wrong, a good and a bad, a useful and useless that in all but a few (and pretty darned obvious) cases that is external to any individual metric of good and bad.
You must always consider the consequences of your actions in regard to others, because if those consequences affect others in a negative or harmful way, they will surely hold you to account, if they can. Nor does obscuring the connection between you and the consequence of your action serve to make unethical actions ethical. It merely means you are putting an ethical debt onto your line of Karmic Credit, so to speak.
Or if you prefer, you are tempting Murphy.
There are few better expressions of individualistic moral relativism than the Wiccan Rede; "An it harm none, do as ye will."
That's the trick, of course, and that's the nub of this fallacy; it's not a question of "relativism," it's the manifestly and clinically stupid idea that one has the inherent right to do anything one desires... and get away with it!
One problem in our nation is that Democrats and other Liberals are still acting as if the current situation in the United States were a political issue, one that arose due to politics and one that can be addressed in that manner. I'm afraid Glenn believes that as well. It's not. It's about cheats, liars and outright traitors in office and in positions of influence who are willing to do and say anything to achieve their ends.
This attitude - supposedly expressed by Newt Gingrich, as told to Bill Clinton as "But if we didn't cheat, we couldn't win" is cancerous. If you have to cheat to win, you don't deserve it and you aren't qualified to have it. All around us we see the results of what happens when cheaters lie and steal their way into power. Aside from the ethics, aside from the illegalities, aside from whatever possibly treasonous and certainly contemptible alliances with offshore oil interests there may be - they have no qualifications other than a lifetime spent lying, cheating and stealing.
These qualities are fit only for ruling a fantasy-land of self-delusion. they not apply well to real situations with real concerns. For instance, while you can lie yourself into a war, you cannot cheat your way to a victorious resolution. You can say "we are winning' every day, but the truth will speak louder than you. You can assert that "things are getting better in New Orleans", but a quick email to anyone there will put the lie to it.
Republicans - and by this I specifically include most of all their basement dwelling, Pajamas Media funded cheerleaders - are like the barking dog chasing the car. We now see what happens when the fool dog catches it.
The whole point to relativistic moral visions is to minimize blowback more than legalistic approaches can, not to pretend that it does not exist and cannot occur to you!
Of course, if one discounts the importance of consequence that do not happen personally, dramatically and immediately, it's possible to evolve an ethic - such as realpolitik - which will lead to short term advantage at the price of long term, indirect consequences.
Situational ethics (a distinctly Christian expression of Consequentialism, which is in itself an evolution of Utilitarianism) is used by many persons who's basic ethos comes from Sunday School to determine whether or not a particular moral truism actually does apply in this particular case; I and other ethical thinkers observe that it's not a replacement for those truisms.
Truisms are truisms because they are mostly true, most of the time.
All of these various ethical philosophies state that it is the outcome of an action that matters, rather than the choice of a particular action, or the inherent virtue or lack in the person. I would argue further that consequences - the observable outcome of a particular choice - is all that we have to objectively determine how "good" or "bad" a particular set of assumptions and choices were.*
If you wish a Christian summation of that - there is the parable of the fig tree, which is as succinct a summation of this principle as can be imagined. According to the parable, it matters not at all whether the fig tree is beautiful or ugly - if it's fruit is bitter and useless, it should be cut down, because it's wasting both space, cultivation efforts and nutrients to produce nothing of value.
Christ Himself was arguably a Utilitarian ethicist.
However - and this is a rather LARGE "however" - Situational ethics, moral relativism, however you wish to refer the idea, and whatever particular flavor you prefer - work only when you apply them to the truism like the fine-tuning knob on an old TV.
The idea is to ensure that the basic principle is applied with accuracy to the situation - not to arbitrarily decide that a small difference amounts to a total distinction.
The basis for a legalistic approach to morality and ethics is as follows, that a rigid application of The Law will tend to produce more beautiful trees with sweeter fruit, on the whole, if the assumptions made by those who set the law in place were accurate.
Therefore, it's important to regularly examine and critique the assumptions made by those who set The Law in place, and to compare their predictions of outcome to actual, provable outcome.
EG: No Child Left Behind, the Patriot Act, etc. Clearly, the stated intents of a law do not always play out in practice, even given the assumption that the authority imposing the law was truthful in stating their intent.
Now, having said that, it should also be said that if you don't understand the intent of a moral or legal diktat, you probably should not try to futz about with it. But I've never had much patience with folks who blindly follow rules simply because they are posted on a wall. ANYone could have put them there, for whatever reason, not excluding the possibility of a practical joke.
So I've always felt it important to examine rules, laws, morals and ethical standards to see what the intended outcome is. This will reveal many cases where the intent is good, but the rule is stupid, or that the rule or law was created for malicious, bigoted or dishonest reasons, and such rules should only be followed as written if Massa is watching. :P
Any general guide to proper behavior has an obvious problem; first, that it's a general guide, and there will be some exceptional cases where applying the guide as if it were an inarguable rule will result in more harm than taking a different, possibly "immoral" course of action. That reality is often used as a reason to toss out all moral truisms as invalid - but that simply leaves one without anywhere to even start an ethical analysis or behave in a way that predictably results in "golden rule" standards of behavior.
Morals - valid, well tested, culturally appropriate morals - are ideally the best first approximation and hopefully the best reflexive choice, and the obvious the starting point to evaluating the best course of action whenever you have time to think about a choice in depth.
Simply stated, a "moral code" is a set of ethical equations that have been generalized within a cultural matrix over a wide assortment of individual cases over a span of time, so that in general one does not have to deeply consider every single choice of action.
But such a moral code must provably result in better outcomes than some other set of morals or competitive ethos. And when such a code even arguably, much less provably results in worse outcomes than none, from any reasonable standpoint, that "moral code" is unethical, and practicing it for oneself is immoral, much less attempting to impose it upon others as a cultural and legal standard. ------- *I reject any moral or ethical equasion that has a scope greater than that of a particular person that depends on supposed, faith-based consequences, such as "you'll go to hell" or "Eris hates personal organizers."
Choose that for yourself, if you must, if you think an arbitrary and unprovable consequence is more important than provable and direct consequences - but do not expect others to forgive or forget actions you take based on such unprovable assumptions.
I just sent this off to the publicity people for a new film, opening in theaters now, as they say.
I don't usually do film reviews on graphictruth.com, and I am not wanting to be on your list of "usual suspects," though I'm interested in UNusual films.
The hook for me was that my state senator and majority leader, Harry Reid, handed off a copy to John Kerry - who watched it and sent out a notice to his entire mailing list.
Graphictruth.com is pretty much about what it sounds like, and it sounds like this is a very graphic truth indeed.
For me, the fact that the ball started rolling on this in 2003 is to me the most interesting part of this story. It takes that long for the consequences of some acts to materialize, sometimes even longer.
This seems to be all about unintended, unimagined and unimaginable consequences.
I really, really do not want to see this film. I expect it will give me nightmares.
I can count the number of times I've done something like this on my thumbs. And I'm doing it knowing that it is going to have a certain message, it is going to portray a certain reality that will be unpalatable to those who think that the War in Iraq and the War on Terror are inseparable.But in fact, when you go to war - every time, and for whatever reason, you must pay the Butcher's Bill - and the horrifying truth is that each and every soldier who faces combat is affected forever. This paragraph comes from John Kerry's letter.
The former top operating officer at the Pentagon, a Marine Lieutenant General, once said of Iraq that "the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions--or bury the results."
I've never seriously considered myself to be anti-war. It strikes me rather like being anti-hurricane.
It really doesn't matter to the hurricane whether you are philosophically opposed to it's existence or not. One can prepare for it, one can avoid being in it or choose to endure it, one must respond to it intelligently and clean up the mess so that life can return to normal. These are common sense observations, and wars come upon us for many reasons, many of which are no more under our control than the weather.
I am pro-peace - and to me, the best way to ensure peace and the best way to return to a state of peace subsequent to war is to have a very efficient and powerful response to aggression, and as realistic an appreciation as possible as to the costs of war upon the people asked to fight it and those who must stay at home. Above all, don't stupidly create conditions that may provoke a war.
There is a huge, indefinable, but real price that must be paid over the generations for every act of war, for ever war that starts due to foolishness, misadventure, miscalculation, aggression, need, greed, the hunger for power or the desire for "living room."
Thousands of years ago, Sun Tsu considered all these things in his "Art of War," a book George W. Bush has clearly never read, or at least comprehended. Source: Shonshi.com; Links indicated with question marks lead to related discussion threads:
If one gains victory in battle and is successful in attacks, but does not exploit those achievements, it is disastrous.
Those angry will be happy again, and those wrathful will be cheerful again, but a destroyed nation cannot exist again, the dead cannot be brought back to life. ?
Therefore, the enlightened ruler is prudent, the good general is cautious.
This is the Way of securing the nation, and preserving the army. ?
And I could not resist adding this further citation from the very first page:
Before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will win, because many calculations were made;
before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will not win, because few calculations were made; ?
Many calculations, victory, few calculations, no victory, then how much less so when no calculations?
By means of these, I can observe them, beholding victory or defeat! ?
This post started as a response to a comment on a now notorious YouTube video by one akfuzz.
Here's the video again.
Here's what he said:
Obviously you have never been in this type of situation. Perhaps you could go out and do the job since you seem to know what the deal is. When you get stabbed or, or worse, shot, by an irrational handcuffed suspect, write back and let us know what you think, eh? BTW, I was not defending this officer, merely stating that given the limited video, 'tis hard to say what really happened.
Ok, that sounds almost reasonable, until you actually think about it.
There are two minutes and thirteen seconds of sadistic pornography captured on that tape - and as a cop, in a live situation, you are expected to assess threats, probable perps, instigators and victims in under 15 seconds, with any more time being a distinct luxury.
But with good training, that's easily possible, and that's a good thing, because you can get all sorts of dead in 15 seconds. So I KNOW who the perp is. And I really don't care that the victim was "acting out."
Here's what SHE said about it:
In the video, Gill, once inside the police car, kicks the back-seat window and continues to scream. "At this point, I had been Tased for so long and just drug around by my handcuffs. I was terrified of this man. He was no longer a police officer to me."
I suggest to you that that was not compliant mindset the officer was supposedly intending.
And if you ever find yourself in this situation, I assure you that a jury will find that amount of video more than enough time to assess whether sober compliance or panicked flailing is "more reasonable" to expect of a drunken woman already - by her own admission and according to the testimony of others- already in an aroused emotional state.
Earlier, akfuzz had uttered this deadpan confirmation of observations and criticisms I'd made earlier about cops, tasers and contempt of those currently in power for the rights and dignity of the citizenry.
And, the Taser is used to gain compliance, nothing more. A suspect who continues to resist will be Taser'd again, handcuffed or not, male or female...It is not a gender bias thing, I have seen both men and women do horrible things while handcuffed. Nobody can say what they would have done unless they were in the same situation, not even other police officers such as myself. It would not be fair.
It is very hard to Monday morning QB something like this. I could see where folks would be upset seeing this limited video footage, however, not knowing all the details makes it wrong to judge either the officer or the suspect. I am sure the internal investigation will reveal what really happened, and it's not right to bow to political pressure or the media, such as it appears in this case.
Yes, fuzzynuts, we HAVE seen how tasers are used to "gain compliance, nothing more." Even when it's a compliance that's a flat out violation of constitutional rights or completely unreasonable to expect, due to the obvious mental state of the person being tasered.
And in both cases, there's reasonable evidence to suggest from the raw video that there's a component of sadistic enjoyment in using the taser to inflict pain and enforce compliance.
Now, sir, my standards tell me that a person doing that without a badge has no right to expect restraint on my part to end their offense against the decent expectations of civilized persons. How do you then excuse those who do the exact same thing under color of law? Have you no shame? Have you no professional standards? Aren't you personally embarrassed by the mere existence of such walking trouser stains?
The raw footage from an officer's dash camera - a device intended to prevent the impasse of "he said, she said" situations in court is not "media pressure." It's presenting evidence of a situation that is of concern to the community.
In the real world where knowing truth from fiction is important, outside of the realm of Fox news, facts are facts, and evidence trumps protests of supposed innocence.
Note, when I say "evidence," I mean precisely that, in an exact legal sense. Whatever motivations or training deficits turn up, we don't need to wait to find out what "really happened." The why of it may be of interest, but what we saw IS exactly what happened. What we saw was a repeated assault against a person who was no threat to the officer.
What we do not know is what caused the situation to escalate to that point out of range of the camera - but it would be unwise to assume that testimony from either the cop, the club or the bartender mentioned in the dispute will be without any trace or shade of self-excusing selective interpretation. Besides, we know another thing.
ALL assaults against a person are, in fact, intended to "gain compliance, nothing more."
The blunt truth is, if you have to immediately resort to force to gain compliance, it doesn't show a lot of confidence in your own ability to control a situation, or much respect for the willingness of the average citizen to comply with reasonable, lawful directions in a tense situation.
Perhaps this is because their contempt for your understanding of "lawful order" is well earned? Perhaps it's due to the fact that, having a central nervous system capable of pointing and firing a Taser, you also have some doubts about the solidity of citizen support for your authority that the actual existence of the Taser implies - a means of enforcing compliance that any semi-trained thug can use in situations where a citizen's rightful response would otherwise be amused or enraged contempt at best?
You see, when you pull a weapon to enforce your will, you admit your powerlessness to affect the situation without it. You have abandoned any pretence of moral or lawful authority. You directly state - simply by carrying the damn thing - that you are no longer willing to depend on citizens being willing to comply because they respect you as a symbol of the rule of law and order. You expect them to comply out of fear.
But you pull the trigger, even on a "less lethal" weapon, you have just publicly admitted that your willingness to settle for fear and enforced compliance has bought you a buttload of paperwork - and that's the BEST possible outcome.
I've never been a cop - but I've ten years of martial arts under my belt, an art with a heavy emphasis on avoiding situations and resolving them with an absolute minimum of force. You learn to read body language, you develop a sixth sense for body language, and you make a habit of respectfully treating everyone as if they were Bruce Lee dipped in nitroglycerin. Why?
Because the most dangerous opponent is the one who realizes they don't exist on your threat-o-meter and is just drunk or distraught enough to need to prove you wrong.
Wait, make that a city councilman, a partner in the state's largest personal injury firm, who happens to be Bruce Lee, dipped in nitroglycerin.
And here's another why you should think like that. This jerk figured there was no downside to shocking the hell out of the pretty blond who wouldn't even look at him out of uniform.
What's she gonna do about it? He asks himself, Have a hissy fit?
Yeah. On CNN, no less. With her lawyer. With his very own porn tape playing in the background.
That cartoon cop was confident in the lack of power the suspect had in the situation, and willing to exploit that power imbalance to publicly humiliate her and disrespect her in front of her friends and peers - in order to avoid the heavy lifting (mental and physical) that is the job.
To protect and to serve includes suspects and panicked drunken blond chicks. It does NOT include acts that can be validly compared, metaphorically and in terms of impact on the victim and onlookers, to literal, physical rape.
Your primary tools are your presence, you aura of confident command, your knowledge of law, your reputation, your ability to create peace and security out of thin air, your patience and your integrity. All the rest of the crap hanging off you is available to any five buck an hour security guard - strike that, to anyone with an Internet connection. Including the uniform and the badge.
So the first thing you MUST keep in mind is that the casual use of said crap can erode every one of your main tools. The last thing you want is for peaceful citizens - even peaceful CRIMINAL citizens - to see you as a random, personal threat.
There must be fifty people who saw that incident, and one thing you can rely on - they will hesitate to call the cops in any preventative way, because they are now aware that calling the police will not prevent a situation from turning into an incident, it will absolutely guarantee it.
And people wonder why the violent crime rate is so high in the US.
If you have to rely on your uniform, your badge or your service issue plastic penis to prove you are a cop - like the fat-ass lazy jerk in the video - if you have to enforce compliance with a perfectly reasonable command - in the back of your mind, in the dead of night, and especially as you do the routine CYA in the report, realize that somehow you screwed up and were lucky enough to live through it because the citizen or citizen you abused or oppressed gave you a pass. Don't turn that mistake into a freaking policy, much less get lazy and expect you have a right to a life where it doesn't matter that you stupidity is committed in front of your own dashboard camera.
I mean, were I a lawyer, I would surely point out the fact height of arrogance that reveals and the depths of contempt for the good opinion of the citizenry implied by that particular lapse.
As for the risks involved in policing, do not whine to us about that. You get the uniform, you get the fast car with the sirens, you get to play with things that go bang and the county pays you for the ammo. It's an inherently dangerous job, with the perk of all the free adrenaline rushes you can stand. People actually jump out of perfectly good airplanes to get that rush, at a couple-hundred bucks a pop. You, well, we pay you for that.
Besides, it's a lot like a snowboarder stressing about wipe-outs. The only proper response is to try and keep a straight face and gently suggest golf as an alternate avocation.
A cop unwilling to take risks on behalf of the citizenry is simply an armed thug. And when I look at something like that and realize that as a potentially armed citizen I could handle that situation better - I will. And while I could not do your job on a day to day basis, Sir, there is nothing that would prevent me from handling such an incident far better. I know this as a fact, because I've been in such a situation, with a drunken, possibly suicidal citizen talking about the revolver he had in his waistband.
Not only did I handle the situation, I handled it without violence and without anyone at the bar I happened to be in becoming aware that there was a situation. That is because I relied on my ability to talk him down, rather than on the concealed weapon under MY shirt.
I'll bet you a box of KrispyKreems that Ohio club has now hired their own security, so they don't have to rely on the risk of the city sending some random jerk to deal with loud drunks. Just because they wanted her gone that day didn't mean they didn't want her to come back - but not only did you traumatize her, but you scared the hell out of everyone else who was there. And it's a fact that whether it's fair or not, people avoid people and situations that remind them of very traumatic events. So the taxpaying owners have a very legitimate beef with that cop, his boss and the city. I imagine they have lawyers calculating the odds of successfully suing the city - and everyone else in range - for the loss of business.
So, really, it would probably have been better for everyone had that cop just slept off his ill-gotten doughnuts because his "resolution" of a breach of the peace was worse than the scuffs, hurt feelings and property damage he was sent to prevent.
Here's a new, related video that's brand new, and I'd like your professional opinion:
Consider this - and remember that tasers actually log their usage, for later use in court.
Now, here we don't know the exact situation, but it's difficult to imagine how a properly trained officer could end up tasering a schizophrenic woman - the person, by the way, who had actually CALLED 911 - and expect this to be taken as a good outcome. Oh, by the way, she passed away as a result of being tazed multiple times with two separate weapons. And yes, she was armed and she was delusional.
Oh well, that just adds to the challenge for a good cop. With good cops, situations like this end with rueful handshakes and mysterious appearances of chocolate chip cookies in the squad room. Anything that ends in a death is considered less than ideal, pretty much by the "duh" standard.
I know, I know, "we can't know what really happened." But, actually, we do know what happened - a homicide occurred as the outcome of a routine call.
We pay police to handle situations exactly like this with the expectation that they will be trained and equipped to as a matter of routine, with as little fuss and conflict as possible. We have the reasonable expectation that they have the training to deal with such situations better than we could. Let's recall that she called and asked for help. Obviously, help is precisely what she did not get.
So, whatever the resolution, whatever the facts, no matter what happened to make it all drop in the pot and to cause TWO able-bodied, fully armed cops to taser a morbidly obese schizophrenic confined to a power chair. She had two paring knives and a hammer. They carried guns fully capable of disabling the power chair, rendering her immobile, or at least very, very slow.
So why is she dead? WHY is the person who called the police for help dead as a direct result of police action, and what affect will that have on the willingness of people to call for help?
Presumably the cops expected a delusional schizophrenic to process an order to drop the weapons as if she were a sane, solid citizen who was NOT being menaced with the threat of force. They were clearly unwilling to accept even the tiniest risk of injury to themselves. But she was too freaking crazy to process that order, and the normal response of police - as you yourself stated - is to apply pain to "encourage" compliance.
Now, here's the bottom line. You are not employed by the "good citizens" in order to keep the "bad guys" in line. You are employed by the taxpayers - that would be all of us - to maintain law and order. So when you commit a breach of the peace as stock reaction to a fuckup in progress, you simply make a far worse fuckup than if you just stayed home.
Who in their right mind would call you for help, and why should you be collecting a paycheck? Hey, there are lots of people willing to beat the crap out of other folks for free, we surely don't need to pay for such a dubious "service."
Seems to me people who react like this are on the wrong side of the bars. When situations like this become commonplace, a widespread disrespect for and distrust of peace officers is inevitable. It makes the job more difficult and dangerous and ensures that when a situation does come to your attention, it's far worse than it would be for a society that is well policed and is generally law-abiding by choice.
Jeez; people like the cops shown in these videos - of which there are far, far too many to choose from - make Reno 911 look like a training film. And yes, we note "the blue wall" reaction, the automatic assumption that a fellow cop can do no wrong.
Well, as understandable and as human as that reaction is, policing is a profession with a skill set and a desired outcome - which is peace, safety, law and order. You are expected to handle confrontation, stress, danger, irrational and unreasonable people BETTER than other people.
When that does not occur, questions must arise, and you - as a person directly affected by the damage bad cops do to the reputation of good cops - should be the one asking them. Quite frankly, incompetent cops cause situations that get good cops maimed and killed. Believe it or not, I consider that an unacceptable outcome even though I stand firmly behind the next statement. As citizens, we have the second amendment right to bear arms in order to protect ourselves from the abuse of power by armed thugs, especially armed thugs employed by governments and powerful people who wish to "enforce compliance."
We delegate that power to the police, but nobody who has actually read and studied our Constitution, our history, and the Founder's intent can delude themselves that any cop has more authority than that, or needs it. Your badge simply signifies that you are a citizen trained to keep the peace and can, presumably be trusted with that duty.
There is no inherent right for a peace officer to use force to impose their will, nor do they have any broader mandate to use force than, say, me. Actually, their mandate to use force is narrower, tied to the reasonable force doctrine with the understanding that they can be reasonably be expected to react faster and be better armed in most ordinary situations, as well as mentally prepared to make actually skillful decisions in dangerous situations. Therefore, a situation where I might be excused for blowing someone away would not excuse a police officer in the same circumstances, because a cop has more options than I do.
There is no authority they may appeal to that is superior to that of any other citizen. Indeed, their authority is identical, coming from the same constitutional authority. The citizen - and that includes the one you may be arresting at the time - has exactly the same responsibility and obligation to uphold and ensure the peace.
There is no "cop exception." A cop is simply a member of a "well regulated militia" who's especially trained to do that better than an armed mob.
And if it becomes clear that they cannot regulate themselves, and ARE no better than an armed mob, if they become arrogant and abusive it's not merely the right, but the actual, literal constitutional duty of a citizen to suck it up, and deal with the threat that band of thugs presents to the community.
Because, if I see a large armed man torturing a woman who is clearly no credible threat, I know what the immediate problem is. I also know what reasonable force doctrine tells me is a reasonable response for citizen without training and experience presented with such a situation - exactly enough force to resolve the situation without danger to bystanders or unacceptable risk to the citizen.
So for the average armed citizen with a concealed-carry permit, that would be three to the center of mass if you failed to comply with a reasonable order to "STAND DOWN, SIR!"
Understand clearly; under our Constitution, Law is not imposed by force, it exists by consent. When the use of force against citizens becomes routine, it becomes exactly the situation the constitution was enacted to prevent - and it not just authorizes, but mandates getting rid of not just the particular offenders, but all of those who employ them knowing that is what they will do.
That's the situation George Washington found himself in - and you, sir, are excusing as standard procedure the exact actions of Redcoats; in large part illiterate Hessian mercenaries who, after all, were just trying to earn a living until they were eligible for their pensions, such as they were.
And that sir, is exactly what you defend when you retreat to your "blue wall" tactics of solidarity. You are actually defending the philosophy of hired Hessian mercenaries who were not paid well enough to much care for taking risks in the line of duty, people that professional British soldiers held in contempt for good reason.
Mercenaries almost always prefer massive overkill - because it minimizes their personal risks. Of course, it also means they consider themselves separate from and not answerable to the folks they may find themselves shooting. Hell, Hessiens didn't even consider themselves part of the same physical Empire!
Now, when I see street cops expressing that same attitude, of not even being in the same empire as the ordinary schlubs they deal with every day, it seems to me that we have become two entire empires - those who get to tell the police who to beat up, and those the police get to charge with the "crime" of scuffing the officer's shoes with their objectionable asses.
And when you buy into that, you are a mercinary in the pay of would-be Earls and Kings.
So my question for you is this: Are you a cop in service to the people and the Constitution of this Grand Republic? Or are you a redcoat mercenary, jacking off to your copy of Soldier of Fortune and willing to do as you are told without conscience or question, so long as the king's schilling rings true upon the iron?
Is your ethos "to protect and to serve," or is it "Kill 'em all, let God sort them out?"
If you are the former, there is little I'm unwilling to do to support you in your duties, up to and including some personal risk on my own behalf. If you are the second - well, my forebears considered you excellent fertilizer, and so do I.
You should consider that situation deeply, because perception is everything. In order for you to do your proper job, the one we assume you signed up to do, the first thought of an average citizen should not be the desire to be suddenly elsewhere, but to welcome you and cheerfully aid you in your inquiries.
The first thought of a citizen should NOT be whether they will have to defend themselves against a police assault. They should not have to consider the possibility that they may be beaten up and than imprisoned for having protested that they were being assaulted.
Dear Lord in Heaven, the idea that it might be a better option to shoot a cop than to let a jury sort things out shouldn't cross even a criminal's mind, much less every single Black Florida citizen driving up from the keys to Miami.
But I bet it does.
And it does because people now consider their government and their police to be a potential, direct threat to their persons and their Liberty. Police abuse has become routine in the service of the interests of the powerful, people have been deliberately made reluctant to stand on their rights. But when you "send a message" to people - as was clearly part of the intent when Andrew Meyer was "dealt with" in order to prevent him from further embarrassing one of our Lords and Masters - you may not be sending quite the message you thought.
Here's another authoritarian response to the Meyer/Kerry incident and a citizen's reply.
Ok, this guy deserved what he got. Not only was he SCREAMING at a US Senator, he refused to go quietly when the police asked him to leave for acting that way. Nothing that they did was out of line. You resist arrest, you get tazered. The police had every right to do what they did.
Russia withdraws from arms treaty - CNN.com: "President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty due to 'extraordinary circumstances ... which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures,' the Kremlin said in a statement.
Putin has in the past threatened to freeze his country's compliance with the treaty, accusing the United States and its NATO partners of undermining regional stability with U.S. plans for a missile defense system in former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe."
Yep, with all the potential fallout of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you won't impeach Bush because he has committed illegal acts, how about impeaching him for deliberately, stupidly and willfully endangering our national security?
I've said that Ron Paul is my favored candidate right now, but in the areas we disagree, we disagree passionately.
In the areas where we disagree, each of us departs from stock libertarianism in one case - and not in the other. I think it's worth looking at where each of us emphasise principle over practicality - and vice versa.
Read on..
I'm an exception to all other Libs I know of in that I advocate a strong and secure social safety net. I don't refer to it as "socialism" or "welfare stateism" in that I am not talking about those approaches to this particular problem. However the lack of success in a particular approach toward solving a problem does not make the problem go away. Generally it makes it worse. In the case of both socalism and welfare state policies, centralized planning and paternalism make the problems addressed so very much worse that it's easy to believe that merely getting rid of the solution would solve the problem.
Oh, if only it were that easy. But in fact, it's not, and a comparison of the livability and costs to citizens in the "socialized" nations of europe shows that recognizing and dealing with poverty least intrusively dealt with by a very simple process: Give the poor enough money to not be poor AND desperate.
Poverty is relative - desparately poor is to put people under basic survival pressure. When enough people in your society ARE under survival pressure, Very Bad Things Happen that in our nation, You See On Fox Every Day.
I differ from Ron in having had the opportunity of being poor in Canada - and now seeing what being Poor in America is like. Hell, in many ways it's better to be poor in Canada than Lower Middle Class in America. At least you have health insurance!
So we differ there, in that I feel that it's a government's duty to address matters of common concern to all citizens; healthcare, poverty and crime are all issues that are common concerns and which tend to be causes and effects of each other.
On the other hand, we disagree passionately on the issue of open vs closed borders. As a Libertarian, I believe in the free movement of peaceful people. Furthermore, I feel that this whole matter falls under the Bobatearian principle of "no Stupid Laws," that is to say, laws that are intrusive by definition and which will obviously increase both hassle and provide endless opportunities for the corruption of government officials.
I like what another Libertarian running for President has to say on this topic.
Beyond the economic and cultural positives of open immigration, we must consider the national defense problems posed by "closed" immigration.
Capital -- including human capital -- moves to where it can be most profitably invested for all concerned, and it rolls right over government barriers to do so. In practice, this means that millions of immigrants arrive, and will continue to arrive, in the United States each year regardless of what our government does to stop them.
Right now, nonsensical US immigration policy forces many of those immigrants to sneak in rather than walk in "through the front door." Reasonable estimates put the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico alone in excess of one million annually. An entire industry of cross-border guides, called "coyotes," is built around getting those immigrants into the US to live and work. These "coyotes" don't care one way or another whether the person they're smuggling into the US is a janitor from Guadalajara or an al Qaeda fighter carrying the material to make a "dirty bomb" in Dallas. And our immigration policy gives the latter type of "immigrant" a huge crowd to hide himself in.
The first step in providing for our national defense at the border is to let those who bear us no ill will to come in "through the front door" -- to walk across the border publicly and conveniently instead of sneaking over it in the middle of the night and in the middle of the desert. Believe me, they'd rather be welcomed than hunted ... and welcoming them rather than hunting them will reduce the cover they provide for our enemies.
The second step in providing for our national defense at the border is to re-focus the government services which address that border away from hassling peaceful immigrants and toward detecting and eliminating real threats to the United States.
I attribute most anti-immigrant sentiment to race panic, where people see the culture changing in response to new waves of immigrants and proceed to freak out in all directions. As the decendent of economic migrants myself, like most people who are not actually Native Americans, I find arguing against open borders both unprincipled as a libertarian and distasteful as a civilized human being. But perhaps Ron cannot risk alienating the racist right together with the racist left and racist center. Very well.
But I have no such excuse and I won't provide him cover on this issue.
There's a far simpler way of dealing with the poverty that drives people to climb the border fences and risk death in the desert, and that is to adjust our foreign and economic policies that are, frankly, aimed at keeping our southern neighbors broke, for the sake of cheap bananas and minerals. Free and fair trade will do more to stem the flood than any tonnage of barbed wire and guard dogs.
Oh, and a fence that keeps other people out is pretty damn good at keeping you IN, come the day Bush decides to round up the Usual Suspects.
I doubt there's anyone who'd seriously question Pat's Conservative credentials. Indeed, he's a proud paleoconservative - and he's pointing out that he's right more often than neocons based on his version of "Right."
But what's interesting is that fox vewiers got there first, giving Sen. Ron Paul (Libertarian-republican and anti-war from the beginning) a clear win. Granted, this was probably not Fox's usual demographic, but still...
Does the man not have a point? The United States is now tied down in a bloody guerrilla war in the Middle East and increasingly hated in Arab and Islamic countries where we were once hugely admired as the first and greatest of the anti-colonial nations. Does anyone think that Osama is unhappy with what is happening to us in Iraq?
Of the 10 candidates on stage in South Carolina, Dr. Paul alone opposed the war. He alone voted against the war. Have not the last five years vindicated him, when two-thirds of the nation now agrees with him that the war was a mistake, and journalists and politicians left and right are babbling in confession, “If I had only known then what I know now …”
Rudy implied that Ron Paul was unpatriotic to suggest the violence against us out of the Middle East may be in reaction to U.S. policy in the Middle East. Was President Hoover unpatriotic when, the day after Pearl Harbor, he wrote to friends, “You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bitten.”
Pearl Harbor came out of the blue, but it also came out of the troubled history of U.S.-Japanese relations going back 40 years. Hitler’s attack on Poland was naked aggression. But to understand it, we must understand what was done at Versailles – after the Germans laid down their arms based on Wilson’s 14 Points. We do not excuse – but we must understand."
I don't have a great deal in common with Ron Paul OR Pat Buchanan, other than this - the common-sense observation that foreign policy is no different than any other sort of human interaction; if it is inequitable, if bad faith is involved, you create legitimate enemies, and if that sort of behavior is a consistent part of your foreign policy, sooner or later you will have to pay the piper.
This is about ethics, in other words. They apply just as strongly to our government's behavior toward "ferreners" as they do to it's behavior toward us - and my observation is that people and governments are just as willing to play fast and loose with people they know as those they don't - though the chances of being made to pay personally for their errors tends to keep them under control.
Almost by definition, wars occur because of some injustice or blunder, real, perceived or more usually, some mixture of the two. So the first step in ending such wars and foreign adventures is to admit that we are neither smart enough, wise enough or well-informed enough to impose solutions on other people - especially when those other people have every reason to question the purity of our motives.
I'm no fan of big government, so the siren song of Thatcherism seduced me for a while - back when the Iron Lady was still in office and Ronald Reagan was best buddies with her and "Lyin' Brian" Mulroney of Canada.
Both Commonwealth leaders were allowed to give both nations a solid dose of Conservative medicine and then shown the door. They did not achieve the cult status Regan has, and yet, I believe both will be shown in the historical view to have done more for their nations - and for less personal reward - than Reagen or any of his intellectual heirs. And I don't mean individually; I mean, in toto.
The Parliamentary tradition has certain strengths - and one of those is sort of a genetic memory of why it came to be and in the United Kingdom, especially, what happens when it is set aside in the name of expediency and a "Strong Executive."
All governments are a system of checks and balances, and one of it's most important roles is to serve as a check on the powerful, both those who have great power, and those who would like to have great power. It is a means of guiding and advising those who desire to wield power, to keep them in check and working for the benefit of all, rather than establishing their own little individual warring fiefdoms.
In our particular form of government, the tradition - though somewhat inchoate - is for citizens to seek out those who, like George Bush and Dick Cheney need power like they need air, and then hold them accountable for using it well by means well short of violence. while explicitly stipulating that the citizens hold that ultimate right at need. That's your Second Amendment, right there.
Those who try to subvert those checks in the name of some sort of "victory" are like those riverboat captains who'd put a brick on the safety valve in order to win a race. Sometimes the boiler will hold and sometimes it won't, leading to the conversion of a transitory victory into a permanent last place finish.
When the boiler of the ship of state is starting to spit rivets, prudent passengers seek to remove the brick.
Our system of checks and balances was set up to ensure that no single person was likely able to concentrate enough power to overcome the interests of competitors seeking to concentrate power, so that, in order to maintain their basis of power and defend it against the encroachments of others, they must perforce actually do their jobs and do them well.
The admiration I have for the cynical wisdom of our Founders seems to increase every day. And it is a system that, by and large, worked well enough until the unholy alliance of neocon and theocon emerged to subvert the government itself in the name of concentrating power for the sake of ... well, on that, I suspect there are significant disagreements, set aside "for later."
But what has emerged from both neocon and theocon philosophies put into action is a vast contempt for government, clad in a desire for limited government. It's easy to be fooled by this, for everyone has an idea about how government might be vastly improved with a bit of pruning. But the mechanisms of government, the number of people and the dollars spent have not decreased, and these institutions have become more intrusive and less respectful of the citizenry.
Tom Teepen: Contempt for government - sacbee.com: "Item: A meeting was set up by the staff of Karl Rove, Bush's political enforcer, to point out to contractors who do business with the General Services Administration, just which Republican House and Senate seats look especially needy in the run-up to the elections next year. A suspicious mind might wonder if the administration was perhaps, just maybe, trying to shake down the contractors on behalf of the only endangered species this White House cares about."
Tip o' the hat to reader John for this one, and it's just one of many examples given in this editorial.
One hopes that those GSA contractors think hard about the maxim about "Danegeld." If you pay it, you can never get rid of the Dane.
It's not government the Republican leadership objects to, so long as they are doing the governing. It's the aspect of accountability for the means of gaining power and the usage of that power that they find odious, as well as the idea that with great power comes great responsibility.
It's like drunk drivers, who used to have the expectation that being drunk was actually a defense against charges of vehicular manslaughter.
What they object to any expectation of self-government on their part. If one wishes to illustrate this, it's simple enough to point to any of hundreds and thousands of Bushies and fellow travelers who are all in favor of laws and regulations and restrictions on other people - so long as there's no expectation that any such restrictions are mutual.
There is a sense of arrogant entitlement to the "right" to act and speak in ways offensive and indeed harmful to others without accountability, and this is the antithesis of all Libertarian and classic conservative thought, where great weight is placed on personal responsibility and personal ethical behavior even when the cameras are pointed at someone else.
This ethos is vital to small and effective government - indeed, it's vital to any efficient system. Just ask Warren Buffet; it's how he runs his business. He hires trustworthy people and then trusts them, rewarding them according to their performance. It's not exactly a novel idea, but of course, it requires a certain measure of self-respect. In order to trust others, I have found, first one has to be trustworthy.
Those who are not trustworthy cannot imagine that those who can be trusted could be anything other than fools to be exploited. As a result, they waste time and resources armoring the system against - well, themselves while concealing their own systemic abuses, consequently making it unresponsive to anyone seeking honest, transparent access to it.
I am a Libertarian and my beliefs require me to be responsible for any aspect of my life and individual liberty I'm unwilling to delegate. At the same time I embrace my right and responsibility of myself and others to donate any amount of power they are incapable of or unwilling to use responsibly and well - with the expectation of a fair return on that investment.
The rules for money are the same as for any other form of power, for money is simply a means of moving economic power from here to there, as well as a reasonably efficient means of converting one form of power to another.
Yes, this is a seemingly selfish metric - but it also embraces the idea that every other donor has an equal right of concern, and has every right to different ideas of what their fraction of donated power should be used for, as well as recognition that individuals can and do differ remarkably on what they consider to be just compensation. It's also a recognition of reality - that nobody can afford to be altruistic at the expense of their own survival, much less the survival of the people and ideals they most value.
Therefore, any government that expects people to avoid the shortest path between need and gratification had best make the detour worthwhile - and what those in power think about those who would otherwise take the shortest path is immaterial. No amounts of "shoulds and shouldents" and no amount of laws passed in the name of those moral imperatives will change that behavior, nor will those laws ensnare those who are neither unlucky nor unintelligent in their mindful and willful refusal to comply.
Should I dislike the outcome of the balance of all the competing interests government must serve - or the performance based on promises - I have the right to either delegate another representative, or wield my power in my own name - just as I can choose to, say, self-insure against the possibility of a disastrous flood.
Whether or not that's a prudent choice depends a great deal on where you live and how much you have at stake - and the various social priorities and choices made by various states clearly illustrates that. The necessity to reasonably govern the population you have - rather than the population you wish you had - is the reason the Constitution places the states ahead of the Fed. It's not so much that a strong central government should not exist, it's rather that it cannot exist without inherently violating and suppressing entirely legitimate local interests. By restricting it's scope to those things that were clearly of overriding common concern, the Founders hoped to avoid our exact current situation.
However, in rediscovering this essential principle, our noses are rubbed in things that are of overriding common concern that can be addressed centrally, and indeed, probably can only be addressed centrally in any sort of cost-effective way and without serious impacts on essential liberties such as freedom of movement. I am speaking, of course, of social safety-net issues such as universal access to health care.
The issue of "who pays" is not nearly so critical as the idea that everyone, no matter who, no matter what their circumstances is able to access health-care at need, long before it becomes a matter of critical and unavoidable urgency, in recognition of the fact that what happens to individuals who do not have health care actually and unavoidably affects everyone in their community - via disease, bankruptcy, loss of productivity, loss of disposable income and even in loss of community participation. Nor should the systemic cost of widespread stress on the productivity and health of the population be discounted. It has a cost that can only be roughly estimated, but in any estimation has to be "very, very large."
My view is that a government that makes it easier to make wise choices, and which makes a broader range of choices meaningfully available to people is doing it's job. When it starts making choices on my behalf and trying to enforce them against MY judgment, it has become my adversary.
At that point I don't much care what the ideology behind it's choices are - once it's intruded into my life without invitation or compensation, it's excuses for doing so are meaningless. Because by definition, such blanket choices will be at the expense of many who will not benefit from them and may actually be harmed by them, far out of proportion to individual or collective gains.
That is where the abuse of power starts; when government becomes insensitive to the wishes, desires and even the guiding ethos of those it governs. When it demonstrates active contempt for entire swaths of the population, "choosing sides," as it were, it's not only just for those so abused to withdraw their consent, it's pretty much inevitable.
Therefore, open contempt for the electorate is a pretty sure signpost to the end of a dynasty. And any dynasty - and the Bushes surely consider themselves a dynasty - that thinks they can govern without the consent of a majority, much less at the expense of a majority, is not long for this world.
It's apparent that one reason eight prosecutors were fired is because that, despite having identified themselves as Republicans, they nonetheless were willing to enforce the law without regard to the political advantage of fellow Republicans, at the expense of the interests of districts they were appointed to guard and serve.
The really stunning part of this is that those advocating even more widespread firings - such as Harriet Myers - seem to be honestly blind to the inherent corruption contained in the idea. It's as if the core support of the Bush Administration sees everything in terms of partisan advantage, every program, every policy, every agenda, every word - and none of it needs have any real purpose or indeed, achieve anything more than a momentary positive blip in the polls to be legitimate.
This behavior is - aside from being probably illegal, certainly irresponsible and absolutely wrong - is a clear symptom of cancerous self-delusion permeating the entire administration, a delusion that leads them to overvalue their own judgment, not realizing how badly their addiction to unchecked power has effected it. Those who use power wisely and well do so in full understanding of and in service to the legitimate needs of those they serve, and do not confuse legitimate needs with popular whims, which if served at all, are served in small portions as dessert.
But this government does not serve, it alternately panders and bullies; expressing in it's governance the inability of those holding power to govern themselves or even casually adhere in their own lives to the values they would impose by fiat on the rest of us.
But at some point, they will find themselves in the dock, and the judge and jury will not be impressed by the argument that being drunk on power justifies the casual horrors committed in the name of being drunk at the wheel of an entire nation.
Also contact a lawyer, because the restaurant's policy is against the ADA by a longfuckingshot.... As part of that, go into the restaurant sometime, and record all the time that nondisabled adults or kids are allowed to take a long time or be outright disruptive. I would bet she's one of those assholes that thinks it's okay to abuse someone because they look autistic -- the fact that we're the ones put through years of psychologically damaging "training" to hide what we are so people like THAT are more comfortable makes me really angry.
And proof that Jay - the father, is WAY cooler than I am:
I'd still be OK with just 3 things from the Pokez owner: a written public apology for David, a statement that the manager was incorrect in his reaction then to support the waitress's abuse , and something (either staff training or personnel changes) to prevent this from happening again. But apparently the restaurant is claiming that we were asked to leave because *we* were rude (LOL.. we were actually reserved and probably the quietest table in the place that night, and I was incredibly polite-but-firm to the manager afterwards), and they are saying that it doesn't matter because David isn't really autistic because he can talk (?!?). Apart from them being utterly incorrect on both counts, even if David was a *neurotypical* child, that still doesn't somehow make it OK for the waitress to grab him and scream in his ear! (scratches head)
I can't think of anything more likely to cause me to commit a physical indiscretion, and way past the point where my "don't hit girls" programming would override my urges.
But this isn't about me and my imperfections and flaws - other than the obvious, that sometimes consequences are direct and other times they catch you flat-footed from behind. In other words, this is about ethics, what they are, why you should have them, and using this unfolding mess as beautifully horrible example of people who believed in their own "spin control."
Allow me to illustrate consequences:
Ducksnorts - dedicated to Padres Baseball, not autism (although there's probably no sport more suited to aspie fandom and autistic perseveration) says:
Pokez, (and myspace) the venerable lefty hippy arty cool vegetarian-friendly Mexican restaurant downtown is practically an institution among the hipster set. I myself loved eating there back when I was working downtown.
Well, all is not well in Pokez-land. Here’s an allegation of an autistic customer being assaulted for not ordering fast enough: “Assaulted at dinnertime in SD”
And they got it here: (11 comments so far), and they got it here, (13 comments so far). Figure that LJ isn't a lot different than Blogger, and the odds of a comment are one in a hundred - to pick a number out of the air.
This is what happens when assholes insist on being assholes in the New World Disorder. People notice, and each person tells all their friends... and it can reach critical mass in hours, in exactly the same way as a nuclear reaction going critical. You just have to piss off one, wee tiny insignificant little neutron enough...
Well, the world-wide-web has made it impossible for "responsible authorities" to choose what you insignificant neutrons should or should not get radioactive about. And that has implications in the land of practical ethics and the situational morality of getting caught with your pants around your ankles.
Since nobody - not Dick Cheney and certainly not some waitress at Pokez can predict which neutron will choose to go feral, cannot control all the communications of everyone, everywhere, it's now getting to be very difficult to casually lie your way out of trouble, now that the group mind has a permanent, accessible and indexed memory that anyone can feed.
Now, as karma and consequence are sometimes distressingly imprecise, it's even more strategic to be careful, not just about your own actions, your own ethics - but those you happen to be around a lot. This appears to be what other Pokez people bitching about right now; how "unfair it is that they have to bear the consequences of the actions of people they supported at the time.
Therefore, we all have a great interest in what ethics are in a practical sense. That's what I write about, most often, and I could not ask for a better illustration of the consequences of operating (as Pokez seems to) outside of the bounds of accepted ethical standards. Or in the words of one Yelp review:
"Good For Kids: No"
Shame on them. Their snotty service and bad attitudes from the servers went TOO FAR and look what they got themselves into.
I hope Cynthia, the waitress in question, resigns immediately.
Ethics are all about behaving rightly in all situations. It's more than morality. Morality is about proper behavior in particular, common situations, and while morals should also be ethical, it's not wise to bet on that if you value your karmic balance. If you prefer to go without any mystical component; people expect a certain ethical standard of certain places and certain people in particular situations, and if those expectations are violated badly enough, there might just be hell to pay. If you make a habit of being unethical, sooner or later, "might" becomes "will."
Most often, ethical consequences are not as easily visible as this. For instance, for every time a customer is treated rudely, there are probably ten people exposed to that scene, and clearly silence does not imply approval. Check out the reviews from before the alleged assault. You will find a lot of disgruntled folks supplying details that make this incident seem entirely plausible, and certainly not an "isolated incident."
Here's one ethical statement I use a lot: "My right to make a fist ends at the tip of your nose."
I've spent a great deal of time working on my ethics, because like many people on the autistic spectrum, I have no other recourse; I have found that going back to the very basics is the only way to figure out how to act for myself, and how to figure out where I stand when neurotypicals have what are to me inexplicable fits of drama while loudly proclaiming their right to not be held accountable for nose/fists interactions. As in, well, this case.
And being "counterculture" is no excuse. Indeed, it means there's far less excuse.
In many countercultures, and particularly alt-sexual countercultures, "Straight" morals are rejected and the violation of "straight" conventions is a given, but part of pulling that off with style and grace is realizing that those morals and conventions are being rejected for a good reason; because of their soul-destroying hypocrisy and ethical vacuity. It is not a license to be a dick, it's a statement that you aren't going to hide behind convention.
Here we have some little hipster wannabe Republicans, going by the very Down South "my house, my rules, if you don't like it, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" paradigm. It's' so very Blue Collar Comedy.
Oddly enough, I have no issue with that, so long as they don't have any problems with not whining about the potential problems of being petty authoritarian dicks, and post the policy clearly in the window. Go ahead, BE a "soup nazi." But it's a high wire act. If you fall off, no whining.
I can't think of anything more uncool, less punk, more totally ungoth than pissing in someones cornflakes for fun - and claiming the right to get away with it.
I mean, seriously. Even worse, I have the feeling that if I been there in my silks and my leathers, with my AS kid, it would not have happened. Why? Because I am counterculture, I look like an elegant punk, (when I go out) and I can clearly and wordlessly communicate that I have no trouble whatsoever turning some twink wanker into a whimpering pretzel, and would rather enjoy doing so. Therefore, I suspect I would get excellent food and excellent service at Pokez. Indeed, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if one of those little tramp-stamped packages of attitude called me "Sir." And that pisses me off, because it tells me that they don't actually respect anyone, and most of all they don't even respect themselves; they merely disrespect others to the extent they think they can get away with.
Those are the values of James Dobson and Pat Roberson. It's Focus on the Family values. It's Godhatesfags.com values. In other words - Red State values. Values any self-respecting counterculture member rebelled against starting in sixth grade when they shoved a safety pin through their My Little Pony's nose.
Counterculture is not about pulling crap and getting away with it. It's about questioning authority and poking it until it goes away or gives you a sensible answer. It's mocking it when it tries to make contemptibly stupid unenforceable rules - and proving that you can live outside those rules without bursting into flame or being struck down by Jehovah's lightning bolts. It's about rigging your OWN parachute, thank you very much.
You own your own shit; compost or wallow as you choose.
The lamest thing of all is to hide behind the slack-ass San Diego police, or cower behind stupid lies. That's contemptible.
Cynthia, go back to the 'burbs and live in mommies basement, because clearly, a couple of tats and an attitude does not bring that elusive quality known as "street smarts."
Watch that happens, exponentially, as those others chime in, people who are, or could be punk, or goth or otherwise counterculture because their wetware just is not designed to live in the suburbs and go to the Church of God with the other sheep. And a lot of them are incredibly protective of children who seem rather like themselves. We wetware-driven "freaks" are the core of many countercultures. Believe it or don't, I'm not about to hand pointers t
