Police behaving stupidly again.

[MicroBalrog]

Here's the thing though. As part of my work, I don't get any authority to get people to strip naked so I could check them for drugs and weapons. I don't get to taze people, or shoot people, or whatever. All I need to do is turn out two thousand words per day. It is entirely irrelevant to my boss if I download porn to my work computer or if I do my work naked, because I work from home. So of course I'm not under that much scrutiny as a doctor or a police officer. The more important is whatever you're trusted with, the more scrutiny you're under, either from the public or whoever is hiring you. Is there any workplace where it's not like that?

[taurusowner]

I'm not opposed to the scrutiny.  I'm opposed to internet tough guys who laugh and scorn police for making mistakes or doing the wrong thing, when they are actually just as much of a ####bag as the corrupt cop.  They just never get found out.  I think the scrutiny is a great thing.  The hypocrisy of others is what boils my blood.  And to add to it, they would also be the first to push said cop into danger in their stead if something happened to them.  They both simultaneously hate police, and expect police to do the dirty work for them; and then criticize the police for mistakes in doing that work that they make themselves at their own workplaces.

[MicroBalrog]

I'm not as much of a shitbag as the corrupt cop, sorry. I've never detained anybody without due cause, never sat on a man and tazed him repeatedly for 'resisting arrest'. The one time - in the military - I was ordered to search a person's car without due cause (basically search all cars on-base), I told the person who issued the order that I'd rather go to prison for disobeying them. [No, it's far less spectacular than it sounds]

I have pretty good reasons to believe I'm a moral superior to corrupt police, thank you very much.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

that depends

[taurusowner]

Everyone likes to believe themselves to be superior to most others.  That's human nature.  The reality of it is somewhat different.

[MicroBalrog]

Everyone likes to believe themselves to be superior to most others.  That's human nature.  The reality of it is somewhat different.

I'm not sure that has anything to do with what I said.

I do not believe myself to be superior to 'most others'. I believe myself - and the majority of humanity - to be morally superior to the minority that commit crimes and abuse others, whenever they may be employed. It's not a really huge moral standard to hold up, you know.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

different folks have different moral standards and codes  whats ok for you could be abhorent for me

[MicroBalrog]

different folks have different moral standards and codes  whats ok for you could be abhorent for me

If morality is entirely relative, then this entire thread is worthless. We should then just agree to disagree and never start threads again or discuss anything, since our moral views are all equally valid.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

morality is definitly relative  and theres some irony in your not seeing that

[dogmush]

morality is definitly relative  and theres some irony in your not seeing that

Not all morality is relitive.  Some is absolute.  There are things, that if you think are moral, you are wrong.

Case in point, rape.  If you happen to think it's moral to rape someone that doesn't make it moral, it makes you wrong.  I would think that basic point would be a given on this board by now.

Tyranny is another thing that is morally wrong no matter the opinion of the tyrant involved, be it Lenin or some petty mall cop. 

There is such a thing as absolute right and wrong.

All that being said, I still haven't found any evidence that these particular officers did anything other then ask Mr Dylan nicely for an ID.  Can't we save some outrage for the next No-KNock?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

true  some things are beyond the pale  on other issues there is more varience.

[dogmush]

true  some things are beyond the pale  on other issues there is more varience.

Then why did you say this:

morality is definitly relative

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

because some things that are outside my moral comfort zone are not for others

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

All that being said, I still haven't found any evidence that these particular officers did anything other then ask Mr Dylan nicely for an ID.  Can't we save some outrage for the next No-KNock?

I think part of the outrage is "OMG! They didn't recognize Bob Dylan!" And for the record, I wouldn't recognize him, either. I don't see where they forced him to accompany them to the hotel. Probably just offered to drive him there.

[dogmush]

because some things that are outside my moral comfort zone are not for others

But that doesn't mean that those things are moral.  YOUR "comfort zone" might be different from others, but that doesn't effect the actual morality of the behaviors in question.  It just means that you are uncomfortable with some things that are moral, and some sociopaths are comfortable with immorality.

Fistful S:

I probably wouldn't recognize him either, but if an old guy told me he was Dylan my response would probably be "Oh Yeah? Sing "Like a Rolling Stone".  And some blogger would probably call me a JBT.

[Perd Hapley]

Ragnar, you've distracted folk with a red herring.  This has nothing to do with the individual indiscretions of cops gone wild, or whether cops are more given to screw-ups than others. 

The issue that has been raised is whether police should be trained/expected to deal with situations in the way they dealt with Dylan. 

To recap; it's a systemic issue, not a matter of cops "screwing up." 

[RaspberrySurprise]

I bet every single member of APS would be out of a job right now if the past work week had been completely filmed.

It's rare that I'm not on camera at work, I work at Walmart.

[Stand_watie]

Internet spelling and punctuation is definitely relative.

[Balog]

It's rare that I'm not on camera at work, I work at Walmart.

For some weird reason I thought you worked at McDonalds.

morality is definitly relative  and theres some irony in your not seeing that

Absolute statements proclaiming the lack of absolutes are always hilarious, but accusing someone else of failing to perceive irony in the same post is a new level of funny.

Ragnar; seriously, are you trolling? Accusing people of lying, saying that no one on APS is better than corrupt cops (you do realize we're talking about cops committing serious crimes when we talk about "bad cops" right?) etc etc. I don't know what your problem is, but calm the hell down dude. Even the Mosaic law distinguishes between degrees of crime; if you can't see the difference between an office worker not always working %100 as hard as possible and a cop planting drugs on someone (or getting free rolls with hookers for letting them off, stealing drugs to resell or use themselves, or any of the other things we're referring to when we talk about bad cops) then your world view is way screwed up.

[RaspberrySurprise]

For some weird reason I thought you worked at McDonalds.

I used to. Now I work for a Greater Satan.

[Balog]

I used to. Now I work for a Greater Satan.

huh, so if this trend continues you'll be an ATF agent soon....

[dogmush]

The issue that has been raised is whether police should be trained/expected to deal with situations in the way they dealt with Dylan. 

I'm still unclear as to why you're upset with how they dealt with Dylan.  They asked the man for an ID.  Do you have any evidence that they did anything more then ask nicely?  Is there any indication at all that Mr. Dylan feels that he was harrassed or pressured?  The cops were, by all reports, polite, and there was no crime and no arrest.  Seriously, unless you have some report that Dylan didn't do all of this of his own violition, what's the problem?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

dylan has a long history of eing a lackey of the man..... so his not joining in the whining is hardly support for how the cops behaved

[Hawkmoon]

Nice straw man/gross mischaracterization of my point.  I never said that cops were great and the rest of us suck.  Some people, you included, do seem to be arguing the exact opposite at times however.  I'm arguing that we're all in fact about on the same level, with the same amount of ####bags in our workplaces, with the same flaws and the same mistakes.  The rest of us just don't get filmed doing it.

Now you seem to be saying that bad apples in the police occur in about the same proportion as in the rest of the population. But a couple of posts above you pretty much stated that we are ALL scumbags who regularly engage in activities that would cost us our jobs if you could only follow us around with your trusty video camera. I take exception to being classified with people so lacking in character.

[Hawkmoon]

Internet spelling and punctuation is definitely relative.

Apparently so is Internet grammar. "Internet spelling and punctuation" is a plural subject, so the correct form for the verb would be "are."

  Grammar squad -- you're busted