seeahill wrote:Garm wrote: Back in your hippie days, I'm sure you got at least one wood shampoo, right?
Never actually hit with baton. Jailed briefly during the San Francisco State riots. However, I believe I have been arrested, detained and jailed in more countries than just about anyone here. England: aiding and abetting some guys who bungee jumped off the Brighton Bridge. Italy, Rome: 20 years old, out late, lousy neighborhood, bar fight. I'm just watching, but some guy shoved me and I shoved him back. Plainclothes cop. Jailed for (this was the exact translation of the crime) "committing an outrage against a public official." Burundi airport, loading up a bush plane. How was I to know that one of the songs played on the scratchy loudspeaker was the national anthem. Detained in broom closet for a couple of hours to learn respect.
I could go on.
The propaganda is that we are 'better' than the 3rd world in terms of individual rights. We expect the broom closet or worse in Africa, but that justice will prevail in our Land of the Free. With the most prisoners, in both raw numbers and percentages, of any society in human history and more prisons being built, cops hired, and 'get tough on crime' laws passed every day, the Great Liberty Lie is what I was seeking anecdotes to deflate.
Everyone, in their bones, knows that the schoolyard bully and small animal torturer grows up to become a cop or a hood. We can't expect them all to be able to exhibit restraint. The gal who called 911 above was almost certainly asking for it, after all - what else could she expect, having a vagina so flagrantly.
The whole thing also illustrates the big problem with democracy. Pull the fear chain and the majority reflexively abandon their civil rights, and yours. Knowing this, the framers intended the constitution to be immutable. #2 is the most important, because it places responsibility for the others in our own hands. She should have shot that cop 17 times in the face.
My SIG can beat up your SIG.