Comments on: Peace? or the Constitution?

By: tdaxp

tdaxp — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:38:04 +0000

Curtis, true dat!

I tried my best for parallelism, but as they say, imitation is the sincerest form…

By: Curtis Gale Weeks

Curtis Gale Weeks — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:37:13 +0000

“I did not say that, as you can tell, since you can read.”

Regardless of the merits of either side of this debate, this was the coolest comeback I’ve read in a while.

By: tdaxp

tdaxp — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:27:11 +0000

Of course you did. I know that because I can think.

You say that Gates’s political speech (expressing his stance on the supposed oppression of blacks in America, etc) is a strike against him.
You say that Gates’s petition (the “intimidation” in which he makes it clear he will attempt to remove Crowley from his office) works against him.
You say that Gates was making a scene in his own home (that is, he was engaged in an assembly you dislike) and that works against him.

I was not pedantically quoting you, as was clear from the lack of quotation marks. Rather, I was demonstrating that you repeatedly sacrifice Constitutional rights for peace.

By: Lexington Green

Lexington Green — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:00:19 +0000

“…if only people would cease speaking, assembling, petitioning, and so on in ways that are inconvenient for the police.”

I did not say that, as you can tell, since you can read.

By: tdaxp

tdaxp — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:53:07 +0000

Hey Lex,

Your first paragraph summarizes, I think, the Crowley/Peace side of the “Peace v. the Constitution” debate which seems to be going on.

Your second paragraph is rhetoric, but nicely done.

The third and fourth paragraph note that no Constitutional rights would be violated, if only people would cease speaking, assembling, petitioning, and so on in ways that are inconvenient for the police.

Likewise, criminals could be stopped within the scope of the Constitution, if the police were a professional and skilled crime fighting force instead of a powerful blue-collar union. But we’re not willing to pay for that.

By: Lexington Green

Lexington Green — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:09:26 +0000

By actual criminal criminals I mean people who hit you over the head from behind, kick you the back of the head, once you are down, so hard your contact lenses fly out, and then go through your pockets. By actual criminals I mean people who drive down the alley in their car, block the old lady from closing her garage door, and make her give up her purse at gunpoint. By actual criminal I mean people who drive through an area where a rival gang has its turf, see a basketball game in progress and pop off at the young men playing, killing one and putting another in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. By actual criminal I mean a home invader who breaks into houses at night knowing terrorizes and batters the occupants and robs them. By actual criminals I mean people who loiter in the stair up to the elevated train platform sizing people up to rob them, then walk up and start the conversation with a sucker punch, then a demand for the wallet.

That sort of thing.

These actual criminals can be stopped, or caught, within the scope of the Constitution.

The citizenry have to act like grownups, however, and make the police be accountable if they get out of line, but respect them in the ordinary course of their duties, such as responding to a reasonable report that your own house is being broken into.