6 Baltimore officers charged in Freddie Gray's death
Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 9 years, 12 months ago to The Gulch: General
So the decision to bring charges has been made. I am glad it will go before a jury and people will get their day in court. This is how it should be resolved. The looters and rioters have only hurt their cause, their neighborhoods and reinforced unfortunate perceptions of the inner city minorities. A little patience for the system to take its course would have been in order. Even though it looks as though the authorities have decided there is sufficient evidence to charge, there was no excuse for the mayhem and destruction. All that came of it was the recognition that there is a greater number of potential criminals for the cameras to expose.
games begin!!
Thank you. One more I just heard: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus. She didn't trash the bus.
Regards,
O.A.
I have always co-operated and been civil with the police. One should always live to have their day in court. I have paid my tickets when I was in the wrong, but also fought and won when I was in the right. Resisting arrest whether right or wrong is asking for trouble. It never works out for the better.
I do believe we need more cameras and more vigorous defense attorneys as well as personal liability for whoever is in the wrong including police. It does seem as if the drug war has also resulted in an inordinate number of run ins with the police. Perhaps we should stop arresting (and only fine like a traffic ticket) someone for simple possession. I hesitate to suggest full legalization.
Respectfully,
O.A.
I believe the level of charges was politically motivated too. Sure there may have been some wrongdoing and I hope justice is done for all. It does appear that the prosecutor through everything possible at the police hoping some of it will stick, but I am no Alan Dershowitz...
We will see...
Respectfully,
O.A.
I was slightly encouraged by a report from the mayor who stated that video evidence was being examined thoroughly and looters were going to be identified and arrested. We will see..
Respectfully,
O.A.
There is much truth to what you say. There has also been minorities leaving the inner cities too. Successful blacks and others have left too. It isn't all "White flight." It is the producers leaving behind those who are stuck on welfare, single parent homes, and a plethora of liberal agenda failures that have exacerbated the problems.
Respectfully,
O.A.
I understand. You are right about the out of towners... the opportunists. I see this as a wider issue It is definitely not just a Baltimore matter. I believe many of the "inner city minorities" were from other cities as well. I live near Detroit and remember the riots of the 60s. I refuse to live in the city. We don't have riots looting and burning in the rural areas, though we do have minorities in our neighborhoods that live in peace. What we don't have is progressive government, the level of single-parent homes, crime, poor schools, drop out rates, gangs and rabble-rousers.
Respectfully,
O.A.
I concur.
Respectfully,
O.A.
A change of venue does seem in order.
Respectfully,
O,A.
Your words not mine: 'I doubt your assertion very seriously that if the protesters/rioters had all just stayed home that the system would have ever been brought to bear against those 6 officers." I did not say that. I am all for peaceful protest and assembly. Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I am sure you know of Martin Luther King, Gandhi and even Nelson Mandela...
I want the laws which protect public officials from prosecution and personal liability revoked. Often when the cops do something wrong the municipality is sued not the cops. In this case the taxpayer is who is punished, not the perpetrator.What deterrent is there in that? .
Respectfully,
O.A.
"The looters and rioters have only hurt their cause, their neighborhoods and reinforced unfortunate perceptions of the inner city minorities."
Why are you perpetuating the myth that all of the "looters and rioters" were local and hurt THEIR neighborhoods? You might make the case that the locals that were most affected by the agitators did not help their cause, but those don't represent the majority by any stretch. Thousands of out-of-towners answered the call of the out-of town organizers, rioted the emotions of a handful of impressionable locals, and created a national stage for anyone to air any grievance.
You have (probably inadvertently) "reinforced unfortunate perceptions of the inner city minorities" by not acknowledging the existence of the non-local provocateurs.
Sorry, I have to defend my city.
You will find multiple opinions of varying degrees of intensity both on this board and within more formal, intellectual discussions of Objectivism and that's why most of us are on this site.
First, you say, "Corruption in government should be fought through legal means on all levels because, currently, NOT everyone is corrupt." While I agree with the notion that not everyone is corrupt, I often wonder what we should do with the ones that are. If we know the names of people in power and exactly what they did, why should we wait for our voices to be heard, IF they are ever heard, 10 years after the fact when those people are out of power. Worse, what if those same people are still in power and still getting away with it? Is it your contention that we should always play by the rules when the corrupt among us never will?
You next statement was, "We haven't reached the point of being ruled by 'gangs' of corrupt politicos that exercise their whims by force." By and large, you are probably right, but what are we to do in those cases where that is exactly what has happened AND we know exactly who did it.
I am going to give you a couple of examples of corruption in government where intimidation (the threat of governmental power being brought against someone) and actual force (violence under color of law) by those in positions of authority that have been excused or covered up to protect both the government and its agents at the expense of our rights as citizens.
Example 1: Intimidation. There are hundreds of examples of police intimidation on YouTube, but for this example, I am going to use the case of Lois Lerner and her targeting of the Tea Party. I choose this example because it so widely known that I will assume you know what I am talking about. Lois Lerner and her pals both up and down the chain of command at the IRS are obviously guilty of using governmental intimidation against innocent individuals for strictly political purposes. An IRS audit may not sound like force to you, but guess what happens when they decide that they need to foreclose on all your property to settle whatever they decide you owe. Guys with guns show up and if you resist being thrown off your property too vehemently, you get shot or worse, thrown into a cage from now until who the hell knows when. There is no real doubt that Lois Lerner is guilty. You'd have to be a starry eyed, Pollyannaish imbecile not to understand what she did and why she did it. That said, she is still being paid with taxpayer money and defended with taxpayer paid lawyers. I ask you this. If justice delayed is justice denied, then which would be truer justice, 2 years more of this 5th Amendment spewing, records erasing obfuscation followed on January 19th, 2017 pardon by a lameduck Obama or a bullet in the back of her head from one of the people whose lives she turned upside down? I understand your leaning toward a legal solutions, but how broken hearted would you really be if you learned one day that one of her victims had taken the law into their own hands?
Example 2: Actual Government Force/Violence. Imagine if Lois Lerner has a SWAT team at her beck and call. What would she likely have done against her political enemies? A scenario like that is exactly what happened in Wisconsin to many of Scott Walker's supporters. Under the guise of looking into some alleged very minor campaign funding violations, Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm sought permission from a judge to conduct a John Doe investigation against the supporters of his political enemies. The John Doe rules allowed him (Chisholm) to completely bypass any citizen review (grand jury) of his investigation AND allowed him to compel the people he was investigation to remain silent (i.e. not protest) against his treatment of them under penalty of law. He (Chisholm) paired up with Judge Barbara Kluka whose job it was to "supervise" his investigation. In fact, Judge Kluka acted only as a rubber stamp to approve dozens of early morning/late night police raids on people's homes who were only guilty of having a different view on government than Chisholm and Kluka. Imagine having a squad of heavily armed, amped up SWAT cops bashing on your door at 3 in the morning, swarming into your house, pointing guns at you and your kids, stealing your computers and smart phones, and then threatening you a string of criminal charges if you ever spoke a word of any of it to anyone for any reason. The short version of all of this is that Chisholm with Kluka in his pocket embarked on a political witch hunt that included police being used as a partisan political weapon in the political process. What should we do about this kind of thing? Should we just bend over and take it? Should we meekly crawl and beg before those same political partisans like Judge Barbara Kluka who actively worked to deny our political rights in the first place? Would it really be so wrong for someone to put a bullet in the heads of Chisholm, Kluka, every other prosecutor like Chisholm who participated in this John Doe investigation and every police goon who bashed down the doors of their political opponents in the middle of the night? You mentioned earlier in this conversation that rioting against the world and causing collateral damage to innocents in unacceptable, and you mentioned that is wrong to paint everyone in government with the same corruption brush. What then are we to do with the specific individuals whose names and guilt we know. How many tears would you shed if every one of these people were dead tomorrow from the actions of some individual out there meting out vigilante justice? Would the world be a better place without them? Would the partisan hacks with police power at their disposal think twice about the fights they want to pick if they knew the consequences could just as easily be someone forcing their way into their own homes in the middle of the night? Can a vigilante be both criminal and hero/patriot? You wanted some specific targets. There you go. You said, "We haven't reached the point of being ruled by 'gangs' of corrupt politicos that exercise their whims by force." I just gave you two specific examples of exactly why you are wrong.
What if it was your family whose house was raided simple because you chose to support one political candidate or another? What would you be prepared to do?
Back to the police. What if it was someone in your family who got shot without suspicion of any crime? I reference that YouTube video a couple posts up. Skip to 16:36 in and watch it to 27:40. Pay particular attention to the 10 minutes worth of graphic detail and explanation that both officers give in their recounting of the event, and then listen to the 27 second audio recording of the event. Both officers were found innocent of any wrongdoing in that case by an internal city investigation for one of the officer and by an internal Sheriff's department review of the other. In other words, they were cleared of wrongdoing by their fellow cops. When you listen to their explanations and how they match up with the 27 second audio of the encounter, I just don't get it. There can be no plausible explanation for how that shooting/tazing was justified. Mr. Kaady was no suspected of any crime. The danger he posed to the officers was incredibly dubious at best as he was obviously injured badly from a car wreck AND unarmed. I don't know about you, but if Fouad Kaady were in my family I wouldn't be happy to settle for some monetary settlement with no admission of wrongdoing from a couple of cops who got to go right back on duty. I would be looking for blood, one way or the other. The names of those two officers is known. what they did is known. They got away with it and were back on duty a short while later because they were protected by the city and the Sheriff's Department. That is what your fighting back through legal channels gets you, a hollow monetary payoff without so much as an admission of fault and a couple a cops back on the force who have gotten away with murder.
On a side note, feel free to Google Officer William Jacob Bergen for some of his other inglorious deeds and how the Sandy, OR police department covers up for their own. He was the city cop who shot Mr. Kaady along with Clackamas County Sheriff's Dept. Deputy David Willardand. It makes for an interesting research project.
As it relates to the Freddie Grey case, why would anyone with half an ounce of common sense think that Mr. Grey's family will ever get anything close to justice without fighting for it. And let me be crystal clear, when I say "fighting for it", I mean violence. The police, the mayor and the prosecutor's office weren't going to lift a finger to put those 6 cops on trial until the mobs starting hitting the streets. Blame the rioters all you want. They share of guilt is undeniable. While you're at it, though, blame the police in general for two things, 1) the culture of corruption and violence they use against their citizens and 2) that culture causing them to drag their feet in seeking justice against the 6 cops in this case until after they could no longer avoid it when violence erupted in the streets. I don't know for sure that it would have stopped the rioting before it started, but I contend there is a chance the rioting could have been avoided if the authorities had been 100% transparent and come down hard on the people who killed Freddie Grey right from the very start.
Your views paint large groups of people with a broad brush...your description fits some specific individuals, but not all. The ones it doesn't accurately describe become your collateral damage. That level of discernment is not much different than a thug burning somebody else's vehicle "to get back at the police". He's just trying to get his point across like you are—without specificity. If it was your home, car, or business that was burned in these riots, I doubt that you would see it as a "positive result". If you were sitting in traffic, trying to get home, and someone jumped on top of your car, flipping off the police, the local auto body shop will enjoy a "positive result", but I doubt you are going to be sympathetic to the *Individual* denting your hood and roof. I apologize if I have assumed incorrectly.
Corruption in government should be fought through legal means on all levels because, currently, NOT everyone is corrupt. We haven't reached the point of being ruled by 'gangs' of corrupt politicos that exercise their whims by force. However, we can get to that point quickly if the rights of the individual keep getting trampled in pursuit of this kind of collectivist, rioting 'justice'.
In the context of the story, I have no problem, at all, with the heroes of Atlas Shrugged acting in the self-defense of Galt using deadly force. It's one of the best action sequences of the book, and I'd recommend that you read it again to see the specific choices the characters made. The "government" they faced is not what we have...yet. We should do what we can to keep it from getting there; not using the same broad brush some accuse others of using against them.
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