Wrong.

Nice job ignoring my post, though.

I didn't ignore it. I guess I just haven't driven my point home yet, which is—

"I was following orders" is not a valid defense for ruining people's lives over petty crap. Argue 'til you're blue in the face that it doesn't concern you because you're not the one who made the law, but that is false. You are THE integral cog in that process of injustice. It's time to take personal responsibility for your actions and acknowledge the primary role you play in sending people to prison who shouldn't be there.

We're not talking about ORDERS. We're talking about LAW.

Judges interpret law and determine sentencing. End of story.

Funny thing about that, one of my heroes is actually a cop and he would like to have a word with you about that... his name is Tom Dart.

And who shouldn't be there? Are you taking about people who are wrongly imprisoned because they broke no law? Or are you taking about people who broke laws that you just don't happen to agree with?

from what I remember Tom Dart uses a part of the law to not enforce the foreclosure. Many officers I know use the law to also help out people caught for small things that really shouldn't ruin their lives.

Police are not evil for enforcing the law. If they think a law is unjust they must enforce it but they can do so in a way to help the person breaking the law out. You can be a police officer and not be an evil drone of an unjust legal system

Veger...

you spelled SIGNATURE wrong in your SIGNATURE...

So, freelancers logic is screwed up... whats new?

Ok that's been my signiture for like 5 years. WHAT THE HELL.

Why didn't anyone mention this?

I don't know about that. A friend of mine who used to work in a Dutch coffeeshop told me stories about kilos 'disappearing' in police reports. He says it happens all the time.

in fact, it is spelled incorrectly in at least two differant ways as well.

A mistake entered this thread on page 2. The cops were not enforcing marijuana laws. They were enforcing cocaine laws.

Freelancer; whatever you think about pot is irrelevant. The cop thought he had crack. Argue about crack laws instead.

So wait, Free's an anarchist?

He likes to call himself 'Libertarian', but he's just making libertarians look bad.

Basically what he's saying is that because he disagrees with the law, it must be wrong, so cops who enforce it must be bad, no matter how many other people think otherwise.

When did Zanardi become downzardi?

This whole thread is kinda ridiculous.

I've always seen it, and every time, thought about saying something but didn't :/

I think we can agree that Freelancer is just absolutely mind-bogglingly dim and crazy if he blames the cops for enforcing the law. If you don't like the law, change it. Get into government, go out and vote, lobby congress.

If a building is built to exact specifications, and the building fails and crashes to the ground, is it the construction workers' fault, or the architect? You damn well know it's the architect. The same thing applies here. The architects are the congressmen. The construction workers are the police. I don't see how anyone could make this any clearer for you, and if you continue to insist that the police should all lose their jobs because of their refusal to enforce a law that was enacted not by one person, or a few, but a few hundred people elected by the country? Then you are daft.

Actually, if structure falls down, architects like to point to the structural engineer for blame.

i would blame the guy who bombed the building, but whatever

Didn't read the thread, but this made me think of...

SEMANTICS :saddowns:

SYNTACTICS

CAPS REALLY NEEDED?

Freelancer, are you saying cops should only enforce laws they think are morally right? Or that they should only enforce laws you think are morally right? Because that's a bit of a difference there

Okay, here's a better analogy! Fixed:

Analogy failure. Everyone knows that if the farms are down, mb sat on it!

This reminded me of a situation I was in about 15 years ago. You see, I remember the good old days where if I got bored in the grocery store with my parents I would ask for the keys to the car and wait outside. Well, I let my daughter stay in the car at a store once and some busy body called the police. The officer cited me for "Child Abuse and Child Neglect". I went to the arraignment where, of course, the judge belittled me (certainly because I was an evil child abuser and neglector). A social worker had to visit my house to assess our child's household situation. Of course we "passed" and when we went back to court the judge dismissed the charges at the police officer's request.

He was doing his job when he cited me and he was doing his job when he requested the judge dismiss the charges. In the case this thread is about, the police officer was doing his job when he showed interest in educating Z@n's friend about not leaving valuables in plain site. His intention was to actually "protect and serve" Z@n's friend by ensuring his valuable were secure. Now, when he saw the pipe in plain view of course he had probable cause to search further. Who actually knows what would have happened had the poliice officer not found a gun. He very well might have just cited his friend and/or let him go.

In response to Free I would say that this kid getting sent to jail had very little to do with "unjust marijuanna laws" and more to do with stupidity. If you're going to drive around with pot and a gun in your car, you might want to be a little more careful than this guy was.

Why in the WORLD would he have an ilegally loaded fiream in his vehicle? There is NO excuse for that, and it is a BIG DEAL. This coming from the biggest pro-gun guy here living in the least regulated state in America where this is STILL a big deal. You know who carries firearms illegally? Criminals. I mean that in both the obvious way and the less obvious way.

It's true, without the gun he should have only received a ticket, slap on the wrist. But that really isn't what this topic was about.

They saw him rollin'.

They hatin'.

They caught him ridin' dirty.
Done and caught him ridin' dirty.

Okay, so at the bottom of the forth page in the thread you started you want to say that the situation you relate in the opening post isn't really "what this topic was about"? Let me guess, you really mean more that if the po-po wasn't harassing your friend they could have caught the real criminals down the street? Did you ever think that if petty criminals like your friend (not that I assume he commits other crimes, just that the crimes he committed that night are petty) weren't out there distracting the police they could have had a better chance at being in the vicinity of the armed robbery? I mean, that view cuts both ways.

Damn it, I said I didn't want to talk about it anymore but you people just don't stop.

No they wouldn't have caught the other criminals, but maybe if 5 cop cars weren't sitting down at drug mart. Like doing something else with their time, cruising down the street, spread out watching, or sitting in different parking lots observing people.

You know sometimes just the PRESENCE of an officer would probably freak some guys out (like some break-in robbers) and they just would stop what they had planned... and that's all I want.

I know if I was a police officer and not finding crack pipes I would go to Applebee's

Have you considered the possibility that they may have been doing exactly that prior to encountering your illegally armed drug-toting friend?

We're not making you talk about it anymore, and we don't have to stop just because you don't want to keep playing.

Zan: From the exact same logic, you could make the argument that if your friend wasn't so blatantly stupid, the Cops would've driven down the road and saw the hold up at Applebees. Your observation that some other crime was happening is not good logic. Yes, crimes happen simultaneously. The close distance between these two crimes is null, considering any number of unreported crimes could be happening any distance from the scene of a crime you think is "petty."

There are lots of arguments against those petty laws, and you're free to argue them with your congress member, but arguing with a police officer is futile. After thinking about it for a couple of days, I'm going to have to disagree with Freelancer: There's a significant difference between killing someone then claiming it was orders, and arresting someone. Arrests are typically non-violent detainments in which you are considered a suspect, not a criminal. The law has been designed in a way that the police officers aren't offending human rights or making any judgment calls. Furthermore, if there wasn't a process for disagreeing with a law, I'd be on your side. Thankfully, if you're charged with a crime in the united states, you're allowed to defend yourself against that claim, or even defend against the fundamental legality of the law itself. These things don't relieve the Police Officer of moral/human responsibilities, but they certainly don't criminalize their actions.

Doing your job knowing that the individuals you arrest can explain themselves to the judge and get away is nowhere near the kind of blame you're placing on the police, Free.

Summary :

Enforcing anti-pot laws is not wrong.
Pot should be legal, though.

And for Wookie : Two things.
a) Your daughter is like, two, right? What the ****.
b) People need to stop trying to parent other people's kids. I understand if you see someone taking a baseball bat to a nine year old, but I watched a guy get arrested once for smacking a three year old on the but after the child ran into a walmart parking lot and almost got run over.
c) Seriously, why did you leave her in the car?

Yeah, a 2 year old alone in a car, I would call too.

I appreciate your comments Kirbs