Talk-Polywell.org

GIThruster wrote:No, he was killed by his gluttony as accomplished through a heart attack. He was a 350 pound career criminal who happened to have his heart attack while being arrested for the 31st time.

Why are you seeking sympathy for him here?

GIThruster wrote:We agree in most of our concerns about the police when they're not under control, but the piece specifically says the guy died not of choking, but of a heart attack, and that he was being arrested for the 31st time. Career criminals shouldn't even be out on the street. After half a dozen incarcerations, you toss him in and throw away the key.

No sympathy for this guy.

GIThruster wrote:Well Simon, that attitude that someone could not only commit but be convicted of 30 crimes and should still be on the street, is generally not held by anyone who is not a criminal. And you see what your illegal drug use has done to you. You have no common sense left. He did not die of choking. He weighed 350 lb. and died of a heart attack. People dying of heart attack often express they can't breathe! That is his fault. He was no innocent. He was a career criminal. So don't waste your sympathies.

GIThruster wrote:Whine and whimper all you like, but he was not a drug law violator, and he was not killed by the police. It is your crazy instance in things like this to draw outrageous conclusions that makes you appear a brilliant but very troubled child. You should be able to think like an adult, and yet, we get posts like this.

MSimon wrote:Ah. So you think liberty is unAmerican? And childish. It is no wonder the nation has sunk so far into socialism. We have two socialist parties that claim to be in opposition. They actually assist each other in their lust for Power and Control.

Well it is not news. There are those who love to OBEY and who think obedience is Patriotism. And they were about 1/3rd of the population in '76. My guess is that the proportion is higher now.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. — Thomas Jefferson

I'm with the resistance. Generally.

As my colleagues and I frequently note, Americans have a well-established constitutional right to record police officers as they publicly perform their duties. Yet cops across the country continue to harass and arrest people for exercising that right, using bogus charges such as wiretapping, resisting arrest, and interfering with police. Yesterday yet another federal judge issued a clear message to those cops: Cut it out.

The case was brought by Antonio Buehler, an Austin, Texas, activist who has had several run-ins with camera-shy cops. The first incident occurred on January 1, 2012, when Buehler pulled into a 7-11 in Austin to refuel his truck and observed a traffic stop during which police dragged a screaming passenger from a car and knocked her to the ground. After Buehler took out his phone and began taking pictures of the encounter from a distance, Officer Patrick Obosrki manhandled him and arrested him for "resisting arrest, search, or transportation."

Buehler filed a complaint about the incident with the Austin Police Department but never received a satisfactory response. The experience led him to start the Peaceful Streets Project, which aims to help "individuals understand their rights and hold law enforcement officials accountable." The organization routinely records police encounters "to prevent and document police brutality." That work led to two more arrests of Buehler, both for "interference with public duties," on August 26, 2012, and September 21, 2012. The third arrest again involved Oborski. On both occasions police took Buehler's camera and never returned it.

Peaceful Streets ProjectIn response to Buehler's federal lawsuit, Oborski and several other officers claimed they did not realize he had a right to record them. But according to U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Lane, they really should have. In yesterday's decision, which allowed the lawsuit to proceed, Lane cites "a robust consensus of circuit courts of appeals"—including the 1st, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th—that "the First Amendment encompasses a right to record public officials as they perform their official duties." He also notes two decisions in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which includes Texas, "seems to assume, without explicitly stating, that photographing a police officer performing his official duties falls under the umbrella of protected expression."

This is not some newly discovered right that Oborski and his colleagues might have understandably overlooked. To the contrary, it rests on longstanding principles repeatedly recognized by the Supreme Court. "If a person has the right to assemble in a public place, receive information on a matter of public concern, and make a record of that information for the purpose of disseminating that information," Kane writes, "the ability to make photographic or video recording of that information is simply not a new right or a revolutionary expansion of a historical right. Instead, the photographic or video recording of public information is only a more modern and efficient method of exercising a clearly established right." He therefore concludes that Oborski et al. cannot claim qualified immunity by arguing that the right was not clearly established at the time of Buehler's arrests.

In addition to his First Amendment claims, Buehler accuses Oborski and the others of false arrest, and Kane allowed him to pursue those claims as well. The charge of resisting arrest—which in Buehler's case presumably referred to the arrest that he photographed in the first incident, as opposed to his own arrest for resisting arrest—involves "using force," and Buehler claims he never did that. "Accepting as true Buehler’s factual allegations," Kane writes, "Oborski and [Officer Robert] Snider did not have probable cause to arrest Buehler on January 1, 2012 for Resisting Arrest, Search, or Transportation." A charge of interference with public duties is also inconsistent with the facts as described by Buehler, says Kane, since he claims he was merely observing and recording, which he had a right to do.

In addition to Oborski, Snider, and the other officers, Buehler is suing the city of Austin and the Austin Police Department, arguing that they had an obligation to make sure that the cops they employ understand their constitutional obligations. This sort of decision is important not only because it highlights a right that police are bound to respect but because it puts them on notice that they can be held personally liable for violating it.

GIThruster wrote:We agree in most of our concerns about the police when they're not under control, but the piece specifically says the guy died not of choking, but of a heart attack, and that he was being arrested for the 31st time. Career criminals shouldn't even be out on the street. After half a dozen incarcerations, you toss him in and throw away the key.

"If Republicans fixate on social issues again, they will lose again."

http://classicalvalues.com/2014/07/on-t ... n-laramie/

I got pulled over in Omaha for absolutely nothing except the crime of not wanting to be pulled over (which means I stayed at that stupid town’s 60 mph limit, which seemed to actually draw the attention of the corrupt local cops). The guy (an obvious drug cop in an SUV canine unit) followed me for some time and made me nervous as hell before finally turning on the lights, and as my biggest fear was that he would shoot my dog for defending the car (precisely why I am so paranoid about being pulled over), I begged him over the barking to let me get out of the car, which fortunately he did. (Maybe he understands a little bit about dogs!) He made me sit in the front seat of the police car and asked me endless questions (as if he was trying to figure me out), and during the ritual he would repeat the same questions (obviously to determine whether I would change my story). Finally he gave me a warning (to stay in my lane, even though I had not left it). It was an incredibly creepy experience, and I am glad the dog didn’t get shot, because he was defending the car by lunging at the glass. Defending me, that poor noble creature. A wonderful dog, if unsuited for the modern age. He would die for me without hesitation, and that is an enormous responsibility for me.

Insisting on my “rights” could have pissed off the cop and meant the death of my dog. In quotes because the War On Drugs is nothing but a War On the Fourth Amendment, with courts, liberals, conservatives, and media in full accord. Police can basically do whatever they want with impunity. (Bastards. I like to rant, but obviously my ranting is ineffectual*.)

Life in prison for selling untaxed singles?

Generally your problem is Americans will not support laws that they will not obey.