I oppose over 99% of the law, but I do not cops personally.

Almost everything currently done by force of law should not be done by force at all.

Nothing good comes from disagreeing with people instead of ideas, but the very worst things come from agreeing with people instead of ideas.

Any evil on can imagine has been, at times, in places, perfectly legal. Legal and illegal have nothing to do with right and wrong.

I respect the legal use of force (government) not because of its legality but because of its force.

Cops must accept that the laws they enforce are sometimes in the wrong and that their choice to enforce the law will bring them into conflict with those who are in the right.

 

Great post. The law is no different to the force of criminals. They just claim moral authority because a consensus in society supports their actions.

 

While I don't have a problem with all officers, I do have issue with cops in general. It comes from their training and conduct. They are trained, told, and encouraged to be unnecessarily aggressive. The police departments are looking for people like this, who will chase a criminal rather than help people in a car accident, who are willing to shoot people in the back (yes, the recruiter told me I needed to be able to shoot people in the back despite me saying that I'd try to get them to surrender rather than just pop them). I don't disagree with your post at all; the law puts police in some very difficult positions where they are (*)(*)(*)(*)ing with people for no reason, but there's a whole process to weed out people who don't want to (*)(*)(*)(*) with people unnecessarily.

 

Then we get to the problem that cops are agents of the state. Whether a law is just or not, it is a law. A cop doesn't have the job of saying what laws should and shouldn't be allowed. Cops are neutral in this sense which is important because of everyone's different opinions on laws. If cops become the lawmakers, then there is no rule of law. It is ruled by what they consider right, not what is just or fair.

 

Really, really dumb post. It is just another way of saying that you should not have to follow, or comply with, a law that you do not agree with. I know a lot of people that feel that way. That is until they meet someone that disagrees with a law that is there to protects them. You know, like laws against stealing, assault, rape and/or murder. Then they are all for laws.

When you are caught breaking the law, then just give up. Maybe you can find a forum to fight the validity of the law. But what you shouldn't do is run, or try to fight the cops. That is when the cops emphasize the "force" in enforcement. They are not doing it to get their jollies. They are doing it because that is what we pay them to do. Their job is to catch law violators.

It is really simple. Don't break the law. If you decide that you are above the law, then expect the cops to come for you. When they get there, don't run or put up a fight. Then you will be searched, cuffed, and taken to jail. No fuss, no muss. But if you decide to break the law and then run or fight the cops, then expect the cops to take you to jail by force.

Every person that had the police use force against them made the decision for the cops. If they had followed the police's directions, then force would have never been applied.

Take the Garner case on Staten Island as an example. First the store owner asked him to go somewhere else. Garner refused. Then the cops arrived, and determined he was breaking the law. It does not matter whether you, I or even Mr. Garner agreed with the validity of the law. It only mattered that the law existed, and Mr. Garner chose to break it. As such, the officers made the decision to arrest Mr. Garner. What most people seem to have missed is that the decision to arrest him was made by a female African American officer. When the officers to him to put his hands behind his back, he refused. When they attempted to help him put his hands behind his back, he resisted and tried to pull away. That is when the officers swarmed Mr. Garner, and one officer grabbed him from behind, and pulled him down.

Mr. Garner's story illustrates where your OP is flat out wrong. Disagreement with a law has less to do with the police using force as the resistance to authority. You want to strip force from Police Enforcement, the have everyone stop resisting arrest.

 

This is a really, really dumb post. You are saying that you should submit to law and authority regardless of what it is. At no point should someone die over a bull(*)(*)(*)(*) law like the one against selling single cigarettes. You say the police are blameless in a mans death yet the situation never should have come to that; not because a man was breaking a law but because that law never should have existed in the first place. Further if with that law in existence violating that law in itself should never have lead to an arrest. Going even further the slight resistance offered by Garner (pulling his hands away) should have have lead to a cop ripping him down by the neck. Violations of minor laws followed by minor acts of resistance does not justify violence. That is a far more dangerous attitude than the attitude of people like myself who say (*)(*)(*)(*) the minor laws and do as we wish. To compare a law like the ban on selling single cigarettes with a meaningful law like bans on murder, rape, stealing, and assault is dishonest at best.

 

Marine this is not Vietnam or some (*)(*)(*)(*)ty as communist nation. We don't need to be choking people out for petty crime. If this was your niece, grandson, brother, sister, daughter, son all of which committed petty crime in their life time you would be singing a different tune. This country was founded off bucking authority on stupid (*)(*)(*)(*) like ridiculous taxes. I guess they don't mention that (*)(*)(*)(*) in boot camp do they?

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Marine this is not Vietnam or some (*)(*)(*)(*)ty as communist nation. We don't need to be choking people out for petty crime. If this was your niece, grandson, brother, sister, daughter, son all of which committed petty crime in their life time you would be singing a different tune. This country was founded off bucking authority on stupid (*)(*)(*)(*) like ridiculous taxes. I guess they don't mention that (*)(*)(*)(*) in boot camp do they?

 

Cops don't make the laws.

 

I would even go so far as to argue that some laws could have the potential to threaten the safety of those enforcing those laws, in some situations.

 

The first rule of trucking is don't (*)(*)(*)(*) off the people that write the tickets, cause they don't care, they'll just keep writing them. Cops don't get to decide which laws are right or not. Their job is to enforce them. If you think that you have been treated wrongly, fine, but don't argue about it with he cop. Eat the s**t sandwich and then take it up the food chain. I've walked away from many bad busts that way. And in a couple of cases, the arresting officer was canned.

 

I think you have police confused with Gestapo.

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And I'm not sure what with but you're definitely confused.

 

It is not always that simple. Most people do not realize that you can be arrested without having actually broken any law.

There are people sitting in jails for 9 months, waiting for a fair trial, accused of crimes that are not even really that terrible, held on rather flimsy evidence.

 

You are playing a variation of the old game of "if you support any piece of the law then you have to support all the law".

There is a big difference between laws against stealing, assault, rape, and murder, and the entire body of law. Stealing, assault, rape, and murder are opposed based on universally held morals, we don't need a written law to know that those actions are wrong and should be opposed. The written law simply codified the moral and social law.

Compare murder to something like a law banning the sale of single cigarettes (of Garner fame), it is a law geared to generate income to the government with no moral basis and is not widely supported.

Many laws are created to force people into behavior the government promotes, to generate revenue for the government, to protect favoured constituents (like taxi medallion laws), and have no basis in widely held morality.

Thats the key component - nobody opposes the cops maintaining the peace (there is a difference between maintaining the peace and enforcing the law) by catching people intent on committing actions that endanger people.

Its when cops abuse their position that people are upset about. Its easy to tell people to just give up and "maybe" fight the law, its a very different matter to get arrested, go to jail, put up bond, get a lawyer, and spend the money and time to fight an unjust charge in an often biased arena all because a cop was wrong, didn't like your attitude, or just got up on the wrong side of the bed.

And then there are the John Crawfords who are minding their own business, not breaking any law at all, not bothering anybody, and are murdered by cops.

Lets go to the extreme - would you give that advice to the slaves and members of the Underground Railroad in the 1850's?

How about unjust laws made by politicians so they can take your land and resell it for their own profit?

Sure. Tell that to John Crawford (and to his girlfriend who was brutalized by cops trying to get her to lie that Crawford had a gun). Or Aiyana Jones. Or Jose Guerena. Or the 100's of other totally innocent people minding their own business who were killed by cops.

Don't forget all the people subjected to midnight no-knock SWAT raids to the wrong address.

And we are not slaves. Cops are not the Masters of the plantation.

Its not about banning the police from using force, its about the supposedly highly trained cops using force judiciously. Any group of men can do to Garner what the cops did to him. We have police because they are supposed to be better able to deal with these situations than the general public.

Your advice about dealing with cops reminds me of the way the East German people felt about the Stasi and the Soviet people felt about the FSB - if you encounter one, beware, don't challenge them, obey what they say, right or wrong, legal or illegal, because they can make your life miserable, beat you and your family, even kill you, and get away with it. If you encounter one, your goal is just come through alive, with as little injury as possible.

As to your female African American officer in the Garner case, its irrelevant. Cops don't see race, the only color relevant to them is blue, they see all others as the enemy.

 

Do you believe that I should be allowed to take crop additives and dump them in the river?

Do you believe that I should be able to catch crab and sell it as trout?

Do you believe that I should be able to build whatever I want onto my house, regardless of safety?

Do you believe that I should be able to own a nuclear weapon?

Do you believe that I should be able to have sex with a 14 year old?

Do you believe that I should be able to lie to people in advertisements?

Do you believe that I should be able to not pay my bills, and face no legal repercussions?

Do you believe that children should be able to buy alcohol and pornography, so long as someone is willing to sell it to them?

Do you believe that an inventor should have some sort of intellectual property rights to his invention?

Do you believe that a father should pay child support for his kid?

Do you think that kids should be taken away from parents who do stuff like put them in closets for three months and starve them half to death?

 

I agree to a point. However, I feel that a law should only be passed if it protects people. Laws such as drug prohibition can not be justified, anymore than a law banning unhealthy foods can be. Laws against things that effect others, such as driving under the influence are fine, but the government has no right or authority to dictate what people may do with or put in their own bodies. Such laws are facsist, and should be opposed by all, and should never be followed.

 

Good luck trying to roll back all those laws. More and more laws keep being passed every year, but how many laws are actually rescinded? Virtually none.

All those laws, individually, seemed like a good idea at the time.

It's far easier to pass a law than to repeal one, it seems. The problem is, each law purports to help solve an important problem. Yet, altogether, all these laws end up not being a good idea. There is the cost of enforcement, the innocent people that get caught up in them, small various unintended consequences that are so spread out they are difficult to collectively recognize.

 

1) Pollute your own land all you want, when it spreads you pay for clean up
2) False advertisement
3) Yes
4) I think we can all agree that's a bad idea
5) She is not an adult, cannot consent, and since we have decided that sex is essentially a contract that won't work.
6) False advertisement
7) Yes and no, the companies you owe should be able to come after you however the state should not
Yes
9) Yes but for short periods at best. This has become something I need to think about more but IP is clearly out of control. I think the whole idea needs to be rethought.
10) Why not
11) Yeah, there's a point where that matters.

Just interjecting as someone with libertarian ideas since I assume that's what you are going after as is usually the case when people start going on about the walls of society crumbling down (god forbid there be less law after all, we'd all die just like we did before damn near everything was illegal!).

 

Actually I'm just curious. I knew 99% was hyperbole but I wanted to get a sense of whether or not he actually dislikes the law as much as he says he does.

I also have libertarian ideas, but in the traditional sense, not the bastardization we've seen in America over the past 20-30 years.

 

I agree. The law I'm currently dealing with is getting an endorsement for my motorcycle. Legally, I have to wait until February to take a class (well technically pass a test recognized by the state). The permit here requires me to have a person who already has an endorsement watch me at all times while I drive around on the thing. So despite the fact that I have it insured, have a plate, have a drivers license, and have the bike in my garage, I'm supposed to let it rot until the state sees fit to let me ride it. Lets just say that's not happening. This is just the latest example in a plethora of laws I have violated, wittingly or not, because damn near everything outside of living Leave it to Beaver is illegal. It's absurd. What's that quote about making so many laws that people lose respect for the law? Very applicable here in the "land of the free".

 

I do not support the military type war on drugs that has became the norm rather then the exception, this makes for bad cops and worse criminals imo

 

I see. Yeah, I have the same issue. Always annoys me to see a "libertarian" argue against gay marriage. Not a big fan of litmus tests but basic liberty is a big one to me.

 

The other danger is making so many things illegal that everyone is breaking the law in some way. Then a government prosecutor could choose to go after anyone they pleased. It wouldn't be about stopping people from doing things anymore, it would become about giving people in government virtually complete discretion to fine or jail whomever they choose.

That is also the problem with a licensing and permits. It gives certain government officers too much discretionary power. And even if the law says they have to grant you a license if you fulfill the requirements, and do such and such, there are no guarantees they will comply with the law, thus still effectively making illegal whatever the law tells you are not allowed to do without a license.

But sure, if you believe all the government offices can do no wrong and would never abuse their powers, then nothing to worry about.

 

It doesn't pay to stand up for your rights against aggressors. Let them do with you as they may then fight the legality of their actions in civil court. The live you save could be your own.

 

While it's true that there'd be no need for law, or police, if everybody simply minded their own business, provided for themselves and their families, and didn't interfere with the rights of others to do the same, it's also very true and demonstrated over the millennia that a little thing called 'human nature' spoils this little utopian dream, and makes law (and enforcement of such) necessary. You can't get everyone to go along with this scheme or even to agree what it is. So good luck with that.

 

Wouldn't true libertarians argue against the requirement for state sanctioning/licensing of ANY marriage, gay or not?