Thursday, September 06, 2007
Arianna actually writes something nearly interesting.
(and guar-an-teeeed to upset many a liberal or marxist cyber-moralist)
In the Age of Terror, Isn't Busting Toe-Tappers an Insane Use of Our Law Enforcement Resources?
by Arianna Huffington
""""""In the consensus judgment of America's 16 intelligence agencies, the terrorist threat to our homeland is "persistent and evolving," placing our country in "a heightened threat environment."
Given that chilling assessment, isn't it the height of madness to use America's finite law enforcement resources to seek out and arrest people for tapping the foot of a cute undercover officer in a restroom?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not wild about walking into a public restroom and seeing a couple using the a stall for something other than, as Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the arresting officer in the Craig case put it, "its intended use."
But that is not what Larry Craig did. If he had, someone in the restroom could have done what most people do when they see a law being broken: go get a cop.
And as it happens, since Craig was arrested in an airport, presumably there were plenty of law enforcement officers nearby looking for, you know, real threats -- like explosives or folks on a Watch List. Assuming, that is, they weren't all hunkered down in other bathrooms across the airport, protecting the public against people who might be thinking about having sex.
Let me be clear: I'm no fan of Larry Craig. Indeed, I disagree with almost everything he stands for. And I'd much rather he not be in the United States Senate. But I'd also rather have had his exit be the result of his constituents voting on his ideas and policies, instead of a ridiculous sting operation in an airport bathroom......"""""""""
Bravo.
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17 comments:
Ariana's view as expressed in this column was nearly as "interesting" as my initial reaction before I'd had much chance to think about it. I was very surprised that you could get busted with disorderly conduct on such flimsy evidence as a few toe taps and hand motions.
After I'd reflected on the context, that upwards of 40 people had been arrested for similar 'crimes' in the same location and considering how I'd feel if my son ran into a couple of middle-aged pervs getting it on, I'm inclined to think that the police work was probably justified.
Obviously these cops are pretty tuned in to "the code" that indicates what the intentions of the toe-tappers and wide stancers really is. Still, I will be especially vigilant to be sure my RLS (restless leg syndrome) symptoms are not taken in the wrong way in such circumstances.
How predictably conservative, if not xtian: defending cops over suspects. You weren't there. I don't doubt some of the charges are accurate, but you don't know that. Solicitation is a shady area of law anyways, and really the cops (as in LA, and other parts of CA) can more effectively bust "johns" (whether for female ...or male prosties) via surveillance cams; if it's just consensual and not solicitation, so f-n what. Even if it's a solicitation there are really no convincing arguments why prostitution should be illegal, excepting health reasons, perhaps.
Would you bust people screwing on the beach---say a male and female? Even that is questionable as well.
SO I don't think you understand Arianna's point.
Yes, "pervs" (not some queer bashing there, is it, Max?) getting it on in men's rooms might offend (what about ladies' rooms? Or is that acceptable)--but if they are in stalls, most would not know about it. Craig's politics and hypocrisy might offend some as well. But having cops put on these bizarre, ticky-tack vice stake outs, while far more serious crimes are going down , at local, state and national levels, offends as much, if not worse.
Your xtian pals obviously have gotten to you.
I wouldn't be cool with screwing on the beach- even heterosexual- if it was a public area where people were counting on taking there kids and didn't want to have to deal with that stuff. If it's marked clothing optional I'd expect it would occasionally happen so shouldn't be a major crime. Screwing in a public restroom, where kids sometimes have to go in alone, is not so cool. If they were planning to meet up later in privacy and just exchanging contact info that'd be different. Apparently there was a history of people getting down and dirty and it had generated sufficient complaints that the cops felt duty-bound to patrol.
As for the pervs comment- it wasn't meant to be a slam on any particular brand of sexuality. Perversion in this case is doing it in a public bathroom because the need to keep living a lie- a lifestyle you'd advocated and legislated against- forced you to risk exposing deviant adult behavior to the very kids you claim to be protecting with the famous family values. Get a room guys!
You mean "Craig" when you used 2nd person, right. Sort of important clarification. If Craig actually was cruisin', he should be called out, and denounced as hypocrite. But it's still ticky-tack, and debatable whether that in itself is a major crime. And it's still hearsay: they don't have Craig doing some solicitation on tape (and they do attempt to bust that sort of stuff via surveillance cams in LA--). Should cops be paid for that Reno 911 shit however? Ich denke nicht. (what should cops be paid for? Arguably only for catching real bad guys, like murderers, rapists, and silicon valley IT barons). So my libertarian self agrees mostly with Arianna: while people cruisin' in public restrooms (or screwing on beaches) may be unsavory, the SnitchTech. being used to entrap the chickenhawks is worse--possibly far worse.
Tapping shoes and come on gestures isn't exactly high tech.
That was SnitchTech., not high tech. But the boys-in- blue probably are required to attend some class in "How to arrest homosexuals in airport men's rooms safely and properly," PC SECTION 132328.ii88r5E. Or somethin' of the sort. And the stall tapping/body language appears to be a sort of code: so could get fairly complex, like thieves' jargon etc.
Arianna's basic point was similar to the proverbial (and justifiable, if not Jeffersonian) kvetch about under-worked (and over-perq'ed) constabulary: the "Ossifer O'Malley's running a little speedtrap (or queer-trap) out on the pikeway while the boys downtown run speakeasies with the Al Caponay gang meme," sort of. Do the Minneapolis pigs have so much free time away from busting real perps, thugs, gangstas, that they can sit in bathrooms and shake down queers? That's, as the gangstas say, punk shit. Craig's bad enough: vice pigs worse.
I think all three of us; you, me, and Ariana, need more info on the history of what was going down at that location including the complaints that were made to really make a solid judgment. If the public was alarmed and offended then the cops were just doing their civic duty. If they were just trolling for deviants, then Ariana- and you- are spot on.
If the public was alarmed and offended then the cops were just doing their civic duty.
Maybe. On the other hand what the public (or majority) thinks, or desires has no necessary relationship with the correct policy or practice. Some type of surveillance, and posted warnings (do not have sex in the restrooms, etc.) would prevent a lot of this shit.
It's related to your point (one of a few fairly important ones) of distinguishing between "what" and "who." What Craig did (allegedly did) is fairly insignificant. But the media--including many liberals obsessed with ID politics (some of those sorts of bogus progressives even post on YOUR site)--want to rip Craig for the WHO, not the what. He's a hypocrite, closet-case, weak, queer, etc. etc. That isn't the case. The WHAT of Craig are his specific votes (including perhaps his support of the anti-same sex marriage "laws," etc.) and stated policies. That some DINO like DiFeinstein supported Bush's tax slashes for the very wealthy in 2003 (one of only a handful) or so should bother us far more than Craiggate.
"That some DINO like DiFeinstein supported Bush's tax slashes for the very wealthy in 2003 (one of only a handful) or so should bother us far more than Craiggate."
Believe it or not, it does.
Yay! Good McBoy.
Once you agree to a completely secular--or Dawkinsesque ethics---all your whines (and those of your pal-rons, and bege-rons) concerning Bush/Cheney/GOP seem pretty insignificant and petty. Oxford atheist Don Dawkins is indeed cronies with oxford drunk atheist Hitchens, that "sickfuck" according to one of your crony-rons.
I actually take some issue with a completely Darwinist approach --or utilitarian approach to ethics--at least when that "ethics" becomes something like stalinism or the nazi party (and nazis quoted Darwin and evolutionary theory on occasion). "Evil" can be used, if we agree that it is sort of via convention, and that one isn't invoking theology or the catholic church. Stalin was "evil." So was Hitler. So is OBL.
No? Then it's hassan i sabbah time, and everything is permitted.
It's really quite amazing how you allow your comrade Begechek--who either has problems reading, or is just lying--- to misread and mis-quote my writing, and to spew his little nsults and insinuations, while more or less censoring me.
I never argued for "higher ideals." My whole point on that OBL thread was about assessing the war from a secular, cost-benefit perspective (or utilitarian in a broad sense--weighing the positive "consequences" of the war vs. negative.) . It's not obvious, except to Bege-chek, and you (and most Kossacks) that the war was an entire loss. That is the par-tay line of the left, but that don't make it right. In fact that is a key (and somewhat stalinist) strategy of the leftist democrats--to show that Bush and GOP were completely wrong with the Iraq mess, while most of their own leaders signed off on it.
Bege-chek's insinuations that I am invoking some "higher ideal" are indeed racist, as much of his scribbling is--I am the one who brought up utilitarianism! He is not a proficient writer (or reader) , and seems to have sort of beguiled you. For all of his supposed secularism Bege-chek's pretty emotional as well. (Dawkins himself has not really sided with the leftist-pacifists)
So I would appreciate it if you at least allowed me a spot to respond to his silly misreadings (I have posted one response).
You're a little too omnipresent and prolific and it's the major reason why I only select a few of your comments for posting. Don't like to drown out the other voices.
Hah. That's just clarity and effective writing. Better some glibness than the garbled pseudo-ethics of Bege-chek. Few people are writing for publication on blog comment boxes anyway--but Bege-chek's scribbling would not get published in the local paper, unless some PC writer edited it severely. But that isn't the real issue.
The real issue is how Bege-chek misconstrued a fairly obvious point regarding the assessment of the war effort. Even if it was costly, one could quite easily argue for a "ends justifies the means" sort of view of the war from an atheist perspective: loss of revenues to defense dept. (and casualties) yet there were strategic gains. And that was my point.
Many liberals both seem to uphold atheism and moral relativism (i.e. denying absolute morality) and yet each day post very moralistic writings (i.e. war/poverty/racism are "bad"--value judgments which , according to you and bege, are incapable of being proven "true"). If everything is relative and value simply a matter of taste or subjective preferences, the dems' endless whines about GOP injustices seem rather out of place, inconsistent, and hysterical.
Another amusing trait of your site we note--allowing one of your conservative pal-rons (that's right, conservative--conservatives are all about dogma and manipulation, whether religious, fascist or stalinist) to post silly, emotional conspiracy BS and then stifling any substantial debate regarding the claims.
The 911 Conspiracy claims have been defeated soundly: not only by rightists or the Pop. Mechanics crew, but by NIST itself, and other scientists, including Dr. Manuel Garcia, a Livermore physicist who writes on Counterpunch. Sam Harris has written some scathing pieces on the nuts of right and left who still think Cheney piloted the jets into the WTC.
Anyway, there WAS a conspiracy to destroy WTC. It was hatched among bloodthirsty muslim terrorists (and ample evidence exists showing the terrorist's pre-med). But neither you or Sen-rab have the spine to call your little psychotic jehovah witness-Ron and terrorist sympathizer on his bad facts, his bad writing, his endless emotional drivel, and indeed his sedition.
And when you start into your lightweight PC rant against the War (resentment is my aeroplane....), remember that Nancy Pelosi supported the war effort as much as the GOPers did. Of course your MoronRon completely missed the point on secular ethics as well, as that would conflict with his Krip-tianity............
"...indeed his sedition."
My favorite "crime." All hail the seditionists! You've finally found the label that most fits and reminds me of why byronius will always have free rein to write what he pleases on NW. I wish I could as proudly commit "conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state." as he does.
What, you want us to bow down and worship our overlords or something? My country right or wrong?
That's a false binary: you want to suggest that either x-ron or any pop-leftist can make up all sorts of BS and accuse Cheney of conspiracy, or someone denies them the right to criticize their "overlords"! In fact you are the one stifling dissent. How about your overlords, er, overladies, like DiFi and Pelosi, who except for a few details are more or less in step with the GOP program? DiFi' in fact even more fond of J-Edgarish policies. Your politics is emotional, selective, hypocritical.
Reasoned dissent should be allowed, even of the Chomskyan sort--though Chomsky himself generally avoids the type of emotional manipulation common to the hystero-crats of KOS or DU, and typical of the marxist apparatchik (either journalist, like Hersh, or academics), who realizes lies, ID politics and manipulation (Orwell's Doublespeak) may function as well as facts, data, and research may.
Chomsky, the great voice of Granola-crats everywhere, has however made errors and great overstatements, as have many of the "left.". He was claiming the US was planning a liquidation of Afghanistan (and other mid-east countries) and that did not occur. He more or less poo-poo'ed 911, the greatest attack on US soil, ever.
The point is that liberal dogma is one PERSPECTIVE: once that perspective is taken as the Truth, then one upholds dogma. Bushco and the GOP may look pretty nasty, until comparing with say the history of Mao and communist china, or Stalinism, or Islamic theocracy.
Anyways, you and your spam-artiste MoRon both sound racist--like wiggahs--as does Bege-stein, one of the worst scribblers to post anywhere online. It has nothing to do with the actual politics, or ethics: this is part of a strategy, like some way to keep palsies with your niggah (yeah read my lips) or jew neighbors, more than likely.
You toss the texts of western civilization--whether those of Newton, Voltaire or Jefferson or of Ezra Pound and Nietzsche, Frege or Hilbert--out in the street each day.
You should like change the color of your skin, McRodent.
I think we are finished.
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