The United Police States of America

[Jarlaxle]

Officers killed in the line of duty, year 2014

Line of Duty Deaths: 58
Assault: 1
Automobile accident: 13
Fire: 1
Gunfire: 23
Gunfire (Accidental): 1
Heart attack: 6
Motorcycle accident: 2
Struck by vehicle: 3
Vehicle pursuit: 2
Vehicular assault: 6

Read more: http://www.odmp.org/search/year#ixzz35gJXA6GU

I am more likely to die on the job than a police offices.

[Jarlaxle]

I recently closed a case where an officer was accused of pretty serious misconduct, but the complaining witness would not step forward after her initial interviews with the department, and would not talk to the DA. We forwarded over the evidence we had collected, and there was evidence of one crime (a felony, but a minor felony), and the DA refused to prosecute. I understand their resources are limited, and they need to focus on what they can win, but sometimes that is just not enough.

Sadly, beyond assessing the strength of the evidence of a particular complaint against an LEO before determining whether to prosecute, it's my experience that another factor some prosecutors will consider - which they should not - is how many cases might be compromised by prosecuting an LEO, because the LEO's conviction then becomes a basis for impeachment of his/her credibility at future trials, if not a basis for defense counsel to consider revisiting past cases.

I suspect another consideration is that they may not want their families harassed, their heads smashed in, or meth planted in their cars!

[BoSoxGal]

I see you share my skepticism about police, Jarl.

[Jarlaxle]

They are no more dangerous than any other armed gangbangers.

[Jarlaxle]

More thugs in blue...A Brooklyn cop kicked a 10-year-old boy in the shin, breaking his leg, as the child was recording him with his cell phone, according to court papers.

LINK

[Econoline]

http://dogmurders.wordpress.com/

[BoSoxGal]

According to one of the links from that blog, a dog is murdered every 98 minutes in this country by a law enforcement officer.

[rubato]

As much as I like dogs, and they are a higher and more evolved species than many posters to this board, I cannot call the killing of dogs "murdering".

It just isn't right.

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

Okay, slaughtered. EXECUTED. Killed in a totally inhumane, barbaric manner, in many cases right in front of their human companions.

Better, rubato??

[rubato]

Okay, slaughtered. EXECUTED. Killed in a totally inhumane, barbaric manner, in many cases right in front of their human companions.

Better, rubato??

Thank you. Yes, that is a lot better.

There is a line that, if you erase or blur it, you wind up with PETA nimrods unable to distinguish between rights, which humans possess, and our obligations to animals.

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

I guess I'm a nimrod, then, because I am persuaded that animals should have rights.

Ever read any of Steven Wise's arguments on the issue? You might find them persuasive, too.

[Lord Jim]

I am compelled to agree with the rubester on this one...(especially since he is using the exact same distinction I employed in a discussion about this sometime back...)

As much affection as I have for our critters, I recognize that from a moral standpoint, only human beings have "rights" as "rights" are properly understood...At least on The Planet Earth, Modern Humans are the only species capable of the self-actualization required for the concept of "rights" to even be comprehensible...

As rube said, (and I said earlier) lower order animals do not have "rights"; but we as moral agents, (the only species for which morality is a meaningful concept) have moral obligations regarding their treatment...

And it is entirely fitting and proper that we have laws that punish those who ignore those moral obligations...(like a person who puts neighborhood cats in a bag and hooks it up to his exhaust pipe, to give one purely hypothetical example...)

[BoSoxGal]

Again, I suggest reading Steven Wise . . . it's pretty arbitrary, this designation of humans as the only higher order mammals entitled to rights.

[Jarlaxle]

I have concluded that my cats have more positive qualities than a significant percentage of the human race.

[rubato]

Again, I suggest reading Steven Wise . . . it's pretty arbitrary, this designation of humans as the only higher order mammals entitled to rights.

I'll look up Steven Wise when I get a chance but the distinction is not arbitrary.

We conceive of rights as constraining us from acting in our self-interest when dealing with other persons (who have rights). And we act against our own self-interest very often as an expression of this. I have seen no evidence that any animal has ever done so.

So no, it is not arbitrary. The types of entities who can have rights are the types of entities who conceive of rights and sacrifice to preserve them for others. That is not arbitrary.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Oh brother...

The thoughts of Steven Wise...(talk about an ironically inappropriate last name...)

Wise's position on animal rights is that some animals, particularly primates, meet the criteria of legal personhood,[really?]and should therefore be awarded certain rights and protections. His criteria for personhood are that the animal must be able to desire things, to act in an intentional manner to acquire those things, and must have a sense of self i.e. the animals must know that s/he exists. Wise argues that chimpanzees, bonobos, elephants, parrots, dolphins, orangutans, and gorillas meet these criteria.[4]

Wise argues that these animals should have legal personhood bestowed upon them to protect them from "serious infringements upon their bodily integrity and bodily liberty." Without personhood in law, he writes, one is "invisible to civil law" and "might as well be dead."[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_M._Wise

Geez ma' knees...

It really doesn't get a whole lot sillier than that...

[Econoline]

The types of entities who can have rights are the types of entities who conceive of rights and sacrifice to preserve them for others.

Well put.

ETA: BTW, I've always felt that PETA, in the name of the organization (as opposed to the actions of its members) got it exactly right: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Because we are people, we have the ability--nay, the obligation--to behave ethically.

[Lord Jim]

Animals, other than human beings, are not capable of comprehending the concepts of "right and wrong"; they are not moral agents...

Our pets may seem to "love" us , or be "loyal" to us, or "devoted" to us, but that's really just anthropomorphic projection...

They exhibit behavior that looks like that to us because it's hard-wired into them as a survival mechanism; and also as a result of centuries of selective breeding...

Dogs are "loyal" and "loving" not because they "choose" to be those things, but because they are pack animals who identify us as part of their "pack" and possess what we see as those qualities...

Domestic house cats seem to have many of the same qualities, because they exist in a state of arrested development as kittens their whole lives, never having to fend for themselves as feral loners (which they would in the wild)

Parrots...(well, okay, having dealt with a parrot for 25 years, I'm coming to the conclusion that maybe they're self actualized... they may be an intelligent alien life form sent to live among us to provide intel to their Home World as a precursor for an Invasion... )

[Big RR]

Jim--while I agree with you about the origins of canine and feline and other animal behavior, I do think it is immaterial to "rights". Infants have rights even though they are largely responding the way they are hard wired--self actualization is acquired slowly. But as sentient beings we enact laws to protect those "rights". So a baby has a "right" to be cared for, not to be starved, not to be abused, etc. And to enforce those rights, we allow some to appear on behalf of the baby in the courts.

The same is true of dogs, cats, even wild animals--we have similar laws respecting those same "rights" (as many, like Michael Vick, e.g., found out). Domestic animals are not mere possessions, they are recognized as something under the law that has some right to be treated certain ways, and this is enforceable by persons, like ASPCA reps, who can appear in court and compel the owner to do certain things.

Now some may quibble and say these are not "rights", they are something we give to animals under the law and can just as easily take away, but I think that distinction is not persuasive. While we can philosophically (or theologically) argue gfor the existence of natural (or God-given) rights, the plain fact is that we only have the rights we can either obtain under the law or fight to retain (and the very young and old cannot even due this). I may have had right wile I was in college to life and the pursuit of happiness, but that did not prevent the government from forcibly conscripting me and sending me to fight an die in a foreign land if it chose to do so. I never gave up that "right"; indeed, many who were sent prior to the 70s never even had a say in the choosing of the government which enacted the laws, as they had no vote. And if I resisted, I risked punishment at the hands of the same government; so like my dog, I only had the rights the government gave me.

So I don't think it is inappropriate to say animals have rights; they are not the same as humans have, nor should they be so.

[rubato]

We have an obligation to treat animals humanely, kindly even, because not to do so is degrading to us.


yrs,
rubato