Does a person have a civil duty to be polite to a judge? Try acting the fool like Gates in front of a judge and see what happens. I think a person DOES have the duty to be respectful of the police, no matter how wrong you think they are. You have a recourse if you feel you were wronged, it is called filing a complaint with the police dept after the incident is over. I think each police dept has a department called INTERNAL AFFAIRS which investigates this all the time.
Imagine if EVERYBODY acted towards the police the way Gates did in EVERY encounter with the police, from traffic stops, to house breakins, to domestic disputes, to murder investigations. I could care less if Gates was in his house or not, he should be happy the police are there to investigate a breakin when in point of fact the house had actually been BROKEN into before and there had been breakins in the neighborhood recently.
It is pathetic that people choose to prove their ‘manhood’ by getting in the face of police officers who risk their life every day to protect them. That kind of behavior is not manly, it is disgusting.
I would argue that you are within the judges courtroom, his authority there rules. When you are on my property I am in charge. If I want to shout Praise Jesus! at the top of my lungs or Police are Facists! or Long Live the Second Ammendment! I have that right.
Try acting the fool like Gates in front of a judge and see what happens.
We can't just allow people to act like a fool now can we? No, sir. They might get funny ideas about freedom then.
I could care less if Gates was in his house or not,
Well, not everybody feels the way you do. I know, for my part, it matters to me immensely whether I am in my own castle or not. If I am in my own home I tend to think I have a certain amount of lassitude in the things I do and what I say. Maybe in your house it is different- fair enough. I don't like the idea of the government being able to incite you on your own property and then arrest you for that incitement.
And we can keep this in context. It wasn't a traffic stop. It wasn't even a criminal investigation by the time the officer decided to arrest Gates because he had already determined that there was no criminal activity taking place.
I believe, and it's maybe just silliness on my part, but I was raised to believe that a person has a great deal of freedom on their own property. More so than when out in the public commons. I believe that a citizen should be secure from government intrusion- particularly unwarranted government intrusion. Gates made his position clear to the officer. He didn't like him being there. He felt like he was being racially profiled or whatever he said. But the point is he made it pretty clear to the officer that he wasn't welcome on his property. I was raised to believe that if someone told you to get off his property you had a moral obligation to do so. And once this officer determined that there was no crime in progress, he should have just left and not worried about whether his law man ego and sensibilities were wounded by Gates' behaviour.
Not when the judge is in his house.