Posted on 12/08/2015 10:37:19 AM PST by Elderberry
Really? Because I missed that. "Held harmless"? Do you mean "held blameless"?
Are you referring to thoughts that self defense may well be argued against alleged crimes?
That is IF anyone is ever actually charged with a crime beyond that catch-all conspiracy charge.
As stated in previous conversations, you and others are defending the rights of the accused. My concern is for the personal responsibility which contributed to so much suffering. Not necessarily legal guilt (although in civil court, contributory negligence plays a part).
You would have (ok just trying to remember previous conversations) 100 guilty go free rather than one innocent be wrongly convicted. I do not argue with that position on Constitutional grounds. It is a noble aspect of our Constitutional tradition.
On practical grounds, however.
The injustice to the victims of the proverbial 100 guilty going free, is abhorrent. Not legally but in the sense of personal suffering.
It invites LE involvement. For if society is not civil, it cries out for LE involvement. Warranted or not. Only a civil society does not need policing.
Personal responsibility, a civil society, is what protects us from unnecessary LE involvement.
OK the politics of repression are waiting to lunge from the shadows. That is a legitimate concern. Why invite that response instead of cautioning civil restraint in opposition to unnecessary criminal behavior? Why kill each other, Bandidos and Cossacks?
This is of GREAT concern to me. And innocent citizens and their innocent associations should not be subject to this precedent because it is not about those legitimate associations. This precedent includes personal irresponsibility that FReepers and Church Ladies would not be guilty of.
You are here to advance civil protections of the accused. I am here to remember the broken people and families resulting from irresponsible behavior on the part of at least some of the club members. These are not adversarial positions. I hope you can accept that much.
Yet I fear as civil society degenerates to include what happened 17 May, that not less but more LE involvement will come into play.
Can’t you accept at least that much? That personal irresponsibility invites LE response that is otherwise not needed in a civil society?? That even if Constitutionally 100 guilty should go free rather than one innocent be unjustly convicted, that the victims of the 100 criminals still cry out for justice? Of course they cry out for justice!
This is what the Sharia Police are involved in. No thanks.
LE exists to apprehend law breakers. Please expand on your vision of exactly how LE can impose good and responsible conduct on those among us who are less than your ideal.
You are missing the key aspect of my discussion.
Personal responsibility is the role of each person, living in a civil society.
LE does legitimately exist to apprehend actual law-breakers. I don’t want to live in some type of “police state”, I want to live in a free and civil society.
Disorder “invites” exercise of “law and order”. That is a reality. A recent example: France declared a state of emergency for three months after the carnage in Paris. Those crimes “invited” extraordinary police powers. There were people raided or rounded up who were not even there at the scenes of the murders. Isn’t that what you are concerned about in Waco, where the DA wanted to “send a message” that criminal gang activity was not to be tolerated? Note I am NOT equating Cossacks and Bandidos with jihad terrorists!
Constitutional freedoms are put to the test in response to civil disorder and personal irresponsibility. Just a reality, seemingly an “inevitable” reality, the consequences of which I rightly deplore.
I am concerned about the “inevitable” factor. I am concerned about the dangers to not only civil society but to civil liberties that result from personal irresponsibility. And no I am not calling for “enforcement” of personal behavior. A civil society rests upon most people freely making the right choices most of the time.
I refuse to accept that "civil behavior", however you define it (please do that) is a prerequisite for the protections of every American citizen who is confronted by the police / justice power.
I anticipate you will reply that you are not saying that.
I do long for a world in which all would live by the Golden Rule. But, like Rush, I live in Realville. People are going to do unwise things and make unwise decisions that are not crimes. What is your solution for that?
Outlaw foolishness?
“civil behavior”, however you define it (please do that) is a prerequisite for the protections of every American citizen who is confronted by the police / justice power.
“I anticipate you will reply that you are not saying that.”
....
Exactly, I am not saying that. Constitutional protections are not negated by irresponsible civil behavior. In fact not even criminal behavior denies a person Constitutional protections.
I’m glad you understand that much of what I have been trying to say.
You further state that “responsible behavior” would be considered (under a hypothetical that you attribute to me) a prerequisite to “the protections of every American citizen who is confronted by the police / justice power”
I respond that Constitutional prerequisites are not thus preconditioned.
You further state that “People are going to do unwise things and make unwise decisions that are not crimes. What is your solution for that? Outlaw foolishness?”
I respond that of course one cannot outlaw foolishness or unwise decisions that are not crimes. The solution is not law enforcement, or making more statutes. There is no legitimate governmental solution for irresponsible behavior that is acceptable for a free people.
It goes back to the time of the Founders, who understood that only a civil and moral people can be a free people. Right and wrong, still in this day and age, can be understood.
The importance of a moral society for a free society was understood.
http://www.free2pray.info/5founderquotes.html
Respectfully, (for I do not think that we disagree as much as might be supposed), etc.
It has been my experience that you fight the fire that is nearest. Irresponsibility and declining morality is, of course, undermining the Republic. One could venture into that on every single thread.
They are too broad and thus subject to abuse.
“They are too broad and thus subject to abuse.”
...
That is my opinion also.
Too bad that was the only way to bring down Mafiosi type criminals, and despite even these laws, there are still some of them, and their successor criminal gangs are even more frightening. : (
Re the use of RICO to bring down criminal gangs such as mafia has been effective. However, there has been very little in the news of RICO that I have seen outside of its misapplication against the Twin Peaks bikers. The citizens of this country would be better served if RICO was effectively used against the Muslim Brotherhood and other actively subversive terrorist and criminal groups related to jihad.
Its broad application against bikers is a toe in the door of directing it against political enemies real or perceived.
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