Posted on 07/05/2009 1:32:21 PM PDT by SampleMan
How will you feel when its ACORN filling those positions and making up the law to fit their best judgment of what “their people” want in their absence? Law as you go is no law at all. The answer to your problem is in making the law clear, not making it a matter of opinion.
By your acknowlegement the cops were making a judgment call vice enforcing code, so why were they incensed at the idea of having to explain that judgment? After all, I wasn't refusing to comply, I just wanted justification.
See the previous Scripture which I did not write.
Why should they have to explain their call to you? You don’t own the property nor did you have explicit permission to use the pillar in a manner it was not designed for.
Your assumptions that your usage prsented no threat to public safety and order and no liability to the property owner) are biased in your favor. The cops assumptions (that a possible fall either by your children or some doofus imitating your use could present a liability to the actual property owner as well as public order and safety) are biased in favor of the ACTUAL property owner.
Where do you get off asserting a right not explicity granted by permission to someone else’s property?
Furthermore, have you consulted a lawyer or researched the code yourself? Do you know for sure that you have a common law right to assert a public use of a privately owned pillar that was specifically designed to not be clambered on as indicated by it’s height (or they would have made them shorter)?
Your serf crap is just that, crap. I’m the serf (as a small business owner) that is taxed, fee’d and regulated six ways from Sunday to pay for everyone else’s public benefits while my spouse and I work 80 hours a week to scrape by, stay in business and pay the freaking commercial mortgage (higher rates for them too, yippee). Everybody and their cousin wants a hand up or hand out and thinks their entitled to free use of my property in anyway they see fit because I allow use of the parking lot.
Your attitude is the problem. It wasn’t your property, you have no right to usage not specifically granted and certainly no right to use it in a manner that incurs significant liability to the owner, nor do you have the right to determine if it is a liability or if it is significant. Police officers are charged with the protection and patrol of business property (especially during non business hours) and business property owners pay significantally higher taxes for it.
You are so hung up on your rights and your animus against intrusive government that you’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Which is me and people like me, business owners trying to stay in business and serve the community we live and work in, to make it a better place.
How do you think we feel about intrusive government? We should be allies, but you’re too busy being an intrusive public nuisance to realize that your behavior was an unreasonable risk to the business owner and too proud of yourself to admit it.
The cops were wrong to be rude about it and you were wrong to assert a non existant right to free usage of someone else’s property.
I get your desire to push back against the tyranny. I get in spades, in fact I can write the book on getting it, because until you’ve run your own business you have no idea how many times you have to bend over for the petty bureaucrats at city hall and the county planning commission who think you’re freaking milk cow.
Obama is just a larger than life national version of the planning commission plutocrats that make my life adventurous.
You pushed back in the wrong place, wrong time and wrong issue. Push back at your local city government meetings, planning commission, mayor’s office and more than anything else consider becoming one of them yourself and most especially become a local GOP precinct representive or comittee person in support of Sarah Palin.
That’s how and where to push back.
Because they don't have a law to cite and they were acting as impromptu potentates.
Your assumptions that your usage presented no threat to public safety and order and no liability to the property owner) are biased in your favor. The cops assumptions (that a possible fall either by your children or some doofus imitating your use could present a liability to the actual property owner as well as public order and safety) are biased in favor of the ACTUAL property owner.
Facts not in evidence once again. They certainly didn't provide any indication of that when asked. You have a great deal of confidence in inferring other people out of their freedoms. I'll thank you and your enforcers to stay away from my guests unless there is a problem.
Where do you get off asserting a right not explicitly granted by permission to someone else’s property?
Stupid comment. Free exercise of movement is generally accepted as a condition of invitation. Do you require people to have explicit permission to stand on your floors?
Furthermore, have you consulted a lawyer or researched the code yourself? Do you know for sure that you have a common law right to assert a public use of a privately owned pillar that was specifically designed to not be clambered on as indicated by it’s height (or they would have made them shorter)?
I was invited onto the property and no sign was posted, request made or problem noted with my usage of same. Although you have been corrected at least twice you continue to state that the owner was absent, but the building was occupied and many CSX employees present. They had no issue with me.
Everybody and their cousin wants a hand up or hand out and thinks their entitled to free use of my property in anyway they see fit because I allow use of the parking lot.
Well those dirty SOB's, I hope they never come back and bother you again. CSX on the other hand I appreciate for the invitation.
You are so hung up on your rights and your animus against intrusive government that you’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Which is me and people like me, business owners trying to stay in business and serve the community we live and work in, to make it a better place.
I don't think you read my original post. The property owner had no problem, no signs, no issue.
How do you think we feel about intrusive government? We should be allies, but you’re too busy being an intrusive public nuisance to realize that your behavior was an unreasonable risk to the business owner and too proud of yourself to admit it.
Pass a law. If it doesn't violate common decency I'll follow it. As stated about 50 times now, if anyone from CSX (who were there) had an issue, I'd had not a problem.
Frankly, had the police simply been the least bit courteous I probably wouldn't have had a big issue, but if you are going to throw your badge in someone's face, you'd damned well better be able to give a legal reason for doing so. In the adult world, in a free society, "Because I said so" doesn't cut it.
Give the cops a break, they're beat cops, not Harvard lawyers, but they displayed good cop instincts even if their manners were lousy.
Your usage was a liability, had your child or children or an some idjit seeing your usage and deciding they could also do whatever they wanted been injured, I can just about guarandamntee an ambulance chaser would encourage you to file a claim and seek restitution from our insurance company. It's what they effing do for living.
Yes, the cops were making a judgement call on the behalf of the property owner and general public order and safety, which is entirely within their job description and authority.
You on the other had were demanding they justify themselves to you over a right you didn't have and that they knew you didn't have. And that's why they puffed up like peacocks.
So does your local law enforcement have a citizen's oversight board and are you on it? Ever been to a city or county planning committee meeting? Ever think about running for local elected office?
You want to change the cops attitude, become their CO.
Excuse me, did you ask them? How do you know? And frankly, the pillars are 5" high, when generally discourages the vast majority of the population from using them as seating.
Why do property owners have to post fricking unfriendly keep off signs to keep the nimrods off when we are trying to be public friendly by opening the parking lot for public events? Why do people like you make themselves a public nuisance in the name of freedom on property that isn't yours to use freely in anyway you see fit.
Why do I have to lobby city hall to pass another freaking ordinance about not climbing on parking lot pillars on private parking lots. There are too many freaking ordinances and regulations right now. Nobody can know the law because there are too many of them.
What part of "It isn't your property" do you not understand?
why in god’s name would you do that?
Just giving back a little.
Thanks, I have to be honest, it’s good to hear that every once in awhile. Keeps me going.
Stupid comment right back at you. Floors were designed to be stood on, you can't fall off the floor. Five foot pillars are specifically designed to not be sat on.
Free exercise of movement is NOT generally accepted as a condition of invitation. The standard is "reasonable movement", i.e. that which it was designed for, which excludes usage or movement it was specifically designed to discourage, again demonstrated by the inconvenient 5" height. Which makes your usage of it as a seat for children specifically unreasonable.
Again your understanding and assumption on the issue of private property and the role of the police in protecting private property are obviously self serving to your desire to have been right.
Is CSX the property owner or the leasee? How do you know they (either the owner or the leasee) were aware of your non standard usage of the property in order to evaluate the risk or liability of same.
The fact that employess saw and did not care means nothing. Employees are frequently uncaring and uninterested in their employer's best interest or their property.
Your assertion that they both knew and didn't care is a mere assumption that is self-servingly biased.
Dare you to call their legal department and ask. If they have two brain cells (or check with their insureer), they will say no.
You and the cops were both in the wrong and two wrongs still don't make you right.
what if you had to shoot some guy and were sued afterwards? would the city back you up since you were not working in an official capacity?
i really am curious about this. i am an NYPD cop and volunteering is absolutely unheard of. the city wouldn't let us. neither would the union. guess it's different where you are.
Would you say that the kids are violating the good graces of Target? I say not, as its rather expected & there are no signs. So should the police kick people who sit on these off?
What if they were 4’ balls? What if they were 5’ balls? I've been to many private and public areas where the expected seating was far more dangerous than the 5’ pillar in question. As a matter of fact we were at UNF a few weeks earlier for an event and structures like the pillar were all being sat on, while the police strode by uncaring.
Setting a child on a bicycle is certainly prone to accident and tort, so how should your tort police react to that? Specifically, you go in a Walmart and sit your kid on a bike. A police officer not working for the store then tells you to get your kid the hell off the bike. Do you want more information from the cop? So did I.
And like it or not, employees are the agents actually empowered to enforce property rights in the owner's absence and the only such agents in a publicly held company like CSX. You would have me drug off the property over the objections of the employees because the owner MIGHT have a problem with me.
Your issue is with tort law, but your solution is to provide unchecked license to the police to decide what is acceptable without written law. A cure far worse than the decease. You are simply happy today because they made a decision you like.
You and I both know that prior verbal permission from the CEO would have meant nothing to these cops. They would have called me a liar and cuffed me if I resisted. And the charge would have been for interfering with the police. I have (and you should have) a huge problem with people having the threat of noncompliance being used as a club to force them to do things outside of normal authority and written law.
The CSX HQ building has been there for at least 30 years, abutting the public area. They purposely put in extra wide, relatively short pillars, yet they have not one single sign, nor do the police have standing orders regarding sitting on them. This indicates to me that they are much like the big red balls in front of Target.
You keep saying that I had no “right” to sit there. Of course I didn't, just as you have no right to drive your car. But when you get stopped and told to walk home, you are going to want some legal justification aren't you? There is a difference between free exercise and rights. You are asserting that all free exercise is subject to the whims of the police. That is an enormous hammer you are handing over without any safeguards. If the police weren't certain, why didn't they simply go ask an employee of CSX? Such a building always has its own security, who should have very clear direction. Then they would have been acting within the law. Unlike you, I'm not so certain of their hostility to the public.
You may not understand this concept until you are pulled over by the new ACORN police recruits and told to walk home because the Earth's real owners are at risk from your carbon footprint.
Have a happy police state.
I've done a lot of target spotting and my comment was clearly a bullseye given the secondaries it touched off. I guess sheep are comforted by their guard dogs, even if it means total submission.
You lose me when you compare this situation to rape. And again when you talk about the strip search.
People handle situations differently, I guess. If I was on my own property and this happened, I likely would have reacted in a similar fashion. Putting myself in your shoes, on property that was neither mine nor mine to speak for, I would likely have answered Yes sir and moved my kids.
But I would never lose my perspective so mightily that I would compare this to a rape or an unwarranted strip search.
You are not alone, many people do not see the connection between small indignities and large. I however do. Its a pattern of behavior that is either stopped or reinforced.
You blamed me for escalating the situation because I asked who was complaining. Knowing one's accuser is enumerated. If I invite you over and you are sitting on my front wall, the police have no authority to force you off unless I file a complaint. If you ask them "Why?" and they respond by threatening to cuff you for interfering with a police officer, do you have a problem with that?
You clearly took this situation too personally and in doing so lost your perspective, IMHO. You asked for our input, and that is how I see it.
You’re still rationalizing a bunch of possible future threats to excuse your behavior.
You wanted to push back and you did. It was still the wrong place, wrong time, wrong issue.
I’ve made several suggestions that you involve yourself with local governance so you can actually affect the future, but you’d rather piss and moan about the impending loss of freedom and certain tyranny by the jack-boots.
You’re to busy being part of the problem to become part of the solution.
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