Posted on 06/09/2006 7:38:19 AM PDT by VRing
You are missing out on all of the legislation that disconnects who pays the bulk of the taxes with who votes. If we follow the same rule of thumb that goes with the federal income tax, then 5% of the taxpayers will get stuck for 53% of the bill. Even assuming it's only half as bad at the local level, this means that the remaining 47% of the bill will be spread out among 90% of the taxpayers with the bulk of those having to pay nothing.
So I disagree - taxpayers do not have the power of the vote. It has been deliberately stripped away from them via the progressive tax system leaving the bulk of plunder coming from a small minority of smart hardw working taxpayers who don't have the political numbers to do anything about their plight.
With modern chemical assaying methods, "flushing" something simply doesn't dispose of the evidence, anyway, so that excuse is 100% pure BS.
Most likely the people who directly perpetrated this colossal mistake will be fired. But replacing them with more competent people is easier said than done. Remember, the vast majority of people in our country's work force are graduates of public schools. Public schools have largely been destroyed by a leftist pseudo-curriculum in which students are taught to read by guessing at word shpaes and contexts rather than by learning phonics and systematically figuring out what the word they're looking at really is, getting the right answer doesn't matter even in math class ("creative approaches" are emphasized instead), and students are encouraged to think very highly of themselves no matter how dismal their academic performance.
Where are police departments supposed get adults who are competent, impose high standards on themselves, and grasp that getting the right answer (like "Is this the house we're supposed to be at? Yes or no?") is urgently important? They can't manufacture them out of thin air; they have to hire the best they can find, and train them as well as time and resources permit -- but properly training people who have been methodically mistrained for the first 13+ years of their schooling is no simple task.
True -- given the legal system as it exists, complaining about this lawsuit because the taxpayers end up paying for the damages is like complaining about the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq because innocent bystanders end up in the crossfire.
Ultimately, better deterrents (e.g. my suggestion that victorious plaintiffs get to choose which government spending gets cut to pay the damages, buiding of stocks in the town square for public display of the JBTs responsible for the outrage, or whatever) are needed.
Where did I ever say anything to "excuse" the cops behavior?
And, who would you put in jail? All of the cops who participated in the raid? The guys who stood outside in case somebody ran? the guy who stayed in the car to maintain direct radio contact? What about the Captain who authorised the raid or the clerk who transposed the numbers? What about the watch commander, who was at the station house?
Sorry, many of the simplistic responses on this thread are just that, simplistic w/o full knowledge of the facts or situation.
Don't bet the farm on it. These are POLICE. By definition police can do no wrong. Similar thing happened in Gwinnett county about 12 years ago. No firings that I rememeber from that.
Along the same lines, I was trying to track down links to a story a few years back, in Maryland I think (but not absoutely sure), in which a resident of a home which had been erroneously no-knock entered, fired on the invading officers, wounding or perhaps even killing at least one of them, and was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. As I recall, the court found that the officers had failed to follow department procedures that would have alerted a reasonable person to the fact that they were law enforcement officers, and that the resident had no reason to think they were anything other than criminal home-invaders, and was thus perfectly justified in shooting them.
This was a great story, and I can't figure out why I can't find it. It certainly ought to be required reading for any law enforcement officers being trained to engage in this type of operation. Do you recall this, and do you have any more recollection of details that might help me track it down?
Ultimately, the answer is "because they failed to elect people who would establish an alternative method of compensating for, and deterrring, these abuses".
I've already posted a few suggestions along those lines. Got any others?
They didn't have a warrant for that house. They WERE nothing other than criminal home invaders.
I guess you never heard of the concept of weighing the evidence.
The only way I can think of to ensure that the perps are punished, is to award the victims enough money to force the town government to fire the entire police force.
"buiding of stocks in the town square for public display of the JBTs responsible for the outrage"
This is an idea I could get behind.
I guess you've never heard of the 4th Amendment.
Why were they asleep in the hallway?
Not exactly, since they honestly believed they were doing something that they were authorized to do. And in the case I mentioned, I'm not sure it WAS a "wrong house" case; I think it may have been either a "bad tip" case (and the officers who do the entry are not responsible for vetting the info and making the decision) or an administrative foul-up in which the officers were given the wrong address in writing. I know both of those scenarios have happened, and they are scenarios in which the officers on the scene aren't the ones at fault.
Responsible? For someone else's mistake?
Sounds like the rationale Liberals use FOR ESTABLISHING VICTIMHOOD AND BLAME ON OTHERS FOR THEIR SCREWUPS...IT'S NEVER THE "FAULT" OF THE ONES WHO MAKE THE ERRORS; IT'S THE TAXPAYER should be penalized AS USUAL.
"Yeah, sorta like explaining that in the middle of the night you didn't see the stop sign, speed limit sign, one-way street sign, etc."
It sure worked for Patrick Kennedy! "Gee, officer, I just took some Ambien and was asleep when it happened!"
Well, I'm sorry to hear you feel that way. The only taxpayer who doesn't have the power of the vote is one who lost it through a felony conviction, or who gave it up due to apathy. You appear to have the same mindset as the person who says "My one vote won't change anything, so why bother voting?".
I'm certainly glad that everyone doesn't feel the same as you. If they did, we would have to retire the phrase "grass roots campaign". All ideas start in the mind of a single person. The idea can live or die, depending on the level of apathy in the individual.
Here's a short list of things that would never have existed, would never had the opportunity to make a change, if the person who gave birth to the idea, let it die because of that apathatetic "I'm just one person, I can't do anything!" attitude:
1) Free Republic
2) The Minutemen
3) Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
I'm sorry, but you are totally off base. The power of the vote is exactly what the tax payer has. It's one of the major contributions to making this country the single super power in the world today.
Are you kidding me?!? They should drop to their knees, and spend one hour every day for the rest of their lives in thankfulness to the Henry County Police. Then they should be required to spend at least 50 hours community service each to help beautify the county for the hassle they caused the Henry County Police by not having drugs in their home.
Think I'm joking? This is the mindset held by many 'conservatives' whether it be the WOD, WOT, or some other invented 'war' by the State. Replace the word drugs with terrorist plot and jackboots nationwide would be up in arms about this couple daring to sue the government. Heck, I see some of them are even though it was a drug bust gone wrong. If I were on that jury, the couple would end up owning what is left of Henry County after it had been dismantled
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