Gates Was Hardly An Exception
There was a lot of news when Henry Lewis Gates was arrested back in July, essentially for mouthing off to a cop. What happened was a shame, but what is more of a shame is that this sort of thing isn’t that rate. Time magazine had a recent article about this, Do You Have the Right to Flip Off a Cop? which you should read. One of my best friends from High School, Jeff Miller, linked to this article from his own blog and summed up the issue as only he can:
You can be rude to Taylor Swift, you can be rude to a tennis line judge, you can even be rude to the President … none of these things will get you arrested. But if you’re rude to a cop, get ready for some handcuffs.
This is a problem, no?
You said it Jeff!
Bt y cnt b rud t a blggr, thy’ll disemvowel y
The “illegal to flip off a cop” was more a case of “flipping off a civilian, being warned by a cop, and then flipping off the cop.”
Now cops probably shouldn’t be enforcing rules like decency, although I can see a local jurisdiction deciding that want it that way.
Maybe those guys who secretly videotaped ACORN could go around taping some actors portraying uncouth youths flipping off cops and seeing the reaction.
When someone fights, needs to be arrested. But what do you do when someone acts in a manner that is likely to provoke a fight. How close to actually fighting do you let people go? If he had behaved to me the way he behaved that cop, I would have punched him out. Therefore we should not permit such behavior.
I recommend Chris Rock’s excellent video: “How Not to Get Your Ass Kicked by the Police”. Some of the behavior listed on that video should not lead to an ass kicking – and some of it should.
When someone fights, needs to be arrested. But what do you do when someone acts in a manner that is likely to provoke a fight. How close to actually fighting do you let people go? If he had behaved to me the way he behaved that cop, I would have punched him out. Therefore we should not permit such behavior.
I recommend Chris Rock’s excellent video: “How Not to Get Your Ass Kicked by the Police”. Some of the behavior listed on that video should not lead to an ass kicking – and some of it should.