Quote:
Originally Posted by no1brownsfan
I don't know if you smoke or not, but I do. I don't know how many times someone (a stranger) has offered me a quarter or even a dollar for a cigarette. Now in most instances I will just tell them to keep the money and bum them a cigarette anyway, but there have been times where I have taken it. Does that make me a thug?
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I agree. I think people are looking at this situation from a weird and cold "black and white" perspective. They are just like "They broke the law, they should be arrested. If they resist arrest, then whatever force the police use is justified. They wouldn't be dead if they didn't break the law or just did what the police told them to do."
I just want to say that point-of-view is scary to me. It sounds like something a sociopath would say. And if you really believe that, I don't think I want to share a country with you. You are dangerous.
Let me just say, everyone breaks the law. Everyone. And sometimes the laws are really stupid, and the discretion used in their application can feel like they are being used to target and harass you. On top of that, no one likes to be arrested. Especially when they believe strongly that they are being arrested for something stupid.
If you can't imagine yourself being upset at the police to the extent of pushing your arms out in a way to prevent yourself from being arrested, I have to wonder if you are actually a person. I consider myself a very honest and decent person, but I've daydreamed about resisting the police on numerous occasions.
When I was younger, I would watch "cops", and then imagine how I would "run away from the cops". Mapping out my route through my neighborhood in my head. Hell, I still have dreams about "running away" from a variety of people. Including the police, dogs, and just random people who are trying to do me harm.
Keep in mind, I've never been arrested. I've never really done anything wrong. But I've been hassled by the police a lot in my life. I've been "pulled over walking" half a dozen times(I walk around a lot at night). And I didn't drive for five years because I drove my sister's car and her tag was out. I got ticketed. She got pulled over the same night and got a warning. I was so angry for the "inconsistent application of the law" that I refused to pay my ticket. And at that point decided to just not drive the rest of my life.
As you have said, people ask people for cigarettes all the time, and offer to pay them for them. It is so common around here, that it is annoying to me because I don't smoke. Hell, people used to ask me for weed and other stuff when I walked around.
With that said. My sister didn't have a job and I was "taking care of her" for a while. Including her smoking habit.
I told her I didn't like paying $6 a pack for cigarettes, so I bought a bunch of "roll your own" tobacco and tubes off the internet. I assumed that, my total cost per pack is only about 70 cents.
We have a lot of other friends who smoke. And so I told them they could basically make cigarettes for $1 a pack with my rolling machine.
Technically I'm breaking the law. Hell, the cops might show up here tomorrow trying to arrest me. I mean, why couldn't they? I even admitted to it publicly.
If they did, I would be rather annoyed, for a variety of reasons. And if I objected to being arrested to the extent that I pulled my arm to the side when they tried to put handcuffs on me. Your argument is that they can basically choke me out and kill me because "I was resisting".
The reason I would be objecting, is that I think such a law is unreasonable. And its application is plain silly in most situations. The purpose of the law isn't to promote "the public safety". Its purpose is only for raising tax revenue.
I don't know if I would resist like Garner, because I'm actually a very peaceful person. But I can certainly see myself feeling perfectly justified if I had.
For that matter, if I had been Garner and I had lived after being choked out by this cop under those circumstances. I can imagine myself being so upset that I would fantasize about following him home from work and shooting him in the face as he walked into his house.
Not that I would do it, but I would definitely think about it. If that is the case, then "something is obviously wrong in this situation".
We can do better, we should do better. I am not calling for anyone's head, but we should at least be able to agree that what happened to Garner was completely unnecessary. That normal/rational people wouldn't have behaved like those cops even under the same circumstances. And if that kind of behavior is simply tolerated, then you are sowing the seeds of hate and division.
My friend often says that, a cop should imagine that every person he comes into contact with was his actual brother or sister. Would these cops have acted differently if they were arresting a member of their own family? They can only act this way by completely dehumanizing the other person. They have a mentality of "us vs them".
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