Plugging the Holes

A follow up to "In the Name of Justice"

I can always count on my buddy Q to keep me honest.  One of the things I value so much about my friendship with him, and some of my other long-time friends (Chris, Roger, Aaron... you guys know who you are), is that we can disagree (sometimes without actually disagreeing, ironically) and not get emotional about it.  We often have lively debates, get frustrated with one another, take the gloves off and let the fur fly, but in the end we are all better for the experience.  Whatever the initial debate, we rarely remain smugly unchanged by the dialog, but rather expand the depth of our understanding and maybe look at something from a perspective not previously considered.  I always try to ask myself, while gritting my teeth, "What can I learn from this?"

I am frequently criticized by friends and colleagues about my writing.  Not that it is rife with errors in grammar or spelling, but rather that I often write too much on a topic out of the compulsive need to cover every base.  This often results in an absurdly long narrative that most people would never read.  I have heard it said that a paper should be like a mini skirt: long enough to cover everything, but short enough to keep it interesting.  In an effort to keep my blog posts relatively concise, at least in this recent instance, I have left a fair amount of the proverbial beaver showing.

As I read Q's response, I found myself scratching my head and asking, "Where did I write that?  Did I even address that point?  Where did that come from?"

Maybe I'm way off base (it's happened before) but it looks to me like more was read from between the lines than from the lines themselves.  Assumptions have been made that appear, at least to me, to be incongruent with what I have stated.  I will do my best to recap my points, plugging the holes that I apparently left open for interpretation previously.

Simplified recap:

• There's a lot of talk going on about Maryland's wiretap and electronic surveillance laws, prompted by a recent case.  Many people who are commenting on it don't even know what the law states (no comment by me agreeing or disagreeing with the law).

• I don't like it when the government abuses its power.

• Even though the law gives police some flexibility in certain circumstances, it is wrong to take practices beyond that, even when the police think it's for a good reason.

   (are we in disagreement about anything significant yet?)

• CATO put out a news video clip and written commentary about a recent incident.

• I like CATO; they are the good guys.

• A lot of people's comments on the story lacked an understanding of existing Maryland law (again, no comment by me agreeing or disagreeing with the law).

• I get frustrated when people make statements about what the law is when they don't know what the law is.

   (again, are we in disagreement about anything significant yet?)

•  The police occasionally abuse their authority.

• Laws should be periodically reviewed and revised.

• It probably wasn't right to seize that dude's stuff and pursue a wiretapping case against him.

• I hope that a court ruling will facilitate changes to the law that make it fair to the people, but have my doubts that will be the actual outcome.

   (we're still all in agreement so far, right?)

   I think we split in opinion at this point...

• From what little bit of video I've had the opportunity to see, I don't think the trooper did anything seriously wrong, procedurally (this is where I should have expounded quite a bit but didn't; many assumptions appear to have been made because of this).

   (take a breath and let that last point pass until we can come back to it...)

•  We should always be a little distrustful and suspicious of governmental authority.

• Just because the police act like they have the authority to do something doesn't mean that they actually do.

• Some cops don't care about the Constitution, but there are mechanisms to deal with that (should have expounded here again; blanks were filled in with assumptions instead).

• People generally only want the police to be able to do something to OTHER people, not them.

   (are we back on something close to the same page for at least these points?)

    I think we split in opinion again at this point...

• From what little bit of video I've had the opportunity to see, I don't think the trooper did anything seriously wrong, procedurally (this is where I should have expounded quite a bit again, but didn't).

    I think we're back together again with this point...

• Police in Maryland aren't usually thinking about the potential of citizens being lawfully armed, because Maryland doesn't like to recognize the 2nd Amendment (I imply that this is bad).

• It's a good thing for the trooper that the guy wasn't lawfully armed, because the guy might have been justified in shooting the plain-clothes trooper if he thought he was being attacked.

    We may split again here...

• I go on about how the motorcycle guy did a bunch of stupid stuff (but never imply that it justifies anything more than traffic charges).

• The motorcycle guy should have done a little homework before putting the video on youtube.

• Circumstances indicate that the motorcycle guy may have committed a violation of existing law by putting the AUDIO recording on the internet, but opined that the search warrant and detention weren't justified, had appropriate discretion been exercised by the police (again, not sure how we differ in opinion on this point).

• I go on to lament that people don't understand the difference between people recording the government and the government recording the people (a point which was apparently miscommunicated, misunderstood, or both).

• Reiterate that people ought to do a little homework before speaking on law they have not read (not that their right to express the opinion should be abridged, just that you can make a better argument when informed).

• Express feeling puzzled because I seem to disagree on stuff with some peeps that I normally agree with on a lot of other stuff (mainly because they didn't seem to know the applicable law).

• State that we all have something to learn from this whole thing, but am pessimistic that anyone actually will.

 I think that's about it.

Before going into addressing every statement and objection raised by Q, let's reflect for a minute on what the matters are where we actually disagree, having reviewed this simplified recap.  If I am correct, the main discussion points left are the reasonableness or unreasonableness of force used to affect the stop and whether the current law is a just one.  These were never addressed in my original post, so we can deal with them in the next one.

Status check: where are we on the other stuff?

© the stiff lizard