[TheForge] local codes OT OT

[Andrew Vida]

Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer wrote:

> You know the problem there. The narcs in my yard thought they were doing 
> the right thing...and knowingly ignored what they thought was a crap 
> law...We'd rather they used less of their judgment mostly if we are 
> going to have " a nation of laws".

	Eeesh... an absolutely horrible concept, as commonly regarded.  Law is 
placed on a pedestal, as if it was somehow divine.  It isn't.  It is a 
human contrivance and is as easily crap as it is reasonable.  In fact, 
it is far more often crap than anything else.  Worshiping this sort of 
thing is not sane.

>>>> 	Only because most of us have abdicated responsibility for our own lives 
>>>> at the most fundamental levels.
> Huh..What's that got to do with coping with criminality?

	Were we more in possession of ourselves WRT, for example, defense of 
life and limb against violence, we would be better off.  In all the 
places I've lived where people carry firearms, crime is lower than in 
places where they do not.  In the former, people are more responsible 
for their own wellbeing and far less dependent on police.  This strikes 
me as a good thing and my experience backs it up.

 > We supposed to
> shoot them for cause? I don't trust my fellow man that much at all.

	If the cause is life and death, sure.  Would you sit idly as someone 
gutted you like a fish?  I wouldn't and I haven't.  Had I, pretty 
certain I would be dead.

>    They do a lot of good stuff, but the
>>>> bad that is done undoes all of that.
> On the balance, i disagree...However disappointing they sometimes 
> are...we are a whole lot better off with them on the job.

	How about when LA county sheriffs raided that old guy's house on a 
false drug raid just to take his house?  They murdered him, the DA had 
them dead to rights and had he chosen to prosecute, they would have 
rightly fried.  That they were not even tried - do you see any good 
there.  I see everything good any of those people ever did as being 
completely eclipsed by this one act of deliberate crime.  Destructive 
action is far and away more potent than constructive.  One negative act 
can undo a lifetime of good.

>>> Nah...once again you are reducing it to a black and white issue..too 
>>> simplistic.  
>> 	Not at the heart of it.  You just said it yourself above - it is our 
>> fault.  That includes everyone.
> Look...they re elected Bush, is the reality...idealism aside, what can 
> you realistically expect?

	That is a whole other kettle of fish.  We speak normatively on the one 
hand, and positively on the other.  We can't achieve the normative 
ideals, but on the positive side there is no reason we cannot do a whole 
hell of a lot better.  IMO.