Weekend Open Thread: Rise Above

Sade (4.00 / 3)

when her album hit big in the US, I was working in a kitchen where we altered popular song lyrics to fit in with cooking/kitchens. One night one of the other cooks was mopping the floor and singing, about how he was "a smooth moperator..."  

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by: susanthe @ Fri Jul 24, 2009 at 23:28:10 PM CDT

Passing on the challenge (0.00 / 0)

Though it is tempting to post the Black Flag tune.

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by: JimC @ Sat Jul 25, 2009 at 06:35:06 AM CDT

Clarity Approaches (4.00 / 1)

Digby:

A policeman using his discretion to arrest a man in his own home because he was not deferential enough is just one more incident along a long road of creeping authoritarianism.

I said the other night that I thought Gates was lucky he didn't get tased and I really think he was. People all over this country are "subdued" by means of electricity every day, probably more blacks than whites, but it doesn't seem to be particularly limited to race. We are accepting this kind of thing as if it's just an inevitability because of the attitudes this police officer very thoughtfully lays out in his essay: we are told that we must defer to authority or risk all hell breaking loose.

And I would suggest that it is just that attitude that led to people in this country recently endorsing unilateral illegal invasions, torture of prisoners and the rest. You remember the line --- "the constitution isn't a suicide pact." To which many of us replied with the old Benjamin Franklin quote: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

The principles here are the same. Sure, we should treat the cops with respect and society shouldn't encourage people to be reflexively hostile to police. They have a tough job, and we should all be properly respectful of people who are doing a dangerous and necessary job for the community. But when a citizen doesn't behave well, if not illegally, as will happen in a free society, it is incumbent upon the police, the ones with the tasers and the handcuffs and the guns, to exercise discretion wisely and professionally. And when they don't, we shouldn't make excuses for them. It's far more corrosive to society to allow authority figures to abuse their power than the other way around.

A stretch, you say? I don't think so. But then he brings it back to earth:

Henry Louis Gates may have acted like a jackass in his house that day. But Sergeant Crowley arresting him for being "tumultuous" was an abuse of his discretion, a fact which is backed up by the fact that the District Attorney used his discretion to decline to prosecute. Racially motivated or not he behaved "stupidly" and the president was right to say so.

* And by the way, if anyone wants to see some real incoherence on this subject, consult the right wingers who are defending the policeman today, but who also believe that anyone has the right to shoot first and ask questions later if they "feel" threatened in their own home. By their lights, Gates should have been arrested for behaving "tumultuously" but would have been within his rights to shoot Sgt Crowley. This is why conservatives have no standing to discuss anything more complicated than Sarah Palin's wardrobe.

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by: JimC @ Sat Jul 25, 2009 at 07:33:55 AM CDT