The Glade 4.0

Haven't had a chance to listen to the recordings yet (they're on the same page as the linked article below), but I figured this might be of interest to folks here:



This is the kind of sh*t that makes me doubt the wisdom of things like the AZ law.

That still means your problem is not with the Arizona law, but with idiot precinct bosses. I just don't like the logic of saying we shouldn't pass a law because it could be abused despite the fact it is constitutional. Should Border Patrol not do their job because one of them could do his job with racist motives? Is the problem the job or the racist?

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The Dude abides.

I think the logic is that we should design laws that take reality and potential/probable unintended consequences into account. For instance, I was reading an article this morning about how well-intended but poorly-designed financial regulations contributed to the failures we've seen with the big ratings agencies. In that case, was the problem that the ratings agencies and banks didn't stick to the spirit of the regulations (even though they followed the letter), or was the problem that the regulations themselves didn't account for how they would likely be applied in the real world?

Impossible and self defeating.

I don't see what this issue has to do with either the way laws are designed, or the Arizona situation in particular. Aside from the fact that the article studiously avoids mention of any specific instances and just wants us to trust its characterization (it doesn't even say what precinct this is in), this is a problem specific to the NYPD and probably specific to the precinct this guy works in.

Assuming that the article is more or less accurate, it has not a damn thing to do with the Arizona law, or the design of laws in general.

All you're really pointing out here is that sometimes laws have unforseen consequences. In that regard the AZ law is hardly unique. I'm not holding my breath for any law to start working perfectly.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I just don't understand this. Should L.A. cops stop doing their jobs just because more minorities than whites tend to be arrested? Should the law be rewritten than to make the number of arrests balanced?

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The Dude abides.

My point in mentioning the AZ law was that my objection there was that even though the law doesn't technically allow racial profiling, that in practice, cops would feel external pressure and a personal desire to nail illegal aliens and would thus skirt the rules in order to boost their stats. This is an example of that kind of stat-boosting behavior.



I think you should take another look, DE. The article says, right in the part I quoted, that it's the 81st precinct in Brooklyn, and it includes like 8 pages of excerpts from the recordings, plus links to the recordings themselves.

Corruption and abuse of power in government sponsored monopolies? Egads!

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Since every law has the potential to be misapplied, abused, etc, lets just not have any no?

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So, are you guys just being argumentative because you assume there's some liberal agenda here, or do you really think legislators should just assume everything will go according to plan when they draft laws?

Heh... I would think that from the debates here, mostly recently the Health Care Bill, you would know that most of us expect legislators to not have a clue, not be able to account for unintended consequences (or not recognize them) or deliberately attempt to obscure those effects to make the other goals of the bill more palatable.

And while I agree with you that aspects of a law should be carefully considered before being passed, and it would probably be handy to have the equivalent of what we in my profession have for code... commentary about the aspects and intentions of the code sections with examples.

However, I disagree with your position that this example is argument against the AZ law... this example is an argument against government in general, using your position anyway.

OK.. first of all, whether the cops feel a personal desire to "nail" illegal aliens is really irrelevant. Illegal aliens are criminals; the cops should feel a desire to nail criminals. Assuming that the cops in general are going to feel some desire to catch illegals over and above other criminals is rather silly, especially since they're most likely to catch illegals when they're committing some other crime anyhow.

Second, this isn't stat-boosting behavior in your article; it's manipulation of stats by supervisors to make the stats appear a certain way, which is a totally different (and if true, far more serious) matter.

Third, I don't see why the police in AZ would suddenly get interested in "stat boosting" just because this law has been passed.

Fourth, Mexicans aren't a race. They are, however, the people primarily committing illegal immigration in AZ and the rest of the nation. Complaining that the police are going to suspect them first is sort of like complaining that the police will suspect white people of having committed a cross burning.

Finally, you're evidently arguing that because cops in NYC are possibly doing a certain thing for... no apparent reason, that cops in AZ are likely to do something sort of kind of similar because.. well because they're cops, and all cops are the same!



I'll go back and take a look; I thought you had quoted the whole thing.

However, the fact of the matter is that this illustrates my point. You're picking out one precinct of a very large PD, complaining that untoward events are going on there, and then generalizing it to hypothetical untoward events in unspecified police agencies two thousand miles away.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No. RD, you are still failing to admit the necessity of the AZ law given the economic realities of our current social systems. You are also refusing to admit to the hypocrisy surrounding being supportive of the first set of rights violations which prop up those social systems, while simultaneously condemning this new set which logically stem from the first set.

Now, you know that I am the first person to come down against all rights violations, and this set is no different, however I am going to have to invoke Mr. Lewis, from my signature, here.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

They should do their best to draft legislation that can be enforced the way they envision it. If that doesn't work, then they should revise the law they passed. Just as the AZ law was revised to be more explicit instead of using "lawful contact" and an executive order was issued by the governor to provide training on how to enforce it without racial profiling.

But you are still arguing against enforcing laws because they can be perceived as racist. Its possible for cops to do the job correctly and catch a disproportionate amount of Mexicans to other ethnicities. The fact that some cops can abuse enforcement of an additional law is not a problem with the law; it's a problem with the cop and should be dealt with as such.

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The Dude abides.