@bareboards2


Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

That's an old saw I've always considered to be fallacious. It's not that power corrupts, it's that power is attractive to the corruptible and why it should never be granted to those who seek it. A Catch-22 for any democratic elective process (or any form of governance in general, really). I don't know the answer, I just know that humans suck.

The story of the Roman emperor Gaius (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, son of Germanicus) is a really good counter example for you. He was a likable, cultured, well educated young man who just turned out to be entirely unsuitable for the job thrust upon him. Jimbo's big bag'o'trivia has an article summarising some of the main points, but finding a book on the subject would be better.>> ^Longswd:

That's an old saw I've always considered to be fallacious. It's not that power corrupts, it's that power is attractive to the corruptible and why it should never be granted to those who seek it. A Catch-22 for any democratic elective process (or any form of governance in general, really). I don't know the answer, I just know that humans suck.

He wasn't arrested for animal abuse, he was arrested for "willfully teasing a police K-9" which is an misdemeanor offense in Mason County (see this WSJ law blog). The reason for the law should be obvious--unlike your normal house pet, these dogs are actually trained to bite people and if you get them agitated enough they may attack without command and not respond to an officer's orders to stop biting.

From this web site on the behavioral nature of police dogs:

No matter how well-trained in suspect apprehension a police dog might be, all police dogs can easily make behavioral mistakes, such as attacking at the wrong time, attacking out of context, attacking a suspect when not commanded to do so, and failing to stop an attack after being commanded to do so by the handler. Because of the behavioral nature of aggressive responding in dogs, and despite the extensive training most police service dogs have been subjected to prior to being deployed in the field, they will make behavioral mistakes, thereby causing injury to a victim that was uncalled for or far beyond what was probably needed.

Teasing the dog increases the likelihood of that happening. The drunken dumbass who was barking at the dog was putting people at risk and got arrested for it. I love the 1st amendment but I have absolutely no problem with these charges sticking. First amendment rights don't mean you can say whatever you want to say whenever you want to say it. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater just for lulz and you can't intentionally agitate police dogs into a frothing rage.

I love how Judge Napolitano apparently made a snap judgment himself about the situation without bothering to look at the facts of the case (as reported in the WSJ link above). Upvoted to promote yet more awareness of the stupidity that airs on Fox News.

>> ^SDGundamX:

He wasn't arrested for animal abuse, he was arrested for "willfully teasing a police K-9" which is an misdemeanor offense in Mason County (see this WSJ law blog). The reason for the law should be obvious--unlike your normal house pet, these dogs are actually trained to bite people and if you get them agitated enough they may attack without command and not respond to an officer's orders to stop biting.
From this web site on the behavioral nature of police dogs:
No matter how well-trained in suspect apprehension a police dog might be, all police dogs can easily make behavioral mistakes, such as attacking at the wrong time, attacking out of context, attacking a suspect when not commanded to do so, and failing to stop an attack after being commanded to do so by the handler. Because of the behavioral nature of aggressive responding in dogs, and despite the extensive training most police service dogs have been subjected to prior to being deployed in the field, they will make behavioral mistakes, thereby causing injury to a victim that was uncalled for or far beyond what was probably needed.
Teasing the dog increases the likelihood of that happening. The drunken dumbass who was barking at the dog was putting people at risk and got arrested for it. I love the 1st amendment but I have absolutely no problem with these charges sticking. First amendment rights don't mean you can say whatever you want to say whenever you want to say it. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater just for lulz and you can't intentionally agitate police dogs into a frothing rage.
I love how Judge Napolitano apparently made a snap judgment himself about the situation without bothering to look at the facts of the case (as reported in the WSJ link above). Upvoted to promote yet more awareness of the stupidity that airs on Fox News.


I agree with everything you said, except the part where you said stuff about the law. While there could be a case for civilly responsible for acts of speech (suing), the constitution on clear on criminal charges. I have been in a movie theater when a false alarm of the real system went off, we didn't send the alarm maker to jail...double standard. Two people were injured in that false alarm of the alarm system. It is pretty dubious to just start arbitrarily dissecting speech, even more so when no one was ACTUALLY harmed. We have enough problems and we take time to legislate theoretical ones, great. That is the only reason drugs are still illegal, because of all the theoretical stuff that could happen. Let real crime be punished, and let fake crime fall away as dodging a bullet.

</lunch rant>

If making "bang bang" noises towards his gun made the gun fire, would you want the police officer carrying that gun?
>> ^SDGundamX:

The drunken dumbass who was barking at the dog was putting people at risk and got arrested for it.

@GeeSussFreeK

Sorry to hear that people got hurt . I think you're confusing the issue though. The shouting fire in a crowded theater metaphor refers to an individual (not a machine) intentionally making a false claim that is dangerous. It also applies to speech which has no "conceivable useful purpose and is extremely and imminently dangerous" (quote from the Wikipedia link).

That's pretty much what happened here. Standing with your face pressed up against the police cruiser window and repeatedly barking at a police dog meets the definition of having no conceivable useful purpose and being extremely dangerous.

The judge in the case recognized this and dismissed the defense's claims that that defendant had a 1st amendment right to bark at the dog. Given the circumstances of the case, his behavior is not protected under the 1st amendment. He was simply a drunk teasing a police dog in a county where it happens to be illegal to tease police dogs.

The irony of all this is that a supposed Fox News constitutional expert (he's written 5 books on the U.S. constitution) apparently doesn't know anything about how the 1st Amendment actually works.

@SDGundamX I find some logical lackings in that example.

First off, the machine difference. If I shoot someone, the gun is technically doing it but the person controlling it held liable. If I run someone over with my car, that is even more abstract, as the car is being controlled by a wheel which I then control, yet, I am still liable. I don't see any other legal justification for the difference in this case, unless you are saying machines like alarms need to be held liable in the same light that citizens are. There is no compelling logical distinction to make an alarm that makes a false alarm any less liable for those whom programmed it than one who shoots a gun which has an E-trigger. (devils advocate here, I obviously don't have a problem with false alarms being protected speech)

I also beg to differ about intentionally. The only provable intention of speech is what is said. If I say fire, the only thing you can actually prove is that I said fire. You can't show that I meant to cause a panic, you can't show that I saw fire and said fire. You can't pretend to know, beyond a reasonable doubt about intentionally of speech, it is ALWAYS circumstantial. Intentionally of speech doesn't pass our own critical evidence criteria. I can't actually believe this legal framework even exists. ( Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. I do not salute you!)

And the "is dangerous" can only be use in an a posteriori sense, not an A priori sense. For example, what if I yelled fire in a crowded theater but instead of panic, only laughter was had? What if I steped on a pair of pliers, yelled pliers in my reaction and people thought I meant fire, and someone else screamed fire? I am liable for causing a falsity of a fire claim? Or what if I yelled pliers guess someone would think I said fire and cause a panic for me? It is all very very wishy washy for matters of A priori laws. You only know if something as abstract as speech will be dangerous after it has been said. You can try and make good judgement based on past experience, but that is no grounds to create A priori laws for words and conditions.

Let us look at the example again. A man was taunting a dog, like a god damned fool no less. However, the action resulted in no harm. So, I ask, where is the danger? It is theoretical danger of a sort that didn't happen in this case, yet, he is still guilty of a crime of danger. A danger that didn't exist is the crime for which he stands guilty, a mockery of justice. There are MANY things that I do that don't have a useful purpose as far as the greater good of society. Are you saying that only rights that do good are to be allowed? Are we to have enumerated rights now instead of enumerated restrictions? The kind of document I always took the constitution for is everything is fair game...you don't have to justify any action, ever. The exception to that is just that, the exceptions. We restrict the absolute freedom of people to harm other people, but as for everything else, it is allowed even without proper justification for its existence and participation. It seems a tenancy for people whom create moral laws to abide by this logic, but only sometimes; when concerning an issue that evokes a certain kind of emotional response thing change. For other issues that their heart strings don't match up with, they won't accept the heart string justification of others, saying they are creating a theocracy or separation of church and state or some other non-sense (not that the separation is non-sense, but that other peoples moral claims are any less valuble because they come from religion is preposterous, and insulting).

I think it is pretty unfair to characterize the judge in the way you have. He basically has the a slightly different position on the first amendment than yourself, most likely revolving around the core arguments I just set out (I don't know that, though). I don't think me calling you the same thing you called him; IE "not knowing how the first amendment works" would be fair either, because it is fair to say that throughout legal history, the decisions handed down from the courts have been contradictory in many regards. I could name 3 other case law examples where this should be protected speech, but throwing around case law is just silly, I am resolved to say this is a very convoluted subject...and more so than should be. We should seek some clarity in a legal sense of what the first amendment is all about, philosophically, or else this debate will never end to any non-contradictory, case by case way.

Edited for grammarerar

@GeeSussFreeK

I'm not sure where you're going with this... we don't hold machines liable because machines don't make choices--their users do. If you shoot someone with a gun or run them over with an automobile, your choices and actions caused the injury--the machine was merely the instrument through which the injury was caused. The gun/car cannot hurt anyone if left in the case/garage.

Of course we don't hold people responsible in the case of a malfunction that is beyond the control of the user. If a car's brakes fail and it can be shown the owner did his/her best to maintain the car and it was purely a mechanical failure, then no--the human would not be at fault. And since the car can't pay damages and doing jail time is meaningless for a machine that's pretty much where the case ends. In the case of an alarm malfunctioning, unless the state can prove that the alarm went off due to gross negligence (or even intentionality) on the part of the maker, it ends up being nothing but a tragic (and incredibly rare) story of mechanical failure. I think we agree on all this, don't we? That's why I'm confused why we're still talking about it.

As for your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th paragraphs, I think you'd be interested in reading this essay (warning: it's long) detailing the major legal cases that currently inform 1st amendment case law. Just to give one quote which should help answer some of your questions, in Brandenburg v. Ohio case the Supreme Court determined:

words themselves were largely void of real significance; it was the surrounding circumstances that gave them meaning. Clear and present danger lay in neither the words chosen nor the behavior encouraged; it lay in the immediacy of the speaker's intentions and the likelihood that his words would achieve results.

The drunken man's actions were achieving their desired effect--enraging the dog--and the likelihood that his actions could cause serious injury to himself or others was high. I don't see how you can argue that because the dog hadn't bitten anyone yet the man should not have been arrested. By that argument no one can be arrested until they commit harm. You have no problem with arresting someone who points a gun at someone and threatens to shoot them before they have the chance to pull the trigger, correct? You agree with arresting drunk drivers before they cause an accident, correct? I'm not sure I understand your argument here.

I stand by what I said about the judge, because its clear from the clip he didn't bother to look at the facts of the case even (he claimed the guy was arrested for animal abuse) and he appears to think (I have no idea what he actually thinks, I only have his comments on this clip to go on)the 1st amendment means you can say whatever you like, whenever you like.

Sure, we should continue to debate what is covered by the 1st amendment but it doesn't do anybody any good to ignore what has already been decided by the courts. As that link I posted above will show, the "clear and present danger" test has been continually refined over the years through many, many cases and is fairly well sorted out. I don't see this case presenting anything that would make the Supreme Court suddenly do a 180 and void all that precedent.