http://politics.videosift.com/talk/Your-Opinion-is-Requested-on-a-Court-Case#comment-848241

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
>> ^blankfist:
Speeding tickets are preemptive. If you agree with them, you should also agree with preemptive wars.
Speeding is reckless and potentially dangerous, but until a victim is created it's philosophically unreasonable to give him a ticket out of preemption.

dgandhi: "This man signed a contract when he applied for a license"
What choice does a citizen have? It's either sign the contract or go to jail if you decide to exercise your right to free mobility and drive a car. You're paying for the roads regardless, so shouldn't you have the right to drive on them without being coerced into signing a contract you cannot negotiate?


Right to drive? Since when do we have that?

>> ^inflatablevagina:
hundreds of dollars is excessive and it does not deter me from speeding.


Try as I might I fail to see the logic in that sentence.


>> ^blankfist:
Speeding tickets are preemptive. If you agree with them, you should also agree with preemptive wars.

So from your argument it would appear that for you all preemptive actions are morally wrong, is that right? Or is it just preemptive action by a government/military action? In that vein - do you agree with what most critics of the Bush doctrine have said - that Iraq can more accurately be described as a preventive war rather than a preemptive one (I do)? Also, what do you think about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis - should the U.S. NOT have engaged in preemptive action and created the blockade to disallow further buildup of Soviet armaments? I'm just asking these questions to see where you stand, buddy, no antagonism here.

>> ^blankfist:
Speeding tickets are preemptive. If you agree with them, you should also agree with preemptive wars.
Speeding is reckless and potentially dangerous, but until a victim is created it's philosophically unreasonable to give him a ticket out of preemption.

dgandhi: "This man signed a contract when he applied for a license"
What choice does a citizen have? It's either sign the contract or go to jail if you decide to exercise your right to free mobility and drive a car. You're paying for the roads regardless, so shouldn't you have the right to drive on them without being coerced into signing a contract you cannot negotiate?


Right to drive? Since when do we have that?

Speeding tickets are preemptive. If you agree with them, you should also agree with preemptive wars.

Speeding is reckless and potentially dangerous, but until a victim is created it's philosophically unreasonable to give him a ticket out of preemption.


dgandhi: "This man signed a contract when he applied for a license"

What choice does a citizen have? It's either sign the contract or go to jail if you decide to exercise your right to free mobility and drive a car. You're paying for the roads regardless, so shouldn't you have the right to drive on them without being coerced into signing a contract you cannot negotiate?

>> ^imstellar28:
As opposed to making practically every possible action illegal, and putting everything in the hands of the arresting officer, prosecutor, or local judge?

On the contrary, it takes it out of the hands of people and puts it into written law.

It's still dependent on people enforcing and obeying it, and you're right that the people who've gone to the trouble to earn the right to enforce the law have some leeway on how it's enforced. But there's a difference between deciding to let someone go from a speeding ticket, and cops being able to charge whoever they choose when two cars collide.

You could make the same argument to forbid, say, islam, couldn't you?
The problem, perhaps ironically, with what you are proposing is that it is entirely subjective and arbitrary. If you can give me a single, objective algorithm with which to separate laws into "just" and "unjust" I will retract my assessment. I have already given mine - laws forbidding crimes with victims are just, those without victims are unjust. The process in which laws are created (the means) has no bearing on the justness (ends) of the law.


I don't think I've ever tried to create a deterministic series of formal logic to describe my views. Even if I could I would argue that there is no single algorithm that everyone could agree with, and I lack the arrogance required to believe that my particular views define the highest possible moral standard, so I don't feel that anything I disagree with is tyrannical by definition.

To differentiate laws banning the practice of Islam from banning running red lights, there are many arguments I could use for explaining why the former is wrong, while the latter is not. First and foremost, freedom of religion is expressly protected by the Constitution, and the very history of our nation began when people who'd been persecuted for their religion decided to strike out into the world and make a place where they'd have the freedom to do so.

Second, I'd argue that the freedom to worship Islam places no one at any kind of risk in and of itself, and is considered to be a central part of one's personal identity. Running red lights is both dangerous to the offender and others, and no argument can be made about the importance of someone not having to wait for a traffic signal.

A tougher conundrum for me would be something like a ban on eating meat. I suspect that truly would be a higher moral standard, and also likely better for people on a practical basis (both for the environment and personal health), but I sure do love to eat it.

If such a thing passed congress, and was popular amongst the populace, I'd probably just try to learn to enjoy a new diet rather than protest the ban as tyrannically limiting my freedom.

I think the big difference between your moral reasoning and mine is that you see all limits on personal freedom as being abhorrent, no matter how good intentioned, whereas I place a higher value on the aggregate good for all of society. I'd prefer to have both, but I think it's perfectly okay to learn from our mistakes, and outlaw behavior that we've learned causes damage to society as a whole, especially when it's difficult to see how it materially affects their freedom beyond their freedom to act in an irresponsible manner (as is the case with drunk driving).

Are speeding tickets tyrannical, then?

How about tickets for running stop lights?

Driving on the wrong side of the road?

Driving drunk?

Should those all be legal, so long as you manage to do it without damaging someone else or someone else's property?

To swerve back to taxation, the state builds roads, and does national defense, at least. Isn't refusing to pay for those stealing?

It's not like the Air Force can be selective about who receives their services.

I once corrected a traffic police officer. Someone broke the law in front of him and he didn't realize it. Then he tried to accuse me of speeding, when I was not. I then counter questioned him, informed him of what he had failed to catch, and then caught him in a contradiction in his own argument. It took him a few moments to realize that he had cornered himself, and he just left. No apology. Nothing. Some cops are just looking for a quick speeding ticket to meet a quota. Police have responsibility, they need to exercise it. Mind you, my cousin was a police officer, and another cousin was a military MP. I have respect for the law most certainly, but the power can quickly fatten one's head. Sometimes they forget they exist to protect and serve. Not to harass and intimidate.

I swear to god sometimes I fucking hate this country.

Police wonder why people view them negatively sometimes, this is why.

If Police ever wanted to improve their image, they'd stop giving out speeding tickets and start pulling people over for:

Tailgating
Cutting in Line when stuck in traffic
People who run their high beams all the time

I know a law is a law and breaking the speed limit is breaking the law, but Police obviously choose somehow which laws to enforce and which ones not too. I have had cops right next to me and they don't pull the guy who is less than 1 car length behind me over for tailgating.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Speeding-ticket-thats-nothing-Watch-what-happens-next

My #2: http://www.videosift.com/video/Dogs-greeting-their-owner-returning-after-14-months-in-Iraq

I think this was in my top 5 too:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Cat-in-A-Hat-This-Cat-IS-a-Hat

In reply to this comment by 9494:
Was this in GA? I definitely remember seeing it on the news. Great picture here ( http://taylhis.tangents.org/tag/funny-police-story/ )
p.s. can some one teach me how to hyperlink? no experience with html


Hey there. I'll try. I hope this is what you meant

(a href="http://taylhis.tangents.org/tag/funny-police-story/")Put Description Text Here(/a)

Just replace open/close parens () above with open/close arrows < or >.

Put Description Text Here

^ First of all, I don't believe in collective rights, you are putting words in my mouth. I don't believe in any natural rights whatsoever. However, I do think there is something called justice. I think "true" justice is unobtainable as we lack the needed tools for it. You can't always punish people in the appropriate degree for the crimes they commit and certain situations are convoluted enough to lack any means of creating rules to manage them. Your over idealism clouds the practicality of carring out any "real" justice.

Furthermore, you go on and state there is no room for ambiguity yet don't clarify some universal idea of justice that apples to all peoples notion of it. Justice for some is retribution, for others, it is repayment, for others it is punishment and yet still others it is rehabilitation, and for most it is some hybrid of all of those. What you fail to point out in your objection to my claim of the officers side is how he violations instead of fulfills this "true and pure" for of justice that you seem to have an idea of that I don't.

Practically speaking, I would love to have seen this guy get moved by a score of police officers into the back of the car, but if you had to get scores of cops for every speeding ticket that went bad, you and I would get no police protection to speak of...they would just get mired down in the business of people tapping into the knowledge that they can just sit and cry out a ticket and hope the cop has to let him go because of a lack of man power at the present time.

In a perfect world of unlimited resources, maybe this COP would of had more options, but this isn't that world. He made a call, and the first tase I think was a good one. I think there is still room for argument that the subsequent tases were excessive.

As a rely to Wax as to the use of physical force. Physical force against someone should only be used to prevent physical violence, period. Whether it be against person or property. Sitting there crying wasn't hurting anyone.

Would this also include tackling a purse snatcher who can only be brought down by a good old fashion tackle? If so, then the only thing a criminal would need to do is be non-violent and fast to elude capture. Perhaps I am oversimplifying? Perhaps you could elaborate. Fact is, that force is the tool of police. It is that force that they yield that we call upon in our time of need. In most cases of domestic disturbances, people call the police even though they have legal authority to do very little...why? Because police represent the force. Police only exist because force is needed to keep the laws in order.

While it can be directly seen that he was a threat to no one including himself. He still didn't comply with the officers lawful order. Not knowing the details of the police department in question it races only the ideological question of if police are allowed to initiate aggressive force on a passively resistant force. This is highly controversial and up for debate within the justice department. I don't mind getting downmoded for this, it is controversial to say the least.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/ufbponld.htm
Bureau of Justice Statistics
U.S. Department of Justice

I don't think the idea of making criminals pay for the extra costs is a bad idea either, but that doesn't magically make more officers available to us when they are used in a way like suggested. The same would go in a hospital. If someone ruins a heart for a heart transplant, well they should still have to pay for it, but that someone who needed it is now either dead or has to wait for a new heart that doesn't come. That person is robbed of the heart who has committed no offense ( it isn't a perfect analogy here, but it is close).

That is my basic thought on the matter, should the person who calls the cops because his house has a crook in it have to wait longer because they are dealing with someone who resisted arrest(which is a forceful action of will instead of violence but force nonetheless). Someone is not going to get their fair share of justice...who will it be?

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Tags for this video have been changed from 'cop police speeding ticket' to 'cop, police, speeding, ticket' - edited by EDD

speeding tickets seem to be the least of his problems:
http://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/flyer.do?personId=57147#

Speeding ticket = $200
Paint Job = $200

Seeing a complete Douche Bag waste-of-life get what they deserve = PRICELESS