5 ms·
If you tolerate small abuses, and let people get accustomed to abusing their power in small meaningless ways, the abuses will only grow.
by teraflop 3mo ago
If you tolerate small abuses, and let people get accustomed to abusing their power in small meaningless ways, the abuses will only grow.
- lazide 3mo agoI can assure you, pulling over the banana stand is not the road to death camps. The death camps are.
- zmgsabst 3mo agoRoads don’t start at their end. And it didn’t start there in Germany, either banana cars or death camps.
- lazide 3mo agoEh, most roads start where other roads end or meet. The wheel turns, regardless.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- wat10000 3mo agoMaybe not death camps, but it is inextricably tied to real abuses. I don't see how you ban "driving while black" stops without also banning these.
- lazide 3mo agoYou also can’t ban these without making it impossible to stop 99% of real issues either. A giant banana car is the definition of unusual behavior, after all.
- mrguyorama 3mo ago"Unusual" behavior should not be justification for any police interaction. Society doesn't benefit from policing "Weird".
- lazide 3mo agoSociety (broadly) disagrees, and even trivial examples would have you agreeing with them if you thought it through. If a cop saw someone hiding in your bushes at 2am - stop and check it out, or nah?
- wat10000 3mo agoSociety broadly agrees, enough that it's illegal in the US to stop someone just for "unusual behavior." You have to have an actual concrete reason to suspect someone of a crime. Not that police always follow the law on this.
- lazide 3mo agoNot really, in the way you are using it. Only in specific edge cases and definitions, which I’m guessing you don’t know. And calling it ‘illegal’ is a stretch in 95% of them. Generally worst case any evidence gathered would just be inadmissible. After all, even if not a legal stop/detention, that doesn’t mean they committed a crime by doing it. But tell me, do you think any of these officers would have struggled to come up with probable cause to detain the driver of a giant banana car on a public roadway? Or any other ‘suspicious’ or ‘weird’ vehicle? Because I can think of at least 3 California vehicle codes off the top of my head that would likely apply, including CVC 26708, 24008.5, and 5201. And I’m not a cop. And all you need is an articulable and reasonable suspicion to detain. Stopping someone to chat (aka they can leave without penalty) is a much lower bar, though I doubt they did that. And you never answered my question.
- wat10000 3mo agoYou've now completely shifted from "unusual behavior is sufficient justification to detain someone and this is necessary for 99% of real traffic stops" to "the police can usually come up with probable cause if they want." Which I completely agree with. But that's a very different statement. If a cop saw someone hiding in my bushes at 2AM, that strikes me as reason to think that the person is trespassing if not worse, and would thus justify a further look. It would not be done solely on the basis of "unusual behavior."
- overfeed 3mo ago> ... the abuses will only grow. SCOTUS made race-based Kavanaugh Stops legal. Stipping a banana on wheels is a much lower bar