No, call me a “bleeding heart,” but I don’t think prison rape is “the absolute best you can reasonably hope for” in this case. It’s reasonable to hope he’ll be fired. It’s reasonable to hope he’ll be charged with assault. It’s not realistic, but it’s reasonable. Hoping that anyone is raped (with the possible exception of serial rapists) isn’t reasonable.

Using violence against someone who isn’t being violent towards you or anyone else (like annoying bicyclists) is also unreasonable. Simply because you feel provoked, doesn’t mean someone is trying to provoke you. To suggest that everyone who was riding their bike that night (during an activity obviously approved by the city) deserves to be physically attacked is simply not reasonable.

You could just as easily say that everyone in a gay rights parade (which is inconvenient to motorists and makes religious fundamentalist bigots feel provoked) deserves to be physically attacked. But that wouldn’t be reasonable.

I challenge you to show where there has been change since the 2006 elections. I have not seen it.

1. Unfortunately, street justice is the absolute best you can reasonably hope for in this cop’s situation. Reality is he’ll probably get an award just to rub salt in the wound. If you think that award part is made up, you haven’t been here long (and I know you have).

2. Unprovoked? Are you kidding? The *whole* point is the critical mass dick ride is to provoke people. The cop himself wasn’t provoked, but thousands of angry motorists who had to wait for these pricks to ride through the streets were provoked. If you don’t believe me, look at their own propaganda where they stress that it’s a “leisurely” ride during rush hour traffic. They’re trying to inconvenience people. He got what was coming. Doesn’t mean the cop is right (see #1), but this bicycler got what he – and all of the riders – deserved.

You, Jason, get an automatic downkarma because you appear to be unthinking retard. If you must comment, then either make it thoughtful, or poignant, or informative, or funny. Pick one, any one.

At the same time, and mod me down if you want, but I just *love* seeing a critical mass dick bicycler getting pwn’d.

—

“Delambre tried to explain that he had been sent on a mission to measure the size of the world,… His mission was to travel up and down the meridian of France. The Academy of Sciences-”

“There is no more ‘Cademy,” interrupted one of the militiamen, “the Cademy is no more. We’re all equal now. You’ll come with us.”

[...]

“Any halt or failure would have to be justified to the National Assembly itself. But at the moment, further resistance seemed pointless. As Delambre wrote to a friend, “They were armed and we had only reason; the parties were not equal.”

excerpt from _The Measure of All Things_ by Ken Alder

From 1763 to 1775 there was much debate, and entreaties, and pleadings before the courts and legislatures regarding the colonials’ rights as Englishmen, yet that came to an abrupt end at the dawn of April 19th.

Following the American Revolution, farmers losing their property due to the collapse of the Continental pleaded their cases before the courts, shut them down when they would not be heard, and finally took up arms in Shays’ Rebellion.

In each instance there had been a “long train of abuses and usurpations” followed by reasoned pleadings, all to no avail. What we are witnessing in our own time is the failure of reason. That, to me, is the larger context at play here.

This sort of nonsense is one of the reason that I have very close to zero sympathy for cops using the “bad apple” whine. For every bad apple there are dozens of other apples covering for him, and dozens more leaning on the few that don’t want to do so.

The notion of the police force as an integrated, functional, responsible, and equal-not-superior part of the community has almost wholly disappeared from the emotional, psychological, administrative, command and oversight components of American urban police forces. They only respond to force now, in the widest sense of the term: this officer has been charged because NYPD and the DA realize that the video forced their hand.

seeker, I question your premise that the gov’t is totally impervious to policy challenges. After all, there were plenty of government officials who just got voted out of office en masse. But, you all can be an angry mob if you want to, I just don’t think it will persuade many uninformed people or garner much sympathy for libertarian ideas, a fair number of which I agree with.