That’s a knock on Steve Verdon; you just didn’t get the joke. Explanation here.

Somebody is looking like an obsessive compulsive nutjob there Patterico. I go away for a long weekend and come back and find out you are still hung on this. Most amusing.

Frank,

If I think you are an armed violent criminal, like Oh say a police impersonator who just happens to have some red and blue flashing lights behind the windshield of an otherwise normal looking car, am I as justified in using force as you are to defend myself?

Just asking.

You are correct that I erred. What I should have written was that the State has the “power.” That’s a common error in debating federalism or “state’s rights.” States don’t have rights, they have powers. Only individuals have rights. My bad.

“… you state that “Freedom and limitation of the State are a discovery process. There are no absolutes.” I think this is contrary to your point in that there are “absolutes” (for the most part) …”

The absence of prior restraint means that freedom to act is absolute. However, you are correct, that beyond the initial acts and consequences, when the courts try to settle the differences, that is where the balance of justice is supposed to enter the equation and absolutes turn into guidelines, restrictions and laws.

“it’s just that in the heat of the moment, neither “we” nor the “state” are bright enough, and in some cases, moral enough to make the right decisions.”

Well, I’ll go ahead and state my position that the State is -a priori- immoral. I advocate a free market in everything. I’m an anarchist. The only moral way to discover truth is through peaceful individual interactions, the more the better.

“Your point, I assume, is that we are all human, and for that reason we should all be a little more polite, considerate, and knowledgable about the law so we don’t all shoot each other.”

Not exactly my point, but I can’t argue with that. Well put. My point was that there is theory and there is reality, and for now we’re stuck with a rather unpleasant reality and it is prudent for peace-loving individuals to maintain the peace if they value their lives.

Just a little thing, if I think you are an armed violent criminal, like Oh say a residential burglar and you choose to use your constitutional rights by refusing to show me your hands, then decide to really show me you know your rights by reaching quickly into your baggie jacket, well, reality is gonna suck for you real fast, you might not even make it to the next frat party.

It’s interesting that Dunphy’s example, you just might happen to be driving the same kind of car as a suspect, is exactly a reason given by Prof. Duane for not answering police questions.

Police arrest people. Prosecutors like Patterico work to imprison those that the police arrest. Sometimes justice takes place.

BTW, Dunphy likes to get some kind of credit as a maverick within the LAPD as though he’s telling tales out of school and that his career might be harmed if he wasn’t pseudonymous, but I think there’s some cowardice in his NRO column. But then any cop that thinks the thin blue line is more important than going public with police misconduct is a bit of a coward.

Classy.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Instructive as to why the Libertarian Party has remained a pathetic debating society, favoring cranks and zealots while gaining no ground. You would rather see someone as an enemy than recognize an ally.

What a shame. Radley Balko jumps the shark.

Between law school and taking (and passing, thank you very much) three different state bar exams, I know hypotheticals. I know that every single word in a hypothetical means something. So stop with the “oh, he didn’t mean that! Just look at this section of what he said!”. No. Every single word in there, to me, means something, and it’s pretty damn obvious what he was trying to say.

should be

“The only report we have of what happened inside the house, which we do not know to be all lies, is Gates’s report”

I don’t agree that racial profiling didn’t play a part in the Gates arrest. We now know that the police report in the case was all lies. We know that the police lied on the 911 caller and said she mentioned two black men with backpacks when we know she said two men with suitcases, she didn’t know if they were having trouble with the door or not.

Why did Crowley’s false police report put out of character words in Gates’s mouth that reflected a white person’s conception of what black slang should sound like? “I’ll talk to your mama outside”? Give me a break.

Why didn’t Crowley just leave once he got Gates’s identification? The only report we have of what happened inside the house, which we know is not all lies, is Gates’s report, which makes a great deal of sense and fits in with the facts. Gates says that when he gave Crowley his ID, he believes Crowley was unpacking his preconceived narrative, and that view of it makes sense, and it’s hard to explain Crowley’s continued presence in the house in any other way. But it is explained if Crowley was experiencing cognitive dissonance – came in with one expectation, was presented with the true explanation which conflicted with the expectation and was hard for him to accept and then took time, while throwing his weight around, letting the explanation sink in.

Gates’s analysis presents a plausible reason why Crowley took so much time for the explanation to sink in.

Why didn’t Crowley hand over his ID card when asked? That aspect of it maybe isn’t racial profiling, but it could easily have been racially motivated, on the idea that black people aren’t entitled to the same courtesy as white people.

The most immediate explanation of Crowley’s conduct is simply a disdain for the rights of the citizens and a corrupt desire to use his authority to serve his own ego, but there’s plenty of support for the that racial considerations played a part in it too.

What about us libertarians?!?

Radley?

How about posting a correction of the error you made in this post, which error I have already brought to your attention?

Ahhhh yes. The dreaded and oft-occurring “My Cousin Vinny” mistaken identity crime scenario.

*rolls eyes*

What Fluffy said. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

I didn’t dishonestly “report” anything about Dunphy. I commented on a blog post he wrote, and linked to it so you could go read it and interpret it yourselves. You may disagree with my interpretation. That’s fine. It’s an interpretation that was shared by a hell of a lot of other people, including conservative bloggers like James Joyner. Your attempt analogize this to the actual reporting I do is crap.

Alex, I post links to 10 or more stories per day. I don’t have time to do my own reporting on everything I link to. Mostly because I spend my days doing actual reporting on other stories. In both of the stories you mentioned, I posted subsequent links to the corrections or to critiques of those stories once they were brought to my attention. Blog for any length of time, and you’re eventually going to link to something that later turns out to be false, or misreported. Again, I had no hand in reporting either of those stories. And I posted links to corrections/clarifications when they were published. To ask any more is to ask that I not post or discuss any news story I haven’t personally verified with my own reporting. Which is ridiculous.

As for my politics, if you think I’ve been overly critical of Republicans and haven’t criticized Democrats then you haven’t been reading very carefully. That said, I have no intention of trying to achieve some magical 1:1 balance of critical posts of either party. I’m sorry if you’re unhappy with the balance. Actually, no I’m not. I don’t really care.

If all of this isn’t satisfactory for you, go find other blogs to read. Oh, and Brad, my traffic is up significantly in the last year, both here and the traffic to my stories at Reason. In the last month I’ve been favorably linked by a number of right-of-center sites, including Volokh, Oustide the Beltway, First Things, The Weekly Standard, and National Review. And yes, if lefties want to read me and support my work, I’m more than happy to welcome them, too.