Thread: Welcome to our Post-Constitutional America.

Originally Posted by triggerhappy2005

Except your example would be a mischaracterization of mine in that I didn't say it was the majority. I said it was a significant minority, like say 10%.

If 10% of all Ford cars were made mechanically faulty, that would be pretty bad. In fact, they would probably go out of business. Same goes for Intel cpu's or any product.

I agree with your point but your link was to something almost comically not valid to support your point. I think that's all HP was getting at, though his reference to the AK was hilarious.

Your argument is similar to theirs. You pick a few isolated incidents and say it is proof positive that this is an epidemic. I am not disagreeing that it is too common, regardless of how few times it happens, but using a few examples to say that it is prevalent is, how do you put it, tin foil worthy.

Originally Posted by Hocus Pocus

So a link to a site for a video proves your point how? IMO that doesn't hold much water.

At least laz gives some sources of data, now we're looking towards YouTube an other sites to prove a point?

Can you at least agree that it is easy to find examples of authorities abusing their power and responsibility?

Also, can you agree that this is a problem that needs fixing at all levels of government?

Originally Posted by CivilWars

Your argument is similar to theirs. You pick a few isolated incidents and say it is proof positive that this is an epidemic. I am not disagreeing that it is too common, regardless of how few times it happens, but using a few examples to say that it is prevalent is, how do you put it, tin foil worthy.

I think that it's a valid argument. Given that we can't rationalize what we don't know how are we supposed to say that it's not a problem. Not everyone who has had this happen to them was filming with their phone. I think that it happens more than we think it does and less than an epidemic state. Regardless of the stance, the issue is that many of the officers who are filmed are unaware of what rights are protected and what rights are not. That is what leads to all of these issues, not that the cops are crooked, not that they get a rise out of pulling someone over. It has always come down to awareness and some are less aware than others, it's natural.

So let's do some math based on some numbers I found from Google. I am not going to debate how accurate they are as I don't really care too put in the time to double and triple check, but if you do feel free. According to THIS there were 5,986 cases of police brutality from April '09 to June '10, so just over a year. Then according to THIS there were 794,300 police officer jobs in 2010. Basic math says 5986/794300=.0075, or 0.75% of officers. I realize this doesn't take into account unreported cases, but hopefully you get the point.

Originally Posted by -Lazarus-

Can you at least agree that it is easy to find examples of authorities abusing their power and responsibility?

Also, can you agree that this is a problem that needs fixing at all levels of government?

I think you worded my point better than I did.

Originally Posted by CivilWars

So let's do some math based on some numbers I found from Google. I am not going to debate how accurate they are as I don't really care too put in the time to double and triple check, but if you do feel free. According to THIS there were 5,986 cases of police brutality from April '09 to June '10, so just over a year. Then according to THIS there were 794,300 police officer jobs in 2010. Basic math says 5986/794300=.0075, or 0.75% of officers. I realize this doesn't take into account unreported cases, but hopefully you get the point.

How many went unreported?

How many cases of police abusing their authority like asking for ID when they don't have a legal right to and when asked if that person must show ID they say yes?

That's why we can't categorically say so. We can just surmise by the many examples that keep showing up.