Who Is IOZ?: Go Pro

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Go Pro

What happened basically is that Crowley accused Gates, whether for good reason or not, of breaking into his own home. Gates, pissed off, offended Crowley. At which point Crowley, even though he was now perfectly aware that Gates was not guilty of anything, decided to exact revenge by manipulating the situation to create a trumped-up disorderly conduct charge. That’s not professional policing, and it’s not a good use of the City of Cambridge’s law enforcement resources.

-Yglesias

Okay, right, sure, uh-huh, except that . . . that is professional policing. Oh, I know, that isn't precisely how Yglesias is using the word, but let's be real. It's like saying that "using performance-enhancing drugs isn't professional cycling." It's like saying, "the United States military greatly regrets the loss of innocent life." It's like saying, "the Department of Justice should be immune to political pressure." So, fine, but.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...: Separating ideals and reality can be difficult when ones political viewpoint is founded in moralizing; 2:13 PM
Cüneyt said...: Your point is well-taken, but I'm not sure if I agree, IOZ. I can at least imagine a professional police force that is free from (or rather affected by constraints and disincentives against) trumped up charges made for the sake of personal quibbles. If you're making the argument that people will be people and will always abuse their powers, well then, yeah. But I wouldn't go so far as to compare it to, say, an apolitical Justice Dept.--or an apolitical military. These things are self-contradictory, while a professional police force doesn't necessarily devolve into pissing contests and bullshit charges. There's human nature, and then there's institutional culture, and then there's the system and the rules it sets implicitly or explicitly. If cops abuse their power, why assume it's inevitable and not merely a matter on the latter two levels?; 2:24 PM
Fellow Traveller said...: Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town. You don't draw shit, Lebowski. Now we got a nice, quiet little beach community here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet. So let me make something plain. I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerk-off name. I don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-off. Do I make myself clear?

The real puh'lease seem a little confused about who's who.; 2:35 PM
Daniel Koffler said...: These comparisons are unfair to users of performance-enhancing drugs, who are not doing anything inherently wrong.; 2:36 PM
Fellow Traveller said...: Someone forcing entry into their own property hasn't done anything wrong either.; 2:41 PM
SteveB said...: Hey, it looks like you, Greenwald and Digby are in rare alignment on this issue. Is this a sign of the coming apocalypse, or what?; 3:02 PM
IOZ said...: Cüneyt - that is deliciously naive. I can imagine a constitutional republic that realizes its already killed enough Indians and decides to stay East of the Mississippi.

Daniel - Good point.; 3:41 PM
IOZ said...: Also, that realizes its comment should say it's.; 3:45 PM
Cüneyt said...: Are you suggesting that a police department enjoys a liberty to act comparable to that of a powerful state loosed upon a continent with almost no peer?

I may be naive; instruct me as to how a police department cannot be manipulated to alter the behavior of its members, when it is only an appendage of the state apparatus and thus can be altered--or erased entirely.; 4:13 PM
Anonymous said...: "I can imagine a constitutional republic that realizes its already killed enough Indians and decides to stay East of the Mississippi."
I can't.; 5:34 PM
Gridlock said...: Stay out of Malibu, Lebowski; 5:59 PM
frantz fanonymous said...: Saturday, IOZ, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means that you don't work, you don't get in a car, you don't fucking ride in a car, you don't pick up the phone, you don't turn on the oven, and you sure as shit don't fucking blog! Shomer shabbos!; 6:21 PM
Enron said...: I don't see how the police department is different from any other bureaucratic "professional" entities, where infantile, petty differences or jealousies often have immense consequences for those lower on the food chain. To think that cops don't charge a crime in a certain way, or that certain cases aren't buried, is to be naive. Because the police are charged with executing civil law, one can argue that these consequences are that much more magnified.; 6:41 PM
Aaron said...: "I can at least imagine a professional police force that is free from (or rather affected by constraints and disincentives against) trumped up charges made for the sake of personal quibbles."

I can't. There are constraints and disincentives against murdering people in cold blood. And you can see how quickly and thoroughly we've managed to eradicate that. You seem to be imagining a police force made up of something other than human beings. We can't manage to give executives who make tens of millions of dollars annually a universally effective incentive not to steal money. How on Earth would you expect that we'd prevent the police from using their credibility in the eyes of the public to preemptively tarnish those who might complain about them by charging them with a bogus crime?; 12:13 AM
Anonymous said...: Are you suggesting that a police department enjoys a liberty to act comparable to that of a powerful state loosed upon a continent with almost no peer?

The police are the nation-state; or to put it more accurately, the existence of the latter is predicated on the former. Within the boundaries of the nation, the police possess a monopoly on the use of force; so yes, the comparison to a peerless, powerful state set loose upon a defenseless continent is apt.; 2:26 AM
Anonymous said...: Ah, no, that was the chief of police of Cambridge. A real reactionary.; 8:16 AM
Cüneyt said...: Interesting, Anon the First. Let's see if IOZ takes that interpretation. Still, there are people holding the police force's purse strings and handing it weapons, so maybe the analogy still has a ways to go.

And Aaron, you seem to believe that whatever is present is essential to a condition or a group. Yes, there will always be cops who, if empowered to do a thing, will do it wrong and do it for the wrong reasons. But one can manipulate the behavior of police forces. After all, one can create them, corrupt them, police them oneself, or dissolve them. They are not elemental and immutable. So what makes this or that behavior essential to professional policing? It's like saying rape is essential to romantic relationships because it frequently occurs within those bounds.; 10:56 AM
puppylander said...: so which of gates or crowley do you folks think wields more power/ influence? which do you imagine is more hesitant to exercise power/ influence?

just curious because gates and crowley both appear to treat intimidation as self-acceptable behavior/ tactic.; 11:38 AM
Anonymous said...: I think Uncle Bob had the best take on this dustup, asking of the Divine Ms. Parker: "What if it had been two WOMEN involved?"
Uh, catfight?
Prof. Obvious; 12:00 PM
marisacat said...: Funnily enough Ob took no interest when a young black man was killed at a BART transit station here in the Bay Area... unarmed, face down on the ground, about to be handcuffed, 5 cops in the immediate area and he was shot in the back by a BART transit cop...

Someone has been internally, anally tasered. While handcuffed. I'd call it torture, but we have gotten so picky about things like torture.. it is so debatable. [that was sarcasm]

http://gizmodo.com/5322387/police-sodomize-man-with-taser

Cop: Do you feel this?

Suspect: Yes, sir.

Cop: Do you feel that? That's my …

Suspect: Okay

Cop: … Taser up your ass.

Suspect: Okay

Cop: So don't move.

Suspect: I'm trying not to. I can't breathe.

Cop: Now do you feel this in your balls?

Suspect: I do, sir. I'm not going to move. I'm not gonna move.

Cop: Now I'm gonna tase your balls if you move again.

(A full minute goes by)

Cop: Okay, I'm gonna take this Taser out of your asshole now. Are you going to fight with me?

Suspect: No, not at all, sir.

Cop: (to another cop) So far, for the last two minutes, he's been cooperative. But then my Taser's in his ass.

Don't think Ob or Gates or Ogletree or Yglesias will be bothering with that one either.

Gates has been elevated fluff for decades. Ob has been fluff since about mid-course at Occidental... then a fixer, minor division (which he just proved again, how very minor) in a big baaad city... and now fluff again.

We are led by fluff.; 2:42 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: lulz. my believin bone is broken. in 3 weeks it will need resetting once Contador gets popped. out time trialed Cancellara. riiiight. and George W Bush landed the fighter on that Aircraft Carrier.; 8:24 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: "heaven - heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens"

because God is apparently a fucking cop.; 8:58 PM
Anonymous said...: Pass me some of that shit, Mr. Fun.; 8:20 AM
SteveB said...: Oh, I know, that isn't precisely how Yglesias is using the word, but let's be real.

I've never been a cop, but I have been a public school teacher, where "professionalism" means, among other things, being able to withstand verbal abuse from students without losing your cool and doing something that will involve the school in costly lawsuits.

Lots of professions that deal with the public have codes like this. So the emergency-room doctor is supposed to treat the abusive crack-addict with the same level of care she'd provide to the kindly grandmother, the public defender is supposed to mount a vigorous defense for the guy who's an asshole and probably guilty, etc.

Sure, people fall short of these standards all the time, and when they do, they're being unprofessional. That's the sense in which Yglesias is using the word, I think.; 9:28 AM
Mr.Fundamental said...: SteveB is actually a woman!; 8:13 AM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...: I love modern colloquial American word-evisceration.

So "professional" these days is used to denote... what, exactly?

When I was a tyke, the professions were those jobs where a person needed extensive post-graduate education, and thereafter some sort of licensure, after which the person could handle problems of a corporal, legal/rights/monetary, or existential life-or-death situation. More briefly, they were medicine, law, and religious dispensation (priest, rabbi, etc).

Now it just means "stuffy and pretentious, pining for upper-class status".

Hey, maybe it hasn't changed so much after all.; 12:38 AM

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Go Pro

26 comments:

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