Huh.. sounds like you're defending cops. That can't be right.

Marsupialized wrote:If someone openly and brazenly commits what he knows to be a serious crime right out in the open over and over again how the fuck can you blame the cops for arresting him?

Like when they have roadblocks to check for drunk driving, and when they frisk kids in the parking lot of a concert. They see these crimes going on, and they just want to make it more difficult.

Marsupialized wrote:

big_dave wrote:Being attracted to children is not a crime. It does not take a cop to "notice" that some people are attracted to children, but it takes a cop or a vigilante to create a crime that wouldn't have otherwise existed.

Are you defending fake-curb crawlers and bogus drug deals now?

If someone openly and brazenly commits what he knows to be a serious crime right out in the open over and over again how the fuck can you blame the cops for arresting him?

You don't think cops should arrest street crack dealers, ok. I can tell you've never lived in a shitty fucking neighborhood.

Effective policing shouldn't need entrapment or ambush style "stings". I'm sure you, of all people, would have agreed that it is a sure sign of unethical and decaying police forces that they have to resort to sleazy tactics to arrest small fry criminals.

In terms of anti-drug policing the potential for entrapment just creates more excuses for paranoia and violence amoungst people already extremely pre-disposed towards paranoia and violence. I'm not going to slap anyone on the back for basically stirring the pot for the sake of a feathered cap.

A good reply would be, if you don't understand how dangerous and random drug related reprisal attacks are, you've obviously never lived in a shitty area. Arresting a pusher is a dangerous thing to do, entrapping a pusher is taking lives into your hands. But even if that wasn't the case, I wouldn't like to see anyone arrested in those circumstances convicted of the hypothetical crime that they may have commited if the cop wasn't a cop.

steve wrote:

Marsupialized wrote:If someone openly and brazenly commits what he knows to be a serious crime right out in the open over and over again how the fuck can you blame the cops for arresting him?

Like when they have roadblocks to check for drunk driving, and when they frisk kids in the parking lot of a concert. They see these crimes going on, and they just want to make it more difficult.

If there were a specific stretch of highway that drunk drivers routinely and openly drove on, I am talking hanging out the window screaming 'I'm druuuuunk' and hurling beer bottles at other cars and this happened every fucking night in the same spot I would fucking assume the cops would catch on eventually.....as stupid as cops are they are not that fucking stupid. I would probably feel not so bad for these fucking assholes acting like fucking assholes and wouldn't blame the cops for checking it out.

Kids standing in a parking lot not fucking with anyone is a far cry from dudes plastering chat rooms with rabid intent to commit a felony crime over and over and over.

One is not a crime one is.

Like D-zone said, this thread is not about the television show, but the sting operations.

I happen to agree, for the most part, with all the arguments against coersion, thought policing, 1984, etc. I also agree that this type of thinking can be "dangerous" and in almost every case, reckless and reactionary.

However, I have searched deep in my heart for any sympathy for these people. It's not there. So be it.

Say every single day I go on craigslist and post an ad offering money for someone to kill someone for me.
Every day I post this ad, over and over.

One day a cop answers it pretending to be a hitman. I meet him and give him money. They arrest me.

Would you people feel I was wrongly arrested?

Explain to me the difference. Please, seriously.

I'm not against locking people up who are a clear and present danger to society. Like, they're all set to molest a kid, and all that's missing is the kid.

No problem with that. My problem is this holier-than-thou, fuck-you attitude that everyone seems to have. As though this particular type of criminal were worse than other types of criminals.

That is indeed bullshit.

NerblyBear wrote:As though this particular type of criminal were worse than other types of criminals.

How can you not see that it is much worse? Raping a kid is miles and miles worse than pretty much anything.

This type of criminal is way worse than most other types of criminals.
How could you possibly think that isn't true?

A dude who steals a hood ornament from a car is somewhere in the same league as a dude who holds a child down and fucks it?

Dr. Venkman wrote:

NerblyBear wrote:As though this particular type of criminal were worse than other types of criminals.

How can you not see that it is much worse? Raping a kid is miles and miles worse than pretty much anything.

Well, maybe so.

I'm not trying to say anything other than, "Let's treat them like people who've screwed up." Not like monsters.