August 2013 – Rolling Doughnut

“Now prosecutor, why you think he done it?”

Ronald Bailey has an interesting essay, Watched Cops Are Polite Cops.

Who will watch the watchers? What if all watchers were required to wear a video camera that would record their every interaction with citizens? In her ruling in a recent civil suit challenging the New York City police department’s notorious stop-and-frisk rousting of residents, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the Federal District Court in Manhattan imposed an experiment in which the police in the city’s precincts with the highest reported rates of stop-and-frisk activity would be required to wear video cameras for one year.

This is a really good idea. Earlier this year, a 12-month study by Cambridge University researchers revealed that when the city of Rialto, California, required its cops to wear cameras, the number of complaints filed against officers fell by 88 percent and the use of force by officers dropped by almost 60 percent. Watched cops are polite cops.

I agree with the premise (and the need for strict rules to protect the privacy of individual citizens, as discussed later in the piece).

However, I have no expectation that this would improve much if implemented. We already recognize how many people accept the government’s assertions in criminal cases. Charged is too often synonymous with guilty. More on point, we know how such video evidence will be treated.

Consider this case of a man arrested in Florida in 2010:

An 18-year-old man faces a number of charges today after West Melbourne police found him jogging naked wearing only swimming goggles next to a busy roadway.

“He was jogging butt-naked and didn’t even have on shoes. We suspect he was under the influence … he was a little incoherent,” said Cmdr. Steve Wilkinson, spokesman for the West Melbourne Police Department.

Okay, fine, we can’t have that. But is the bolded part here true?

The unidentified man, who officers had to subdue with a Taser, was seen sprinting at about 7 a.m. today near the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Eber Road, officials reported.

And:

Cmdr. Steve Wilkinson said King could not have been caught without the Taser, adding that King was speaking incoherently but was also apologetic for inconveniencing police.

In this case, the officer’s Taser had a camera attached to film the incident. His dashboard cam captured the rest of the interaction. The video evidence does not support the bolded statements.

The video isn’t embedding correctly. It starts at 25:20.

In the video from World’s Wildest Police Videos, the script has John Bunnell focus on making sure we agree that the police officer doesn’t want to, and shouldn’t have to, deal with a naked man. Because, ick, right?

Law enforcement officials are taught how to handle all kinds of different criminals. But let’s face it. Some, they’d rather not handle at all.
…

This isn’t exactly the kind of perp the cop wants to get into a wrestling match with.

The video also received the Top 20 Most Shocking Moments treatment. The facts titillate and remind us that police video is entertainment for the masses, even when it involves the use of excessive, potentially-lethal force. The camera footage is used to mock the accused and to further entrench the idea that a police officer may use a taser if arresting a suspect would involve physical effort or put him in an uncomfortable situation. Even with video, we don’t reject the use of the taser here. It repeats the now-accepted belief that the taser is a substitute for police work rather than a substitute for the officer’s firearm.

Video can be helpful and should be used. Without a commitment to changing how we use them now, I’m skeptical that video will be used in a way that compensates for existing problems in our thinking or teaches us to respect rights more. Too often we adhere to:

Cops are heroic
The cop tasered a criminal
Tasering a criminal is heroic

The video lets us continue that nonsense.

Today’s Duh: Anthony Weiner is not a libertarian

In the true spirit of Kip’s truth that all politicians are moral defectives, we have Anthony Weiner. When asked about the New York City health department’s (weak) effort to regulate metzitzah b’peh, a ritual that has led to herpes infections that have killed at least two infant males and left at least two more with brain damage, Weiner said:

“You know, I’ve been criticized a lot of places for my position on metzitzah b’peh, on the ritual bris,” he said last night. “My instinct as a liberal is the libertarian sense of that word, is that we have to be very, very careful when we in government decide to step in, even if we’re 100 percent sure. Remember, government always is about the rule of the majority. … You have to be extra careful to protect the rights of people that are in the smallest of minorities.”

Anthony Weiner doesn’t understand his instinct. He is not a libertarian. His position is not libertarian. Even the health department’s inch-high speed bump (i.e. a “consent” form) is not liberatarian on this issue. That is not because it has the government stepping in, but because it does almost nothing. As practiced today, metzitzah b’peh – and child circumcision, more generally – violates basic human rights. There are dead and brain-damaged children already. The same risk exists in every instance in which it’s performed, just as objective harm results from every circumcision.

Libertarianism recognizes the primary purpose of any legitimate government to protect the rights of its individual citizens. This includes the individual’s right to bodily integrity and autonomy. Hence, valid laws against all other forms of non-therapeutic, unwanted physical violence exist without contention. Since children are also people, an obvious fact that too many self-proclaimed libertarians miss, government may enact and enforce laws to protect their rights, too. This includes protecting children from objective physical harm inflicted for reasons unconnected to objective need. Without need, the individual must consent. Proxy consent forms for objective harm do not protect children. They are not an acceptable standard. The libertarian position on non-therapeutic child circumcision is prohibition, as any other form of unwanted, unnecessary objective harm is prohibited.

Weiner manages to provide some insight in his words. The smallest minority is the individual, and the most vulnerable smallest minority is a child who can’t defend himself. We have to be extra careful to protect them. That includes not being too cowardly to acknowledge something we’re 100 percent sure about. Oral suction of an open wound is unsanitary and should only be done with the individual’s consent. Ritual or “medical” circumcision of a healthy child removes normal, functioning tissue and should only be done with the individual’s consent. There is no parental right to this rite.

Link via Janet Heimlich.

Ten Years

I started Rolling Doughnut ten years ago today. I haven’t posted with any regularity for a long while, but I’m still here. I continue paying the hosting fees because I’m proud of the work I’ve done. I transitioned from mostly fluff and attempts at humor to a commitment to significant issues. Rolling Doughnut has been an outlet to learn and grow in my writing and thinking.

It’s apparent to me how this site tracks with my life over the last decade. I won’t go through it since I post little directly personal information. But it’s fun to remember for me. Mostly, I’m amused that my first post was a generic “Is this thing on” post, and that Danielle left the first comment. At the time, we only knew each other online. Now we’re married. So, yay Internet!

Since no anniversary post would be complete without a retrospective, I’ll offer an incomplete list, a few posts that still make me proud. I wrote about the often misunderstood idea of selfishness within Ayn Rand’s work. I made a flowchart showing how lazy people mock lbertarians. I did Matthew Yglesias’ homework, since he preferred propaganda to journalism. And, of course, I wrote a bunch of posts on circumcision too numerous to ~~keep an audience~~ document in a short post. And, finally, there was the day I never imagined I’d see.

I’m glad I started Rolling Doughnut. I’m sure there’s more good stuff in the future.