Quote:
Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
Well that's the beauty of a message board, I guess. Or, if we want to get grandiose, that's the beauty of a democracy. You don't have to be an expert to question things.
I think I know just as much about it as the people who blindly support the police no matter what they do. You know, the people who apparently believe police have two options -- the gun or the electricity. The same people who believe that in America every person who doesn't co-operate with the police ends up dead.
And I don't question the police regardless of the situation, I question the police when the situation looks questionable. A disabled senior citizen getting tasered twice is, to my admittedly untrained eye, questionable. Is that so wrong? Or "stupid", as someone said?
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Correct. The beauty of a message board is that anyone can (and will unfortunately) put their 2 cents in regardless of their background or knowledge of the issue. But what really makes forums great is the ability to learn from other posters, to perhaps see things a little differently and wonder if maybe just maybe my view is uninformed or just completely off base.
I don't think anyone, that is applauding the use of the taser in this instance is, is blindly supporting police. Quite the contrary. They are able to read the article with skepticism. To realize that there is possible a lot more to the story. Even acknowledging that fact, there are several indicators in the story that would leave a 'reasonable person' to believe that the tasering was justified. Certainly it is not wrong to question the use of force. But, IMO, it is wrong to question it in the light of the article itself.
Personally, I am not one of those guys who believes that in the US he would have been shot. However, I can say, that without a taser there might have been a strong possibility he might have been staring down the barrel of the a gun. Whether he would have actually been shot or not, who knows as each cop has their own thresh hold for GBH or death.
I still don't get how you can turn the article itself into such an ever simplified statement as, ' A disabled senior citizen getting tasered twice...'. Do you honestly believe that's all it was. That is exactly why people think you are anti-cop. You have over-simplified it to fit what we perceive as your agenda. Further, you tend to ignore relevant facts that would lead you down a different path.
Seriously, reread the story and pretend you are some guy walking to work and observed the whole thing. Keep in mind that I am willing to bet the old guy wasn't the most pleasant guy at the time.