[lbo-talk] Black scholar arrest angers Obama

[// ravi]

On Aug 4, 2009, at 10:06 PM, Joseph Catron wrote:
>
> Non sequitur. Every time I've ever stepped foot in traffic court, I've
> seen a line of people there to have their charges for driving without
> a license, or without insurance, dropped by showing the documentation
> they lacked at the time they were ticketed. To the best of my
> knowledge, no one has ever argued that this rendered their initial
> ticketing improper (except maybe libertarians who think the government
> has no business regulating traffic).
>

Joe,

I don't get your analogy at all. The people you saw were following  
some [prescribed] procedure to compensate for the infraction with  
which they were charged and which they acknowledge committing by  
appearing with the documents, etc. Gates was committing no crime, was  
not charged for the crime that the officer came to investigate, you  
did not witness him standing in a line offering penance, so on and so  
forth. Even if you were talking about someone plea bargaining to an  
entirely unrelated infraction, IMHO, the analogy barely passes muster  
(I won't go into arguing that until it is proposed).

	--ravi

--
Anyone who takes an effort to intellectually challenge the status quo  
and established habits is infinitely more venerable than hacks  
defending that status quo and established habits, regardless of the  
truth function of their propositions. -- W.Sokolowski