Re:I smell something... (Score 1)

Why all the anger & hostility? I really didn't mean any harm, & certainly didn't mean to criticize the guy (whose principles, by the way, I admire), let alone "beat" or berate him for doing something "wrong"; I even stated explicitly that I *wasn't* criticizing him. I was talking about choices & practicality, which are of course personal decisions. I wasn't speaking in absolutes; I was just asking some questions. I don't think I deserved a personal attack like yours any more than the customer deserved the overreactions from the store employees or the police. I don't know or care whether I'm smarter than the "average" person.

perhaps you're prescient and thus able to plan this sort of thing out in advance

Knowing how to respond in various circumstances is a result of experience & rationality, not prescience.

He did absolutely nothing wrong, and was arrested for it. That should scare any rational person. He wasn't even rude to the idiot cop, from the sound of things.

Again, I didn't mean to say he was wrong. I didn't say I thought he was rude the the cop, or that the cop wasn't an idiot. In my experience, though, when you don't cooperate with a cop there's a fair possibility that the cop will *interpret* it as rudeness, even if that's not your intention. Maybe I wasn't clear about that; if not, I apologize. I said I *understood*, not agreed with, the officer's point of view. I admit, I did say, "The guy was playing both sides of the fence"; it would have been better to say, "It seems it appeared to the cops that the guy was playing both sides of the fence." Your tirade against what I intended as innocent comments & discussion of an issue, among those of us who care enough to give it some thought, provides an excellent illustration of just how easily a misunderstanding can occur & quickly escalate into a battle. I posted what I intended to be an examination of issues; you responded with what appears to be (only in my opinion) an enraged personal attack; I'm responding to you with, I hope, respect and consideration. If that's a skewed world view, so be it.

Your opinion differs from mine and many others in that you think rights should only be defended when it is convenient, and ignored whenever it is "reasonable" to give them up. You also have the very common and very incorrect paradoxical idea that you'll be doing a better job protecting your family by "taking them out of the equation". In point of fact, the presence of multiple passengers in the car, perhaps even a minor among them, once again compounds the action of the store employees. Instead of merely detaining one person illegally, they illegally detained an entire car full of people. And they didn't just stand in front of the car. The store manager got between the open car door and the man inside, and refused to move when the man attempted to close the door, after politely asking what the problem was, I might add.

"Only"? "Ignored"? "Whenever"? Where did I say those things? I asked a hypothetical question about one particular situation. I didn't even say I thought my question illustrated a better solution; I just asked, "What if," in this particular situation, he had removed any possible justification the store employees might have had, even in their small minds, for detaining his family? Okay--you don't think that hypothetical case would have been a good idea. I get it. Why does that lead you to extrapolate that I think every situation should be handled identically, rather than individually?

Several things went very wrong that day. This guy standing up for his rights was not one of them.

I never said it was; or at least I didn't mean to. You seem to think I did. I've tried to explain myself better here, but I don't expect anything I've said to change your opinion of me. You really didn't get any of the points I was trying to make, which is okay, but unfortunate; I tried to communicate, & failed. Let's just say I expressed myself clumsily, I'm sorry, & leave it at that.