Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 22:54:20 +0200, andrel wrote:

> > I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but the
> > society as a whole even more.

> That provides the police with incentive to follow the rules.

  But at what cost? They know that the person is a criminal who has harmed
or will harm other people (or both), yet they let him go because of a
technicality. It's the policeman who should be punished for breaking the
law, not innocent bystanders who may be harmed by the criminal who was
let go on purpose...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Every feature you mentioned is part of "race". It's all based on genetics.

  Gender and age is part of "race"?

> Was this intentional, or did you also want to include, say, style of 
> clothing, amount of taxes paid last year, which God you happen to worship, etc?

  Didn't I say it clearly enough? To me it's all the same. It doesn't matter
*what* is used.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> So are you changing your view?

  *sigh*

>  Otherwise I don't understand the 
> statement you made earlier about "if 90% of illegal immigrants are of 
> Mexican descent, then you should check them more frequently" (not an 
> exact quote, but you did make a statement to that effect).

  As opposed to "race must not be used for profiling because that's baaad!"

  People are oversensitive whenever "race" comes into question. All I said
is that if "race" *could* be used to catch criminals more efficiently, it
would make sense to use it. (Which is different from claiming that race
*can* be used for that purpose.) However, even making such a suggestion
seems to be a huge no no.

  How many times do I have to explain this? I'm tired of explaining it,
so I won't do it anymore. If you don't want to understand, then don't.
Think whatever you wish.

> >   If hair color can be used for some statistic, then so be it. If race
> >   can
> > be used for some statistic, then fine. I don't care. To me it's all the
> > same. I don't make any special distinction.

> Similarly, you couldn't say "people with black hair should be stopped to 
> see if they're illegal immigrants" because the fact that they have black 
> hair has no bearing on whether or not they're illegal immigrants or not.

  If it raises the apprehension rates of illegal immigrants, then technically
speaking it would make sense. (Of course a different question is whether it
really does, and another different question is how people will feel about
that.)

> That's because making a decision about someone's guilt or innocence based 
> solely on the colour of their skin is a racist decision.  Period, end of 
> story.  What about that don't you understand?

  What I don't understand is why you keep saying that even though I have
made absolutely no claim in relation to that. I have never talked about
"deciding someone's guilt or innocence". That's all your invention.

  But it really doesn't surprise me. When people see "race" and "statistics"
and "criminals" in the same paragraph, they immediately see "racism, racism,
racism, racism" and nothing else, and they start forming all kinds of
preconceptions of what was *really* being said.

  I am becoming really tired of these "you have said", "you claimed",
"you argued" lies.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> That there is such a large gap between what you intend and what you 
> write. We have been through this several times and I really think that 
> you are sincere and that you are not a racist yourself. Somehow that 
> does not stop you from writing the most stupid things without realizing 
> what that means to others. Why don't you trust other people's judgement 
> if they say that a remark is a racist one?

  So when people have preconceptions and strong prejudice against anybody
who even dares to mention things like "race" and "statistics" and "crime"
in the same sentence, *regardless of what he is really saying*, and then
they start making up all kind of lies about what I have claimed and accusing
me of whatever, and they keep going on and on with these lies even after
I clearly and repeatedly explain what I'm saying, and they keep pulling
things I write out of context, *I* am the one to blame for being stupid?

  Well, maybe I am stupid for assuming that people can have a rational
conversation even if the subject happens to contain the term "race".

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >   As I said, the police checks random drivers here, and I don't see it
> >   as a
> > bad thing. Hence it's not *always* a bad thing.

> And over here that's not the way law enforcement generally works.  You 
> seem to trust your government; over here, we tend not to.

  I honestly fail to see how random sobriety testing is a trust issue.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   In fact, what I have done is to oppose the idea that law enforcement asking
> > random people for their ID 

> Even that wouldn't raise the outcry we have here. But police aren't being 
> told to check *random* people. They're not stopping every tenth person 
> driving past, like they do with the sobriety checkpoints. They're stopping 
> people who *look* like an illegal immigrant.

> They are using a profile. They aren't using "random". Stopping "random" 
> people isn't anything to do with "If 90% of the lawbreakers are X, then you 
> should check people who are X", regardless of what X is.

  This conversation is going in circles. If I dared to repeat my original
point once again, it would go on and on forever.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>> That provides the police with incentive to follow the rules.
> 
>   But at what cost? They know that the person is a criminal who has harmed
> or will harm other people (or both), 

At this point, so are the policemen.

And no, they don't know that. It hasn't been investigated. It's that whole 
annoying innocent-until-proven-guilty thing we have going here. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Warp wrote:
>   People are oversensitive whenever "race" comes into question. All I said
> is that if "race" *could* be used to catch criminals more efficiently, it
> would make sense to use it. 

And where race can be used to catch criminals more efficiently, it is, and 
it's legal. You gave similar examples yourself, where gender is used to 
catch criminals more efficiently.  However, that's not what the rest of us 
are talking about.

> However, even making such a suggestion seems to be a huge no no.

Because in the scenarios you're giving as examples, race can't be used that way.

>   But it really doesn't surprise me. When people see "race" and "statistics"
> and "criminals" in the same paragraph, they immediately see "racism, racism,
> racism, racism" and nothing else, and they start forming all kinds of
> preconceptions of what was *really* being said.

And that's because race is not a useful indicator of criminality before you 
know about a specific crime and have some *evidence* that some specific 
person of a specific race has committed that crime. Then you do a DNA test.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Warp wrote:
>   I honestly fail to see how random sobriety testing is a trust issue.

It's not. It's the non-random non-probable-cause sobriety testing that's a 
trust issue.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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On Tue, 04 May 2010 07:57:49 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   I am becoming really tired of these "you have said", "you claimed",
> "you argued" lies.

You're the one who's making assertions, Warp - if you don't want to back 
them up, that's fine, but don't be surprised when people challenge your 
assumptions.  I think Andrel has you pegged right, that you do a very 
poor job of translating what you're thinking into words on the screen, 
and then you get pissed at everyone because we're *trying* to understand 
something YOU think is obvious - and then you start lashing out at people 
saying that they're intentionally misundersanding you just to piss you 
off.

Maybe it's time for me to filter your posts again, because you take such 
an irrational approach to discussion.  But of course, you'll see that as 
some sort of insult, no doubt.

Jim

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