I don't feel obligated to push back, but what the hell, if we can rant like above, then a point of defense should be expected, right?
A quick glance of this thread and it's no wonder we have been losing good members of this forum steadily over the last year, as the pendulum swings in the direction of blanket and ambiguous statements about supposedly predatory police and red-eyed paranoiac ranting, despite the fact that the OP here made a very detailed statement that the individual who first reported the incident was a citizen, not the officer. Those of you who wish to rant about the police have many places to do so besides here, where I used to think the best thing about this forum was that we kept the politics out of the air to the betterment of all. It seems recently that, for whatever reason (and I'm banking on the frustrations of things other than smoking bans building in some of us) the dark mentality evident on so many other forums is alive here.
Whatever happened to the loose understanding that this particular forum wasn't going to fall prey to the things that bring other forums down, the same things which guide us here as a refuge? Ironic that those of you who wish to escape the wasteland (physically, mentally) are squarely in the middle of it as evidenced by your statements.
However justified it may seem given the times, this sort of ranting does nothing to enlighten or approach the situation from any constructive attempt to move forward. The banks "rape" us according to one poster above, police all over the country "taze" us indiscriminately, anti-smokers are "Nazis", the "law" that officers follow is in ironic quotes, it's "easy" to be a cop because all they do is "hassle" people and pull over women for nefarious reasons, our driveways are a good vantage point with which to have "target practice", and on and on. What kind of forum has this become?
I'd love to jump in with an informed knowledge of the state of police recruitment and police training across the country, an objective outlook on the state of laws that are being repealed in certain places, a very informed knowledge about police use of force tactics based on current research, and maybe even make an effort to make this more of a constructive conversation despite the tsunami of anecdotal ranting. But why bother. I'd be more successful cooking a steak with a matchstick than to try and change the minds of a mob. We have allowed a very dark characteristic of other forums take hold, and it's hardly the laid-back place it was even back in the spring when the Chicago show caused me to return here after a while away. But I don't think ranting about the cops and Nazis peeking in our windows was something we did here. I guess it is. Shame, too, because it used not to be. Knock yourselves out I guess, and enjoy giving yourselves heart disease over antismoking-Nazi-cop-tasing-rapists lurking everywhere.
Last thing: hats off to Jud, who had the even keel above to lay blame for this entire situation of smoking bans at the feet of the REAL culprits: the voters, which includes ourselves. If you want to change the situation, direct your energy and anger to positive change in that manner as opposed to the negativity on display here. I guess I could have taken my own advice from a while back about ignoring rants of others, but I will take the bait offered and say it's a damn shame what has happened to this forum.
