We honor all of us by equally protecting all from "harassment" and imposition on private, including personal, property. That means your right to have your business clear and it means my right to not have someone "in my face", of whatever strata of society. That is why we need to articulate the laws to make these laws ACCURATE to Cause of Harm. Why do the laws in nearly every city you go to... allow harassment as long as there is no witnessed "physical contact"? Some more of those multi-city bureaucrat experts who like to meet with each other and decide FOR us? Why are property owners penalized by so many city governments for not painting over "their" graffiti right away, with the city coming in and doing it for them and charging them. As if the property owner victimized by graffiti is the criminal who de facto deserves his due process rights ripped off? And this just "happens" to encourage the power-trip ego who gets off on making the property owner his/her inferior in crime. Don't the City Attorneys know how to advise their bosses how to write laws, or is there a Constitutional problem here? I can write, and it is this articulation that's important, not the rules of grammar, which the attorneys know how to expand well. I intend to study the City Codes and bring changes to Council. For instance, it is not "alcohol" that causes messes and obnoxiousness, in every particularity, it is the behavior of some individuals who often BEHAVE badly with alcohol. Or without.
Remember, we guarantee the rights of individuals, with the presumption of innocence in America? Or we SHOULD. Not all drinkers get anti-social while under the moderate influence. If the cops need to patrol somewhere, they need to attend the crimes that ACTUALLY IMPOSE upon others' rights to peace and freedom. Not "associated activity". Part of the punishment phase of individuals caught in destructive behavior may very well accurately be their particular prohibition, both from the "influence" and from the area which they behave destructively in. But it is not protecting individual rights in equality of law to generalize such to all, or to special classes of people. How about worrying less about those pipes and nickle and dime bags of pot with a NO-FOCUS policy directive to our police public servants.
Free our cops up to protect the bathrooms from vandalism. Unless it is in their face or somebody elses! We can lawfully not get in one anothers' ways by civil parameters of harmonic interaction in a community that claims it loves diversity. And respects personal space. And we get around draconian "laws" thrust upon us by the hypocritical Pharmaceutical-Oil elites, by such NO-FOCUS policies. If I were a cop I would find much joy in going after crooks hurting other people, including those so stoned/drunk that it is a burden on others to take care of their childishness. Our morale would be better, and we would attract less power-tripping bully types into our employment opportunities. Wouldn't it be nice to see a real friend on patrol, coming by fairly often, who isn't paranoid of that small object near you, and would rather make it his/her cause to see that you are not put upon by jerks? Shouldn't the cops be focused on somebody brandishing a weapon instead? And checking to see that you are depositing your beer bottle in a recycling bin and not just smashing it in the street in angry rebellion, because you can't be seen with it while you're WALKING?
Remember Bicycle Rights? Ah, psychopolitics. We write the laws so that the punishment for leaving messes and being loud nuisances is stiff. Such as banning from using these areas that are sacred to us. So that the "homeless" individual who cleans up and leaves no trash, who leaves the place that he slept upon pristine, is protected by the cops. So that people sleeping in their cars and having the extra cash to fuel other than the landlord economy are protected, as long as they are clean and don't monopolize an area in front of a business or residence. So that the children of we the people can walk and live in peace and the beauty of respect for all living things! Some people look at what is, and some politicians see how class-warfare can empower their careers. But some of us visualize what SHOULD BE.
The Chief of Police and the City Manager have allegedly made statements that crowds in front of a now closed-down Plaza dancing venue have caused fights and traffic blockages. Now, my thinking is that people tend to feel happier and more sociable when their natural juices get to express, and there IS an afterglow, in spite of drinking some beer. But if the protocol is to CAUSE disease and fighting and 3-beer hangovers then our City Parents should do everything they can to make sure we either go to the bars or stay in our apartments, etc.
Since it is practically illegal to be outside in the parks, especially after dusk curfew, we are corraled into T.V. and isolated feelings inside of our rentals and the sportsbars, augmented by home video war games, whew! Thinking about "affordable RENT". I know the landlords don't like their status quo cut back, but I don't thinks rents are truly FAIR either. You want to just get your degrees and get the hell out of Dodge, fine, but that doesn't leave a very good attitude for the place you lived in, nor does it make Arcata a better place than it was before you came!
Since the City Parents, like the Chief of Police and the City Manager seem to associate YOU having a freer night life with increased alcohol-related crimes, I'd say we should get used to anesthetizing our angst "at home", preferably with that T.V./War Games programming. (Just a bit of sarcasm here, I don't really mean that!) Really, I think THEIR policies CAUSE more crime, disease, fighting energy.
But that is good for their business, and their war hysteria,
and we can all pray for more cops to augment whatever they are
doing with their attention, as the City Parents claim there is
a cop shortage too. I wonder why? Seems like the circle of psychopolitics
to me! They sure aren't watching what my bankers are doing with
my money, on the bankers'
own computers.
Go back to Dex Anderson, INDEPENDENT candidate for Arcata City Council in 2002 main page.