<p>Having had some run ins with some arrogant policemen who did step outside the boundaries of the law, I am not so sympathetic to Officer Crowley. It seems to me that he did have the obligation to show his id as requested. Where I blame Gates is in his rudeness and stupidity in how he dealt with the police. As a mother of young adult boys, I have had to hammer into their thick heads that you have to cooperate with the police at time when they hold the cards or you will get into trouble even if you are right and they are wrong. Not worth it sometimes to put up a fight or be arrogant as Gates wise. I don’t believe for an instant that this is a race issue.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse - I totally agree with you. I think though that Prof. Gates’ reaction also stemmed from him just being tired and miserable coming back from such a long journey. Perhaps under normal circumstances he would have reacted differently.</p>
<p>Still tired and miserable after spending a night in New York upon his return from China the day before? After three glorious days of vacation in Beijing and a 14 hours sleepover in the first section of a 777? Hardly a back breaking ordeal! </p>
<p>If we were to listen the spinsters, it seems that Gates came back from China on the back of camel and in a slow boat.</p>
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<p>And, of course, we see I am most correct yet again when I say that in EVERY case where a Real American condescends to admit that Gates may have been mistreated, the very next word is “but” or some substitute, followed by a revelation that shows just how much of a sham the Constitution really is. In the instance quoted above, the “but” is implied. The poster says “It seems to me that [Crowley] did have the obligation to show his id as requested.”, and then in the very next sentence the poster focuses blame on Gates, adding “[but] Where I blame Gates is in his rudeness and stupidity in how he dealt with the police.”</p>
<p>Real Americans cannot possibly focus blame where it really belongs. The law demanded that Crowley show his ID as requested, where no law demanded that Gates be kind. Indeed, the genuine Constitution protects Americans from being arrested for rudeness and stupidity, though Real Americans would just as soon ignore this inconvenient truth, blaming the citizen because he was not happy that the police had imposed themselves on him.</p>
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<p>Perhaps it would be quite an ordeal, if one must walk with a cane. Well now. What have we here? In this instance we see a refusal to so much as even acknowledge the possibility that Gates had reason to feel discomfort and irritated. Such is Real America.</p>
<p>Oh, DM, aren’t facts annoying when they do not fit the narrative? </p>
<p>And, fwiw, this doesn’t bring in dispute the fact that Prof. Gates was greatly irritated when the incident happened, and that his irrational and out-of-character behavior was caused by that irritation of having to deal with a jammed door and having report the problem to the owners of the house. </p>
<p>In the meantime, it remains that the oft-repeated fib that he had directly flown from China to Boston is simply part of the arsenal of the resident spinsters and twisters.</p>
<p>From my vantapoint, Xiggi, Gates seems to have a tough go of it however much rest he gets. So after riding for a good deal in a cab, arriving at home mere inches away from rest, only to discover he must stand around on his cane in the effort to open a jammed door, might have been quite an ordeal indeed for the man. I actually get this, and automatically extend this consideration to Gates regardles of whether he technically flew from Beijing to his front door.</p>
<p>But then I am not a Real American.</p>
<p>R.A. --as in Reasonable Americans-- have no more problems recognizing what you suggest than recognizing when people stretch the truth to fuel their own skewed views on situations for the SOLE purpose to further their racial agenda. </p>
<p>As long as people will so determined to cling desperately to the notion of an America for white citizens and another for the rest of the population, there WILL be one. All you do, my dear DM, is fan the flames and contribute to the problems with your unabated display of racism. </p>
<p>We can be thankful that OUR generation --and the ones to follow-- will be MUCH different and realize how shameful and blind the behavior of parents on both sides of the fence truly was.</p>
<p>Um I dunno. The kid attended a majority white school and came back with the conclusion that there is still a substantial percentage of white people who need to earn the trust. The kid encountered racism openly and covertly. So now all are guilty until proven innocent.</p>
<p>Maybe a few more generations before utopia. The white 20-somethings still have baggage. And the Black 20-somethings are still leery.</p>
<p>And yet again, the issue of whether nor not Prof. Gates was irritated and exhausted from his travels only amounts to so much blather, so much irrelevant noise in light of what’s really important, what’s really at stake in this whole discussion—namely “that which must be ignored” at all costs by the forum’s “Real Americans” and “True Founding Father Worshiping Patriots”: The Constitutionality of Gate’s arrest. Yes, facts are indeed annoying things, especially 200+ year old facts, like the First and Fourth Amendments. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Well of course Reasonable Americans have the abilities you have mentioned, but we aren’t talking about them. We are talking about Real Americans, those who have difficulty extending grace to a handicapped professor simply because he did not fly directly from Beijing into his living room in Cambridge, Massachusetts.</p>
<p>Moreover, I agree that as long as people cling to the notion of an America for whites and another for others, that America will exist. But I certainly do not cling to this America. Real Americans do, and they just happen to be the majority population here. The evidence that they cling to it is that not even one Real American, in all of the threads concerning HL Gates, and in all of the posts within those threads, has been able to hold to the Constitution first and foremost such that Gates is allowed his rights, even to be loud and stupid, without fear of arrest. We have Real Americans who literally deny Gates the protection of the Constitution simply because a state can permit its citizens a local right to fish! Such is the difference between my America and yours.</p>
<p>And while you boast of YOUR generation and how bright the flowers are to you, and how the water tastes sweeter, and how the lions cuddle with the lambs, and howthe mosquitoes refuse to bite, the reality is that your generation is as trashed as mine when it comes to race. The difference is that we have laws in place that permit latitude that has never before existed in this cursed land. When neo-nazi and white supremacist groups cannot gain members because such a thing is generally perceived as being as foolish as forming separatist groups based on hair and eye color, and when my children can walk about this land as freely as you do, with no concern for being killed by white supremacists, then you may boast – and I will congratulate you. Until then, the mosquitoes do bite, even if you deceive yourself about them.</p>
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<p>Let’s be clear about which subject it is upon which we will never agree, purple. For me, the subject is: The Constitution of The United States and the belief that that document, which literally defines our Nation should be held as sacrosanct, and it’s rights uniformly and unerringly applied to ALL CITIZENS, not just the ones of whom you approve. Is this the “subject on which we will never agree”? </p>
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<p>I hope our Constitution rates higher on your list of important things. If you believe, “condemning or defending Gates” is the subject upon which I seek agreement, I assure you, it is not. I am not “defending Skip Gates”. I am defending Skip Gate’s Constitutional rights.</p>
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<p>This threat has been filled with blather and irrelevant noise, starting for its very first post. What a meandering and bobbing path along moronic attempts to paint this ridiculous incident as a case of racial profiling, then racial discrimination, then constitutional right violations, then again racial profiling, and all along by relying on the opinions of racist spinsters and the idle speculation of legal “eagles” who had discovered an overnight expertise in constitutional law.</p>
<p>If Prof. Gates believes his right were violated, he surely will not run out of choices to find a Harvard-educated attorney. Why don’t we wait to see if a lawsuit is filed and heard in a place that is more adequate than a bulletin board where anyone can claim instant expertise and pick and choose the “facts?”</p>
<p>@razorsharp, #1759: There is no US Constitutional prohibition against the states ensuring additional rights in their own Constitutions. However, they cannot remove rights that are guaranteed by the US Constitution. When I wrote about Constitutional rights, I was referring to rights under the US Constitution.</p>
<p>Many cases are tried in state courts, and not shifted to federal courts. However, the Constitutional protections still apply. For instance, the Miranda rights of defendants are preserved in state courts.</p>
<p>I hope that some of the lawyers who have posted previously on this thread will return to corroborate these points.</p>
<p>poetsheart posted:
“I am defending Skip Gate’s Constitutional rights.” </p>
<p>While I admire your apparent commitment to defend Gates’s constitutional rights, I do not share your “sky is falling” mentality about the crumbling of the constitution because Gates was placed under arrest.</p>
<p>I actually can speak to this with some experience. I was once brought up on the exact same bogus charge, disorderly conduct, for an act that didn’t begin to touch Gates’s rude, confrontational, demeaning, and ill-considered behavior. I hired an attorney and showed up in court. No one on the opposing side showed up (they knew the case was bogus), and the case was promptly dismissed. </p>
<p>It was aggravating, of course, but not fodder for a melodramatic hissy fit and exaggerated righteousness. It fell under the category of ^%$# happens because no one is perfect. </p>
<p>I am no fan of law enforcement. In fact, most law enforcement scares me more than the criminals they’re supposedly protecting us against. But I have been able to keep at least a small amount of objectivity, enough to reallze that there are some decent cops out there, and I think that Crowley is one of them.</p>
<p>Gates’s arrest did not stand and no charges are being pressed against him. Time for everyone to drop it. This sort of thing happens to all sorts of people (not just black Harvard professors) all the time. </p>
<p>As a result of my own experience, I have given my kids very detailed advice on how to deal with law enforcement. None of that advice included shoving their constitutional rights up the a$$ of someone with the power to shoot, tase, or arrest them. That’s not the time to fight an unfair charge.</p>
<p>We do not disagree on the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution. But as someone said above, if Gates thinks he has suffered damages from his experience, he has the best legal respresentation available. He has the power to fight for his rights to a much greater degree than the majority of others whom this happens to with regularity.</p>
<p>And yet again Real Americans show us how much of a sham their Constitution truly is. Though the document forbids unreasonable search and enumerates freedom of speech without arrest, the Real Americans permit both and trash the Constitution simply because the charges are dropped. Cops can then harass people (of course if they are black), literally put them in handcuffs for protesting, arrest them, and then later drop the charges, and Real Americans are just fine with it, since their sham of a Constitution is too weak to do anything to stop it. Gates never had a chance in Real America. The whole notion of the ‘sanctity of the Constitution’ and all that sort of nonsense is just pure fantasy.</p>
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<p>Ah yes. The Real Americans now tell us that to have confidence of an American’s freedom of speech requires expertise in constitutional law. We can’t just see Gates speaking freely and understand that this was his right under the Constitution. We must be experts to comment on it, which is yet another way the Real Americans reduce their Constitution to nothing but a worthless sham.</p>
<p>I am on record here, from the very beginning, declaring that this was not a case of classic profiling. I am utterly convinced that race influenced Crowley and we can see this very strongly in the fact that he claims he spoke with the 911 caller and that she reported seeing two black guys, a claim the caller says is utterly false. And it is most evident that it is false because on the 911 tape the caller is terribly clear that she literally does not know the race of the men. Even the Cambridge chief himself recognized the lies, but shuttled them under the table as mere “summary”. Mere summary! So when cops lie against black guys, it is all just fine - so long as it is done in “summary”.</p>
<p>Honest people know what went on here. Crowley lied, inserting race into the report to justify his initial posture to Gates. He knew that Real Americans would read the report, genuflect before it, and accept it as Jesus on the Cross. Such lies, such obvious lies, just do not matter to Real Americans. If the victim’s skin is of a certain hue, they will do all they can to avoid acknowledging the severe problem with cops denying a man his rights and then lying. No, the cop is a hero in this instance, the Constitution be damned.</p>
<p>“Gates never had a chance in Real America.”</p>
<p>Yeah…Gates sure has suffered mightily at the hands of your imaginary “real America.” He’s a very esteemed (and rightfully so) professor at Harvard who has been blessed with opportunities that may poor white people would give their right arms for. And so have your kids, Dross. Having a kid at Harvard ain’t exactly slumming it (and two at top Ivies, right)? I’d say you both have fared pretty well, yet you two are whining louder than many who have suffered greatly. Time to stop and be thankful for the “real America” that has afforded your children so much opportunity (and at little or no cost).</p>
<p>And there ya are. In Real America, your rights do not exist, so long as you are somehow affiliated with an Ivy League school. Blacks like Gates and my kids ought to just stop de silly notion of habin de rights, and jez be glaaaad for all de nice skoolin’ dat Real ‘Merica condeSINDID to GIVE us. No need to actually think that anything like rights exist for us.</p>
<p>And here is yet another instance where Real Americans completely trash their law. They will attempt any and every means to avoid acknowledging such things as inalienable rights IF one is of a certain race, that is. You know, I am sure many here have a certain belief in their hearts that Real Americans are not the overt racists I make them out to be. But now consider the implications of these last few posts and ask yourself how it is that a black person, if he accepts them, could ever stand by with his hand over his heart and pledge allegiance to this cursed land. It would be an easy thing to do in a land where rights are recognized as ours by nature, and vigorously protected. But in Real America no such thing exists, and we blacks must just move along and be grateful for having what so many white folks do not have, though those white folks certainly do have their rights. Gates is a Harvard big shot, but it did him little good when the cop came and trashed his rights. He never had a chance here in godless Real America.</p>
<p>Adjusting radio frequency to reach outer orbit…</p>
<p>Drosselmeier
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<p>Hogwash.</p>
<p>There were multiple terrorist attacks against Americans under Clinton, and the second WTC bombing was planned for years under him. Bush kept this country safe for eight years after the towers fell.</p>
<p>There were scream fests galore against Bush, and all sorts of irrational claims. It became a badge of honor among liberals to bash Bush. For sport. Never mind that the whole nation was also in the crosshairs. </p>
<p>Where are the vociferous left wing anti-war protesters now that Obama is in charge (and has even increased troop strength)? We hear barely more than a peep from them - especially the phony Hollywood libs. Were they instead just partisan hypocrites?</p>
<p>Obama has not been avoiding a sudden change from Bush’s chosen path. He is for the most part staying the course, and has made increases in the same direction. Why? Because he was smart enough when he got behind the big desk to realize that what 43 was doing was right. Good for him.</p>
<p>Best to let the partisan garbage go a little bit, once in a while, and just try to think what might be in the best interests of the country.</p>