It seems that seventeen guys on a church function were roughhousing in a street while possibly playing a Larp or some other game. Reports are divided as to whether it was Fugitive which is a tag-like team game or FuZion which is more Larpy.
Oh yeah, it was after a football game, and they were Church of Christ members.
I seriously would not want to break into a CoC member's house. Good chance they have a shotgun or rifle, but other than that they are the prototypical decent citizen type. Imagine a more scholarly Independent Baptist with a more serious look.
Now pile on the fact that they are LARPing in public aka they are somewhat nerdy.
The only danger is accident.
I was not there, I try to be fair, but I'm waay tempted to tell the cops in Knoxville to 'get real'.
In further note, about ten years ago, the SCA got told they could not do their rapier practise in a public park on the grass.
Right now, I'm seeing the police getting a little hysterical. They actually said 'its all fun and games until someone gets hurt'.
I haven't hit all the facts, but my first impression is not good.
To me it seems, from how you are describing it, that you are overreacting. If I get you correctly, you are fearing for an attack on roleplaying or 'The Hobby', as being media-covered as dangerous. Am I right?
The police, no doubt has their reasons to be concerned and even forbid fencing practice. I assume and honestly believe it's for the sake of public safety. Now put that in contrast with a group of people 'playing war' in the city, knowing that when things get rough, there will usually/always be some hooligans in the bunch. It's practically unavoidable. They know most are harmless, just as they know that most hockey supporters are harmless. Yet some of them are hooligans. It's not hysteria.
The problem is, in most of such cases, the media and how they portray it all. Controversial things like racism, money issues or, in this case maybe LARP-ing are a way to get attention (as they just got yours). And even if they would brainwash the people into believing it was dangerous, would it be very bad? It's not like we couldn't live without it, right?
This is in no way meant offensively. I realize that sometimes I come across like this, but that is not my intention. I'm just trying to put myself into the place of those policemen and try to look at the situation from another perspective (preferably bird's eye view, to have an oversight).
Nikolaj
I'm not fearing (much). I'm more thinking this falls into 'police acting stupidly'. When the police waste their time and bother good citizens, good citizens suffer in two ways--the bad are not harrassed and the good are.
Jerry Pournelled coined a term 'anarcho-tyranny' about a form of government which combined the worst aspects of anarchism and tyranny. You weren't safe from thugs, and you couldn't do anything to protect yourself either.
I see things like this as one tiny step in that direction. In other words, why can't the cops go out and arrest some drug dealers?
There is a nice answer to that: Broken Window Theory, and allowing certain types of bad behavior in public areas can rapidly degrade that area. Mayor Rudolph Giulianni did a lot of good for NYC by arresting minor criminals who were harrassing citizens. But he also attacked the Mafia so it wasn't just go after the pains in the neck.
There is a mean answer to that too: Its a lot easier for a cop to arrest a bunch of basically law-abiding people than to actually have to get out and do his dangerous job of arresting scum. And we're finding that for various reasons, people are getting hysterical about the wrong things, and are frightened of tackling our real problems.
And that leads to anarcho-tyranny.
MJ talked once about how the cities are not fundamentally broken. I'd have to agree with him. There are serious fundamental problems with the cities I suspect(like the rise of telecommuting), but most of the problems of teh cities are because the power elite are cowardly selfish pretentious morons which is not a fundamental problem. You deal with that problem by firing everyone in charge, and prosecuting the criminal types in office, and hiring a new group to take over.
As to your second paragraph, I'm highly in favor of 'get the criminal' instead of 'criminalize normal behavior' policies.
Your slant seems to be to limit freedom which is a bad idea, IMHO.
And no, you're not at all offensive. You made me think a little deeper about it which is good. I hadn't made the anarchotyranny connection, forex.
Eric, if I'm understanding this, you're getting upset because the police got involved over some Live Action Role Players who were swinging swords around. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
My point is, they were swinging swords around. That's a pretty good reason to call the police. I probably wouldn't have called, but I could imagine how someone else might.
Yeah, I know, the guy that doesn't like police saying that he can understand why they were called. I can. I understand why the police stop me for talking to myself. It's irritating, and I think it's technically unconstitutional (which I will bring up, next time it happens) but I can understand why it happens.
(Doing Therapy)
@Eric:
Limit freedom. Hmmm. No, rather the importance of some freedoms. Those same big corporations are free to fire ordinary Joe to promote some shady characters. That's freedom too. Is it needed? No. Is it wanted? No.
As to LARP-ing or roleplaying. Is it needed? No. But it's nice to have it. It's the forcefully trying to keep something that is not essential that bothers me. (Not that I'm saying you do that) It's like enforcing the freedom to eat chocolate so hard that you don't notice that you're forgetting about eating bread. I just try to focus on finding out what's essential and trying to put most of my effort and energy there.
John,
Two separate incidences. One that really was stupid, and the other was pretty stupid.
The SCA were using blunted rapiers on the grass, and a little kid ran up to them. At which point, the marshall yelled 'hold', and everyone froze while the mother retrieved her tyke. The mother is all furious, but barring the SCA in this case is like barring a bunch of guys from going out and playing tackle football in the park. If you're tiny and too curious for your own good, you might get a little closer than someone would like to getting squished.
The other incident was more public and involved roughhousing.
I think what should have happened in Case One is tell the mother to chill, and in Case Two tell the guys to go do it somewhere less public, but no arrests.
Nikolaj,
We have seriously different conceptions of the proper use of government power.
To your first question, no, the gov't should not stop corporations from firing people and hiring shady characters. In general, thats what the free market and lawsuits by shareholders are for.
You need to have a really good reason to impose a law on others that limits their freedom. You're coming at it from the other point of view which says you need to have a really good reason to have that freedom.
Or as better men than me said...
Inalienable rights given by our Creator....Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We allow people to overindulge in chocolate in part because giving the power to the gov't to stop people from being idiots opens the door to all sorts of absolute horrors. I feel like I need to give a basic course in American political thought here because almost no Americans (liberal or conservative) would say what you said. Liberals are more likely to believe in the power of government to help people, but even they would not support the Chocolate Rationing Bill of 2009.
Basic concepts:
1. Freedom means the ability to do something on your own. It does not mean the ability to force other people to do something to you that you'd like them to do. Freedom is a good thing.
2. People are sinners and untrustworthy with power. Just because they work for the government doesn't make them more trustworthy, in fact, it usually makes them less trustworthy since many power hungry people are drawn to government.
3. Most people are better at managing their own lives than someone three hundred miles away who has never met them.
4. Let reality teach people how to behave rather than protecting them too much from reality, or adding too many additional burdens on top of the ones they already have.
Eric, I think you and I have the same basic thinking. If I ran the world, there wouldn't be any police, in the sense that we have them. It would be back to the Wild Wild West. Everyone has a 45 on their hip and settles disputes at high noon in the town square. The police would just be there to clean up the mess when it was over. I guarantee you there would be far less crime if every single bystander had a gun.
Eric,
I am a noob at politics, so I speak with little experience, and I appreciate those who have found things out in the past, like you quote. Here in Europe though, we (or at least I) are very skeptic about Americans using the word freedom.
I just try to approach my way of life and everything I think about from a christian perspective, based on the Great Commandment. To love God above all and to love others like you love yourself has consequences. Certainly if you live in the richer countries.
1.I like my freedom and I like the luxury and quality of life I have or can have. Yet I do not exploit this, because others are not this fortunate. Just living in my own freedom to get things goes against the love that I want others to also have this.
Also seeing this material stuff as freedom is something I don't want to do. What I have found out is that this craving for freedom and luxury is also actually a restriction on sharing and aiding the other. Contrary (maybe) to American liking I like the ideas communism (in as far as I know it, which isn't much) had in this regard to work quite well. Just like the early church had nothing for themselves but shared everything. You actually get one of the many paradoxes Christianity has: Give up what you have, and gain something bigger. Don't do it, and you'll not achieve it.
If you keep it for yourself (the freedom of ownership, personal possession or something like that, right?), you can only make yourself better. Give it all away and you get an entire community where there literally is no lack. (Acts 2 and I think also 4) And the thing is that it was not at all enforced, but freely chosen. That is real freedom, and it considers the other instead of your self or your own comfort. I find that when you enforce your own freedom to take something for yourself, you automatically take away something from the other. Like wanting more space for yourself is less space for the other. Wanting more food, energy, ... means less of that for the other. I don't think there is a way of freedom, besides freedom to sacrifice your own luxuries, that does not take from another. Except things like the freedom to move things around in your room or something.
2. Universal truth. Yet the degree, if there really is a degree, of badness is not connected to your employment. (except when you compare working in a western country in contrast to say ... Ukraine, where corruption is expected and taken into account by government officials. There is the director of the children hospital for example over there who wants to do everything legal, but she cannot because government expect her to take bribes and thus not giving her extra funding because they calculate an extra 'average' bribes amount into the calculations, which she refuses to take.
Yet what you say is a generalization. I think that there also is a certain amount of people drawn to government jobs because they generally want to help people. There are still people left who have honor and desire justice.
3. If that is so, why did God have to create his law and enforce it upon His people through Mozes and his delegates, and at other points the prophets and judges. The people even craved for a king of their own!
4. Ever heard about the proverb: "He who does not know his history is doomed to relive it."? If you don't want to take the experiences and wisdom of those who went before you into account you will just have to start over, making the same mistakes your ancestors make to find out things they also already found out and tried to find solutions for.
John,
You just enforced the stereotype of Americans that we in Europe have. There is a certain logic in your statement, but it would be a peace out of fear, instead a good peace that is also a peace on the inside, in your soul. I am more in favor of what my grandmother, who I've found out to have a lot of wisdom from living a long time, always told me. "If you don't have a weapon, you cannot use it." A couple of years ago there were a series of stabbings in Belgium over trivial matters. People where stabbed to death for not wanting to give a cigarette or something like that. Her reply to it was sleepless nights being worried about the youth of this generation and reflecting on her youth. She would just say, if you don't have a knife, you can't use it in a fit of rage.
Translating it in the 'Wild West' I have to think about shooting someone you suspect of cheating at playing cards or something.
Are we digressing from the topic?
Translating it in the 'Wild West' I have to think about shooting someone you suspect of cheating at playing cards or something.
Yeah, but, how many people are going to cheat at cards in the first place, if they know everyone around them will kill them if they get caught? It's a deterrent to crime being committed in the first place.
(Doing Therapy)
John, how many people will be shot to death for winning a hand in an improbable situation and so being accused of cheating? And how may will be shot because the best gunman in the world is a lousy card player but insists on making his living playing cards? When the fact that you're dead in the street can be justified because you refused to play a poker game because you knew that you'd be dead if you won, we suddenly find that we need law. I would not want to live in a world where the strongest makes the rules, no matter how that strength is measured--the best pugilist or the best gunslinger or the best bomber.
*****
Nikolaj, Marxism is fundamentally flawed because it is Utopian.
Marx believed that the reason there were shortages in goods (food, housing, clothing) was that the very few very wealthy were hoarding it all, and that if you got rid of the ability to own the means of production there would be adequate provision for everyone, because those hoarders could not take more than their share. He further believed that people were fundamentally good, kind, and generous, and innately hard-working, and that if you gave everyone adequate food, clothing, and shelter, they would be eager to work as hard as they could to make sure everyone had "enough". To want more than "enough" is thus considered inhumane, possibly inhuman, and to be unwilling to work as hard as you can similarly selfish. Thus communism is built on the assumption that if society makes sure you have the basic necessities of life you will do everything you can for society. Thus the maxim: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
It worked for the early Christian church, because everyone genuinely cared about each other. It is a system for caring families. It does not bother us that our elderly mother eats our food but does no work, nor that our infant granddaughter cannot change her own clothes and so needs our help, because we care about them. We as family all do what we can to make everyone in the family happy, because we understand that each of us has needs and each has abilities, and everyone else is also doing as much as he can for us. It does not work for society at large, though, because frankly I feel no need to deprive myself of coffee so that the ten-year-old boy across the street can have new guitar strings, and none of my neighbors have ever inquired to discover that the reason I don't cut my own lawn is because I am allergic to the cut grass and cannot breathe around it. In order for communism to work, you must genuinely care more about the needs of others than you do about your own, and more significantly you must care as much about the needs of the complete stranger in the next town as you do about your own family members. That is a wonderful dream, but only a handful even of Christians ever approach the reality.
*****
Eric, if I boil down what you are saying, almost a score of young men were rough-housing in a public street, and someone called the police, who responded and broke up whatever was happening. It appears that what was happening was some sort of game, but it upset someone sufficiently that the police were called. Thus it may have been loud, or looked dangerous. Of course, there are a lot of other possibilities not addressed by your limited fact set. It might have been after the noise curfew (most towns have these, a time after which it is legitimate to complain that your neighbor's party is too loud preventing you from sleeping). It might have been that the old coot whose afternoon was disrupted by these hooligans threatening to spill over into his yard sits on the town council or is a retired cop with friends on the force.
In short, it seems that there was activity involving a rather large gathering of young men which looked or sounded violent enough to cause some citizen concern. So maybe the citizen overreacted, or maybe the participants should have contained their frolick to their own property. Usually, though, when police get complaints from neighbors that read like something is happening that looks like it might be dangerous or threatening to the neighborhood, they tend to err toward protecting the residents. That's not necessarily fair or good, but the fact is that our interests as people are often in conflict with each other, and our police do have some responsibility to contain those conflicts as well as they can.
--M. J. Young
Thank you for the explanation! Ideally, the Church should be one big family. And I do care for strangers, yet not more or equal to myself. So it is a dream, I know, and I would not enforce it, because I know that men are not fundamentally or innately good. And I do often find in myself a self-love that deprives others from their needs, with which I struggle, because I do not want it.
I would not want to live in a world where the strongest makes the rules, no matter how that strength is measured--the best pugilist or the best gunslinger or the best bomber.
How is that any different than right now, except that they're called Congressmen instead of gunslingers?
It's also a recipe for the execution of the innocent, John. Who stops people from killing folks just for suspicion of cheating? Or because the killer doesn't like his victim's face and thinks other people will believe him when he claims the victim was cheating?
Edit: crossposted with the above three, leaving my post unchanged.
I would not want to live in a world where the strongest makes the rules, no matter how that strength is measured--the best pugilist or the best gunslinger or the best bomber.How is that any different than right now, except that they're called Congressmen instead of gunslingers?
I confess myself confused. No one is elected best gunslinger. Many differences stem from that.
How is it similar?
Scott, it's not exactly like you're thinking. It would have to be a felony offense for that kind of action to be allowed. I read about a case in Florida, right after they passed the concealed carry law. A couple of bank robbers were chased down the street by about a dozen people with concealed carry permits, before the police ever showed up. They caught the robbers, and I believe no one was injured. It empowers the people in a bad situation. The police can't be everywhere. Law-abiding citizens who can back up what they say CAN be everywhere.
I confess myself confused. No one is elected best gunslinger. Many differences stem from that.
How is it similar?
Did you know that they put a chemical in cough syrup which is NOT mentioned anywhere on the label? It's called a chemical tag. It's to prevent people from using the cough syrup as a hallucinogen. (Now ask me how I know that....) The point is though, are you comfortable with the fact that there is an unmentioned chemical in cough syrup which you could be giving to your child? I bet you never heard of this before now. Look it up online if you're skeptical. Are you comfortable with that?
Too much power. Ruled by force. What's the difference?
(Doing Therapy)
Nikolaj,
I'd say stick to one definition of freedom. Freedom means the ability to take unconstrained action. This requires the ownership of X (your body, your speech, your car...). If you for example, do not own your voice, then how can you speak?
You wish to claim that Freedom from Economic Want is the same as Freedom is generally understood. Its not.
And where do the more expansive claims of your freedom end? I'd like to walk in the rain, but not be bothered to carry an umbrella. Can I demand that the gov't force someone to do it for me, to give me my freedom from carrying an umbrella?
It is better to say 'Someone has a muscle disease, and hence we're going to force someone to carry the umbrella for the ill man which is an imposition, but it is justified because of his need.' because that way of saying things limits the requirements that 'freedom-seekers' might put on others.
Also, as Ayn Rand (wince) said...the thing that the Have-Nots have not is Capitalism. To put it another way, economic wealth is generally expansive in a capitalist system. Everyone gets wealthier. Bill Gates helped me. He did not steal from me to make his billions. He provided help to little ol' me, and in return, I gladly gave him some of my valuable cash for his even more valuable product.
I would love to be able to help ten thousand people with the problem of 'I have three spare hours, and I'm bored.' I'd sell them a novel, and they'd be happy, and I'd go buy a new car, and I'd be really happy.
America's wealth is largely founded on hard work, risk-taking, and wisdom with a heaping helping of trustworthiness. Decreasing freedom in that system is like pouring sand into a fine Swiss watch.
I would point out that Communism has killed over a hundred million people in the last century. And before you say' but that was not true communism, we just have to try again after eleven failures.' I'd say 'Nazi Germany was not true National Socialism, we need to get it right and try again.' Or even better the Dictatorship of Me hasn't been tried once, and I guarantee you that it would produce excellent results :) .
John is making one of the solid arguements for limited government. Calvin Coolidge (one of our Presidents, Niko.) said that 'nine out of ten people who talk to me want something they should not have'. Generally what people want is Other People's Money. And they want the gov't to go and take it for them.
Limit the gov't and you'll limit the likelihood of congresscritters looting the economy to benefit their bestest buds which if you look at the GM takeover with a cynical eye is a fair description of what President Obama did to that car company.
MJ,
Yeah, pretty much. I also said that the police should have told them to find some place else to do it instead of arresting people.
For further support of that point I'd like to repeat two facts about the offenders.
1. Church of Christ members. Imagine fairly serious and scholarly and perhaps humor challenged Independent Baptists.
2. LARP nerds. Not all Larpers are nerds, but a very high percentage of them probably are.
Its not like the cops were trying to arrest Michael Di Vars or The Whisp. We're talking about people who are inclined by nature and training to be respectful and law abiding and probably have in effect flashing neon signs above their heads that say 'responsible citizen'.
I get it. I missed the fact that they made arrests. Cops must have been pretty bored or annoyed by something.
--M. J. Young