Hacker News Reader

Another point:

There appears to be a growing disconnect between what we consider right and what we consider practical. It seems right that you should be able to peacefully question any non-emergency procedure, expect basic respect even if you're not being the most pleasant person, and retreat a step or two reflexively if you feel threatened.

Of course, we know that the practical approach to take is to be docile, passive, sickeningly submissive, and compliant nearly to the point of being patronizing.

The border guards train and drill repeatedly on how to behave aggressively and militantly in this situation. Most adults have no corresponding practice at acting completely flaccid and defenseless on command, which is what it seems we've come to expect.

quaint expectations of rights and basic human respect. I would wager that someone who had spent serious time in prison would do much better in these situations.

This is America. We shouldn't be expected to act like guilty slaves when interacting with law enforcement. Your attitude isn't constructive at all.

Oh dear. I had hoped that the satire of the first two grafs was self-evident [1]. Helpfully, wiktionary includes for quaint the definition:

"quaint, adj., 3. Highly incongruous, inappropriate, or illogical; naive, unreasonable -- usually used ironically."

Edit: While sarcasm in writing is a generally bad idea, the tradition of thoughtfully written irony and satire goes back a ways (c.f. A Modest Proposal). It of course does require the reader to reflect intelligently while reading, but that is what we expect in this forum. Since my final three grafs made my position pretty clear, I was rather unsure until your response below whether you were intentionally trolling.

[1] My statements are likely true, paradoxically, but we react strongly to the fact that they shouldn't be.

Upvoted for clarification; remember that sarcasm and the Internet work great together.

Oh, I like that. Pepper spray in the eyes + flailing in pain = assault on a federal officer.

Did you hear the one where the police dog was literally chewing on the arm of a guy, and when the guy tried to escape from the dog he was charged and convicted with assaulting a police officer. The dog being the police officer.

Firstly, please site at least a news article on the case.

Also under the law, a police dog is an officer, an army dog is a soldier, a search and rescue dog is typically a fireman. Also, depending on the US state, and if it's in any other western country, animals have rights and injuring a dog is a criminal act, and when it's owned by a cop you can be sure as hell you'll be charged with animal abuse. If you're lucky, you won't be charged with both and won't be sued civilly by the officer in question for damaging property.

IMHO when a German Shepherd latches onto your arm and is attempting to force you to the ground, you do as it says. Also when there's a half-dozen cops (usually 1 for the dog team, and 2-4 cops called in for suspected drug possessions) shouting "Stay down, stay down! DO NOT FIGHT THE DOG!" then you do what they say.

Fighting the dog only does 1 of 2 things. 1st it angers the dog, which will mean it clamps down harder and will likely mean it breaks the skin (which it is trained not to do), which means any attempt to remove your arm can literally shred the muscle from your bone. 2nd if you're lucky and get free with your arm intact, running turns that highly trained dog into nothing more than a wolf, it will no longer bite your arm or try to pin you down, when it gets you it's likely to be going for the throat to kill you.

This is fine rational for a forum post. But as tc points out, few have any experience being "handled" by law enforcement and react with primitive defense. I love dogs and don't show fear around a clearly well-trained police dog. But I've never had one take me down either and have no idea how I'd react.

You appear to be asserting that it's unlikely this has ever happened because no reasonable, thoughtful person being attacked by a dog would, upon careful consideration, panic and struggle instinctively to get away from the dog.

This post reinforces that the use of dogs to control humans is disgusting.

There can be no automatic presumption of a rational response to entirely measured and legitimate and carefully orchestrated police activities.

Even otherwise peaceful and rational and law-abiding folks that happen to become involved in an altercation with police or that are physically restrained by police can and sometimes will fight with an officer or with a police dog with absolutely everything they're worth, and fight well past the point of personal injury.

There's no automatic presumption of rationality here. There's no reasoning here. Fight or flight is one of the most basic and powerful human instincts. And sufficiently fearful folks can and sometimes do become feral.

This based on over twenty years experience providing emergency medical services on the streets; of working directly with the some of the best-trained police and police dogs, and with the public, and with the aftermath of the occasional collisions among all these folks.

I think the underlying point of his comment was that it was silly to consider the dog an officer...having a silly idea enshrined in law doesn't make it less silly.

Maybe he assaulted the officer in the kneecap with his groin.

If someone pepper sprayed me i'd punch them in the..... well whatever I could hit given the lack of sight. Even if it was the Queen.

It's like the experiment in Stanford with the prison where the prison guards started doing typical prison guard things and the prisoners started doing typical prisoner things, even though originally, both groups were composed of people who had simply volunteered for an experiment and randomly assigned a role.

The first way you are treated is what you become in a way. When you get to the border and they are searching your car, you are guilty until proven innocent. And I argue it should be that way.

Think of the ramifications of seeing someone in a car at the border and treating them cooperatively. If they are a competitor intent on blowing the place up, then the guards have a lot to lose in this prisoners dilemma and little to gain. They could lose their life, but they gain a happy dude who got through the border easily.

Unfortunately, in this case, the individual crossing the border when treated like a guilty person didn't appreciate it and things got out of hand. That much we know. That's not the desired outcome, but what was the worst that happened? He got pepper sprayed, roughed up, but lived to tell the story. If the other team had lost, they could be dead -- lots of them could be dead -- or even worse, a city blown up. Dramatic but true.

So, let's all try to understand that we are all in this together. I really don't think some border guards are looking forward to beating up a sci-fi writer and I don't think the sci-fi writer was looking forward to experiencing anything even close to what went down there that day.

How does your game theory example stack up when 20,000 people coming through the border have no intent to blow stuff up, and only one does?

The benefits of roughing up 20,000 innocent people start to look a little bit small in comparison to the probability of that behaviour catching the one extremely polite person going out of their way to avoid detection.

Looks like he may have crossed one of the invisible lines.

http://www.flexyourrights.org/faq

"just touching an officer could get you tasered or beaten and stuck with a felony charge for assaulting a police officer."

NOT to excuse what they did, but I crossed the border for decades. You're free to refuse consent to a search. That doesn't mean they have to quit searching. They appreciate you remaining respectful. Pushing the definition: crossing a border is probable cause for drug warriors. And when you're ordered to get back into the car and don't, you're pushing your luck. I'm guessing these guards (crossing just north of Detroit) had had enough attitude for one day and were primed for a rumble.

Happened here in Vancouver, an elderly Canadian man crossing into the USA objected to a borer guard not calling him sir. The DHS pepper sprayed him an dragged him from the car.

Simple solution, don't visit America - don't buy American