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If the police always arrested everyone who had techincally commited and arrestable act, I suspect you would be the first one to complain. Unless you believe the police should walk into every pub in Britain every single day and arrest every single person who is drunk.
Doing that makes as much sense as busting a party in the middle of a forest. But perhaps I will start ringing around the police and making complaints about people being drunk in pubs- at the end of the day there should not be exceptions to the rule of law, right?
Why? Are foxes being cruelly torn to pieces alive by packs of dogs at raves?
They are in charge so they need to over power.
Where have I said that? Have you actually read my post?
I've said it (cleary, I thought) that it depends on the situation.
What about private land where the owner has given permission?
One of the parties I was at, where we had permission was raided and the sound system siezed. Nobody was arrested and there was no trouble yet the gavers still turned up with all their riot clobber on throwing their weight around. Fucking stupid if you ask me.
This is an intresting video - where the ravers DO get roudy after the gavers sieze the jenny and shove a young woman. You can see them throwing punches and spraying CS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6guTgztvyoA
There's discretion and there's discretion. When you're wilfully breaking the law there's no choice but for the police to act. Same as if you blow Cannabis smoke in a peeler's face he's going to arrest you.
I take it by that you think the police should uphold the law irrelevant of their personal feelings.
With regard to the cannabis, I don't think police should arrest anyone smoking in the street. There might be an argument for someone who is indeed blowing smoke in a copper's face or rolling up in the steps of the local police station, but not somebody who is sitting quietly and alone in a bench, bothering nobody, and the coppers come out of their way specifically to nick him.
Yes. It should be relevant to common sense, not feelings. Common sense tells us (or it should tell us) that in addition to being illegal it is cruel and wrong to kill foxes for fun by means of a pack of dogs tearing it to pieces.
Common sense should also tell us that so long as permission has been obtained from the land owner or the land doesn't belong to any individual, and nobody is being disturbed, people having a party in the middle of nowhere should be left to themselves.
then these dumb smelly hippies wonder why the police try to break it up.
the police were in the right to break it up.
as fun as it was, it was still illegal.
first, since the rave wasnt registered, the organisers didnt have to pay taxes. second, taxes (not from the illegal rave because of first point) had to pay for the police just to stop this illegal activtiy.
get in with the program smelly hippies!
At the end of the day it's illegal... to do such thing...
Either the police should act on foxhunting and raves or they shouldn't act with foxhunting and raves. Both involve large groups of people acting in concert to break the law.
1. Yes a trespass law should apply as the people on the land would be preventing other people for going about their lawful business.
2. No a trespass law wouldn't be relevant here.
That's a bit different as the landlord has a responsibility as well.
If, for example, the licensee asks someone to leave his premises and they refuse it'd be reasonable to get the police.
Especially considering that nobody else should have any business there, lawful or not, seeing as the land is not theirs either.
Seriously. Why should you care if a few hundred kids hold a party in the middle of nowhere hundreds of miles away from you and many miles away from the nearest populated area?
This is starting to get rather tedious.
They were on land which they had no right to be on. It's the principle of the matter - a condition of a proper functioning democracy is the existence of property rights. Undermine them and you're on a very slippery slope....
The point is, saying the police should always act on the basis of something being 'illegal' is irresponsible, highly illogical and wrong. Common sense and discrection should IMO be applied. I guess some of us will disagree about which acts merit police intervention and which don't (the fox hunting thing for instance) but I don't think suggesting anything that is illegal must be acted upon by the police is a good idea.
By the way, everyone has the right to be on countless different acres of public land from woods to forests to other such terrains. That's why it's public land. If someone has the legal right to take 8 people there, listen to some music and have something to drink, why can't 11 people to do the same?
Here's the urban75 info on the revelant sections of the criminal justice act -
http://www.urban75.org/legal/cja.html
Any democracy will collapse without the rule of law. The rule of law is required to uphold basic rights of the citizen such as the right to private property.
Democracy is about much more than just going along to stick a cross on a ballot paper every 4 years.
You would have to be pretty thick to think the British constitutional monarchy precludes the existence of democracy.
And how would you define a 'proper' democracy?
Point is, the land was private property, the ravers had no right to be there and by calling the police to have them removed they were well with in their rights and did the right thing, as anyone who had tresspassers on their property should be able to call the polce to deal with it. Simple as that.
Ahem... Greek democracy (or Athenian where it originated) was founded on the election of officals, anyone could stand for office and or suggest measures to be voted on - or to exile someone for suggested bad ideas. The officals still handled the day to day running.
In particularly voting was carried out by people writing on stone who they wanted to vote for - naturally most people couldn't write (though enough could read) - so supporters would write the stones out for people and hand them out to sway the voting.
To be fair it was mainly a reaction to the growing number of tyrants would had been overthowing the traditional Greek Aristocracy - by enfranchising the essentially 'middle class' land owners and dividing land amongst small land owners it meant more people had a say - the old aristocracy lost some power but not as much as from a tyrannical overthrow. The growth of the hoplite army that required more landowners to remain committed to the army also reinforced the need for the old rulers to find an alternative to alienating political processes of old.
It's also widely agreed that the defeat of the Persians - a mainly slave army - by the Greeks was the result of the newly enfranchised population having more to lose and fighting harder than in the past.
Of course, the poorest couldn't vote, nor could slaves, nor could women who spent most of their time banned from leaving the home. And it's worth noting in case anyone mentions it, that many people did write against slavery at the time - dismissing the point that people simply didn't know any better.
So Athenian democracy was a huge step forward in the development of public representation - but don't be swayed into thinking of it as an idyllic period or perfect democracy, it had as many flaws as any other system of government - something that only become further magnified as it spread to other city states.
/sorry -lecture over