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A Taser twist in PA
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A Pennsylvania student could serve almost two years in jail for using a police officer's Taser against her as she tried to arrest him.
Twenty-year-old Jeremy Spisak, of McDonald, was sentenced Monday after pleading no contest in January to disarming a law enforcement officer and other charges.
I can't comment on Spisak's actions without knowing the specifics of the incident, but there are any number of circumstances under which this kid's actions could have been legitimate -- say, if he was defending himself against an illegal arrest or protecting his person from an officer who simply initiated physical violence for any reason.
Of course, given that the government's goon squads are virtually entitled to operate above the law -- even in plainclothes but especially when fully costumed in state garb -- Spisak would almost certainly have faced jail time even if his actions were morally justified. After all, notice that it's apparently against the law to disarm a law enforcement officer no matter what.
The biggest problem here is that way too many people believe that arrests are legitimate as long as they're made in conformance with the laws. However, this assumes all laws are just when nothing could be further from the truth. Any law that criminalizes nonviolent behavior is unjust, meaning that while it may be legal it certainly is not necessarily moral.
Therefore, if the police officer who was tased was in the processes of detaining Spisak in response to a legitimate crime, Spisak's actions may very well have been criminal. Even in an anarchic society -- i.e., one in which police forces and courts were privatized -- there would likely be some point at which private forces would have to detain suspects who turned out to be innocent of the charges against them. But the difference between that hypothetical environment and that which exists today is that the state's enforcers cannot be held accountable for detaining the wrong people, whereas private law enforcement forces could be.
Now let's assume Spisak was targeted mistakely by the female officer who was attempting to arrest him. Should it be considered a criminal act to use any reasonable means possible to escape this unjustified attack? After all, remember that the state insists Tasers are non-lethal weapons. If I knew I was being forced to submit to the will of someone who really didn't know whether I was innocent or guilty, I may very well choose to put up with the abuse in the hope that the matter would resolve itself without further harm to myself, but certainly I would be under no moral obligation to oblige such violent treatment -- especially considering the state is a criminal gang in the first place, given that it could never exist without first stealing from the innocent to fund its exploits.
An even simpler exercise would be to apply this logic to a situation where a cop initiated an arrest (violence) in response to a nonviolent act that was merely deemed illegal by a legislative mob that enjoyed majority rule. For instance, let's say I refused to put on my seatbelt after being ordered to do so by an officer. I can assure you such spirited opposition to an unjust demand would eventually be met with 50,000 volts of state "justice," and that's probably if I was lucky. However, if the officer so much as laid a threatening finger on me, I would be entirely morally justified in removing it, even though in today's society I would almost certainly be facing the prospect of using a commode in front of perfect strangers immediately henceforth.
Even if we assume Spisak acted illegitimately in tasing the female officer, it doesn't obviate the fact that state abuse is ingrained in our pysche these days; and what's worse, it's actually encouraged by scores of delinquents who put "safety" ahead of their own freedom. The vast acceptance of public police forces proves this point. But in actuality, crimes by the state would almost be bearable in this pitiful reality in which we live if the police could merely be held accountable for their own misuse of their weapons, too.
(Thanks to Wolf, who really needs to blog more often!)
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