UCLA campus police torture student, in the library

JasonRox

Anyone who is still standing in this thread likes arguing. I don't see your point with regards to that.

0rthodontist

Maybe I was not clear enough. The distinction is this:

If you are physically restrained and moved somewhere, you are not coerced into making any decisions you did not want to make. Your free will is in that respect preserved. It's true that the choices you can physically make are then restricted, but from those very limited choices you may do whatever you like.

If you are coerced into doing something, it's not just that physical circumstances rule out certain choices for you. It's actually that someone has forced your decision for you; through pain, they have forced you to act in the way they would like. That's a fundamental violation of your free will itself, not just of the physical circumstances that it is constrained to act within.

chroot

If you decided you were going to stay in the library, regardless of the rule you knew you were breaking, then that was the conclusion of your free decision making process. If you were then ejected from the library, by any means whatsoever, your free will was violated. You were forced by someone else to do something other than that which you wanted to do.

Do you not realize I could make the exact same argument in the opposite way?

If you really wanted to stay in the library, you could overcome the stun gun's pain and stay, regardless of how badly it hurts. You still have the free will to respond (or not) to the pain. No one's actually making you leave the building, so your free will remains intact.

However, if you are physically tied up and dragged out of the building, then there's no way at all for you to do what you want to do. You were forced by someone else to leave the building, even though that wasn't your decision. Your free will has been stolen from you.

Besides, kiddo.. really... do you think people who break laws deserve have their free will so respected? I'm sure plenty of murderers would really prefer to not be in prison. Should their right to free will be taken into consideration?

You are really, really struggling here. Just give it up.

- Warren

JasonRox

Comparing this incident to murderers?! What the hell? That's really low.

That's like comparing Bush to Hitler.

Lame.

chroot

I didn't compare this incident to murder. I expanded Orthodontist's thoughts on the free will of criminals to include all criminals.

Do you have anything of substance to add to this discussion? Do you intend to actually read and comprehend the arguments being made?

- Warren

0rthodontist

Yes, you could make the argument the opposite way, if you felt that physical options are more important than the sanctity of will.

Imprisoned murderers have not been coerced into doing anything they don't choose to. They have been physically restricted, but they have not been coerced. Their will, vile as it is, is still their own. Imprisonment does not have any impact on the fact of one's free will. It reduces the choices available, but not the will itself. A man in a cell has just as much free will as a man in a meadow--he just has fewer things to do with that will.

You know, I would like to give up on this discussion. When I watch that video, I see a couple of police attacking a man who was not fighting back and who, partway through, said he would leave. I see an overwhelming force that could have easily and safely carried or dragged the student out of the library, but instead chose to torture him with a weapon whose sole purpose is to inflict pain, for the crime of forgetting his card. It just blows my mind that anyone thinks those officers could have be doing the right thing. I don't like this discussion.

chroot

Imprisoned murderers have been forced by other people (one way or another) to live in a prison cell. They certainly didn't choose to live there. This nicely explains all the escape attempts mounted every year.

I think you may be alone in that argument. It doesn't even make any sense.

Then stop prolonging it.

- Warren

Moonbear

**tiptoes in and braves the wrath of Chroot**
This "discussion" seems to be just repeating the same points over and again at this point. This is what I call an impasse, and so I have locked the thread.