Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

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from the unconstitutional-bullshit dept

This week, we all balked at one of the most flagrant (or at least explicit) examples of police abuse we’ve seen in a while, where a cop literally declared his lack of time for “constitutional bullshit”. Our top two comments on the insightful side are both anonymous and both come in response to that story. First, one commenter found the faint, tiny, and kind of shocking silver lining for the victim:

The only surprising thing about this…

…is that the cops didn’t shoot his dog.

Next, another commenter expressed a slice of the rage this and similar stories cause:

“I don?t have time to play this constitutional bullshit.”

Can we just tattoo this phrase right on the faces of officers that say or do this shit? And when they scream for their “constitutional” rights regarding cruel or unusual punishment, how about we just tell them, you already said you didn’t have time to play this constitutional bullshit!

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out on our post about Twitter’s banning of alt-right accounts, where the conversation quickly turned to the fact that both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of trying to suppress the other’s ideas. One commenter suggested only liberals get people fired, but Vaultnode was quick with a counter-example:

And “the Right” got a Nintendo PR representative fired for the content of her (distasteful) thesis in college.

Both “sides” are guilty of having outrage mobs that got people fired. Identity politics is pure idiocy and hurts everyone, regardless of political policy learnings.

Next, we head to our post about a prosecutor who got off with a disturbingly light punishment for altering a police transcript and deceiving the court. Varsil, a lawyer, arrived to explain how shocking that is:

Now, I’m not American, but I am a lawyer, and this seems absolutely insane to me.

A one year suspension? I can’t see how behaviour like that calls for anything less than disbarment. He attempted to perpetrate a fraud on the court process. It baffles the mind to think that after a year they’re going to let this guy slide back in.

As much as people claim lawyers are all lying unethical weasels, the opposite really has to be true. The system functions on the basis of lawyers not deceiving each other or the court. There are certainly times when you can (and may be required to) not say anything, but there is never an excuse for lying to opposing parties or the courts.

If I pulled something like this the bar association in my area would have me suspended the instant they caught wind of it, and I can’t imagine any other outcome other than disbarment. The fact that this guy is a prosecutor shouldn’t spare him, either–it makes it all the more egregious that he is subverting the fairness of the trial process.

At this point how can the public be convinced that the other matters he may have touched aren’t equally tainted in some fashion or another? Surely a full and complete review of every file he’s been on now becomes necessary.

Unbelievable.

Over on the funny side, our first place comment comes in response to our story about the Dr. Seuss estate’s lawsuit against a parody book. Baron von Robber tried to one-up our Seussian lingo:

I do not like copyright maximalists and spam.

In second place, we’ve got a response from Nathan F to Mike Pence’s legal attempts to keep his emails secret:

VP Elect Mike Pence is a special snowflake so of course he can refuse to turn over the emails (that would show wrongdoing on their part). Why in the world are you bothering these powerful people when they are busy trying to run the country (into the ground)?

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a response to the infuriating ruling that essentially dragged public domain Wizard Of Oz materials back into copyright, where I.T. Guy had an idea for a new t-shirt targeting the judge, to replace the “infringing” ones:

I am going to start making tee shirts with Raymond Gruender’s picture on it in a tin man hat with the caption: “If I only had a brain.”

Finally, we’ve got an anonymous comment exploring customer confusion issues on our post about the trademark spat between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Snoop Dogg’s new medical marijuana company:

I’m so confused .. I went to see a hockey game and now I have 2 bags of cheetos and some oreos

That’s all for this week, folks!