The reason I don't give a shit about the poor misunderstood police having their poor feelings hurt is because
1) innocent until proven guilty
2) he's just one man up against the whole vast inhuman machinery of The System
3) innocent until proven guilty
I never give a shit about any situation in life where the ones with ALL the power get mercilessly scrutinized in how they wield it. I never will.
Interestingly, I never said a word about protecting the police or their feelings. And I certainly never said I believed anyone was guilty of anything or that I don't believe in the principle of Innocent Until Proven Guilty; I do believe in it, very much.
I just tend to believe it applies to everyone. Scrutiny is a good thing, and the authorities should absolutely be scrutinized. I simply think there's a difference between scrutinizing and rushing to condemn.
I hear about this supposed letter and I'm not buying it. If he's been detained for writing a scary letter, then would the headline not be "Teacher detained for writing scary letter"? Writing these books are not illegal and do not merit such action. So either it's true and the reason this guy is being detained is due to his books, or the media has latched onto something incidental to the investigation.
Either way, it is dreadful.
Why would the headline not be "Teacher detained for writing scary letter?" Because a story with that title isn't clickbait, and doesn't give everyone a chance to get all angry and upset.
Believing the media is full of noble people with scruples who only want to help the innocent is, IMO, as naive as believing false arrests never happen and civil rights are never violated.
If he is sitting in a cell solely because of the book, it is a horrible, shameful thing.
That's a big "If." There could be other details that we do not know/have not been made public.
Personally, I think it's dangerous to jump on these kinds of bandwagons with incomplete info. And I think the piece at the Atlantic is awful, is totally lacking any serious investigatory elements, is simply poor journalism. So I wouldn't sign the petition right now, not until more details are available.
Agreed re the Atlantic piece (and the danger of bandwagon-jumping without facts). What a shoddy piece of work that is, turning rumor into canon in the most calculated and inflammatory way possible. It pays slight lip service to the fact that the writer has confirmed no facts and that there is no solid proof that McLaw was arrested solely for writing books, but then ignores that lack completely in favor of outraged ranting and deliberate bias.
Thanks for the updated article.
I suppose that's... comforting. But if that's the case, I'd rather they'd never mentioned the books in the first place. I can't really tell who's to blame. The articles say that the Sheriff mentioned them, but then they all go off saying that's what caught authorities attention, even though no one's really quoted as saying such.
His attorney seems to be okay with all of this...
I noticed that, as well. None of the articles actually quote any LEO as saying the books are what set off the investigation (they may have said or implied it, but again, no direct quote, so unless someone has audio or video we'll never know for sure). The writers of the articles say they did, but there's no direct quote--it appears that all of the later articles from other sources simply took that statement from the original reporter ("The books are what caught the attention of police and school board officials in Dorchester County") as fact, and passed it on themselves without investigation. (The Star Democrat then used that line as the springboard to say, "WBOC has reported that the investigation concerns two books published by McLaw," when in fact that's not what the WBOC story said; it merely said the books were what caught the attention of the authorities, and again, none of that comes in the form of a direct quote or statement regarding what started the investigation.)
It's interesting that the Atlantic writer mentions how none of the reporters mentioned the First Amendment or civil rights, and how odd it is for a reporter uncovering a case of a serious First Amendment/civil rights violation would choose not to bring up that point, but never really wonders why that might be beyond shrugging and assuming it's because they are all credulous morons (unlike him, who put serious time into researching his piece, reading a whole couple of other articles and placing a fruitless phone call) who probably gave the police head after the press conference.
But then, he also mentions more than once how shameful it is that the police and especially those original reporters failed to make clear whether or not McLaw was under arrest, using that as another example (along with the First Amendment thing) of what gullible cop-loving fools they are. This despite the fact that
WBOC reported, in its original story, that "McLaw has not been arrested or charged with any crime at this time, according to the Wicomico County State's Attorney's Office." So much for research!
Honestly, although people seem often very quick to blow off what "the locals say," in comments on the news stories, this is far from the first time I've seen them shortly thereafter revealed as the truth.
Also, the front line employees at large agencies, whether schools, police departments, whatever, are not allowed to speak- try it and you'd be quite swiftly fired. But anyone else can say anything they want to the media, true or false.
This often presents very skewed ideas to the public. I'm wondering why these large entities, who obviously have legal/PR departments controlling what's said and what's not said, don't come up with a blanket statement reminding the public of these simple facts. Wouldn't that go a long way toward stopping the skewed reports? Do they really not care at all what public opinion of them is? Just wondering...
You'd think they would do that, wouldn't you? I've always wondered that myself. But I guess they figure people already are aware of that?
