At 07:45 PM 6/1/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:

At 1:59 AM 6/2/96, Duncan Frissell wrote:

...

Of course curfew laws only control the inarticulate and scruffy. Well dressed children (coat and tie for the boys dress or suit for the girls) who can claim that they are out doing tons of protected things like work and school and worship and political campaigning and "trying to save street children for Jesus" will not be picked up. They can also say things like

This, by the way, is the main thing that concerns certain civil rights groups (including the Santa Cruz chapter of the ACLU). They say they'll be monitoring enforcement patterns to see if more "children of color" are picked up than their percentage in the population represents.

This, the curfew situation, is yet another of the reasons I'd favor "playing hardball" with the government. I'm very much against discriminatory enforcement, but on the other hand I don't think my liberty should be dependent on getting an organization like the ACLU to look out for and complain against discrimination against me. I feel if a group of left-handed albinos think the police are being too hard on left-handed albinos, they shouldn't have to convince the ACLU of this, and should be entitled and able to fight back effectively and prevent what they view as abuse. True, such a situation may occasionally lead to abuses, but I strongly expect that those abuses will be far fewer than the current system. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com