Yeah. I'm just hoping i don't get a fine in the mail. He said he wasn't formally arresting me so i don't expect to, but even just taking down my details felt pretty over-the-top given our location.
It seems like the most that should have happened is that they would inform you that you can't sit there because it's private property, and tell you that famous phrase, "please move along." Which is bad enough, if you ask me. I am annoyed on your behalf.
Ugh. Gross. How dare you... not be in your house or in a bar.... (and I think how many people are homeless... and how many people have alcohol problems and can't be around the culture!) .. when it is cold out!
Summer the cops don't mind... they aren't afraid of people bumming around, but winter they're afraid of the *nuisance*... the idea that people... would be outside when "normal" people don't hang out outside. You're supposed to be moving along if you're outside.... you're allowed to enjoy the warm sun and cool evenings, but being out in the cold makes you *SUSPICIOUS*.
And yeah, all those private cops... who not hired for the PUBLIC "safety" they're hired just to protect a small piece of dirt... an idea... a singular THING. Protecting things from people.
I do wonder if you have something here. If they tried to bust people for sitting around outside in the summer, they might end up inadvertently busting a VIP (or kid of a VIP) and end up in hot water. But in winter, surely it's only the vagrants outside. Sigh.
Honestly... how angry and violated this made me feel... and how this has constantly, repeatedly been my main interaction with police all over the world (being "stop and frisked" or "moved along" for loitering, trespassing, dressing wrong, looking foreign etc)... It just gives me an even stronger conviction that societies should protect freedom of movement and freedom to roam. Even if we don't go all the way to open borders or repossessing private land, just let people do their thing. If they aren't infringing on someone's privacy or impacting business operations, why should it matter where they go?
If you want to move freely.... you are supposed to be rich enough to own enough property to move freely on *it*... or, afford a mode of transportation to move freely on roadways.
Also... you are supposed to WANT those things, if you *want* to "move freely".
This is how the west thinks about mental illness... I should know, I worked in a mental institution for four years and my bevy of schizophrenics were no more strange than the professor who I rented a room from, my best frenemy from High School, or the doctor who hired me to run an arthouse theater he bought... just because he could. But one group... had their freedoms removed because they had little care/concern about money or work or daily life... and the other group were respectable, bipolar sociopaths who like money and status and therefore were considered 'functioning'.
I don't get it either. I asked why he needed my details when i'd be happy to just "leave the property" (i.e. move about 30 feet away). He's like "i need to put it in the report"... So i guess i am going to be immortalized in some manila folder tucked in back of a filing cabinet or something, even if i don't get a fine in the mail. Sigh.
I think most cops here have a pistol, but i didn't see in this case because he didn't even get out of the car - he made me come over! I was very polite regardless.
I think you're right that he was just in a bad mood and wanted to flex on someone less powerful than him. I mean, fine, technically it is his job to stop people trespassing, but it seems so pointless to make a whole show about getting my details and telling me i'm lucky i'm not getting arrested "this time" when i was just sitting around obviously not doing anything dangerous or destructive. Oh well. I vented. Over it now :)
I'm wondering what the railroad doesn't want people to see. They aren't comfortable having people sit? Has their been other vandalism? I would be annoyed, too.
I guess the two main things railroads don't want is organized criminals busting open a container or people getting killed on the tracks. Both of these seem like pretty limp reasons to do a patrol in broad daylight out in a rural area, though.
Perhaps in Canada there is an additional worry of indigenous groups setting up blockades in solidarity with pipeline protestors? The rail blockades shut down traffic for weeks here earlier in the year. But... i mean, even then, it's not like these protestors would've been stopped by a single moustachioed dude rolling along in his car issuing citations to hobos.
Grumble. I dunno. I think the theory that this was just some bored cop on a power trip is the best explanation.
It's weird that it's only become a thing in winter. Are they worried that frozen dead bodies would look unsightly? In Norway there seems to be less homelessness as the state does support people. A person can insist on it, but those thrown into it due to difficulties do get some support, it's too fucking cold and people would freeze to death here.* Contrast with the UK and entire families being made homeless, some of whom are in fact working, on wages so pitiful they cannot afford rent or food.
* There's also a right to roam culture. You can wander over someone's land if you wish, it is entirely legal. (Though possibly not actually on train tracks, but these are usually fenced off.) People cut across my garden every day.
Right to roam is one of my deepest held convictions. I think the UK has it too, to a certain extent. It's completely nutty to me that in North America - a continent where there is SO MUCH empty land - people are so fucking uptight about who is allowed to go where. I'm not sure if i will ever live to see a day when freedom of movement truly becomes an international cause. It seems that the more people want to migrate (especially from poorer countries), the more resistant people are to allowing it.
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How dare you... not be in your house or in a bar.... (and I think how many people are homeless... and how many people have alcohol problems and can't be around the culture!) .. when it is cold out!
Summer the cops don't mind... they aren't afraid of people bumming around, but winter they're afraid of the *nuisance*... the idea that people... would be outside when "normal" people don't hang out outside. You're supposed to be moving along if you're outside.... you're allowed to enjoy the warm sun and cool evenings, but being out in the cold makes you *SUSPICIOUS*.
And yeah, all those private cops... who not hired for the PUBLIC "safety" they're hired just to protect a small piece of dirt... an idea... a singular THING. Protecting things from people.
Reply
Honestly... how angry and violated this made me feel... and how this has constantly, repeatedly been my main interaction with police all over the world (being "stop and frisked" or "moved along" for loitering, trespassing, dressing wrong, looking foreign etc)... It just gives me an even stronger conviction that societies should protect freedom of movement and freedom to roam. Even if we don't go all the way to open borders or repossessing private land, just let people do their thing. If they aren't infringing on someone's privacy or impacting business operations, why should it matter where they go?
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Also... you are supposed to WANT those things, if you *want* to "move freely".
This is how the west thinks about mental illness... I should know, I worked in a mental institution for four years and my bevy of schizophrenics were no more strange than the professor who I rented a room from, my best frenemy from High School, or the doctor who hired me to run an arthouse theater he bought... just because he could.
But one group... had their freedoms removed because they had little care/concern about money or work or daily life... and the other group were respectable, bipolar sociopaths who like money and status and therefore were considered 'functioning'.
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That's crazy! I can't believe he still did it after finding out you live in the place!
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That blows though. Some people just want to spoil your mood and exert what little power they can over you.
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I think you're right that he was just in a bad mood and wanted to flex on someone less powerful than him. I mean, fine, technically it is his job to stop people trespassing, but it seems so pointless to make a whole show about getting my details and telling me i'm lucky i'm not getting arrested "this time" when i was just sitting around obviously not doing anything dangerous or destructive. Oh well. I vented. Over it now :)
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Perhaps in Canada there is an additional worry of indigenous groups setting up blockades in solidarity with pipeline protestors? The rail blockades shut down traffic for weeks here earlier in the year. But... i mean, even then, it's not like these protestors would've been stopped by a single moustachioed dude rolling along in his car issuing citations to hobos.
Grumble. I dunno. I think the theory that this was just some bored cop on a power trip is the best explanation.
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Contrast with the UK and entire families being made homeless, some of whom are in fact working, on wages so pitiful they cannot afford rent or food.
* There's also a right to roam culture. You can wander over someone's land if you wish, it is entirely legal. (Though possibly not actually on train tracks, but these are usually fenced off.) People cut across my garden every day.
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