Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?

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Was the jailing of Martin Luther King consensual?

No, the jailing of Martin Luther King was not consensual.
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Yes, Martin Luther King consented to being jailed.
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Total votes: 2

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Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
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Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

In a post in a different thread, a member claimed that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. consented to being arrested and jailed, due to something that member called the "social contract" whatever that means.

I don't know about MLK, but I know I never signed any "social contract". As I use the terms, if it isn't signed, it isn't a contract. Even a very explicit handshake agreement would not be a contract. Even if one party writes up a document, and the other party reads it, it is still not a contract if is not signed. It could be called a draft contract. Incidentally, I explore in more depth the common but absurd 'she was asking for it' defense in this other broader forum topic about imprisoning pacifists in general, which includes an interesting quote from Kanye West claiming slavery was a "choice" made by the slaves.

Regardless, in any case, I absolutely and firmly believe that the jailing of Martin Luther King was clearly and utterly not consensual. Martin Luther King did not consent to being put in a cage.

He likely physically cooperated with the jailing rather than violently fighting back, but that in no way at all implies consent. A rape victim might not violently fight back against their rapist but that does not mean the sex was consensual. A mugging victim might hand over their money to a mugger, but that doesn't mean the transaction was consensual. Many people won't fight back if they know they will lose the fight back, and pacifists typically won't fight back at all ever.

Consider this question: Did the jailers of Martin Luther King lock his cage? Assuming they did, isn't that proof enough that it was absolutely not consensual.

What do you think? Did Martin Luther King consent to being put in jail, or was the jailing of Martin Luther King non-consensual?

If somehow you think it was consensual, please explain why, and please explain why the jailers locked the cage.



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My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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LuckyR
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Re: Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?

Post by LuckyR »

Scott wrote: March 15th, 2023, 5:21 pm In a post in a different thread, a member claimed that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. consented to being arrested and jailed, due to something that member called the "social contract" whatever that means.

I don't know about MLK, but I know I never signed any "social contract". As I use the terms, if it isn't signed, it isn't a contract. Even a very explicit handshake agreement would not be a contract. Even if one party writes up a document, and the other party reads it, it is still not a contract if is not signed. It could be called a draft contract. Incidentally, I explore in more depth the common but absurd 'she was asking for it' defense in this other broader forum topic about imprisoning pacifists in general, which includes an interesting quote from Kanye West claiming slavery was a "choice" made by the slaves.

Regardless, in any case, I absolutely and firmly believe that the jailing of Martin Luther King was clearly and utterly not consensual. Martin Luther King did not consent to being put in a cage.

He likely physically cooperated with the jailing rather than violently fighting back, but that in no way at all implies consent. A rape victim might not violently fight back against their rapist but that does not mean the sex was consensual. A mugging victim might hand over their money to a mugger, but that doesn't mean the transaction was consensual. Many people won't fight back if they know they will lose the fight back, and pacifists typically won't fight back at all ever.

Consider this question: Did the jailers of Martin Luther King lock his cage? Assuming they did, isn't that proof enough that it was absolutely not consensual.

What do you think? Did Martin Luther King consent to being put in jail, or was the jailing of Martin Luther King non-consensual?

If somehow you think it was consensual, please explain why, and please explain why the jailers locked the cage.



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Your series of threads highlight the presence or absence of consent to determine if this or that circumstance is "consensual".

Most seem to agree that if a written contract is reviewed (presumably with adequate legal advice) then signed, that counts as consent and thus subsequent actions governed by said contract are consensual. Similarly, most agree that actions involving individuals acting individually without prior agreement between the two are nonconsensual.

As it happens, those two extremes cover a small minority of interactions. What of the vast majority? What's the criteria by which an interaction qualifies as consensual? Without that, answers will differ based on the personal criteria used by those who attempt to answer the OP.

As to MLK, he didn't fight being arrested. Does that matter? He obviously preferred arrest to being lynched (which was a not unheard of alternative), does that preference matter?

My take is that if the Forum holds to a strict criteria for what constitutes consent, most things we think of simplistically as being part of our social understanding of general agreement, will actually fall outside of the definition consensual. But that this circumstance will be fairly routine... by those strict criteria.
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Re: Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Hi, LuckyR,

LuckyR wrote: March 15th, 2023, 6:17 pm As it happens, those two extremes cover a small minority of interactions. What of the vast majority?
If I cannot agree with someone on the more black-and-white simplified examples (what you call "extremes"), then I would not want to get into even muddier waters with them.

For example, consider my three-answer poll about abortion.

The vast majority (73%) of people agree about both of the two extremes, so with those ~73% of people, I'd interested to dig deeper into muddier waters between those two extremes. But with anyone who falls in the 27%, I would only want to talk to them about that extreme case on which we disagree. To have logical discussions and make logical arguments, we must start with agreeable premises. We cannot have fruitful discussions without first working our way back to agreeable premises.

I'm generally not going to waste effort talking to someone about 2nd-trimester abortion if they believe male masturbation is murder of human life and that male masturbaters must be executed for murder.

Likewise, I'm generally not going to waste effort talking to someone about 2nd-trimester abortion if they endorse the violent murder of already born healthy newborn babies.

I might debate those two people about their extreme positions, but even then to have a meaningful conversation I'd have to find an even more "extreme" case upon which we do agree to get some agreeable premises.

Everyone's beliefs are different, and to have effective fruitful meaningful conversations, we must find both (1) our interlocutors most agreeable statement with which we disagree, and (2) our interlocutor's most disagreeable statement with which we agree, with agreeability/disagreeability measures by how they closely they relate to our own views.

Some people think killing healthy already born newborn babies isn't 'murder' or otherwise encourage and endorse it. Some people think killing sperm is murder and want it be illegal.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. One man's extreme is another man's moderate. One man's extremely agreeable is another man's disagreeable.

I think things like my three-question poll about gun control and my three-answer poll about abortion. In my poll about abortion, of 70% of people agreed with me, with no more than 20% taking either one of the two extremes. I wonder if we will get that much agreement in this thread.

What is your answer to the poll?

Do you think Martin Luther King consented to being in jail?

Do you think the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual?

LuckyR wrote: March 15th, 2023, 6:17 pm What's the criteria by which an interaction qualifies as consensual? Without that, answers will differ based on the personal criteria used by those who attempt to answer the OP.
Indeed. Similarly, asking about whether killing sperm is murder, or killing a newborn baby is murder, would result in different answers depending on how one defines 'murder'.

Thus, people's answers will be different.

Often, I think we can best infer what different criteria people use to define murder by getting examples from them. We can simply ask, "Do you think killing sperm is murder? Do you think intentionally killing a healthy newborn baby is murder?" Their answers give away their criteria. Many times people think they are expressing a view about abortion or such when really they are just telling us their semantics.

Please answer the poll question based on how you define 'consent'.

That way, the poll will indirectly help us see how similarly or differently we all use the word 'consent'.



Thank you,
Scott
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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LuckyR
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Re: Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?

Post by LuckyR »

Scott wrote: March 15th, 2023, 6:46 pm Hi, LuckyR,

LuckyR wrote: March 15th, 2023, 6:17 pm As it happens, those two extremes cover a small minority of interactions. What of the vast majority?
If I cannot agree with someone on the more black-and-white simplified examples (what you call "extremes"), then I would not want to get into even muddier waters with them.

For example, consider my three-answer poll about abortion.

The vast majority (73%) of people agree about both of the two extremes, so with those ~73% of people, I'd interested to dig deeper into muddier waters between those two extremes. But with anyone who falls in the 27%, I would only want to talk to them about that extreme case on which we disagree. To have logical discussions and make logical arguments, we must start with agreeable premises. We cannot have fruitful discussions without first working our way back to agreeable premises.

I'm generally not going to waste effort talking to someone about 2nd-trimester abortion if they believe male masturbation is murder of human life and that male masturbaters must be executed for murder.

Likewise, I'm generally not going to waste effort talking to someone about 2nd-trimester abortion if they endorse the violent murder of already born healthy newborn babies.

I might debate those two people about their extreme positions, but even then to have a meaningful conversation I'd have to find an even more "extreme" case upon which we do agree to get some agreeable premises.

Everyone's beliefs are different, and to have effective fruitful meaningful conversations, we must find both (1) our interlocutors most agreeable statement with which we disagree, and (2) our interlocutor's most disagreeable statement with which we agree, with agreeability/disagreeability measures by how they closely they relate to our own views.

Some people think killing healthy already born newborn babies isn't 'murder' or otherwise encourage and endorse it. Some people think killing sperm is murder and want it be illegal.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. One man's extreme is another man's moderate. One man's extremely agreeable is another man's disagreeable.

I think things like my three-question poll about gun control and my three-answer poll about abortion. In my poll about abortion, of 70% of people agreed with me, with no more than 20% taking either one of the two extremes. I wonder if we will get that much agreement in this thread.

What is your answer to the poll?

Do you think Martin Luther King consented to being in jail?

Do you think the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual?

LuckyR wrote: March 15th, 2023, 6:17 pm What's the criteria by which an interaction qualifies as consensual? Without that, answers will differ based on the personal criteria used by those who attempt to answer the OP.
Indeed. Similarly, asking about whether killing sperm is murder, or killing a newborn baby is murder, would result in different answers depending on how one defines 'murder'.

Thus, people's answers will be different.

Often, I think we can best infer what different criteria people use to define murder by getting examples from them. We can simply ask, "Do you think killing sperm is murder? Do you think intentionally killing a healthy newborn baby is murder?" Their answers give away their criteria. Many times people think they are expressing a view about abortion or such when really they are just telling us their semantics.

Please answer the poll question based on how you define 'consent'.

That way, the poll will indirectly help us see how similarly or differently we all use the word 'consent'.



Thank you,
Scott
Ah so. I get it. Not a "debate" on set criteria, but a poll on "what is your criteria?".

For me, personally, I don't see MLK as giving any more or less consent to being arrested as any other (tax paying) citizen. Given that opinion, I happen to be (one of a minority on this Forum) a believer in the concept of group actions in addition to the well accepted individual actions. Thus while almost no suspected lawbreakers give individual consent to being arrested, I believe that members of the jurisdiction of the police have "given" group consent to the police/prosecutors fulfilling their job responsibilities by using those identical services each and every day. So in a word: yes.
"As usual... it depends."
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Re: Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Scott wrote: March 15th, 2023, 6:46 pm
If I cannot agree with someone on the more black-and-white simplified examples (what you call "extremes"), then I would not want to get into even muddier waters with them.

[...]

I'm generally not going to waste effort talking to someone about 2nd-trimester abortion if they believe male masturbation is murder of human life and that male masturbaters must be executed for murder.

[...]

Do you think Martin Luther King consented to being in jail?

Do you think the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual?
LuckyR wrote: March 15th, 2023, 7:21 pm I believe that members of the jurisdiction of the police have "given" group consent to the police/prosecutors fulfilling their job responsibilities by using those identical services each and every day. So in a word: yes.
Surprising. :shock:

To me, this feeling reminds me of when someone tells me they think male masturbation is "murder" (as they use the term), and thus want it to be illegal.

I totally and completely disagree, but thank you for your answer. :)


Thank you,
Scott
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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LuckyR
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Re: Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?

Post by LuckyR »

Scott wrote: March 15th, 2023, 7:49 pm
Scott wrote: March 15th, 2023, 6:46 pm
If I cannot agree with someone on the more black-and-white simplified examples (what you call "extremes"), then I would not want to get into even muddier waters with them.

[...]

I'm generally not going to waste effort talking to someone about 2nd-trimester abortion if they believe male masturbation is murder of human life and that male masturbaters must be executed for murder.

[...]

Do you think Martin Luther King consented to being in jail?

Do you think the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual?
LuckyR wrote: March 15th, 2023, 7:21 pm I believe that members of the jurisdiction of the police have "given" group consent to the police/prosecutors fulfilling their job responsibilities by using those identical services each and every day. So in a word: yes.
Surprising. :shock:

To me, this feeling reminds me of when someone tells me they think male masturbation is "murder" (as they use the term), and thus want it to be illegal.

I totally and completely disagree, but thank you for your answer. :)


Thank you,
Scott
Well, you could turn your question upside down and see if your logic is consistent. If Joe citizen calls 911 and says there's a prowler in the bushes at his out-of-town neighbor's residence, do the police have the out-of-town neighbor's PRIOR consent to walk all over his private property looking for the prowler and then arrest him on their property if he is about to commit arson? If you say "yes", you're being inconsistent. The police have unspoken (yet implied) consent to defend your property (or your life), but they don't have implied consent to arrest you when you're committing a different crime against a different citizen.

In other words you're saying: "you have my consent to do your policing job if you're defending me, but not if you're defending someone else against me." To quote Dr. Spock: "illogical".
"As usual... it depends."
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Re: Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

LuckyR wrote: March 16th, 2023, 12:43 am Well, you could turn your question upside down and see if your logic is consistent. If Joe citizen calls 911 and says there's a prowler in the bushes at his out-of-town neighbor's residence, do the police have the out-of-town neighbor's PRIOR consent to walk all over his private property looking for the prowler and then arrest him on their property if he is about to commit arson?
I believe that hypothetical question cannot be answered because you have not provided enough information, ex hypothesi, to deduce the conclusion about the fictional characters.

I could imagine one mall where the paperwork is drawn up such that the security guards the mall hires are given PRIOR consent to go into any of the stores in the mall, but another mall where the security guards hired by the mall are not given consent to go into the stores, at least not prior consent. I could imagine one apartment where the lease is such that the landlord or his security team have been given written signed PRIOR consent to enter the renters' homes anytime they want, or specifically under certain conditions specified in the lease contract such as suspicion of pot or pets or such, but another where the opposite is the case and the landlord and his security team do not have any consent and must get explicit affirmative consent to enter each time they enter just as any old random stranger on the street would.

It's like if I asked you right now: "Imagine Jill Fakelady and Bob Fakeman had sex; Was is consensual?"

The answer about the fictional people cannot be logically derived ex hypothesi from only that little bit of information alone.

Considering what police tend to do when they find weed or such on someone's property, I'd suggest people be extremely careful before giving police prior consent to go on their property to hunt down criminals, criminals like Martin Luther King himself. Even if it sounds helpful, it seems more like a Trojan Horse to me. I'd rather get peeped on by a pervert than have police searching my house.

Since you believe Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. consented to being imprisoned, does that also mean you believe Breonna Taylor consented to being shot to death?

Do you believe legal martial rape is consensual?

For reference, marital rape wasn't fully criminalized in all 50 states in the USA until 1993. When I was born, there was still women getting legally raped in the USA. Of course, there's a long tradition of legal rapes going on for long before that, long before Christopher Columbus even sailed the ocean blue and started raping and enslaving the people over here. It's been going on for thousands of years, and still happens in many places.

Needless to say, the logic you've applied to claim that MLK consented to being jailed would and does equally apply if the penalty for his crimes was forced sodomy rather than caging. Presumably, you wouldn't even call that rape, then, since you believe it would be consensual. Right?
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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