Agitating a known thug is self destructive, as all of us have seen numerous times.

This time you were lucky, all you got was some time in a cell.

Next time may very well be much different.

Having practiced those 2 things all of my life I’m wondering why I haven’t detonated yet?

I have guns, lots of them, I’m an ex military demolition specialist, I’ve known extreme violence many times in my distant past so maybe that’s why I go way out of my way to avoid it.

Or maybe I just understand the futility and danger of arguing with the state.

They have all the power, all the way up to include F16 air strikes if necessary. That’s enough to convince me to leave em alone.

Here’s how this thing will evolve. One of these days a jack boot will fuck with the wrong person. After the fact, that person will stalk that jack boot and then he, the jack boot, will be found, gutted like a pig, in a rural area somewhere and no one will know how it happened, except for one person. Then it will happen again. And again, and again. All across the country (legal) criminals will brought to task for their behavior. After awhile they will learn what they are up against, that every person they violate will potentially kill them.

I heard the wild, wild west was not so wild afterall. In fact it was downright gentlemanly because to be otherwise meant a full personal deficit right on the spot, and that’s the way it should be.

Take this argument to its logical extreme and we get what we have today. People who are too “sensible” and “practical” to exercise their liberty.

In fact, since we’ve shown that cops are provoked by open carry, by your reasoning I should stop open carrying too. But that would be self-destructive.

Likewise, it would have been self-destructive to walk out of there without trying to hold him accountable. If nothing else, at a bare minimum, I would have regretted it.

I understand where you guys are coming from, I suppose, but I disagree.

Lets take a look at the scorecard:
Insult, check.
Assault, check.
Kidnap, check.
Imprisonment, check.
Gang anal rape, check.

OK, the last one I made up but you see my point?
Why is Donnelly toting a gun if he isn’t willing to use it to protect himself from flagrant thugs?

When he answers this question to himself he will a better person for it. And I agree with Neverfox above, “The unity of virtue requires the content of courage to be in sync with the content of prudence.”, well said.

My ol’ gray haired pappy told me long ago, “Son, look waaay ahead for trouble then steer yourself around it.”

Lastly, Donnelly is now a marked man, he better leave the area, while he can. But I suspect he won’t, he likes his Warhol minutes.

You beat me to it. This was the exact reaction I had when I read George’s post. There was no reason to take an action that, given the cop’s previous actions, was reasonably likely to provoke him. To make an analogy, say that you are open carrying and you see a group of cops looking at you suspiciously. Do you think it’s wise to go up to them and start telling them that they better not bother you? No because the rule with cops is say as little as possible ALWAYS and avoid them if at all possible. They are no different on the rationality scale than wild animals.

Basically, George, it comes down to this: the first rule of self-defense is to avoid having to defend yourself. That is not cowardice. The unity of virtue requires the content of courage to be in sync with the content of prudence. Even though you carry a gun, you would be failing in your efforts to be prepared if you didn’t do everything in your power to avoid dark alleys. That doesn’t mean it’s your fault if and when you get attacked but it’s still a failure to do what is prudent and therefore, it’s not fully courageous.

When the cop stopped harassing you, you should have gone about your business because of the fact that he’s irrational. You had already put him in his place and at that point it had returned to a neutral situation. You approaching him is no different than the example above of preemptively telling cops that you are within your rights. If I come across a cougar and it somehow walks right past me, I’m not going to go up to it and ask why. The situation was over and you should have walked quickly in the opposite direction, principles intact.