[ExI] usage question

[Mirco Romanato]

Gary Miller ha scritto:

> As nonsensical as it seems, if you did not respond to a comment about
> your mother with either violence or an even worse verbal comment
> designed to make the other participant initiate violence, you were 
> regarded as a coward of the lowest form not even brave enough to
> defend your mother's honor.

True, here is the same.
But there are another face of the medal to consider.
People don't get in fight over honor matter with people under their
standings.
So, a reason to Gates to continue to escalating the confrontation is the
fact that Crowley exited the house ignoring Gates rage. He was signaling
"You are a old rabid man, but you are unable to harm me or submit me. I
don't play by your rules."
In fact, he told him "If you want to continue to talk to me, we can do
it out of here".

> Police officers are human beings too and are trained to be aggressive
> and to take control of the situation. When a suspect does not become
> docile or passive in defusing the situation they always come out on 
> the losing side of the game.  It's my feeling that this individual
> was so confident in social standing and rank in the the community
> that he felt his righteous indignation would win out over the police
> in the long run, which in fact it did.

Now, "win" is a problematic word. Win long term or win short term.
He had not obtained the cop apologies, he had not obtained the apologies
of the Police Department. He menaced to sue the police, and now he is
retracting. He had the POTUS supporting him and now the POTUS is
backpedalling and possibly throw him under the bus.

The cop, instead, had a large part of the people supporting him, his
department supporting him, the black cop with him supporting him.

I'm not sure someone "win" here. But Gates surely lose something here.


Mirco