First, it is widely considered prudent to take precautions against both lightning and bees precisely because they are not negligible risks. Some people even consider it prudent to avoid, say, sharks despite the fact that the number of people killed by sharks is smaller than either lightning or bees. Personally, I have gone scuba diving with sharks, but I can certainly understand that this is not for everyone. I've also gone bungee jumping and flown small single-engine airplanes in bad weather. Some people smoke. I don't. Everyone's risk posture is different.
Second, it is far from clear that your chances of wrongful conviction in the U.S. are smaller than being struck by lightning. The Innocence Project has exonerated 280 people. That's 5-10 years worth of lightning deaths in the U.S., and those are just the ones that they have been able to prove were innocent using DNA testing and limited resources. The actual number of wrongly convicted people behind bars is surely much higher, but reliable numbers are understandably hard to come by.
And third, the U.S. has a lamentable track record of using criminal prosecution to silence various forms of dissent. c.f. Bradley Manning, Aaron Swartz, and all the people being arrested and pepper sprayed at the OWS protests.
All of these things can factor into one's personal decisions on how to interact with law enforcement. A certain level of skepticism about the integrity of the legal system is (alas) a defensible position.
lisper|14 years ago
Second, it is far from clear that your chances of wrongful conviction in the U.S. are smaller than being struck by lightning. The Innocence Project has exonerated 280 people. That's 5-10 years worth of lightning deaths in the U.S., and those are just the ones that they have been able to prove were innocent using DNA testing and limited resources. The actual number of wrongly convicted people behind bars is surely much higher, but reliable numbers are understandably hard to come by.
And third, the U.S. has a lamentable track record of using criminal prosecution to silence various forms of dissent. c.f. Bradley Manning, Aaron Swartz, and all the people being arrested and pepper sprayed at the OWS protests.
All of these things can factor into one's personal decisions on how to interact with law enforcement. A certain level of skepticism about the integrity of the legal system is (alas) a defensible position.