Has anybody mentioned the fact that the protest of OWS doesn't really make sense?
People screwed up and messed up the economy and now we are living like shit, so we are gonna shit all over the place. Actually makes some sense.
The people who crashed the economy got a trillion dollars, and they're living better than before. Meanwhile, the rest of us got the shaft, and are continuing to get dicked over.
Basically, how would you feel if someone with polar opposite politics did these things.
Would it be peaceful protesting if anti-choice fuckheads blocked off the intersection in front of a planned parenthood?
Would the Westboro Baptist Lunatics be practitioners of non-violent civil disobedience if they tried to reclaim God's Bell in protest of the NYSE getting rid of morning prayer and letting homosexuals trade on the floor?
I would go and talk to them, in fact I've WANTED to see those sorts of people around where I live just SO I could go talk to them in an environment where I would not be easily ignored. I would basically get them into a discussion and talk to them until.
1: They changed my mind.
2: I changed their mind.
3: They decided to act immaturely and strike me for upsetting their beliefs.
I'm absolutely certain one of the three would happen. If 1 happens, obviously I was wrong, if 2 happens, obviously they were wrong, and if 3 happens I get an excuse to pummel someone after they try to attack me. ;p
And I would continue to engage them in discussion until one of the three happened. Sadly, I never see such people so my chance to engage them in discussion and debate is rather muted.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
The point of civil disobedience is to be disobedient. :P
Yes you should break appropriate or unimportant laws.
No you should not have to pay a fine or insurance.
Or perhaps the Boston Tea Party should have paid for those goods they dropped in the harbor first, so that those poor businessmen not paying import tariffs would be compensated for the trouble?
If you destroy public or private property, you should be required to pay for the damages, yes. I don't care what your cause is.
The OWS protestores occupying McPherson Square should have been required to obtain insurance or to otherwise compensate the taxpayers for the damage their protest is causing to the park.
Adults take responsibility for their actions.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
I thought it was just convictions of crimes? I've never seen "have you been arrested?" because that's pretty weird. I could technically be arrested for loitering.
They don't ask it on employment applications, but it comes back on pre-employment background checks. If it's public information that's in a database somewhere, it can be queried.
From there, even if the hiring manager doesn't give a fuck, HR might, or vice versa. Even worse, if there is a third party recruiter involved and they tell him "Yeah, we don't hire people with arrest/criminal records", your recruiter probably won't even tell you. He'll just stop calling. (This assumes the recruiting agency didn't do their own background check to avoid this in the first place)
I'm not sure even the pre-employment check asks if you've been arrested. If they did, it wouldn't actually tell them anything. You can be arrested for murder because you fit a description. Being arrested basically means that the cops thought you broke the law. Without a conviction, there is nothing to show anything.
The point of civil disobedience is to be disobedient. :P
Yes you should break appropriate or unimportant laws.
No you should not have to pay a fine or insurance.
Or perhaps the Boston Tea Party should have paid for those goods they dropped in the harbor first, so that those poor businessmen not paying import tariffs would be compensated for the trouble?
If you destroy public or private property, you should be required to pay for the damages, yes. I don't care what your cause is.
The OWS protestores occupying McPherson Square should have been required to obtain insurance or to otherwise compensate the taxpayers for the damage their protest is causing to the park.
Adults take responsibility for their actions.
They pay taxes. Those taxes go to the clean up. They don't get to pay more because they used something more. That is not how this society functions.
Edit: You're also insisting that there be a financial threshold required for protest. You do see how this would prevent the poor and/or disenfranchised from having freedom of speech... right?
They pay taxes. Those taxes go to the clean up. They don't get to pay more because they used something more. That is not how this society functions.
Edit: You're also insisting that there be a financial threshold required for protest. You do see how this would prevent the poor and/or disenfranchised from having freedom of speech... right?
I'm saying that if you're going to use public property, regardless of your cause, you should be held responsible for damages you inflict on that property.
Your 1st Amendment rights don't extend to trashing public property.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
They pay taxes. Those taxes go to the clean up. They don't get to pay more because they used something more. That is not how this society functions.
Edit: You're also insisting that there be a financial threshold required for protest. You do see how this would prevent the poor and/or disenfranchised from having freedom of speech... right?
I'm saying that if you're going to use public property, regardless of your cause, you should be held responsible for damages you inflict on that property.
Your 1st Amendment rights don't extend to trashing public property.
So, you're saying it was vandalism? Well, that is indeed a crime. Wiki has vandalism as
Private citizens commit vandalism when they willfully damage or deface the property of others or the commons.
I don't believe OWS was vandalizing the park, but I'm open to hearing your opinion on this. Damage is not always always against the law. Damage is a natural byproduct of loads of legal things. Damage, wear and tear, happens. Albeit in this case on a much quicker time frame.
They pay taxes. Those taxes go to the clean up. They don't get to pay more because they used something more. That is not how this society functions.
Edit: You're also insisting that there be a financial threshold required for protest. You do see how this would prevent the poor and/or disenfranchised from having freedom of speech... right?
I'm saying that if you're going to use public property, regardless of your cause, you should be held responsible for damages you inflict on that property.
Your 1st Amendment rights don't extend to trashing public property.
So the owners of shipping companies should be paying higher taxes to compensate for the enormous strain they put on the nation's roads and railroads?
Its interesting, but even discussing this reeks of subtext attempting to illegitimatize the movement. The "how dare they cost us money when we're poor" side of the coin should not apply to civil disobedience. Especially civil disobedience targeting why we're poor in the first place. This should not be damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
They pay taxes. Those taxes go to the clean up. They don't get to pay more because they used something more. That is not how this society functions.
Edit: You're also insisting that there be a financial threshold required for protest. You do see how this would prevent the poor and/or disenfranchised from having freedom of speech... right?
I'm saying that if you're going to use public property, regardless of your cause, you should be held responsible for damages you inflict on that property.
Your 1st Amendment rights don't extend to trashing public property.
So, you're saying it was vandalism? Well, that is indeed a crime. Wiki has vandalism as
Private citizens commit vandalism when they willfully damage or deface the property of others or the commons.
I don't believe OWS was vandalizing the park, but I'm open to hearing your opinion on this. Damage is not always always against the law. Damage is a natural byproduct of loads of legal things. Damage, wear and tear, happens. Albeit in this case on a much quicker time frame.
You can cause damage to public property without it being vandalism. In the case of what's going on in McPherson Square, long-term camping on the property is going to kill the grass, which will require re-sodding. The NPS is letting this occur for political reasons, and allowing this type of damage runs counter to the NPS mission of preserving the national parks under its control. I doubt NPS would allow people to camp in Yellowstone for months at a time, and they certainly wouldn't let campers there engage in activities that damage the park.
Typically, if you want to hold a protest on the Mall or other public property in the District, you're required to provide certain assurances that any damage will be repaired (by posting a bond or obtaining insurance). I don't think it's unreasonable for the OWS protestors to be held to the same standards as Pro-Life marchers or anti-war protestors.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
They pay taxes. Those taxes go to the clean up. They don't get to pay more because they used something more. That is not how this society functions.
Edit: You're also insisting that there be a financial threshold required for protest. You do see how this would prevent the poor and/or disenfranchised from having freedom of speech... right?
I'm saying that if you're going to use public property, regardless of your cause, you should be held responsible for damages you inflict on that property.
Your 1st Amendment rights don't extend to trashing public property.
So the owners of shipping companies should be paying higher taxes to compensate for the enormous strain they put on the nation's roads and railroads?
They already do. Registration fees for commercial vehicles are significantly higher than for personal ones. And those vehicles pay a lot more gasoline taxes.
There are also significant fines for commercial vehicles that violate weight restrictions.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
They pay taxes. Those taxes go to the clean up. They don't get to pay more because they used something more. That is not how this society functions.
Edit: You're also insisting that there be a financial threshold required for protest. You do see how this would prevent the poor and/or disenfranchised from having freedom of speech... right?
I'm saying that if you're going to use public property, regardless of your cause, you should be held responsible for damages you inflict on that property.
Your 1st Amendment rights don't extend to trashing public property.
So, you're saying it was vandalism? Well, that is indeed a crime. Wiki has vandalism as
Private citizens commit vandalism when they willfully damage or deface the property of others or the commons.
I don't believe OWS was vandalizing the park, but I'm open to hearing your opinion on this. Damage is not always always against the law. Damage is a natural byproduct of loads of legal things. Damage, wear and tear, happens. Albeit in this case on a much quicker time frame.
You can cause damage to public property without it being vandalism. In the case of what's going on in McPherson Square, long-term camping on the property is going to kill the grass, which will require re-sodding. The NPS is letting this occur for political reasons, and allowing this type of damage runs counter to the NPS mission of preserving the national parks under its control. I doubt NPS would allow people to camp in Yellowstone for months at a time, and they certainly wouldn't let campers there engage in activities that damage the park.
Typically, if you want to hold a protest on the Mall or other public property in the District, you're required to provide certain assurances that any damage will be repaired (by posting a bond or obtaining insurance). I don't think it's unreasonable for the OWS protestors to be held to the same standards as Pro-Life marchers or anti-war protestors.
First of all, not all parks are national parks. There is, and for a good reason, a major difference between the two things. I think making this comparison is really disingenuous.
Second, I was not aware that you needed insurance or to post a bond to protest in DC. Can you provide a source? I'd like to look into this. Do you know of any other areas in the country that require this?
They pay taxes. Those taxes go to the clean up. They don't get to pay more because they used something more. That is not how this society functions.
Edit: You're also insisting that there be a financial threshold required for protest. You do see how this would prevent the poor and/or disenfranchised from having freedom of speech... right?
I'm saying that if you're going to use public property, regardless of your cause, you should be held responsible for damages you inflict on that property.
Your 1st Amendment rights don't extend to trashing public property.
So the owners of shipping companies should be paying higher taxes to compensate for the enormous strain they put on the nation's roads and railroads?
They already do. Registration fees for commercial vehicles are significantly higher than for personal ones. And those vehicles pay a lot more gasoline taxes.
There are also significant fines for commercial vehicles that violate weight restrictions.
I think that was a poor comparison to be made because companies are not citizens protesting. Companies are using a public resource to make a profit. The citizens in this case are using the public resource to engage in one of their freedoms granted by the Constitution.
Basically, how would you feel if someone with polar opposite politics did these things.
Would it be peaceful protesting if anti-choice fuckheads blocked off the intersection in front of a planned parenthood?
Would the Westboro Baptist Lunatics be practitioners of non-violent civil disobedience if they tried to reclaim God's Bell in protest of the NYSE getting rid of morning prayer and letting homosexuals trade on the floor?
I would go and talk to them, in fact I've WANTED to see those sorts of people around where I live just SO I could go talk to them in an environment where I would not be easily ignored. I would basically get them into a discussion and talk to them until.
1: They changed my mind.
2: I changed their mind.
3: They decided to act immaturely and strike me for upsetting their beliefs.
I'm absolutely certain one of the three would happen. If 1 happens, obviously I was wrong, if 2 happens, obviously they were wrong, and if 3 happens I get an excuse to pummel someone after they try to attack me. ;p
And I would continue to engage them in discussion until one of the three happened. Sadly, I never see such people so my chance to engage them in discussion and debate is rather muted.
You do realize none of those would happen, right? What would actually happen is:
4. They just say you're wrong and claim victory.
People are more than happy to warp their perceptions in order to preserve their arrogance.
I thought it was just convictions of crimes? I've never seen "have you been arrested?" because that's pretty weird. I could technically be arrested for loitering.
They don't ask it on employment applications, but it comes back on pre-employment background checks. If it's public information that's in a database somewhere, it can be queried.
From there, even if the hiring manager doesn't give a fuck, HR might, or vice versa. Even worse, if there is a third party recruiter involved and they tell him "Yeah, we don't hire people with arrest/criminal records", your recruiter probably won't even tell you. He'll just stop calling. (This assumes the recruiting agency didn't do their own background check to avoid this in the first place)
I'm not sure even the pre-employment check asks if you've been arrested. If they did, it wouldn't actually tell them anything. You can be arrested for murder because you fit a description. Being arrested basically means that the cops thought you broke the law. Without a conviction, there is nothing to show anything.
They don't ask, they search. The company I am familiar with searches for everything including convictions, credit report, arrests, liens, civil suits, your linkedin profile, google, your livejournal blog filled with emo poetry, basically everything.
If you were arrested that is public information that is potentially in a database somewhere and can show up in a background check. What your potential employer does with this information is totally YMMV, but it's fairly cheap and easy to get at if it exists.
In the murder example, you'll never hear HR say "Well Skoal Cat, it appears you were accused of murdering your wife, but blame it on a one armed man." They won't say shit other than "Your offer has been withdrawn."
I support the ideals behind OWS - That rich people fucked us and something needs to be done about it. There is no refuting that. I applaud the people that have drawn light to this in our country and thank them for their actions. They are doing something to affect change, which is more than most people can say.
There is, however, a number of people that are involving themselves in OWS' protests that are hurting their cause.
To avoid starting something I don't feel prepared to finish, I'll only discuss one group of these people; the uneducated throngs who seem to think the right to protest covers any and all of their actions, making them effectively unassailable. I feel they are distancing people like myself from the movement as a whole with their actions, at a time when the movement needs everyone it can to support them. Personally, I can't support a group of people that harbors such individuals, to me it's like donating a dollar to a good charity, but a third of it goes to terrorism (A very, very extreme metaphor, but the principle is the same.)
Right - the point of civil disobedience is to show that what you're disobeying is unjust, and that you shouldn't be punished for it. The way to show that is, oddly enough, to take the punishment so that people observe the disparity between what you did and what's being done to you. The impact is completely lost if you avoid the consequences.
The entire point of civil disobedience in protesting is TO get arrested. You don't protest the fact that the police are arresting you, you know you've commited a crime. At the UC Davis incident, police advised the squatters (Or campers, if you prefer) they needed to pack up their camps, but were welcome to stay and protest with the rest of the mass. The squatters refused to leave, even after being advised of the laws they were in violation of. This is civil disobedience, this is not your right to protest. You are going to be arrested. That's the point. Show the world that you are being arrested for camping out and refusing to move, it will bring attention to the situation and people will form their opinions. I'm sure many will say they shouldn't have been arrested, and will join their cause. Mission accomplished.
There is a line that was crossed at UC Davis.
This group of peaceful protesters wrongly appeared to believe that somehow their right to protest and peacefully assemble was being infringed upon. It wasn't. The legal peaceful protesters were not arrested or routed.
The mass surrounded the police and refused to allow them to leave, stating they would move when their compatriots were released. That's illegal detention of a law enforcement officer at the least, holding the police hostage at the worst. Add to that the number of people chanting, "Fuck the police", it's very to see how the officers could easily begin to consider their own well being and safety as a concern. If you think for a second that mass couldn't overwhelm the police if they tried, you're crazy. The police were outnumbered at least 3-1, armed or not they could've been drug down and killed. Speaking as someone in law enforcement, I would not have been comfortable in their situation, to put it lightly.
This is no longer peaceful protest, this is not civil disobedience. You are not inconveniencing them, you are literally preventing them from moving. If you think this falls under peaceful protest or civil disobedience, I believe that your definitions of the two are misconstrued. This is now an active resistance of police action, and falls under a completely different category of actions. Now, whether they were justified in their actions is personal opinion, but the distinction as to whether or not their actions are peaceful protest or civil disobedience is very important here. I believe it is very clear they are no longer peacefully protesting or civilly disobeying. They have restrained the movement of the police, within this group is smaller subsect that are clearly very anti-police which could easily become the catalyst to a violent riot.
The police advised the line of sitters in the road that they needed to move or they would be subject to the use of force. There is a very clear cut use of force matrix all police officers are trained on, and this group would fall into the non-compliant passive category. They are not resisting arrest. However, in this situation, the police have every reason to believe if they attempt to arrest any of the sitters, they will face greater unrest amoungst the crowd, and lack the tools to deal with so many people. If they began arresting the sitters and suddenly the 'fuck the police' group attacks them, they're in a very dangerous situation. Their lives and the lives of every around them are in serious danger. This consideration allows them to utilize force from the non-compliant active category, which includes pepper spray. After advising every single person of their rights, the police pepper sprayed the group in an attempt to get them to become compliant.
The police were not out of line at all in any of these actions. They were 100% by the books. They were following the law to the tee. It is not feasable to say, "Hey man, the Nazis were just following orders too!" (Because we've all seen those arguments), this is a completely different situation. The police must follow the law, whether they like it or not. If they started doing whatever they felt was right, you'd have even more problems than you already do with our country's police force (Let's not get into that subject here either, because we all know not every officer is a good person and everyone is different). Are their actions excessive? Not by the law. Is the law wrong? That's for the people to decide, however, if the people are to make those decisions it's very important for them to know the entire situation. Not just a 13 second youtube clip of cops pepperspraying people sitting on a road. That is just as bad as the fox news bullshit.
If the protestors had simply blocked the route and made the police go around, if there weren't clearly anti-police supporters in the crowd, if any number of things had gone different I may believe they were still being civilly disobedient. This was not the case, and I feel that this is a clear example of people believing their rights entitle them to something they don't.
TL;DR - There are dicks in OWS (And supporting protests) who don't understand their rights and think they're entitled to do whatever they want.
I think you completely misunderstood what happened at UC David
Yeah. I have no problem with the police arresting the people who refused to move. I do have a serious problem with police using pepperspray on people who are not engaging in violence against the police.
I always assumed, I guess wrongly, that things like pepper-spray and tazers were supposed to be used in situations where someone was directing a lower level of violence towards police. I did not think, and I still don't think, that pepper-spray and the like should be allowed to be used to inflict pain to force non-violent arrestees to comply with police orders.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
If you destroy public or private property, you should be required to pay for the damages, yes. I don't care what your cause is.
The OWS protestores occupying McPherson Square should have been required to obtain insurance or to otherwise compensate the taxpayers for the damage their protest is causing to the park.
Adults take responsibility for their actions.
Hello, please answer my hypothetical I posted last page. Should we let the whole world burn just because it upsets the wealthy too much to save it? Failure to respond is a direct admission on your part that the question profoundly upsets you and that you are attempting to dodge it in hopes it won't poke a whole in what you were saying earlier.
That point I keep trying to make, again. Is that the right to protest and get a grievance aired should be based entirely on the content of what's being protested and the actual legitimacy of a grievance in relation to the nation. Not merely what people off of the top of their heads thinks and not merely what the people with money and set the agendas thinks at first. But rather based on a full, empirical evaluation of what people are saying and how it correlates to current problems. Otherwise you are quite literally saying that you are fine giving the wealthy the power to, by national heckler's veto enabled by their wealth, prevent the earth from being saved from catastrophe because they would cease to be wealthy afterwards.
If you do not agree with this then you admit that there is more to the validity of a protest then merely what people superficially think about it at first and that limitations upon a protest should depend entirely upon the content of what's being protested and the legitimacy of a grievance rather than merely upon some arbitrary threshold of "Being bothered" that people seem to hold. Because if you accept that it's okay to make a huge ruckus to inform the world it needs to save itself from say, a burning Comet that the wealthy don't want us to destroy because it would destroy their socioeconomic power, then you can accept that in other circumstances that may be just as dire it may be okay as well.
Which leaves us to debating whether this specific protest in this specific instance warrants it rather then not. Obviously someone who vandalizes public or private property should pay for it. But wear and tear suffered to inform the world of impending collapse? That's like telling someone they might as well just quit altogether because the wealthy bought out all the soap boxes and street corners to speak on and they're just going to have to live with being silent and the world possibly burning. Of course now that we've arrived at this situation we can discuss, perhaps the more salient and important matter of whether this specific protest warrants it.
You do realize none of those would happen, right? What would actually happen is:
4. They just say you're wrong and claim victory.
People are more than happy to warp their perceptions in order to preserve their arrogance.
Oh no, I'm quite sure if they're that arrogant that I would get them to strike me first. I can really get under people's skins when I want to. It just takes a little research, a little transitional thinking and it's amazing at what you can do to get someone pissed off that you won't shut up. In that case all I'd need to do is step up the ante by stepping aside and waiting them to engage someone else and then I'd jump in and ruin their attempt at pissing other people off. Once they realized that I was ruining their ability to troll others they would come after me.
Angry trolls that believe what they're trolling are the easiest ones to get upset, just upset their ability to troll and in uniquely offensive ways.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
I think you completely misunderstood what happened at UC David
Then elaborate, because I've seen from when the police were on loudspeaker advising the campers of their rights and their violations up until the pepper spraying incident. Including numerous breaks where the police attempt to talk down the mass and are shouted down.
I think you completely misunderstood what happened at UC David
Yeah. I have no problem with the police arresting the people who refused to move. I do have a serious problem with police using pepperspray on people who are not engaging in violence against the police.
I always assumed, I guess wrongly, that things like pepper-spray and tazers were supposed to be used in situations where someone was directing a lower level of violence towards police. I did not think, and I still don't think, that pepper-spray and the like should be allowed to be used to inflict pain to force non-violent arrestees to comply with police orders.
They weren't non-violent. Read my entire post. The threat of violence against the police was very real, and very serious.
They weren't non-violent. Read my entire post. The threat of violence against the police was very real, and very serious.
From what I've seen on the video, the people on the ground who got pepper-sprayed were in no way violent. The actions of third parties should in no way give police the right to use pepper-spray against non-violent protestors.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
edited December 2011
Chanting "From Davis to Greece, Fuck the Police" is one thing, but when you're blocking cops from taking arrestees chanting "If you let them go! We will let you leave!" you are not peacefully exercising your first amendment rights. It's threatening the police conducting a lawful arrest.
Chanting "From Davis to Greece, Fuck the Police" is one thing, but when you're blocking cops from taking arrestees chanting "If you let them go! We will let you leave!" is not peacefully exercising your first amendment rights. It's threatening the police conducting a lawful arrest.
I'm pretty sure they were chanting that after the pepper spraying, because that is what really started causing outrage amongst onlookers.
Also, the crowd was chanting. Not the people sitting on the ground. The crowd chanted (not that this is cause for violence, but whatever) and yet the people who were sitting down and not chanting got pepper sprayed. Do you see the problem here?
Finally, ask yourself, if the cops felt threatened by the crowd... why would they start attacking the crowd? Doesn't that sound like a heinously bad idea? Yes, yes it does. Which means one of three things.
1) They didn't feel threatened
2) They felt threatened and didn't go by the book, since the book is in no way written to make things more dangerous for the police
3) The book is written to make things worse for the police
They weren't non-violent. Read my entire post. The threat of violence against the police was very real, and very serious.
From what I've seen on the video, the people on the ground who got pepper-sprayed were in no way violent. The actions of third parties should in no way give police the right to use pepper-spray against non-violent protestors.
Surrounding police officers and refusing to let them leave, while having a clearly large element of anti-police in your group is definitely dangerous. Not to mention the fact that they were refusing to let the police leave, which is not peacful or civil, it's highly illegal.
Those police had every right to believe they were in danger.
They weren't non-violent. Read my entire post. The threat of violence against the police was very real, and very serious.
From what I've seen on the video, the people on the ground who got pepper-sprayed were in no way violent. The actions of third parties should in no way give police the right to use pepper-spray against non-violent protestors.
Surrounding police officers and refusing to let them leave, while having a clearly large element of anti-police in your group is definitely dangerous. Not to mention the fact that they were refusing to let the police leave, which is not peacful or civil, it's highly illegal.
Those police had every right to believe they were in danger.
Except for the total lack of violence being shown.
If the crowd was threatening the police, why didn't the police attack the crowd? Why didn't people in the crowd get arrested? Why wasn't support called in to assist in a potentially violent situation that until that point had yet to become violent?
The police made it a violent situation and did nothing to curb the animosity towards them.
You can usually count on cops to escalate a tense situation and make it worse. Especially a crowd scene like that.
If they had simply gone in and arrested the people sitting on the ground without pepper-spraying them, it's likely that there would have been no incident.
Surrounding police officers and refusing to let them leave, while having a clearly large element of anti-police in your group is definitely dangerous. Not to mention the fact that they were refusing to let the police leave, which is not peacful or civil, it's highly illegal.
Those police had every right to believe they were in danger.
I'm still not seeing how the actions of the crowd, rightfully enraged about a needless pepper-spraying, provide after-the-fact justification for the pepper-spraying itself.
The people who actually got pepper-sprayed didn't actually commit any violence that I'm aware of.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Chanting "From Davis to Greece, Fuck the Police" is one thing, but when you're blocking cops from taking arrestees chanting "If you let them go! We will let you leave!" is not peacefully exercising your first amendment rights. It's threatening the police conducting a lawful arrest.
I'm pretty sure they were chanting that after the pepper spraying, because that is what really started causing outrage amongst onlookers.
Also, the crowd was chanting. Not the people sitting on the ground. The crowd chanted (not that this is cause for violence, but whatever) and yet the people who were sitting down and not chanting got pepper sprayed. Do you see the problem here?
Finally, ask yourself, if the cops felt threatened by the crowd... why would they start attacking the crowd? Doesn't that sound like a heinously bad idea? Yes, yes it does. Which means one of three things.
1) They didn't feel threatened
2) They felt threatened and didn't go by the book, since the book is in no way written to make things more dangerous for the police
3) The book is written to make things worse for the police
Choose your own adventure here.
They were chanting LONG LONG LONG before the pepper spraying. Before the officers even advised them of their rights. Please go back and review the extended video available on youtube.
The people on the ground were already illegally detaining police. In addition there are now dangerous elements in the crowd. If they attempt to arrest the group on the ground (Which is a lot more involved and leaves you more vulnerable) they risk getting overwhelmed by the fuck the police group.
They did not attack the crowd. That statement leads me to believe you did not read the majority of my post, and have no experience in law enforcement. They utilized their use of force matrix to gain control of the crowd. They had a single person utilize pepper spray, while the rest of the officers maintained a defensive posture. If the crowd surged the single officer is a lot less vulnerable than the group it would've required to move the sitting protestors.
They went 100% by the book, which I detailed very carefully in my post. If you feel they didn't go by the book, feel free to elaborate where on the use of force matrix they deviated from the approved methodology.
Those police had every right to believe they were in danger.
Except for the complete lack of anyone doing anything but talking. And the police having the only weapons. And being trained to deal with these situations, at least in theory. Other than that, sure, apologize away.
They went 100% by the book, which I detailed very carefully in my post. If you feel they didn't go by the book, feel free to elaborate where on the use of force matrix they deviated from the approved methodology.
That may or may not be true, but it's irrelevant. If your book allows you to pepperspray non-violent people, the book needs to be re-written.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Posts
The people who crashed the economy got a trillion dollars, and they're living better than before. Meanwhile, the rest of us got the shaft, and are continuing to get dicked over.
I would go and talk to them, in fact I've WANTED to see those sorts of people around where I live just SO I could go talk to them in an environment where I would not be easily ignored. I would basically get them into a discussion and talk to them until.
1: They changed my mind.
2: I changed their mind.
3: They decided to act immaturely and strike me for upsetting their beliefs.
I'm absolutely certain one of the three would happen. If 1 happens, obviously I was wrong, if 2 happens, obviously they were wrong, and if 3 happens I get an excuse to pummel someone after they try to attack me. ;p
And I would continue to engage them in discussion until one of the three happened. Sadly, I never see such people so my chance to engage them in discussion and debate is rather muted.
Gee, I didn't know that. We can all go home guys, everything's fine.
Hahahah oh you!
The OWS protestores occupying McPherson Square should have been required to obtain insurance or to otherwise compensate the taxpayers for the damage their protest is causing to the park.
Adults take responsibility for their actions.
Rigorous Scholarship
I'm not sure even the pre-employment check asks if you've been arrested. If they did, it wouldn't actually tell them anything. You can be arrested for murder because you fit a description. Being arrested basically means that the cops thought you broke the law. Without a conviction, there is nothing to show anything.
They pay taxes. Those taxes go to the clean up. They don't get to pay more because they used something more. That is not how this society functions.
Edit: You're also insisting that there be a financial threshold required for protest. You do see how this would prevent the poor and/or disenfranchised from having freedom of speech... right?
Your 1st Amendment rights don't extend to trashing public property.
Rigorous Scholarship
So, you're saying it was vandalism? Well, that is indeed a crime. Wiki has vandalism as I don't believe OWS was vandalizing the park, but I'm open to hearing your opinion on this. Damage is not always always against the law. Damage is a natural byproduct of loads of legal things. Damage, wear and tear, happens. Albeit in this case on a much quicker time frame.
A million bucks for L.A.'s cleanup.
Yea, while not even wearing sweat pants no less.
Its interesting, but even discussing this reeks of subtext attempting to illegitimatize the movement. The "how dare they cost us money when we're poor" side of the coin should not apply to civil disobedience. Especially civil disobedience targeting why we're poor in the first place. This should not be damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
Typically, if you want to hold a protest on the Mall or other public property in the District, you're required to provide certain assurances that any damage will be repaired (by posting a bond or obtaining insurance). I don't think it's unreasonable for the OWS protestors to be held to the same standards as Pro-Life marchers or anti-war protestors.
Rigorous Scholarship
There are also significant fines for commercial vehicles that violate weight restrictions.
Rigorous Scholarship
First of all, not all parks are national parks. There is, and for a good reason, a major difference between the two things. I think making this comparison is really disingenuous.
Second, I was not aware that you needed insurance or to post a bond to protest in DC. Can you provide a source? I'd like to look into this. Do you know of any other areas in the country that require this?
I think that was a poor comparison to be made because companies are not citizens protesting. Companies are using a public resource to make a profit. The citizens in this case are using the public resource to engage in one of their freedoms granted by the Constitution.
You do realize none of those would happen, right? What would actually happen is:
4. They just say you're wrong and claim victory.
People are more than happy to warp their perceptions in order to preserve their arrogance.
Steam: pazython
They don't ask, they search. The company I am familiar with searches for everything including convictions, credit report, arrests, liens, civil suits, your linkedin profile, google, your livejournal blog filled with emo poetry, basically everything.
If you were arrested that is public information that is potentially in a database somewhere and can show up in a background check. What your potential employer does with this information is totally YMMV, but it's fairly cheap and easy to get at if it exists.
In the murder example, you'll never hear HR say "Well Skoal Cat, it appears you were accused of murdering your wife, but blame it on a one armed man." They won't say shit other than "Your offer has been withdrawn."
There is, however, a number of people that are involving themselves in OWS' protests that are hurting their cause.
To avoid starting something I don't feel prepared to finish, I'll only discuss one group of these people; the uneducated throngs who seem to think the right to protest covers any and all of their actions, making them effectively unassailable. I feel they are distancing people like myself from the movement as a whole with their actions, at a time when the movement needs everyone it can to support them. Personally, I can't support a group of people that harbors such individuals, to me it's like donating a dollar to a good charity, but a third of it goes to terrorism (A very, very extreme metaphor, but the principle is the same.)
As someone mentioned earlier;
The entire point of civil disobedience in protesting is TO get arrested. You don't protest the fact that the police are arresting you, you know you've commited a crime. At the UC Davis incident, police advised the squatters (Or campers, if you prefer) they needed to pack up their camps, but were welcome to stay and protest with the rest of the mass. The squatters refused to leave, even after being advised of the laws they were in violation of. This is civil disobedience, this is not your right to protest. You are going to be arrested. That's the point. Show the world that you are being arrested for camping out and refusing to move, it will bring attention to the situation and people will form their opinions. I'm sure many will say they shouldn't have been arrested, and will join their cause. Mission accomplished.
There is a line that was crossed at UC Davis.
This group of peaceful protesters wrongly appeared to believe that somehow their right to protest and peacefully assemble was being infringed upon. It wasn't. The legal peaceful protesters were not arrested or routed.
The mass surrounded the police and refused to allow them to leave, stating they would move when their compatriots were released. That's illegal detention of a law enforcement officer at the least, holding the police hostage at the worst. Add to that the number of people chanting, "Fuck the police", it's very to see how the officers could easily begin to consider their own well being and safety as a concern. If you think for a second that mass couldn't overwhelm the police if they tried, you're crazy. The police were outnumbered at least 3-1, armed or not they could've been drug down and killed. Speaking as someone in law enforcement, I would not have been comfortable in their situation, to put it lightly.
This is no longer peaceful protest, this is not civil disobedience. You are not inconveniencing them, you are literally preventing them from moving. If you think this falls under peaceful protest or civil disobedience, I believe that your definitions of the two are misconstrued. This is now an active resistance of police action, and falls under a completely different category of actions. Now, whether they were justified in their actions is personal opinion, but the distinction as to whether or not their actions are peaceful protest or civil disobedience is very important here. I believe it is very clear they are no longer peacefully protesting or civilly disobeying. They have restrained the movement of the police, within this group is smaller subsect that are clearly very anti-police which could easily become the catalyst to a violent riot.
The police advised the line of sitters in the road that they needed to move or they would be subject to the use of force. There is a very clear cut use of force matrix all police officers are trained on, and this group would fall into the non-compliant passive category. They are not resisting arrest. However, in this situation, the police have every reason to believe if they attempt to arrest any of the sitters, they will face greater unrest amoungst the crowd, and lack the tools to deal with so many people. If they began arresting the sitters and suddenly the 'fuck the police' group attacks them, they're in a very dangerous situation. Their lives and the lives of every around them are in serious danger. This consideration allows them to utilize force from the non-compliant active category, which includes pepper spray. After advising every single person of their rights, the police pepper sprayed the group in an attempt to get them to become compliant.
The police were not out of line at all in any of these actions. They were 100% by the books. They were following the law to the tee. It is not feasable to say, "Hey man, the Nazis were just following orders too!" (Because we've all seen those arguments), this is a completely different situation. The police must follow the law, whether they like it or not. If they started doing whatever they felt was right, you'd have even more problems than you already do with our country's police force (Let's not get into that subject here either, because we all know not every officer is a good person and everyone is different). Are their actions excessive? Not by the law. Is the law wrong? That's for the people to decide, however, if the people are to make those decisions it's very important for them to know the entire situation. Not just a 13 second youtube clip of cops pepperspraying people sitting on a road. That is just as bad as the fox news bullshit.
If the protestors had simply blocked the route and made the police go around, if there weren't clearly anti-police supporters in the crowd, if any number of things had gone different I may believe they were still being civilly disobedient. This was not the case, and I feel that this is a clear example of people believing their rights entitle them to something they don't.
TL;DR - There are dicks in OWS (And supporting protests) who don't understand their rights and think they're entitled to do whatever they want.
I always assumed, I guess wrongly, that things like pepper-spray and tazers were supposed to be used in situations where someone was directing a lower level of violence towards police. I did not think, and I still don't think, that pepper-spray and the like should be allowed to be used to inflict pain to force non-violent arrestees to comply with police orders.
Rigorous Scholarship
Hello, please answer my hypothetical I posted last page. Should we let the whole world burn just because it upsets the wealthy too much to save it? Failure to respond is a direct admission on your part that the question profoundly upsets you and that you are attempting to dodge it in hopes it won't poke a whole in what you were saying earlier.
That point I keep trying to make, again. Is that the right to protest and get a grievance aired should be based entirely on the content of what's being protested and the actual legitimacy of a grievance in relation to the nation. Not merely what people off of the top of their heads thinks and not merely what the people with money and set the agendas thinks at first. But rather based on a full, empirical evaluation of what people are saying and how it correlates to current problems. Otherwise you are quite literally saying that you are fine giving the wealthy the power to, by national heckler's veto enabled by their wealth, prevent the earth from being saved from catastrophe because they would cease to be wealthy afterwards.
If you do not agree with this then you admit that there is more to the validity of a protest then merely what people superficially think about it at first and that limitations upon a protest should depend entirely upon the content of what's being protested and the legitimacy of a grievance rather than merely upon some arbitrary threshold of "Being bothered" that people seem to hold. Because if you accept that it's okay to make a huge ruckus to inform the world it needs to save itself from say, a burning Comet that the wealthy don't want us to destroy because it would destroy their socioeconomic power, then you can accept that in other circumstances that may be just as dire it may be okay as well.
Which leaves us to debating whether this specific protest in this specific instance warrants it rather then not. Obviously someone who vandalizes public or private property should pay for it. But wear and tear suffered to inform the world of impending collapse? That's like telling someone they might as well just quit altogether because the wealthy bought out all the soap boxes and street corners to speak on and they're just going to have to live with being silent and the world possibly burning. Of course now that we've arrived at this situation we can discuss, perhaps the more salient and important matter of whether this specific protest warrants it.
Correct?
edit:
Oh no, I'm quite sure if they're that arrogant that I would get them to strike me first. I can really get under people's skins when I want to. It just takes a little research, a little transitional thinking and it's amazing at what you can do to get someone pissed off that you won't shut up. In that case all I'd need to do is step up the ante by stepping aside and waiting them to engage someone else and then I'd jump in and ruin their attempt at pissing other people off. Once they realized that I was ruining their ability to troll others they would come after me.
Angry trolls that believe what they're trolling are the easiest ones to get upset, just upset their ability to troll and in uniquely offensive ways.
Then elaborate, because I've seen from when the police were on loudspeaker advising the campers of their rights and their violations up until the pepper spraying incident. Including numerous breaks where the police attempt to talk down the mass and are shouted down.
They weren't non-violent. Read my entire post. The threat of violence against the police was very real, and very serious.
Rigorous Scholarship
I'm pretty sure they were chanting that after the pepper spraying, because that is what really started causing outrage amongst onlookers.
Also, the crowd was chanting. Not the people sitting on the ground. The crowd chanted (not that this is cause for violence, but whatever) and yet the people who were sitting down and not chanting got pepper sprayed. Do you see the problem here?
Finally, ask yourself, if the cops felt threatened by the crowd... why would they start attacking the crowd? Doesn't that sound like a heinously bad idea? Yes, yes it does. Which means one of three things.
1) They didn't feel threatened
2) They felt threatened and didn't go by the book, since the book is in no way written to make things more dangerous for the police
3) The book is written to make things worse for the police
Choose your own adventure here.
Surrounding police officers and refusing to let them leave, while having a clearly large element of anti-police in your group is definitely dangerous. Not to mention the fact that they were refusing to let the police leave, which is not peacful or civil, it's highly illegal.
Those police had every right to believe they were in danger.
Except for the total lack of violence being shown.
If the crowd was threatening the police, why didn't the police attack the crowd? Why didn't people in the crowd get arrested? Why wasn't support called in to assist in a potentially violent situation that until that point had yet to become violent?
The police made it a violent situation and did nothing to curb the animosity towards them.
If they had simply gone in and arrested the people sitting on the ground without pepper-spraying them, it's likely that there would have been no incident.
I'm still not seeing how the actions of the crowd, rightfully enraged about a needless pepper-spraying, provide after-the-fact justification for the pepper-spraying itself.
The people who actually got pepper-sprayed didn't actually commit any violence that I'm aware of.
Rigorous Scholarship
They were chanting LONG LONG LONG before the pepper spraying. Before the officers even advised them of their rights. Please go back and review the extended video available on youtube.
The people on the ground were already illegally detaining police. In addition there are now dangerous elements in the crowd. If they attempt to arrest the group on the ground (Which is a lot more involved and leaves you more vulnerable) they risk getting overwhelmed by the fuck the police group.
They did not attack the crowd. That statement leads me to believe you did not read the majority of my post, and have no experience in law enforcement. They utilized their use of force matrix to gain control of the crowd. They had a single person utilize pepper spray, while the rest of the officers maintained a defensive posture. If the crowd surged the single officer is a lot less vulnerable than the group it would've required to move the sitting protestors.
They went 100% by the book, which I detailed very carefully in my post. If you feel they didn't go by the book, feel free to elaborate where on the use of force matrix they deviated from the approved methodology.
Rigorous Scholarship