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I'd like to see the hard evidence of gunfire at police along with the hard evidence of two dozen police cars being burned/destroyed along with the hard evidence of molotov cocktails. No statements to press or pictures, I'm talking a live feed. The Ferguson pd has lost all credibility with me, they are relying too heavily on their word as police officers and not providing anything else. I trust them about as much as I trust a politician.
This. We get better footage from Iraq and Isreal than we are getting from Ferguson.
Incidentally I believe the cop was justified in the shooting but that the response from both sides is unacceptable. Looting and rioting isn't how you protest. Throwing things at the police isn't how you protest. Police taking a hardline and helping escalate the tension isn't how you handle a protest either but when violence escalates on one side and the other's reaction is to up the ante you are only going to keep increasing the level of escalation. Someone needs to step back and reign in the violence.Jesse and Al are gonna be here to help get everyone rational soon....
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And really that can only be the cops. They're the only ones with any kind of organizational structure. Saying that the protesters have to stop the violence when the vast majority of the protesters are peaceful and don't have any kind of authority or control over looters, some of whom are apparently coming from outside the immediate area to take advantage of the situation just doesn't make any sense. They can't.
They could stop protesting, but I don't think they have any responsibility to do that.
Yeah, we should definitely just ramp down the police so the lawless people eventually get tired of looting and vandalizing the area and go away....I would hate to be a person living in the area as the criminal element sees the police backing down and decides to start targeting houses and whites. If the Police back down you may as give the city to the criminals and the person making that decision will have every drop of innocent blood on his conscience. Innocent blood is harder to clean off than the blood of a criminal.
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Yeah, we should definitely just ramp down the police so the lawless people eventually get tired of looting and vandalizing the area and go away...
Or we could ramp down the police response to peaceful protesters and arrest the looters and vandals. That could work too.
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I haven't, alas, been able to follow the news as closely as I would like this past week--busy with Anklebiter clan shiznit mostly--so I hadn't yet seen any Cornel West commentary.
Cornel West on Missouri: "Obama reeks of political calculation not moral conviction" - Newsnight
Hee hee! I haven't even finished watching it yet and I already love it. Had me at "Obama reeks."
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If we are talking about a "criminal element" in Ferguson, I'm looking at the guys driving military vehicles and throwing tear gas and stun grenades around.
I can watch those videos and see law breaking galore, but it is mostly the police committing the crimes. On the non-police side I see pictures of some looting, what look to be a couple of arson related events and property destruction, and lots of minor traffic stuff, as well as what I'm guessing is a fair amount of public drunkenness. From the Police, I see some very serious civil rights violations, and a whole lot of "continuum of force" violations. Most troublesome is a very obvious failure to secure individual probable cause before using force, including less-lethal weaponry.
Even if people are throwing some rocks and bottles (pretty much the definition of riot) it doesn't justify taking actions against the general population. Even in riotous situations, the law does not recognize guilt-by-association.
The police are acting in an illegal manner, and citizens are not required to obey orders the police are not allowed by law to make. Either the police can back off and get someone in there with creditability, or they can keep having a turf war with locals. The protestors are the ones who are going to be winning the court cases when all of this gets shaken out in the courts*.
*Assuming there is substantial national public attention.
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Replace police with robots
Robot: Jaywalker detected...facial recognition activated...identity determined...Michael brown! You have been found guilty of jaywalking and a fine of two hundred dollars has been issued.
Michael brown: What?
Robot: back up required...Michael brown acting in hostile manor....issuing warrant...halt violent agressor!
Michael brown: raises hands...
Robot: violent agressor refusing to obey commands...gatling cannon online...firing.
Its not illegal when the law does it!
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So I guess that protesting happens after dark always...cause that's the only time I have seen video of gas and smoke and all the other stuff going on....
You protest with signs at some town hall during daylight, possibly with candlelight vigils and such at night, not marching through the streets impeding traffic in the dark. If you are blocking traffic and such and asked to move by police and refuse and start hurling bottles and such at them you are not innocently protesting.
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Sorry, you can't break the law as a way of protesting the police. You follow the legal rules in place to protest or you risk being treated as...GASP...a criminal.
You aren't breaking the law when you assemble. The cops are breaking the law when they stop you from assembling.
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It is only getting attention because the journalists found a small story where the 2 players in the story were one living white guy and one dead black guy. Each journalist embellished it to appeal to whatever political/racial/moral side they are on and unleashed it to the ignorant masses who ate it up, got riled up and now spew it out in all it's violent, vomitous glory. If skewed journalistic overreaction hadn't occurred, anger levels wouldn't have elevated to this point....but then the journalists wouldn't have the extra news to cover and feed us.
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You aren't breaking the law when you assemble. The cops are breaking the law when they stop you from assembling.Sorry, you can't break the law as a way of protesting the police. You follow the legal rules in place to protest or you risk being treated as...GASP...a criminal.
You are when you do it in certain areas that impede roadways and such...
Earlier today, my buddy showed me a meme he made (I think, maybe he just stole it from somewhere else) for his anti-police brutality website. I was going to refrain from linking it, but then I remembered that Fake Healer was that guy pining for a new Night of the Long Knives a while back.
Anyway, linkie.
You aren't breaking the law when you assemble. The cops are breaking the law when they stop you from assembling.Sorry, you can't break the law as a way of protesting the police. You follow the legal rules in place to protest or you risk being treated as...GASP...a criminal.
You are when you do it in certain areas that impede roadways and such...
Really? Traffic ordinances overwrite the constitution?
Why don't we take peoples guns away for public safety then?
edit: Comrade, where's that second photo from? Nazis in english? That looks... disturbingly interesting
I don't know. Off the top of my head, Comrade BeeNee, but if I were to guess, I'd guess Chicago around the time of the failed attempt to march to Cicero where King gave up and SNCC got attacked by brick-wielding Nazis. It's just a guess, though.
There was an American Nazi party all through the sixties led by a guy very awesomely named George Lincoln Rockwell.
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I don't know. Off the top of my head, Comrade BeeNee, but if I were to guess, I'd guess Chicago around the time of the failed attempt to march to Cicero where King gave up and SNCC got attacked by brick-wielding Nazis. It's just a guess, though.
There was an American Nazi party all through the sixties led by a guy very awesomely named George Lincoln Rockwell.
Google doesn't show anything for that phrase. Maybe someone with the original image could do an image search.
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It shouldn't involve destroying other private citizen's property or businesses. If you are demonstrating against the police/government then why are you stealing TVs from Old Man Harry's store?
Also standing up for your principles and beliefs doesn't give you a free pass to say "I was standing up for XXX when I punched the cop". You want to do criminal acts then you accept that you may be arrested and/or treated like a criminal. I don't agree with what is being protested due to the stories and "facts" that I have seen so to me they are just criminals being a menace to the law-abiding people of the neighborhood. The law-abiding people need to be safe and the police are trying to control lawlessness so the law-abiding people can feel safe and continue to be targeted with random traffic ticket taxations.
I understand revolt and revolution but there is no cause here in my eyes for it and this is all an excuse to loot and pillage under the guise of racial hatred and tensions.
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Sorry Fake Healer, I still don't understand whether you know how civil disobedience historically works, based on your distinction between "law-abiding" protestors and "criminals," or the implications that a) the "criminal" actions undertaken in times of civil disobedience are somehow "wrong" and b) that those who protest don't understand the fact that with protest comes the (very real) chance of arrest.
Civil disobedience is an act of law-breaking. To say, believe, or imply that one ought not protest in ways that break the law and if one does, the rest of us ought not feel any outrage at the actions of those representing the law astounds me.
I don't think that anyone on this thread has supported the people who are looting, and I feel it is disingenuous to imply that those of supporting protestors support those who are looting.
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It shouldn't involve destroying other private citizen's property or businesses. If you are demonstrating against the police/government then why are you stealing TVs from Old Man Harry's store?
Canard. The police are forcing people that aren't engaged in these activities out.
Also standing up for your principles and beliefs doesn't give you a free pass to say "I was standing up for XXX when I punched the cop".
Right, because a cop violating your rights will be dealt with by the courts...
Fergie! Remind him how THAT goes.
You want to do criminal acts then you accept that you may be arrested and/or treated like a criminal.
Your speech is illegal. Saying it makes you a criminal. You're acting like a criminal and will be treated like one.
I don't agree with what is being protested due to the stories and "facts" that I have seen so to me they are just criminals being a menace to the law-abiding people of the neighborhood.
You don't get to make that decision for them. Above your paygrade. Above ANYONE's paygrade.
The law-abiding people need to be safe
Then why are the police tear gassing them and shooting them with rubber bullets?
and the police are trying to control lawlessness so the law-abiding people can feel safe and continue to be targeted with random traffic ticket taxations.
I understand revolt and revolution but there is no cause here in my eyes for it and this is all an excuse to loot and pillage under the guise of racial hatred and tensions.
How many looters have been arrested? How many protestors?
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I don't agree with what is being protested due to the stories and "facts" that I have seen so to me they are just criminals being a menace to the law-abiding people of the neighborhood.You don't get to make that decision for them. Above your paygrade. Above ANYONE's paygrade.
100 times this. It really wouldn't matter if they were protesting because Frosties at Wendy's aren't as good as they were when I was a kid.
Its not that I don't accept limitations on the freedom of assembly, its that the right seems to be completely overridden by ANY other concern. Its like its not even part of the constitution or something.
This is more like saying no gun can ever be on or cross a public road. It effectively ends the right in question.
Now that Martial Law has been declared, doesn't that mean the civil/criminal code is no longer being enforced, but rather Martial Law? ie...court martial, detention, and so on?
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Sorry, you can't break the law as a way of protesting the police. You follow the legal rules in place to protest or you risk being treated as...GASP...a criminal.
Here is the tricky part: Laws apply differently to protests then they do to other disturbances. This often gets into the greyer areas of the law, and here is a surprise to many people- many cops are not very familiar with the details of the law. Many cops don't know the fine line of when some some laws may be applied and some many not. {Note: Not a slam on cops here, you can be a good cop without knowing the letter of the law.]
However, when a large scale operation like what is happening in Ferguson is going down, it is a forgone conclusion that the police should operate by legally approved guidelines. In Ferguson the police seem to be operating by a different set of instructions, and it is very important to know who is authorizing this stuff, and whether it follows protocol or goes against it.
I should also point out that cops don't have the power to designate you a criminal, nor are they allowed to sentence you. Police are not supposed to treat you like a "criminal", they are supposed to treat you like a suspect, and there is a big difference!
Finally, I've done all manner of marches, protests, demonstrations, vigils, etc. Some small, some with over a million people. They are a joke. A circle-jerk. They hardly do a damn thing. The media covers you as a traffic disturbance, and says your message was incoherent. The cops spy on you, film you beat and arrest you. The politicians ignore it or pay it lip service, then do whatever they were going to do anyway. If anyone has a better idea to get real change, I'm open to hearing it. Until then, I stand by whatever way the people of Ferguson want to stand up to the unlawful actions of the police. I won't go so far as to say I support people looting, but I have more respect for them then the cops and suck-up politicians.
You don't need a permit for most firearms, just like you don't need one for most assemblies.
The government cannot tell you you can't assemble.
And how, pray tell, is it even possible to get 1,000 people together without blocking a street or violating some other petty ordinance? Your interpretation completely ENDS the right to assemble by making it completely impossible to do. It goes beyond infringement.
Less of a difference than you might think actually. Even criminals have rights.
While I agree with your statement, I don't think having rights prevents them from being violated. If someone can violate your rights with near impunity then "having rights" becomes almost meaningless.
EDIT: To apply that to the people of Ferguson- Do they have a right to peacefully assemble, if police interfere with them when they attempt to exercise that right? Do the people need to be granted permission from the police in order to exercise their rights?
vvv Agree vvv
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There is a difference between civil disobedience and a legal protest, yet you guys refuse to see that there is a difference. The police are responding to people who are violating the law, not peaceful protesters. Once the protest becomes disorderly, and starts turning into a mob-mentality the police have tried to peacefully stop it by trying to get the crowds to disperse....this is met with the crowd getting even more rowdy and then the police take the next step, followed by the crowd, etc.... These aren't peaceful, innocent protesters being gassed they are a group of people that has become too disorderly and angry and are progressing into violence being told to disperse and go home by police trying to protect the general public and then the protesters continue upping the response. Grab some signs and march in front of the courthouse. Don't lob bottles and other nonsense at officers trying to keep a mob from becoming violent.
But I get it....it's cooler to say the Pigs are wrong no matter what and that the "activists" are the good guys standing up for a just cause. In this case I don't see that. I see a bunch of opportunists trying to goad a race war on.
A 4 time felon charged a cop and got shot down.
A 4 time felon ran from a cop and was murdered for no reason because the officer never even knew about the robbery in the area.
Which one is more believable. One has a couple friends of the 4 time felon saying "he didn't do anything" and the other has a couple people who don't know the officer or the 4 time felon who say they saw him come at the cop.
Hmmmmm....
Yup, clear case of the police being Black-killing Pigs.
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The police are responding to people who are violating the law, not peaceful protesters.
This is the sentence that makes me think that you don't understand what civil disobedience is.
Ghandi, Rosa Parks, the Selma protestors, the protestors at Tahrir Square
Which of them did not violate the law?
The government most definitely can tell you not to assemble, they're doing it as we type in Ferguson.
Hence my argument that the cops are acting illegally. "Oh but they can do it" isn't an argument against that.
Now if it is a big enough assembly and properly scheduled they have a duty to accomodate you, even if it meams blocking roads and redirecting traffic, but they'll impose limits all the same, limits on where it can happen, when it can happen, etc.
Could you, for the love of all that is polyhedral, explain to me how that is remotely different from denying it?
On a very small scale think of a policeman enforcing antiloitering laws, that is, in a way, limiting your right to assemble.
Which isn't an assembly for political purposes, just like all speech isn't political speech.
Eta: You are right, most assemblies don't need a permit, but those are trumped by local ordinances.
No.
Holy mother of monsters NO.
You cannot trump a constitutional right with a local ordinance.
If you need special treatment under the law (ie. Your protest is so large it will block streets) you will need permits. And that isn't entirely bad, it helps keep everyone safe (ideally).
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
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The police are responding to people who are violating the law, not peaceful protesters.
But legally, you can violate the law and still be a peaceful protester. Or more accurately, the law applies differently when you are exercising your constitutional rights. The police can take actions based on there opinions, but whether they are legal or not is up to a judge to decided just as it is up to a judge to decide if the protesters actions are legal. In almost every major protest event like this that uses the Miami Model, the actions of the police fail to pass the threshold for legality. I would say that as a general rule, the police always lose a class action lawsuit (ask me how I know...).
Again, "being part of a crowd" does not make it legal for the police to take action against you. Individual probable cause is required for every charge a person is accused of. Using force against a person who is not reasonably suspected of a specific crime is no more lawful for a police officer then for you or I.
EDIT: Thanks for the good discussion everyone, see you tomorrow.
Functionally, probably not much.
Then you can't do it. The constitution is the highest law of the land. You cannot simply back door ban things you can't legally ban through the front door.
While I'm not a fan of giving up an inch of liberty for safety, letting the police have time to arrange for detours and close off streets is in everyone's best interest.
WHich isn't what they're doing. They're arresting people for standing there.
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The police are responding to people who are violating the law, not peaceful protesters.
Please explain to the class how journalists sitting in a McDonalds are violating the law, and what justified them being strong-armed into police custody, arrested, held without charges, and later told that they were lucky their recording devices and laptops weren't confiscated or destroyed?
While you're up there, tell us how it's okay for the Ferguson PD and STL County authorities to declare a No-Fly zone at an altitude of 3000 feet (which effectively limits the affected vehicles to media choppers) while masking the act as "public safety measures." Because the citizenry of Ferguson have aircraft that are a danger to the police?
And if you please, could you also explain how these things, along with the repeated, and well-documented cases of the Ferguson PD tear gassing and threatening to shoot journalists are not (a) blatant attempts to cover up any journalistic coverage of the last several days and (b) clear violations of the First Amendment?
The Ferguson PD, along with the STL county PD, have been systematically attempting to reduce and eliminate journalistic coverage of these events, since the protests began. On the first night of the peaceful protests, they rolled up in armored vehicles and started firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. They have repeatedly put snipers on the scene. They gassed a State Senator and arrested without charges one of the community Aldermen, for crying out loud.
These people are not violent protestors. They are journalists and elected officials.
The burden of proof is therefore on you to show how they are "people who are violating the law."
A 4 time felon charged a cop and got shot down.
A 4 time felon ran from a cop and was murdered for no reason because the officer never even knew about the robbery in the area.Which one is more believable. One has a couple friends of the 4 time felon saying "he didn't do anything" and the other has a couple people who don't know the officer or the 4 time felon who say they saw him come at the cop.
If you are referring to the shooting victim, Michael Brown, as a "4 time felon," then you have just given up all hope of credibility in this argument, and I suggest you check your sources. I would suggest you go check Wikipedia, which cites numerous sources of truth, including this one that clearly points out that Brown had no criminal record.
As well, the autopsy results as provided by Dr. Michael M. Baden are consistent with wounds that would be suffered by someone who was kneeling, with their hands in the air.
I have said this to others many times, even here on these boards, but I will say them again:
You are entitled to your opinions. You are allowed to think and believe what you want. You are not however, entitled to your own facts.
In this instance, the facts of this case are not consistent with your stated opinions. I would ask you to either clarify, or do your research. As such, you are either clearly choosing to believe the spin and blame-shifting being bandied about by people who want to make this a case of "dangerous black criminal assaults decent White All American Good Hearted Police Officer," or you are willfully ignoring the fact that a teenager was shot in broad daylight for jaywalking.