Bad Boys, Bad Boys
If nothing else, the OWS movement is helping ordinary Americans see the abuse of power that is so endemic in many police departments. I am tired of the quasi-cult of police ass-kicking on average citizens, as fed by reality cop shows and folks like Joe Arpaio. As Radley Balko points out, the casual way that the officer hoses down citizens who are just sitting on a curb with pepper spray is just outrageous. From past experience, my guess is that these guys were ready to go limp and be dragged off - the pepper spray was just pure torture for the entertainment of the cops.
We would not do this to a terrorist in Gitmo, so why are we doing this to American citizens? I think I get particularly angry and intolerant of this kind of crap because I used to be the kind of law and order conservative that would excuse this kind of behavior, and that embarrasses me. The saying goes that a converted Catholic is often more fervent than a born one, so to I guess for this civil libertarian.
"Why do you think I don’t deserve a response"
Because you fit the classic profile of a troll.
Although our Constitution gives us the right to demonstrate, it also gives others the right to go about their business unmolested. I gather that some believe that the right to protest has no limits, and that the police should just go away. This sounds absurd to me.
Many local businesses have suffered and the campsites have been polluted and damaged. Do those of you who decry the police intervention propose to pay for the damage and the loss of business?
I see some posts about the propaganda above - here is another post. Turns out the students agreed to be pepper sprayed before the incident occurred.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/11/it-figures-uc-davis-students-agreed-to-be-pepper-sprayed-before-incident-video/
So much for the outlandish charges by non-passive people resisting orders to disperse.
Mark (November 22, 2011, 9:46 pm),
Thank you! I've updated my post accordingly:
http://sbvor.blogspot.com/2011/11/pepper-spray-and-shameless-propaganda.html
Ted, SBVOR, Mark, et al.,
I think I've realized what is going on. It appears that you think all OWS protesters can be treated as a group. That is not the way law enforcement should work. The police have to treat them as individuals. The fact that some people obstructed access to businesses in some areas does not affect how students on a university quad should be treated, even if they have the same ideology. It doesn't even affect how different students on the same quad should be treated.
And, I'm sorry, do you really think it makes the police look better if the facts are that the police:
1) calmly walked up to one seated protestor and asked him if he wanted to be sprayed (something which is not in the video)
2) got an affirmative response
3) calmly pepper-sprayed a whole line of seated protestors?
You should probably rethink that. It really hurts the police case.
delurking,
No, what is going on is useful idiots such as yourself are mindlessly adhering to the (objectively verifiable) Marxist doctrine of political correctness:
http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/
In the UC Davis case, the “sainted victims” who can — per the doctrine of political correctness — never do any wrong are an angry mob of obnoxious spoiled brat moronic punks illegally engaged in overnight camping who CLEARLY threatened the Campus Police with violence and CLEARLY gave their verbal AND tacit consent to get sprayed with what must have been a VERY dilute mixture of pepper spray (so that they can go crying home to their Marxist mommy in the media screaming about how mistreated the poor little brats are):
http://sbvor.blogspot.com/2011/11/pepper-spray-and-shameless-propaganda.html
In this, I'm a little like Charles Foster Kane.
On one hand, I'd pay good money for the pleasure of spraying Mace in the faces of the Occupy Kiddies. On the other hand, to have the police casually inflict such corporeal punishment in advance of legal justification brothers me greatly.
When the real revolution comes, the unionized police will be the new Redcoats.
John the River (November 24, 2011, 3:17 pm),
There is no revolution pending in the USA.
There is, however, a very good chance of a very bloody civil war.
A revolution would only be likely or productive if we were a nation united in a common cause (like restoring a federal government which actually abides by the United States Constitution).
We are, instead (and, by design), a bitterly divided nation split almost right down the middle. Roughly half of the nation wants to complete the task of totally tossing aside the United States Constitution. Combine that bitter divide with all of Western Civilization utterly collapsing under the unbearable weight of the entitlement mentality and you have the perfect recipe for civil war and blood running in the streets. The OWS mayhem is the prelude to the prologue.
It will not be pretty and it will not be productive.
Can you imagine a spontaneous revolution preceding that civil war?
A sort of prime the pump type activity.
Considering that the productive half of society would, of necessity, stop contributing to the entitlement state to gear up for war, the entitled half would (justifiably?) feel the sharp sting of deprivation leading to ...what? What would they do? What could they do?
Nothing like this situation has ever been experienced in human history that I can think of.
from: http://proteinwisdom.com/
What really happened at UC Davis?
[quote] ELLI PEARSON: Well, we were protesting together, and the riot cops came at us, and we linked arms and sat down peacefully to protest their presence on our campus. And at one point, they were -— we had encircled them, and they were trying to leave, and they were trying to clear a path. And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us. But we were on the ground, you know, heads down. And all I could see was people telling me to cover my head, protect myself, and put my head down. And the next thing I know, I was pepper-sprayed. [end quote][emphasis in proteinwisdom]
Case dismissed.
And no, it is not acceptable to scapegoat a couple of riot police or a university Chancellor just to quell the emotional demands of mobs, or to sate a public outcry manipulated by a hostile press. For context, consider: How many police have been injured nationwide in these “protests”? Because by this sophomore’s own admission, the police were trying to leave and it was the protesters who decided to prevent them from doing so.