It's easy to judge how free a country is by the instances of wholesale violation of the liberty of the people.
It's easy to judge how free a county is by the instances of wholesale violation of the liberty of the people. Grand acts of tyranny are hard to ignore. Yet it is even more dismaying when you see the rights of individuals violated in ways which are routine or almost trivial, trampled under the boot of an indifferent bureaucracy and its officious minions.…
Article comments
26 - Cannonshop
#10 Lemmie, did you ask if the regulations (which are NOT laws, as they are made by an AGENCY, rather than through representative elective process) were necessary and just?
When an agency makes rules that can be enforced with...well, with force, it's essentially the same as the executive branch making law without need for a legislature.
Just because the practice is common, does not make it right.
27 - Cannonshop
#23 How does the organizer being a moron have anything to do with dancing, Lemmie? or any other form of NON violent protest? Unless and until you can demonstrate that those folks were there with weapons and intent to harm innocents or vandalize public property, your defense of the actions of the Park Police is, frankly, empty of content and long on emotion.
It also demonstrates a rather shocking lack of understanding as to what the First Amendment says in text, and why it says it. This was a public space, these people were harming NO ONE. Nobody got hurt until the police arrived and started hurting people.
There is a reason we fought the Cold War, Lemmie, there is a reason that the Soviets were the enemy, and it wasn't economics. There are literally hundereds of nations on earth with Authoritarian and Totalitarian systems where the police have a very free hand indeed in how they act, and the government has a very free hand indeed on what to send the cops (or Militia) to act ON.
We're different, or we're supposed to be, anyway.
28 - Lemmie
25# "And what did you find that supports your stance? How about some links?"
Okay.
All times approximate.
Adam Kokesh Interview (Link to YouTube)
1:35-1:40 "What we did in our demonstration [our intention] was to expose the brutal nature of the police force..."
3:35-3:37 "If you want to stand up to the police force...[join us]"
3:52-3:54 "We're going to stick it to them again..." (emphasis mine)
It is my belief that these comments demonstrate an intent on the part of Mr. Kokesh and friends to provoke a confrontation with the "brutal police force" and that they obviously plan on doing it "again".
Of course, it is also possible that all they wanted to do was simply dance around in defiance of "the MAN" for the TV camera and watch themselves on the news later.
29 - Clavos
Thank you, Lemmie for your links; i agree with you, that appears to be their intent.
Which proves the police were stupid and inept for having taken their bait.
30 - Cannonshop
#28 You can't provoke something that isn't there. The ease with which said provocation occurred maybe ought to give you pause, Lemmie, and maybe make you wonder if it's a good idea to have Law Enforcement that is so hair-trigger that they can be set off easily, and deliberately, by people who are NOT vandalizing property or harming bystanders.
31 - Cindy
Do we all then have the "right" to violate or ignore laws, rules, or regulations that we do not agree with?
Of course we do. We have the "right" to design our own social reality and be free from anyone else's imposed rules entirely. We have the right as animals born on this planet to live the way we wish and to repel and rebel and overthrow the ways of life that we have be told we must live by and insist on having a voice and a choice in the rules we live by. Anyone and any group which tries to thwart that and bend us and subject us to their "laws and order" on terms we did not participate in must be confronted with regard to its/their "right" to enforce its/their choices upon us.
The better question is who has the "right" to impose their rules upon anyone else?
32 - Cindy
Is Lemmie short for Lemming, btw?
33 - Cindy
pablo,
have you seen this?
34 - Cannonshop
Lemmie, do you understand that there is supposed to be a separation between what is law, and what is regulation? IIRC, there is no law against dancing in the monument, nor is there a law against protest. Laws are enacted by persons answerable to the public, Regulations are enacted by Bureaucrats, at a whim, or fiat, persons NOT answerable to the public. As I have said before, just because it has become common to place Regulation above Law in practice, does not make it right.
35 - Irene Athena
Ya wanted a nanny state, ya got a momma that don't allow no dancing...
...but...
...WE DON'T CARE WHAT MOMMA DON'T ALLOW, WE'RE GONNA KEEP ON DANCING ANYHOW!
36 - Cannonshop
What did we fight the cold war for, if, in the end, we end up with the same kind of "law enforcement" mentality that the Soviets had?
37 - Lemmie
27# "defense of the actions of the Park Police is, frankly, empty of content and long on emotion."
Cannon, when did I defend the actions of the police?
29# "Which proves the police were stupid and inept for having taken their bait."
No argument from me on this point, Clavos. They should have waited until the dancers finished their self-absorbed performance and then gave them the confrontation they sought in the parking lot. Maybe sent in the militia? Seriously, though, one wonders if the dancers had not received the attention they sought, would they have simply left the Monument, or would they have pushed onward until they got what the wanted? It appears to me that they are looking forward to making "victims" of themselves again on Saturday.
30# "You can't provoke something that isn't there."
Sure you can. I believe it is called self-fulfilling prophecy, though that may not be entirely applicable in this particular situation.
31# "We have the "right" to design our own social reality and be free from anyone else's imposed rules entirely."
Cindy, when one designs their own social reality, is their any sort of code, written or unwritten, that one should refer to, or is it "anything goes"? What, for example, would be in place to prevent my social reality (my rules) from encroaching on your social reality (your rules) in a way that is beneficial to me, yet detrimental to you?
32# "Is Lemmie short for Lemming...""
Is it too late to change my moniker to "Ferret"?
38 - Cannonshop
I don't know, Lemmie, your attention span isn't short enough for that from what I've seen. You just aren't ADHD enough for "Ferret" to stick.
(ooh, shiny...)
39 - Clavos
They should have waited until the dancers finished their self-absorbed performance and then gave them the confrontation they sought in the parking lot.
No, not if all they did was dance silently, then leave. If the police accosted them in the parking lot, it's the same situation as accosting them in the monument; only the locale is different. Better for the police to have simply watched, and, if there was no further action on the dancers' part, just let them go.
Seriously, though, one wonders if the dancers had not received the attention they sought, would they have simply left the Monument, or would they have pushed onward until they got what the wanted?
Unknowable. Had the police not interfered, we would now know, and if the dancers had done something that interfered with others, that would have been the time for police action.
It appears to me that they are looking forward to making "victims" of themselves again on Saturday.
Maybe. And the police bit.
Unfortunately.
40 - Irene Athena
If folks with Lemmie's mindset had maintained the upper hand in the days of the Civil Rights Movement, blacks would still be following the rules of segregation.
(That isn't intended as a compliment.)
41 - Irene Athena
That last thing I said might've been unfair to Lemmie. Maybe he really WOULDN'T have been the guy turning the pressure hose on the Freedom Fighters because they were "breaking rules just because they didn't like them."
One wonders though, if he believes there have been ANY recent incidents of law enforcement overreach.
42 - Cindy
...when one designs their own social reality, is their any sort of code, written or unwritten, that one should refer to, or is it "anything goes"? What, for example, would be in place to prevent my social reality (my rules) from encroaching on your social reality (your rules) in a way that is beneficial to me, yet detrimental to you?
Of course there are codes unwritten (there always are among social creatures) and perhaps even written--but we had best write them in pencil, lest new participants show up, or if we change our minds having tested them.
There are principles to living reasonably and fairly, such as--no one person or group of people has the right to enforce their rules upon anyone/everyone else...common sense things like that, which are reminiscent of the golden rule.
The key point here, Lemmie, is that we should each have a direct say in the social order--i.e. direct democracy. Decisions would flow horizontally, not from a top down. What we have now is rule by those above enforced upon those below. This is a huge problem in every system I have been intimately acquainted with.
My husband just spent three months in hospital and rehab. There is no end to the improvements that could have been made to his treatment if the power to create the rules rested in the hands of those involved on the ground. Instead, the procedures and methods were created by someone else, somewhere else and had to be followed by those present.
Why do you think our society contains the particular flaws it does? Bureaucracy is not a "natural" condition. Alvin Toffler made a lot of sense.
And don't even get me started on all the mental illness and violence created by a system of unequal power.
43 - Cindy
35
Well-expressed point, Irene. :-)
44 - Irene Athena
Good morning, Cindy!
You and I are working for the same goal from opposite directions, I think: less "system", more humanity. The smaller the central government, the larger role local government is going to have in determining what a citizen's life is going to look like. That would mean a lot more town meetings, where the voices of all interested parties would be heard.
45 - Irene Athena
I looked at your link, Cindy. "ADHOCRACY not bureaucracy." I like that.
46 - roger nowosielski
Hey, Cindy. My email address had changed. Get the new one from either Clavos or Mark.
Trust all's well.
47 - Tommy Mack
Two words come to mind: “wrongful arrest.” Had the police used Tasers, the outrage would be different but no less justified. Dancing near a statue is not a crime. Wrongful arrest is. Police are officials but they are not the government. What a bad day for the Public Affairs Office.
I am afraid I do not see this stupid incident as an abridgement of protected speech. Wrongful arrest abridges liberty. What a great day for lawyers.
Tommy
48 - Cannonshop
#47 it may come down to whether the regulation violates the 1st Amendment (I doubt there'll be case-law on that, it doesn't seem likely to be taken up or taken seriously-after all, nobody was killed.) The case for wrongful arrest, on the other hand, likely will NEVER reach a court, simply because the officers involved can point to the park regulation as the basis for their actions, and without a challenge to the legitimacy of the Regulation and/or policy in a court of law, they're pretty much not even going to get a day off unpaid (again, because nobody died or was seriously maimed in the incident.)
49 - Clavos
Good point (and a larger one) on the abridgement of liberty, Tommy.
50 - Lemmie
41# "That last thing I said might've been unfair to Lemmie. Maybe he really WOULDN'T have been the guy turning the pressure hose on the Freedom Fighters because they were "breaking rules just because they didn't like them."
Comparing Jim Crow laws to National Park Service regulations IS unfair. Using them to question the very essence of my character, even more so. Shame on you, Irene.
btw--Yes, Irene, I do find certain actions by certain law enforcement officials unacceptable, but I do not condemn law enforcement as a whole because of it.
"Shame, shame, shame"--Gomer Pyle, USMC.
I'll have you know that the ONLY people I ever turned a water hose on were my children when they were small.