StrangeSox

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:39 PM) I think adding the vector of left/right here is silly, I really don't think the police response (on a large level) is different due to that. Might an occasional officer act differently for different protests? Maybe, they are human beings. But honestly, the idea that this happened because they are liberal is unfounded in any sort of evidence. This is a general theme of police responses to leftist protests, not specific incidents. Leftist protests are frequently met with use of large numbers of riot police. I do not know if partisan political ideology drove that officer to his actions but I'd more readily attribute it to ol' fashioned authoritarianism. I drew comparisons to the Penn State riot because that was clearly not a partisan political thing. I'd like to know these details a little more. My understanding is that the students had set up a camp site in public space on the UCD quad. They were told by the President of UCD to vacate because they were violating a campus rule against camping or something like that, and at some point the police moved in and began dismantling the camp site. The students then formed a ring on the quad and sat down in nonviolent protest. I'm not sure if they were actually trespassing. I'm not saying that they shouldn't have been removed, I'm just not exactly sure on what ordinance/rule/law or whatever they were violating. I'll add that a somewhat recent SCOTUS ruling found that an unlawful order by the police is still not grounds to resist legally, so even if they were within their rights to stay there, once the police told them to leave, that's that. At least that's my vague recollection of that case and the application to the current situation. Yup.

Oh, that poll again? http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/are...orge-mason.html

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:22 PM) Speaking of lying... There have plenty plenty of left wing protests since 1999 that didn't end in violence. Again the vast majority of them. But don't let that this wonderful rant. Many left-wing protests are met with a militarized police response. I didn't say they are always or mostly met with violence, though some are.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:17 PM) I bet if you polled people and asked would you want drastic spending cuts or a mix of tax/fee increases and smaller cuts, the vast majority would go with option 1. Might not like how the owners/republicans are going about it, but the end result is what they agree with. Those polls have been done repeatedly over the past year(s) and the results have been heavily in favor of a mixed approach. Even among Republicans there's decent support for a mixed approach. This is from the summer but a good indication: http://www.capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/b...er-taxes-really

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:13 PM) Hahaha. All is justified. The same lack of accountability you so decry in teachers unions is a matter of intense justification for the police. They can never be wrong, they can never be punished. Merely questioning authority is enough justification for any punishment said authority might dish out!

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:14 PM) Because police departments are not part of some giant conspiracy, or even in any communication with each other for the most part. They act differently, that's the nature of the beast. Do you think the chief of the Happy Valley PD is on the phone with Davis PD every morning over coffee to talk shop? This goes back to Balta's earlier post regarding the militarized response that's common to left-wing protests since WTO/Seattle '99, but it wasn't actually serious beyond wondering about the disparity of force. I can't imagine that the Happy Valley PD would have responded the same way to an anarchist smash-and-grab riot as they did to the JoePa! riot.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:12 PM) Trespassing+disobeying the police to start with. Not just "sit on the ground". Yes, just sitting on the ground. It was a public space on their own campus. It was nonviolent civil disobedience and that never justifies police brutality. Hey man, cops said to get outta the street! Your fault!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:11 PM) They shouldn't have been. But then again that was probably the product of police following your ideals of not doing anything. Stop lying, please.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:08 PM) I don't have a problem with the Republican's stance against any new revenues. Though to be fair, i'm not sure what the Democrats proposed. If its a "new revenue" in terms of simply rolling back some of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, I'm fine with that and agree that they need to be rolled back. If it's some more bulls*** "we're not raising taxes just fees and costs for EVERYTHING just so we can continue to spend money," then no. It was continuing the Bush tax cuts for everyone in the lower brackets but letting the top one sunset. Republicans adamantly refused any considerations of new revenues, even though their tax cuts are what blew a lot of the big wholes in the budget. I don't know how you can support a hardline stance against any new revenues while also decrying budget deficits. If they're such an awful problem, use the best tools available to fix them. Don't just target the same welfare state programs you always have hated while proposing even more tax cuts. You mean there wouldn't be a problem if the Republicans weren't forcing everyone to change the rules in their favor? False. Strong majorities of Americans favored a balanced approach. Republican GOP candidates would reject a 10-1 deal. This is a bizarre interpretation of both the NBA owners' lockout of the players and what's actually happened here. The Republicans want to cut the same programs they've always wanted to cut, protect the ones they like (DOD!) and also cut taxes. Yet they're the ones with serious, good-faith proposals? And the Democrats, who have offered substantial welfare state program cuts in return for smaller revenues, are playing "only on their terms"? What sort of bizzarro world do you live in?

Gotta wonder, why were students participating in a nonviolent left-wing protest at UCD brutalized by police actions while Penn State students were allowed to riot over losing a football coach?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:05 PM) Are you shifting yours? All all along you have played this to be some kind of completely innocent situation. Now you have evidence that they were warned, and didn't react. This is exactly what I have said all along. They wanted this, and they got it. The 50 people standing around with cameras only furthers that proof. No, my point the entire time has been that these actions were completely unjustified police brutality. You've defended their actions multiple times and in multiple ways. Warning that "hey, we're going to spray you in the face with highly concentrated pepper spray at very close range because you're sitting on the ground' does not in any way, shape or form justify those actions. It's a disgusting abuse of authority. To restate the point, if the the protesters wanted to get brutalized by the police for media coverage (an assumption, not a fact), and all they had to do was sit on the ground, that's an indictment of the police, not of protesters.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:01 PM) The students were presented with a chance to leave and had clear warning. To me, that is pretty convincing. Convincing of what? Are you shifting your goalposts now and claiming that "not listening to an order and being forewarned about police brutality" is justification for police brutality?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 01:24 PM) If officers are facing a dangerous situation, I have no problem with that response. The problem is that many times the dangers aren't going to be visible in the camera shot, which is the point. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 10:36 AM) This doesn't happen for absolutely no reason. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 10:49 AM) The target itself doesn't need to be the reason the violence happens. And yes, I have no reason to believe that police just happen to walk up to a random group of people and begin assaulting them for no reason at all. I have been at plenty of protests, very large, and very small, and have never seen the police react violently. Heck, even at times where people probably deserved a baton upside the head, they haven't gotten it. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 01:10 PM) Massive assumption there, and a leap of faith I am not willing to make at this time. Way too much goes on with creative editing to make a case for one side or another to make this assumption. Protests happen all of the time all over the United States, and a miniscule amount of them end in police violence. There is a very good reason for that. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 01:13 PM) IF that was all that was done, which I really, really doubt it was, it was not justified. Like I said, I seriously doubt that was all that was going on there. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 01:20 PM) I can't answer that by simply trusting one video. My guess would be something else was going on there which was the trigger point. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 01:26 PM) But if you want to draw sympathy you set up someone with a video camera trained on the people not doing anything wrong, while people outside of the camera shot throw rocks, or throw bottles, or threaten police officers, attack police lines etc. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 01:33 PM) And your point has been that these sweet and innocent people would never do anything wrong ever, and it doesn't matter what they do. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 01:41 PM) I particularly enjoyed the cops letting everyone stand around to film them in their planned brutality practice sessions. Pretty smart if you are going to be beating up a bunch of people. At least we can all agree how wrong this is now and that there was no "dangerous situation" present that necessitated spraying. If students "got what they wanted" ie police brutality in response to nonviolent civil disobedience, that's a negative for the police, not protesters.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 11:55 AM) And there you go. Yup, clearly shows zero reason to spray them.

btw thanks for the link to a video clearly showing zero provocation for the spraying from multiple angles.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 11:43 AM) If they were warned beforehand that they were gonna get sprayed, and they said "ok", should they be as outraged as they are that they actually got sprayed? Just shows that they got the result they desired. Yes, they should be, violent police actions on people sitting on the ground are never justified because someone says "ok"

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 10:45 AM) Apparently California casinos do not allow dice games to be played. Instead, craps is played with the dealer drawing a card from each of two piles of Ace to 6. The odds are the exact same, but it takes away all the fun and the game goes way too quick. It'd also take away dice-rolling skill and make it a completely randomized game.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 11:02 AM) I"m fully aware of the fact that police can purchase chemical agents at different concentrations and volumes than private citizens can. I just never thought about it as a military thing, other than military police. It's probably some label someone made up to make it sound scarier than "pepper spray." Which is sorta fine imo because "pepper spray" sounds pretty innocuous compared to what it actually does.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 11:04 AM) Not sure how you are disagreeing with me. Unless you are saying the Republicans are 100% at fault, whereas I was hinting at more like 75%. Right, if two sides come to the negotiating table and one side will not accept any offer at all except the one that meets every one of their demands and gives zero in return, it's hard to blame the other party for any of the failure.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 10:22 AM) Is that Newt? yup. I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with that: I don't know how you can accuse the Democrats of failing when success was impossible unless they simply gave in to every Republican demand. And I'll highlight that the Republicans were adamant on making an 11-figure hole in the budget permanent, belying any notion that they're actually serious about deficit reduction.

"The Congressional Budget Office is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated." I repeat my early question.

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/20/ucdeyetwitness.html

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 08:15 PM) We need one for our security system, the cell is the backup. But the phone itself is a cordless If I cut your phone line, does your system go down?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 06:15 PM) He is an insurance agent dumbass. Lol

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 21, 2011 -> 03:28 PM) Hopefully about 10 people buy tickets and the players realize they better accept the owners' deal and start playing some f***ing basketball. You realize its a lockout and not a strike, right?