Here's how a protest should be: Although of course you can't help but feel the cops are more sympathetic to their cause than the protest in question.
I dont agree with the gun bit, for the most part since I own several and I vote and Every gun owner I know and am friends with votes, and it has little to do with my trying to be the man and more to the point of, I like to hunt and its more along the lines of something I and my friends enjoy, though of course there's always those out there That make the rest of us look bad, and when it comes right down to it, if someone wants a gun badly enough, no law is going to stop them. As for the US pop, your right, I encounter maybe a dozen intelligient people a year, the rest of this country is nothing more than go along with the flow and let it all happen. So spot on for the culture of anti-intellectualism, I can easily see the US going towards a totalitarian or military state in the future, and I dont mean 100 years from now, i mean a decade maybe two or three.
Other examples include book burning in Nazi Germany (amongst others) and the persecution of intellectuals under Mao's Cultural Revolution. That's kind of funny, because I can imagine living in a world without you. Don't be too down on the hippies. Like the soliders in Iraq and Afghanistan, at least they are prepared to take personal risks to defend what they believe in. What are you doing to defend your civil rights, except demanding that they are taken away from others for an illusory sense of safety?
You say such hurtful things, I swear, it's just to keep me in therapy I'm not demanding anything, I just find it funny when they get a billyclub in the face. Especially in this situation, where she seems to be just as happy to be a ***** to the cop, who is doing his job (Although, it does seem like he enjoys it a little much), and then whines when he uses force (Possibly unreasonable, we don't know what happened before the camera gets to them). I find the whole thing pretty funny. 'Peaceful' to me, at least, does not involve shouting and being abusive towards cops. Admittedly, it was probably the few who ruined it for the rest in this situation, but it's still not 'peaceful' when someone is acting like a *****, and saying (Not quite shouting, but hey) "****ing do it again". I'd happily join the army the day we're dealing with a real threat to our way of life. What's happening in Iraq/Afghanistan is simply not defense. Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for our soldiers/pilots/engineers, metric ****-tonnes of my respect infact, but what they've been sent to do is not defending us from anything. Admittedly this is a huge dose of 20/20 hindsight, but I never believed that Iraq was a threat to us in the way the media protrayed it. However, this is HUGELY off topic, so I'm going to stop there :B I've never had to take personal risk to defend what I believe in (I was very vocal about the VCR bill and its effect on airsoft), but there was NEVER a need for it to involve personal risk - Skirmishers across the country got our point across without needing to be billy-clubbed, or to abuse police, or to egg politicians. I would take personal risk to defend my rights if it were nessecary, but as I said, for me it never has been.
In a single post you simultaneously denigrate people trying to stand up for what they believe in while also stating you would fight for something you believe in. Some people think going to war under false pretense is something to stand up and hold people accountable for, people have different values on different things.
Standing up for what you believe in does not need to involve being billy clubbed in the face for being a ***** to a cop. To say it does is simply the most stupid perspective ever. There was absolutely no need for that person to act like that, she was just being a *****, and hiding behind 'standing up for her beliefs' is no defense for being a *****. As for holding people accountable for the invasion of sandland? Good luck with that one. Governments are especially good at denying that they ****ed up, protesting now is a waste of everybodies time - They're not suddenly going to think "Well, ****, I was a complete moron" pick up the phone and order the removal of troops from the warzone. Simply isn't going to happen, it never has, and never will work like that. Yes people DO need to be held accountable, but it's not going to happen. Sitting around with signs isn't going to change that, getting yourself smashed in the face with a club isn't going to help, it's just going to make people think you're stupid. Frankly, if you believe that a medical bill is a great way to protest something, then you probably are. I'm not going to change your mind, and you certainly are not going to change mine.
Yeah, but it's a good hurt. I totally agree with you on both points (see? It does happen ). The protest descended into immature petty squabbling from both sides, hippies and cops, as it is unfortunately frequently wont to do. This tends to obfuscate the whole point of the protest. Thing is, just because cops and hippies invite each other into childish playground fighting, does not mean we have to be the kids standing in a circle cheering the fight on. We'd just be buying into the same immature dynamic. There are more mature, adult, wise (and in the cops' case) professional ways of handling conflict. And since this is part of a cop's job, I expect a bit more from them in that department than from a bunch of emo student hippies. The price of being the professional is that you have to be the professional... The soldiers are out there for the wrong reason, of course. But we can blame the government who sent them more than the soldier who signed up mostly for (naively) idealistic motives. Like the hippies, another example of best intentions turning into a messy scrap.
Not exactly how I'd phrase it, but pretty accurate from what I've seem. Wow, rather arrogantly judgemental, don't you think? I'd expect this type of closed-mindedness stereotyping from the others who love to bash the US population at any chance they get, but not you. Right now all the media is talking about is how the VP nominee's 17 yr old daughter is 5 months pregnanet, how McCain is saying Obama's VP choice is more qualified than Obama is, etc etc. Useless media doesn't talk about the issues at hand, or the party's respective stances. The way things are going, many people are going to base their vote on predetermined biases, and possibly the presidential debate.
That's all well and good, but from experience, doing as they say may get you into ALOT more trouble than you should be in.
That would suck, because I do read alot, use my brain, actually vote, am left handed, and wear glasses and have a red beard I'll be the first one to go it seems.
sadly intellectuals always be the first to go in a society which is run by idiocy, as they are the naysayers and can be made into an easy target.
Wow, that is disturbing to see. hitting that woman like that, uncalled for... i keep telling my father that we're turning into our enemies we've faced in the past. seems like the more i say it, bam, something else in the news, just keeps proving me right..
Well, it's only taken 3 1/2 years, but finally you've come around to my way of thinking. Thank christ.
If you mean the sweepingly harsh judgmentality, I'm the guy sitting on a deck chair with a beer, waiting for you to catch up.
I see nothing wrong with protesting, but if you do inform the police when/where/how many and then do what they tell you on the day. Even people with the most noble of intentions are made to look like mindless idiotic thugs when a protest turns violent.
