And so the Gestapo tactics begin (OWS)

The BBQ Pit
161

To what purpose did you do all this?

The OP is about police kicking in a guy’s door on the pretext of an unpaid ticket with the much more obvious purpose of intimidating someone whose politics they dislike (or more to the point that their masters dislike).

We have pointed out to you the OWS movement is nationwide and comprises many, many thousands of people.

Congratualtions, you found some people in a very large, loosely run, very open group who are criminals.

There are pedophiles in the Catholic priesthood. You have a group of people, some of that group have committed a horrible crime. Tell me what to you that indicates about priests as a whole (for the moment separating the Catholic church’s appalling efforts to cover it up)?

162

It says no such thing.

It expresses a desire to manage their own community if possible without police involvement and expressly tells people they will support them if they go to the police.

163

No. Any legislation by Congress is subject to Judicial Review. Congress cannot restrict rights at whim. If the SCOTUS voids a law, the law is voided.

164

The post you quoted made reference specifically to the “constitutionally protected rights”, aka “enumerated rights”. Those are the ones SCOTUS is supposed to protect.

Other, non-enumerated rights, are supposed to be under the purview of the states or the people.

If Congress and the SCOTUS would be following their proper roles, gamerunknown’s post would be correct. Currently, they don’t, so it is SCOTUS who can restrict or grant rights at whim, enumerated or not.

Regards,
Shodan

165

So we have your solemn assurance that the police would get called.

But what I picture is an agony of indecision. “I know elucidator woud want us to report this,” wails my imagined OWS participant, “but this publication tells us to just get the security committee! Oh, what to do?”

Look, I think you know a certain breed of OWS’ers. I think you know the folks that are not exactly strangers to protest and understand a little bit about human nature, and know what they’re doing. In the soup kitchen and shelter where I volunteer, we have a curious mixture of right-leaning religious folks and left-leaning true believers of their own sort. All of them have been doing this work long enough to know when to leave things alone and when the shit is serious and the cops need to be called. Not a one would ever leave a rape or sexual assault unreported, never.

And those folks, or their spiritual brethern, are (I suspect) who you know wherever you are.

But OWS has attracted a bunch of newbies, too. Innocents, happy to be part of a cause, but with no bruises yet from their work. Those are the folks that are gazelles for the human predators, and those are the folks that think they don’t need police becauser they can create a people’s security committee and handle things without John Law.

And if you insist that this second breed doesn’t exist: you’re fooliing yourself.

166

I made an initial comment regarding the OP. I’ve lurked here for years, but never really posted much, but I took some offense to the thread title because I knew people (now deceased) who were tortured by the real Gestapo. I also have a general distaste for people using Nazis as shorthand for anything even vaguely authoritarian that they don’t like because they (the Nazis) were so much more and so much worse than that. — Nothing to do with OWS, politics, crime, and certainly not the Catholic friggin priesthood. I got sucked into an unrelated argument, I kept finding cites that I felt refuted other’s statements and my ego wouldn’t let me shut up.

Let me state unequivocally that I believe the Occuppy movement is nothing more or less than it claims to be. I don’t believe that Occupy, or the people involved in it are a homogenous group at all (and I never said that). I don’t think there is some secret council of evil puppet masters pulling strings. I don’t think its a phalanx of criminals. I am not even entirely at odds with some of the grievances that it attempts to give voice to.

At the same time, I think it’s naive at best or disingenuous at worst to deny some creepy stuff has gone on at the sites and amongst A FEW mambers. That’s what got me started. There appeared to me to be a certain amount of denial going on. I’m not even terribly interested in the whole thing, but when somebody says “show me just one” and I know I’d read and seen numerou credible reports, or someone “there are no spokespeople” and I’d seen them, I couldn’t resist.OK, there’s no-one with a business card that says spokesperson. But the “councils” do elect people to speak.

How that devolved into Rush Limbaugh and the NRA and the Catholic Church I frankly don’t know. I don’t subcribe to any of those. But then again, I can see how you all can get addicted to this arguing shit.

I am not trying to paint all the protesters with an Anarchist brush. But to deny they (Anarchists) are a part of the movement is dishonest, too. Even if they are just using it for cover or a place to crash or whatever. The whole Occupy movement is, by design, set up to eschew traditional leadership - I get that. At the same time that eliminates any responsibility. By accident or design it provides the ultimate in “plausible deniability”. Ultimately, even the Catholic Church was forced to be accountable at some level - and forced to take some responsibility for it’s actions/inactions (regardless whether one believes true justice is being served) because it was organized - there were leaders who made decisions and (eventually) got called on it. I would, in fact argue that you could paint a significant portion of that organization with a brush of culpability for their denial.

167

Bricker:

But that’s not what you said. (Well, actually, you didn’t right out say much of anything, you implied the one thing, hinted at the other and slipped an innuendo in between.) But the gist of it was that police don’t get called, because the hive mind walks in lock step with their non-leadership. Which is absurd on the face of it, because it depends on a uniformity of motivations and responses that doesn’t actually exist.

Your proof consists of one quote from Bloomberg and your assurances that it is “similar” to “numerous” reports that you have personally sifted through with your typical non-partisan objectivity.

Ah! So you would like to move the argument onto grounds where you think you will win? Would you like a turnip, there were a bunch of them on the truck I just fell off of. Sure they do. They may even be “numerous”. Be that as it may, it only takes one person with a cell phone to say “Fuck that shit, I’m calling the cops!” One. Count 'em, one.

I’ve an idea! Since you have personally sifted through these “numerous” and “similar” reports, you likely have them right at your fingertips, no? You could offer them. We can all read. Unless you’re bluffing, of course, in which case I recommend you shift the argument onto sophistic and legalistic grounds, where you shine.

But as it stands, you are left asserting that out of a crowd of thousands, no one, not even one! called the cops. Ridiculous. Did you consider the alternative possibility, that they were called but didn’t respond, or didn’t respond in a timely fashion? Is that impossible, is that why you did not mention it, because everybody knows that the cops just love, love, love scruffy protesters, and are eager to protect them?

We should trust your objective judgement on this? Aren’t you the guys who said, in post #174, asked which group is worse:

The “group” doing that? You’re not painting with a broad brush, Counselor, but with a fire hose. I either have to believe that you knew that wasn’t true when you said it, or you are too stupid to make your own oatmeal.

And on this basis you insist that I trust your objective judgment, free from the taint of bias? Who are you kidding?

168

I guess you missed the other link I provided.

How many more do you want?

Even their own press release suggests a reluctance to get police involved:

Good thing for the rest of the world he refused, huh? Or else their sanction would have been kicking him out, period.

How many more cites would you like?

169

Yes, yes – the group isn’t doing that. The group is merely setting up ideal opportunities for predators who wish to rape women in tents to do so with minimal risk.

170

Rapes commonly go unreported to police. Wondering if you can find a way to blame it on OWS.

I wonder why?

UC Davis protestors pepper sprayed (they were just sitting there)

NYPD pepper spray women (they were not doing anything untoward)

Scott Olsen shot in head with rubber bullet (he was provoking no one)

171

Question wasn’t how many do I want, question was how many you actually have, what real number is hidden behind the word “numerous”. So, four is it? Why didn’t you say “four” if that is the case? Were you perhaps reluctant to admit that the New York Post qualifies in your estimation as a worthy and respectable cite? Good for one thing, been a long time since I saw the words “sex fiend” in print. Even longer since I have seen a story pushed forward by Andrew Breitbart treated with the respect usually reserved for legitimate news outlets. Had hoped it would be much longer, but alas, no.

But “reluctance” isn’t quite what you said.

You presume.

How many more cites would you like?
[/QUOTE]

Ah, good one! Suggest the overwhelming power of citation at your beck and call, without actually providing any such. Do the rest of them compare with the dignity and firm commitment to truth of Breitbart and the New York Post? Gotta watch out for those sex fiends!

Counselor, you are as slippery as a catfish in a barrel of motor oil.

172

And again, that isn’t what you said. What you actually said was much much stronger than this. Maybe it might be a good idea to say what you mean in the first place. Then your reputation as an honest and straight forward debater would not suffer. Such as it is.

173

Nice job on totally shifting the original topic of the discussion.

Good job! <golf clap>

I’m surprised that we’re not all arguing about the historical importance of the Byzantine empire in terms of modern tax policy at this point.

As I recall, the point of the matter is:

Police have used the pretext of an old outstanding minor ticket to break down the door of some dirty smelly hippies (DSH) and arrest some of them, while intimidating the rest. This was done because the DSH might have been going to protest something, and the authorities did not want them to do that. Thus the intimidation.

Is this the right thing or the wrong thing for our police to be doing? Do we want this tactic to be standard operating policy? Just for DSH? or for anyone that those in power do not like?

174

The police went to the very limit of what the law allows, without violating it, also known as the “I’m not touching you” approach. The only argument you’re going to get will be from posters saying, “What? He’s not touching him, is he?”

175

Yeah, OK, but I’m not quite done. If the OWS had set up a feast for sexual predators, an “all you can rape” buffet, shouldn’t there have been many more such incidents? Unless, of course, that isn’t true. I’m leaning towards that, in lieu of an explanation for this anomaly.

OK, now I’m done, the witness may slink away.

176

Good stuff! Anybody got anything comparable on those nasty Teabaggers?

177

Apples and oranges.

Did Teabaggers setup camps around the nation and stage their protests 24/7 for weeks or months straight?

Near as I can tell they showed up for a couple hours then went home.

178

With apologies, I’m cross posting this from another thread, but what the heck.

I believe that this is the thinking process behind those that believe that the it’s perfectly OK that the police have used the pretext of an old outstanding minor ticket to break down the door of some dirty smelly hippies (DSH) and arrest some of them, while intimidating the rest.

Basically, they need to convince themselves that This Could Never Happen to Me. Here’s how the thought process goes:

  • This was a terrible thing that happened. People should not be intimidated because of their political beliefs.
  • It was done by the Authorities.

BUT

  • Authority is a good thing
  • I must always be obedient to Authority

WORRY

  • Could this happen to me or my friends?
  • Could the Authority target me for my political beliefs? This could be bad!

SO

  • It must have been someone else’s fault.
  • Think, think… whose fault could it have been?

AHA…

  • It was the Dirty Fucking Hippie’s fault.
  • DFH’s are “other”. They are not like me.
  • I am not a DFH

THEREFORE:

  • I have nothing to fear from Authority. My life can go on as before, and I don’t have to think about this anymore.
179

I know some here actively dislike OWS but if they had a clue this would bother them deeply.

180

But they’ve been doing it for alot longer.

How much violence, trash, etc would you expect of them then? Maybe 50%… 25%…