# "How we 86'd a police office from our protected space" - The most sensitive anarchists ever! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 20, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300 "2010-07-20T00:36:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/61 "2010-07-20T17:54:57Z")
What does tipping have to do with anarchism? ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/62 "2010-07-20T17:55:56Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > The coffee is fine, but the tea tastes awful. But what do you expect from a bunch of people who think proper tea is theft? I can’t decide if I love you or want to hang you from the nearest lamppost. Maybe both. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/63 "2010-07-20T17:57:08Z")
That’s a specific form of anarchy. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/64 "2010-07-20T18:06:22Z")
My University was chock full of shitheads like that in the 80’s. The retarded illogic in their views made my brain want to explode when I had the misfortune of trying to talk to one of them. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/65 "2010-07-20T19:01:33Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > The coffee is fine, but the tea tastes awful. But what do you expect from a bunch of people who think proper tea is theft? _Slams **JacobSwan’s** head repeatedly into the wall_😃 ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/66 "2010-07-20T20:31:35Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > _Slams **JacobSwan’s** head repeatedly into the wall_😃 I’m just surprised I managed to get in there first. The coffee comment was such an obvious setup. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/67 "2010-07-20T20:36:06Z")
I went to an anarchist cafe once. I was asked to pay in dry spaghetti. The coffee was actually tea and an employee hiding in the rafters dumped a bucket of confetti on me while the clerk behind the register smashed a cream pie into my face. I managed to get out just before a flashbang blew out all the windows. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/68 "2010-07-20T20:56:21Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > My understanding is that Anarchy is the belief that society should function without hierarchy and that all decisions should be consensus based. As such, they would tend to see a big difference between some random guy like me (an unwilling participant in an oppressive system only needing to be liberated and shown the way) and a cop (someone who has made it their calling to be an actual instrument of the oppressors and is actively helping to maintain an oppressive and unjust system). Or something. Then the owner should have polled all customers and only asked the cop to leave if there was a consensus, right? Actually, the owner should have polled all anarchists in the Portland area to see if there was a consensus on that decision, or should it be Anarchists of America? of the World? That’s going to be tough to get anything done. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/69 "2010-07-20T21:21:27Z")
I prefer to transact for coffee (or any hot liquid) in an environment of relative calm, but all bets are off when it comes to [burgers](http://www.theonion.com/articles/downtown-mcdonalds-perpetually-a-hairsbreadth-from,203/). ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/70 "2010-07-20T21:29:29Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > Then the owner should have polled all customers and only asked the cop to leave if there was a consensus, right? > > Actually, the owner should have polled all anarchists in the Portland area to see if there was a consensus on that decision, or should it be Anarchists of America? of the World? > > That’s going to be tough to get anything done. There is no owner. It is a collective. You have, however, identified one of the big problems with Anarchy. It is pretty much impossible to get shit done (if I am in a collective of 20 people and 19 of them want to do something a particular way I can “move to block” and it won’t get done) and meanwhile entities that have a hierarchical structures take decisive action and walk all over the consensus based groups. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/71 "2010-07-20T21:30:58Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > I have not been around for a while, and I had forgotten how incapable on honesty and nuanced thinking that you are. My bad. Also not up to speed on which forum you are posting in, either. > [@](#): > > You really see no difference between a culturally and economically dominant group passing laws to codify unequal treatment of a non- dominant group and an Anarchist collective establishment asking a police officer to leave? Really? Discrimination is discrimination, obviously. For most people, the statements “we don’t like niggers round here” and “we don’t like pigs round here” are pretty much equivalent. Not for everyone, worse luck. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/72 "2010-07-20T22:02:22Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > I went to an anarchist cafe once. I was asked to pay in dry spaghetti. The coffee was actually tea and an employee hiding in the rafters dumped a bucket of confetti on me while the clerk behind the register smashed a cream pie into my face. > > I managed to get out just before a flashbang blew out all the windows. That was a Surrealist cafe. Common mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/73 "2010-07-20T22:15:13Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Also not up to speed on which forum you are posting in, either. Discrimination is discrimination, obviously. For most people, the statements “we don’t like niggers round here” and “we don’t like pigs round here” are pretty much equivalent. > > Not for everyone, worse luck. > > Regards, > Shodan I can’t say that I find you incapable of honesty and nuanced thinking? It this part of the kinder, gentler dope? Has this place become that milquetoast? What a shame. Sorry if I hurt your tender feelings. I think that you will find that most people are smart enough to see the difference between not wanting a disadvantaged group in a particular establishment and not wanting agents of the very system that makes it possible for there to _be_ disadvantaged groups in the establishment. Your comparison is obviously logically flawed and designed to create a false equivalency where none exists. Presumable because it serves your relentless defense of an oppressive system and anything that cloaks itself in a badge or a flag. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/74 "2010-07-20T22:44:11Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > I have not been around for a while, and I had forgotten how incapable on honesty and nuanced thinking that you are. My bad. > [@Shodan](#): > > Also not up to speed on which forum you are posting in, either. > [@Binarydrone](#): > > I can’t say that I find you incapable of honesty and nuanced thinking? It this part of the kinder, gentler dope? Has this place become that milquetoast? What a shame. Sorry if I hurt your tender feelings. MODERATOR NOTE **Binarydrone**. Since this is still IMHO, you can’t attack a poster, only their ideas. This isn’t a warning, just a suggestion to cool the rhetoric. **samclem** +, Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/75 "2010-07-20T23:28:05Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Now I’m wondering what characteristics of mine might trigger someone to ask me to leave a place. > . In my case it’s the overpowering body odour. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/76 "2010-07-20T23:50:03Z")
Not sure why this thread arrived yesterday, as this happened a couple of months ago, but… …it’s important to point out that there’s lots of tension between the Portland Police and many diiferent resident communities (more when this happened back in May) due to a series of what could have been interpreted as wrongful shootings - namely that the Police were involved in a number of shootings where it was questionable whether shooting rather than other non-lethal means could have been used, and whether a “blue wall” was going up to protect the officers involved. Here’s [one](http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/03/second_fatal_portland_police_s.html) article about shooting number 2 that happened a little before this coffee shop thing. This sparked several protests, which I’m sure begat this incident. Seeing as how they’re anarchists and all. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/77 "2010-07-21T00:02:26Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t want Democrats in my store. My right? > > I don’t want same-sex marriage supporters in my store. My right? > > I don’t want illegal immigrants in my store, nor those that advocate in any way for illegal immigrants. My right? You of all people are making this argument? Seriously? Of course it’s your right, in the sense that I was using “right.” It astonishes me that you’d object to that. **Shodan’s** post is not nearly so astonishing. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/78 "2010-07-21T00:25:10Z")
FWIW, discrimination isn’t discrimination, any more than violence is violence, or romance is romance. These are things with degrees. Claiming this is like Jim Crow is to show massive ignorance of Jim Crow, just as claiming that the cop is racist (since he doesn’t know from Jim Crow) is to show massive ignorance of how racism works. There are plenty of circumstances when someone may discriminate against or in favor of someone because of their job, and it’s okay. I guarantee that cop has gotten free coffee at some other restaurant simply because of his job; that’s clearly discrimination. If discrimination is discrimination, then a cop getting free coffee=a black man getting lynched. Fortunately, discrimination isn’t discrimination. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/79 "2010-07-21T01:04:50Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Whoops. I just randomly assumed this was in the Pit. I do apologize. :smack: Reported my post. **Moderator note:** Thanks for reporting this to us. No warning or anything, just let’s all remember to take it easy here. After all, it’s only our Humble Opinions, and not stand-or-die positions on life’s great questions. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300/80 "2010-07-21T01:14:31Z")
Let’s see them try this on someone that really matters. Like water department people do work in front of their store. “oh sorry, did you need water to make coffee? So sorry, it’ll be back on in a week. No flushing!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-86d-a-police-office-from-our-protected-space-the-most-sensitive-anarchists-ever/547300.md?page=5)