Which raises an interesting point.
After Seattle in 1999, protestors were increasingly forced into ‘free speech zones’ or required to obtain permits to march with very specific routes.
All those crazy liberal hippies could lawfully protest (usually on a Saturday) feel all good about carrying their signs and chanting their slogans and go home.
Of course, absolutely nothing got changed.
The media ignored us, our elected representatives ignored us.
But heh, we felt better.
Whoop diddley shit.
Civil obedience is a nice way for liberals to let off steam but of course, absolutely nothing changed.
We weren’t even a blip on the radar.
Parks are usually considered part of the commons-the spaces that we, the people, are entitled to use for assembly.
If I channel my inner Bachman, I could argue that the founding fathers nevered attempted to obtain the legal writs to gather in Boston.
Or if I wanted to get all Goodwin, I could argue in Germany, in the 1930’s, the racial laws made the detention and deportment of Jews and the confiscation of their property legal.
One of the ways totalitarian governments suppress their populations by getting judges to write the laws that makes their suppression legal.
Should protestors expect to be subject to arrest if they break the laws?
Absolutely.
That’s the price you pay for civil disobedience.
Should the police use lethal force in arresting noviolent protestors?
Absolutely not.
And yes, many occupiers may not be able continue when the weather becomes extreme.
However, I’d hardly call Scott Olsen or other members of the IVAW pussies.
9% is not necessarily terrible (as long as you are not one of the 9% of course.)
I’m speaking economically from a macro perspective, but before we delve into why this is so we need to question what this 9% means.
Let’s say you are unemployed and somebody offers you a job for $11 an hour. Let’s say you have 4 months of unemployment ins. Left and that gives you the equivalent of $9 an hour. If you take the job you will be working for $2 an hour. Probably you value your time higher than that, so, unless you are foolish, you don’t take the job.
So, there’s that in the mix.
But anyhow, 9% isn’t so bad. There is something called “full employment.”. This is when basically everybody that wants a job, finds one. Full employment is about 6% unrmoyment.
How can that be?
There’s turnover. It takes some time to find a job. 6% means that there is a healthy pool of labor available for growing businesses. Anything much is a sign that the economy is overheated. So, 9% isn’t great, but when you factor full employment and the effect of unemployment ins. Into the equation, than its actually a lot better than you would expect considering what the media tells us about how bad the economy is.
Don’t bother, it won’t help. If he’s going to call Colbert-style assertions and leaps of illogical “facts”, then it’s really not worth anyone’s time.
But hey, just for the record, speaking as a soulless, selfish capitalist:
I want affordable, accessible national healthcare so that I have a healthy workforce to draw from and I don’t have to pay out so much sick time.
I want a solid, well-maintained transportation infrastructure so my workforce can easily get to the office and back, even if they lack a car due to lack of a paycheck.
I want lots and lots of resources in place to help unemployed workers get back or stay on their feet so I have lots and lots of resources to draw from when I need workers.
And if all else fails, I want the low-level workers, the unemployed, and the unemployable to enjoy a modest standard of living, because if they fall below that and can’t get back up, they’re eventually going to get together to take all the wealth I’ve kept for myself because I had this insane idea that might makes right and if I could take it I deserved to have it, and anyone who couldn’t could go fuck themselves.
[QUOTE=jlzania]
If I channel my inner Bachman, I could argue that the founding fathers nevered attempted to obtain the legal writs to gather in Boston.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, they didn’t get a legal writ to protest. But they also didn’t have the expectation of being able to do so without any consequences either, so it’s a pretty bad example.
How many protesters have been killed by police in the US during these protests again? Is it a higher or lower number than the massive deaths due to the nuclear melt down in Japan thus far?
Yes I am sure of it. I was very careful of what I said, and it doesn’t conflict with your first link. I’m aware of the paradox which is why I phrased things that specifically.
I wasn’t sure how to spell the phrase, do I googled it as I wrote it, and it filled in the “et demonstratum” as soon as I got to the first e.
Fucking mislead by Google. I knew I should not have trusted a liberal search engine.
So, if we ask a question that specifically excludes the data that we know is out there, we can change…reality? All of that careful wiggling you did to phrase the question only means that you knew you were wrong but wanted to make sure you could claim you were right on a technicality.
I don’t think that anyone that is ordered to leave an Occupy area and refuses does not expect to face the consequences. That’s why many camps establish a legal aid fund with donated money and lawyers who volunteer their time.
They shouldn’t expect to be badly injured if they remain nonviolent.
Isn’t this still America?
No one has been killed but Olsen remains in critical condition.
How that relates to Fukushima Daiichi disaster is beyond me though.
Would you be kind enough to connect the dots for me?
Then it will come as a bit of a shock to you to find out that the states that consume more federal spending than they pay in taxesare overwhelmingly Republican states, and the states that pay more in taxes than they recieve in federal spending are overwhelmingly Democratic. How long can liberal states afford to carry conservatives?
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Its been six minutes. By now you are probably regretting that the edit window closed before you had time to rethink that last, ah, “point”.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, though I do have to admit that I thought the poster was someone else (someone involved in the interminable OMG JAPAN IS MELTING DOWN ‘debates’). So…do you have an exact figure on the number of Occupy protesters gunned down ruthlessly by the police? Or did you have some other point to make here as to why I should be regretting the example?
[QUOTE=jlzania]
How that relates to Fukushima Daiichi disaster is beyond me though.
Would you be kind enough to connect the dots for me?
[/QUOTE]
Thought you were another poster…my apologies.
Yet in the YouTube videos I’ve seen there is quite a bit of provocation going on, and some out and out violence when they are told to move. SOME of the protest movements have wised up and are using non-violent/passive methods, but this has not been universally followed…and when you clash with the police folks get hurt. Could be worse…look how things turned out for the folks in your Boston example.
Eh. I already challenged him with those numbers, but from a source he may have considered more reliable (Reason magazine). Turns out he already knew about that but was trying to trick-word his question so those numbers don’t actually address what he asked.
I wish I could use my Personal Responsibility Shield to make self-serving and lame manipulation of the interrogatory look like a fresh and shiny burst of virtue.
Not trying to off handedly dismiss this, but in some ways, yes, I think the American people have become soft, coddled and self-absorbed. Maybe not suddenly in the last three years, but increasingly over time, yes. So when an worldwide economic crisis hit, the general population was not prepared to take care of themselves for it.
I think that there is a general sense of self-entitlement in our country. To be handed what is demanded without putting the work in. I think that the country has become a nation of excuse makers. That everything that happens to each individual or group is the responsibility or fault of some other individual or group. Personal responsibility is lost on today’s society. I think that today’s society is taught to live outside of their means and have the expectation that that’s ok and someone else will take care of them.
College graduates come out of college and demand jobs comensurate with those that have been woprking decades. Demanding the money to pay off their student loan immeidately and then just spend that money without paying back the loan. (Fuck it. It’s the government’s money, they can afford it.) College graduates don’t want to start at the ground floor and work their way up. They want to have a corner office with the CEO right after graduation cuz doing daily menial work is boring.
Look, I just want a job. I’ll do the menial work (and have). I want to work for a company that I can reliably come to work for every day and put in a good day’s work for a good day’s dollar. I want to be able to feed my family, put clothes on their back, and send them off to school. I want a benefits department that will handle paychecks and taxes and 401k and insurance contributions and plan choices and paid days off, etc etc. because I can’t do that as well as the company I work for. It’s why it’s a benefit. To do those things as an independent contractor would be cost prohibitive and would take even more time away from my family. The company I work for does that stuff for free.
The economy sucks all over the world. I work paycheck to paycheck. I pay the rent, the utilities, the car, etc. I have a little bit left over to maybe catch a movie or take the kids for a burger. But ya know what? I bust my fucking balls every single day for that. I don’t blame everyone else or some nameless corporate fat cat when I can’t afford NFL tickets, a new computer, or an iPhone. Nobody is entitled to those things. However, if someone else has them, I don’t begrudge them. I also don’t begrudge people that don’t want to put in that effort. However, on’t expect me to sympathize when they bitch about their crappy cell phone.
We have become an XBOX360 world. Attention span, effort, and self-responsibility doesn’t exist. All of the problems in the world are someone else’s fault and the fault of big mean nasty faceless corporations who are out to fuck everyone else in the world for the sake of a few shekels. I simply don’t buy it. The economy sucks all over the world. The employment market is much more competitive because of it. I don’t BLAME the unemployed for a tough situation, but wallowing in it isn’t going to make your situation better. It isn’t MY fault. It isn’t the fault of the company I work for. Nor is it my responsibility to join in your self-pity. It’s a tough old world. Better put on a helmet.
If you have come this far and want to call me stupid or a sheep or callous, you know what? OK, water off a duck’s back, man. I can sleep at night knowing that I take responsibility for and control of the things I have responsibility for and control of. My family is fed. My kids are warm. That’s my ultimate job. It’s not your job, jayjay or Fear Itself, it’s my job.
You mistake me. I believe I mentioned that I was speaking from an economic perspective. From that perspective a certain amount of unemployment is good. Unemployment below that is bad.
Even if you are your unemployment is healthy for the economy, it still suck if you are the one who can’t find work. I wasn’t being unfeeling, but acknowledging the paradox of "good " unemployment.
Fair rebuttal on the U6 numbers “unemployed plus really shitty temp jobs.”
Those numbers are troubling to me. It’s for another thread, but I part of the reason for that number is actually an inevitable economic trend that has to do with technology, and may not actually be a bad thing in the long haul.
If you are addressing me, I never claimed that protestors were ‘gunned down ruthlessly by the police.’
One young man in Oakland remains in critical condition and from the video footage I watched, other Occupiers had one or more projectiles fired at them when they rushed to assist him.
In another video from Newy York,a motorcycle policeman runs over the leg of a legal observer and then charges at protestors trying to to aid the man that’s trapped under the wheel of the motorcycle.
What do you think is an acceptable level of force directed against *nonviolent *protestors in the United Sates?
A fractured skull?
A broken leg?
A pepper spraying?
Now you are being a douchebag. I said something specific. You responded with data for something else entirely.
If I say red states have more chickens than blue states and you come back and show that blue states have more livestock than red states than you have not rebutted my point. You haven’t contradicted it. You haven’t addressed it.
To pretend otherwise is dishonest, and I’m surprised by the tactic from you.
Is there really a functional difference to the conversation whether we’re talking about all “handouts” or unemployment specifically, other than that it makes your assertion accurate? Yeah, assuming you’re correct, blue states overall collect more of the temporary aid that you only qualify for if you’ve been paying into it for at least six months. If there is really a qualifiable difference in the relevance to the ongoing conversation, wouldn’t the fact that blue states get more of the government aid you actually have to earn redound positively to the blue states?
