In the halcyon days of summer 2004, when intelligent people still hoped and believed that America’s worst-ever President might also be a one-term President, the Republicans held a little shin-dig in New York City to nominate their guy for a second term, and to rub the liberal city’s nose in “compassionate” conservatism.
We got some interesting reports of the Republican National Convention, and of the protests surrounding it, from multiple news outlets and also from some of our own Dopers, who either live in New York, or who made the journey there for the occasion. Most of the tales, both anecdotal and in the media, told of largely-peaceful protests encompassing a wide variety of American citizens, and not just the unwashed ne’er-do-wells that the news cameras tend to focus on at such gatherings.
But, of course, some of our conservative colleagues begged to differ, making much of small or isolated incidents in an attempt to paint all liberals or Democrats with the brush of violence and extralegal and illegal activity. Perhaps the plainest statement of this position came from Shodan in this thread. He provided us, in post #43, with some statistics, and posed a question:
Well, some people did indeed attempt to discuss the issue, pointing out the problems of making a direct comparison, and also pointing out that a goodly proportion of the anti-DNC protesters in Boston were also, in fact, disaffected Democrats, liberals, and leftists.
When Shodan was asked to clarify his question, he responded, in post #64, with the following:
Well, even at the time the question was asked, it presented a rather simplistic and poorly thought out set of problems, and evidenced very little except a desire to be inflammatory. But that’s by the by.
The problem with stories like this is that everyone reads them while they’re hot, and a lot of people never find out how everything turns out in the end. Well, in case anyone left the post-convention period in the belief that Shodan and his ilk had made a valid general point, i thought it worth pointing out that yesterday’s New York Times might throw some new light on the issue (alternative link to the same story, for those not registered with the Times).
According to the Times’ story:
I’ve suggested above that Shodan blew a few incidents out of proportion in order to make a sweeping generalization. In case you think i’m doing the same thing, and the Kyne’s case was unique, it’s worth looking at a few other aspects of the story:
The Times website also has a video (link on the right of the page) showing the video relating to Kyne and Dunlop’s arrests, and how starkly it contrasted with police testimony. The link also shows the difference between the complete footage of Dunlop’s arrest, and the edited version presented by the DA’s office.
Altogether:
In case anyone be mistaken, this thread is not a pitting of Shodan. All he demonstrated by his remarks was a failure to make logical comparisons, and an inability to understand the difference between an arrest and a conviction. I have just used his quotes to stand as examples of a more general conservative attitude.
I simply thought it was worth noting the circumstances surrounding these dismissals, and making what i think is the rather uncontroversial point that those demonstraters now appear rather somewhat less brownshirted than some would have us believe.
If there’s anything worth pitting here, it’s police officers who are apparently willing to give testimony that is not only proven by video evidence to be false, but that actually claims direct knowledge about arrests at which the testifying officer was apparently not even present. And a DA’s office that is apparently willing to edit video tapes to excise material that offers direct support to the accused person’s defence.