Geez.
You know what? I hadn’t actually thought about it.
You are right.
That’s what you want to hear, right?
He was told verbally to stop what he was doing. He refused. The next step is physical.
I know your next question. What gives them the right to tell him to stop what he is doing? No one gets unlimited mic time. He was filibustering with inane questions. The students came to hear Kerry, not Meyer.
And John Kerry is an idiot. He tries to please everyone and not look like the bad guy. That’s why he lost the election.
The report details a campus incident involving Meyer on Sept. 11, a week before the Kerry event, that investigators state shed light on the student’s “mindset.” During the Sept. 11 incident, a groundskeeper reported seeing Meyer argue on campus with supporters of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid. The groundskeeper told investigators he heard Meyer tell a friend “if he liked what he had seen … that he should go to the Kerry speech and he would really see a show.”
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What Meyer said in what you said here, that could mean many other things than how they translate it, there’s simply no context for me to translate what he meant. For all I know, he meant that if he enjoyed the intelligent discussion of the Giuliani bid, then he would enjoy the intellect of the forum, nothing to do with him saying he would do a stunt. Another thing that tells me he wasn’t talking about him doing a stunt is that when he said “if he liked what he had seen … that he should go to the Kerry speech and he would really see a show” is that he refered to his friend when he talked in third person and never said “I should go to a Kerry forumand I would really see a show”, my point? If he talked about his friend going rather then himself, how could this possibly suggest him saying hewas going to the forum to perform a stunt? And also there’s a pause in between the quote, which shows me there’s additional context not mentioned.
This is no evidence.
He wasn’t talking forever. I have no idea if he intended to talk forever, I think they should have given him more time to see if he really intends to talk forever. It is evident that he was going to talk for two minutes from what he said in the mic. I thought they should have let him talk for two minutes, then say “look, you talked for two minutes now like you said you would, please get off the mic” and give him a few seconds to finish. If he disagrees, escort him out but goodness sake, no need to arrest him.
Then I think they should make it a clear rule that people can only ask questions for a certain period of time which something just tells me they didn’t in this forum.
That doesn’t mean he wasn’t asking questions seriously, nor that it was all for show.
Why would the police jump him when Kerry was being solicitous? That’s the interesting question.
And hey, John Kerry, were you just being nice to your frat brother when you conceded? We need to know if that’s a problem to avoid in future elections!
Also, how is being painfully electrocuted not violence? I guess the same way that bombing cities from the air is “not violent”–it doesn’t skin the knuckles of the person inflicting the attack.
I guess shooting someone isn’t violence either.
Two minutes is way too much time for a question to be asked. Fifteen or twenty seconds seems appropriate, maybe up to 30 if the question is complex (and rational).
But it seems you will never be convinced.
They tried that, but he kept escalating the situation.
“Don’t tase me, bro!”
Um, ok, I guess I’m happy this debate is over with and that we agree on this issue. I would be just as happy though if you were right and the police did the right thing, so I wouldn’t be debating anymore.
Yeah, I also think you’re right about him being a jackass, not so much when he asked his questions, but what he did to get them asked, I just read this police report about himasking when it wasn’t his turn, but you know, this police report could be biased and leaving something out which I see i tdo for the other parts of the incident.
I just wish youtube made a vid of what happened before the question godammit, so I can see with my eyes what happened.
They could have tased him then sent him out. And by the way he did say, “I’ll walk out of here” when he got the tase warning so he did cooperate.
Next, I dunno, it really depends on what question you want to ask really for the necessary time, and if there’s no time regulation, how would you know when to stop? The forum rulemakers should have some fault in this for not making this a rule. Although he did take a long time, I don’t think he would have taken forever, it seemed like he’d finish on skull and bones because he said, “I have two more questions”. Bottomline: police acted way to fast to see that he would have done bad things, taken forever, etc.
It was too late. He needed to say “I’ll walk out of here” when they asked him to get off the mic.
You stop when you are asked to stop. He was asked to stop.
There is no need for a defined time limit. i believe it can be judged subjectively when someone is taking too much time. I think he was taking too much time. If you polled a bunch of people, i bet most would say he was taking too much time, especially considering the nature of the questions. He was trolling.
Monocrany. Are you listening to yourself? “Kid was taking too much asking inane questions… so arrest him.”
And, oh yeah, electrocute him.
It’s sort of Orwellian.
Have you been listening to me?
It’s more like: Kid was asking inane questions, so he was asked to stop. Kid refused to stop, so he was escorted from the mic. Kid began to struggle against officers, so more force was needed to subdue him. Kid continued to struggle after being repeatedly warned to stop, so ZAP, handcuffs, goodbye, good ridance.
Meyer escalated the situation on his own, the officers were forced to respond by escalating their force against him.
That’s just kind of stupid, it shouldn’t really matter what time he says, “I’ll walk out of here”. Why do they need to arrest him? You act like he did an unfixable crime. All he did was reject going out, but then he redeemed himself by saying, “I’ll walk out of here”. Mission accomplished, he’s walked out and no trouble will be causd. Why do you need to arrest him and use force if he’ll just walk out? It sometimes takes a bit of time and persuasion to convince someone to walk out of the buillding, ok? You can’t arrest somebody for not going out of building the first time you are asked. That’s simply too minor a problem. These guys seem to expect it to be goody goody two shoes every moment.
And again, it really depends on what you mean by “questions too long”. How many questions should be asked, whether you are allowed to talk about books, etc. This all should have been regulated beforehand.
I think you’re being a little naive, Crackhead - the guy cut to the front of the line when they said ‘one last question,’ then proceeded to ramble for a couple of minutes and said he had more questions that he hadn’t even gotten to yet. I don’t know how old you are, but this happens a lot at college events and it’s very annoying and rude. You seem to think this guy honestly misunderstood how much time he had to ask his questions, but I think he didn’t care. Regulations aren’t required, all that’s needed is a small amount of common sense. I’ve seen people go on at these kinds of events for much longer than two minutes, but fortunately - boring and aggravating as it is - the guards didn’t have Tasers, or weren’t on edge because a U.S. Senator was in the house.
Of course, the whole thing would have been over faster if the police hadn’t been wrestling with him while he spoke, and no, I don’t think what they did was justified at all. Asking him to get off the mic and leave was reasonable, but he was tasered for not complying with the security officers, not because he was a threat to anybody’s security.
It’s not stupid, it’s how the world works. If an offer is made and then refused, the offer is no longer valid. He was not arrested for asking a question, he was arrested for causing a disturbance after he was told to stop.
I already answered this. The regulation is that you stop asking questions when you are asked to stop.
The kid was not asked to stop by John Kerry. He was asked to stop by people in a position of power standing on the side.
I don’t know what country you’d like to be living in, but in this damn country when a person is expressing political dissent to a US Senator who is willing to listen, police can’t just come in and violently decide that they won’t to hear this man’s speech, not to mention then express their intolerance by electrocuting a kid who was agitated, but mostly cooperating (especially in the moments after the threat of violence became apparent). Forget ammendments, forget laws, forget rights. This is a fundamental principle of non-totalitarian states.
You, monocracy, should probably go look for a different country. And fuck, I just realized this, look at your screenname!
Alex, you view it as political dissent, i view it as being a jerk and ruining the event for the other students.
Let’s look at his actions before he was asked to stop speaking. He pushed his way to the front of the line, which is unfair to the students who were waiting in line. He then gave a mini-speech, asking many questions which became increasingly bizarre. This was unfair to other students because probably time would be up before all students would be able to ask the questions they had. If he had waited in line like he was supposed to and asked only a couple questions (even if they were crazy), then it would be okay, but that’s not what happened.
So, given these facts, you have to decide, was he be a jerk, or was he exercising his rights? I think he was being a jerk, you think he was exercising his rights, the cops thought he was being a jerk, Kerry doesn’t think, and i bet most people would say he was being a jerk.
Everything that happens after he was asked to stop speaking is a seperate issue.
How exactly did he cause a disturbance? That makes no sense. How did he hurt or damage anything with his resistance or dod anything potentially dangerous? You shouldn’t be arresting people who pose no danger. If someones an idiot at a forum but is not dangerous, you send them out of the forum, there’s no chances before being arrested in this situation period unless he actually did something dangerous like the hurtful sense, you only send him out, so if they say, “I’ll walk out of here”, you let them go.
So the regulations is you stop when you are asked to. That’s anarchy, then you have to stop asking your question just beause “they said so”, but what if “they” in this instance, are corrupt? What do we do? No, we need actual rules, so people can know what to expect ahead of time to avoid complex situations such as question length and whatnot.
Yeah, I guess I see your point, but like you said, some people ramble on for more than two minutes, and this guy didn’t go on for two minutes even, it was approximately one minute and 25 seconds. But here’s the problem with no regulations. You say it takes a little common sense, but science shows what’s something for you might not be for others, and then there’s simple bias that screws up your thinking, my point? People will have different thoughts on what’s long, just becauseof simple human nature. Also, it would be unfair if someone got three minutes of question asking, and nothing said to him, but someone who asked questions last was forced to have 45 seconds just because they were last and time was almost up. We just need a specific time limit if not a specific set of rules in general or it’s bound to be an unfair clumsy forum.
I think this guy’s a jerk, ok, but he meant well in asking questions in issues that weren’t talked much and would be great for the US senator to tell his views on. His questions were not the issue, it’s what he did to ask them (cut three people, talking angree, etc.), but again, the police should have sent him out and they clearly intended to arrest him that first time too, except Kerry intervined, so he asked the questions. He didn’t deserve to ask the question, but I’d rather that, than him getting arrested which would be even more bizarre.
I think you can agree with me that both sides were wrong. It’s either he gets arrested or he is able to ask his question by cutting three people. I’d rather him asking the questions. And when he asked the questions, he simply didn’t do anything.
So, I would feel great if I became convinced that what the police did was actually the right thing to do and this is an overreaction. I’m sorry if I don’t agree with everybody, but please, I’m not as stubborn as a mule, I can change my mind. I’ve been convinced Andrew Meyer deserved to be taken out (not because of his question asking but what he did to get his question asked). But i’m not convinced he should’ve got arrested or tased. Jail is for real thugs who really HURT and/or damage major property, not to students who do really the most minor of rude acts in a forum. You guys can say he he “started a riot”, disrupted", or whatever but that explains nothing of what he ACTUALLY did. Please convince me he posed an actual threat, therefore making arrest reasonable.