You’re comparing the U.S. constitution to a rule limiting people’s questioning time at events at the U. of Florida. There’s just no comparison here. I made no argument against rules in general, but I’m opposed to unnecessary ones and this is just not necessary. What happened at this forum did not happen because Meyer didn’t know how much time he could have.
He seems to have taken the mic to make a point, not to get Kerry’s opinion on anything. It just isn’t a reasonable use of time, and I’m subjecting myself to this thing right now. He doesn’t even let Kerry answer the questions he’s asked! He just keeps going, which tells me that if anything, he is asking rhetorical questions and trying to make his own point, not seeking Kerry’s opinion. He asked the one about ‘Why didn’t you challenge the results,’ for example, and never stopped talking - he repeated and changed the question about three times, then asked about Skull and Bones.
Why is it not a comparison? in any orginized event or community with a lot of people, you simply need rules, ok? Explain to me how this rule would not be necessary in general, and not just in the Meyer situation. And actually in the Meyer case, yes, the rule would be necessary. You see, Meyer has the interest in sharing his ideas of what he thinks are good questions that influences how long he takes, the forum officials have different interests that make them think a different length would be reasonable. Yeah, I know, there’s only so little question asking time left, but to Meyer, what harm would two minues do? (and not two minutes he even went on before stopped) The forum authorities look at it differently. The forum auhorities have to make it clear what the limit is to these people who want to share their questions. And there’s still the issue with one person being able to ask their question for a minute and another being limited to 30 seconds because forum time’s almost over that you haven’t talked about.
Maybe he was trying to make his own point, but he was asking questions. Bad assumption to say that the question was rhetoricle just because he didn’t let Kerry answered it right away. It was perhaps because he wanted to ask a fw more questions that would have not been able to have been asked because, you know, when you let Kerry answer that means you’re done asking questions. And he never repeated an issue when he went to the next questions. First he asked qbout why he didn’t try to win back the election when there were “multiple reports” about election fraud, then he asked about why he didn’t try to impeach Bush later on in the years, and finally he asked about if Kerry was in Skull And Bones. Three separate issues.
Well, that proves it - we need rules, therefore we need this rule. We can go on with this nitpick if you want, but I think most people can judge what an appropriate amount of time is without being told. Meyer says right there in the video that he has more questions, so who knows how long he planned on talking. If he was so interested in the answers to his questions, why didn’t he let Kerry answer them? Kerry is a windbag, and he could barely get two words in edgewise because Meyer kept right on talking. And he evidently planned to keep doing more of the same.
It’s not an assumption, it’s pretty plain. He asks why Kerry didn’t contest the results of the election, then goes on to ask two or three more questions, and then before he lets Kerry answer any of them, he goes into the Skull and Bones topic. That’s what you do when you’re not interested in what the person has to say.
I’ve never seen an event like this where you couldn’t ask a follow-up question.
That’s, at most, a stupid way to ask questions. But Kerry asks this guy what his question is about 35 seconds in, and he he kept “asking” for another minute. (His hostility toward Kerry didn’t do him any good either. Did you pick up on that?)
I quote:
“…so amidst all these reporting of voting, bogus stuff going on, how could you concede the election on the day? How could you concede the 2004 election on the day? … Didn’t you want to be President? I’m not even done yet, I have two more questions. If you are so against Iraq, why did you not say ‘Let’s impeach Bush now?’ Impeach Bush now before he can invade Iraq.’ Why don’t we impeach him - impeach Bush? Clinton- Clinton was impeached over what, a blow job? … Also, are you a member- were you a member of Skull and Bones in college with Bush? Were you in the same secret society?”
And then he finally pauses for about four seconds and the security people come to take him out.
Yup, we can reley on people’s judgement on what time lengh is too long just like we can let people judge what’s taking away free speech. If we wanted to, we can let people judge what takes away free speech if we honestly can judge on this matter, right? So why would we need a free speech rule then? I know you think we should have this rule but you think at the same time people can use their own judgement on what’s too long, than people would be able to see what takes away rights, right? (Still haven’t told me how being forced to stop at 30 seconds because time is almost up and somebody else getting a minute isn’t an issue)
And I quote your very sampling of what Meyer said
“…so amidst all these reporting of voting, bogus stuff going on, how could you concede the election on the day? How could you concede the 2004 election on the day? … Didn’t you want to be President? I’m not even done yet, I have two more questions. If you are so against Iraq, why did you not say ‘Let’s impeach Bush now?’ Impeach Bush now before he can invade Iraq.’ Why don’t we impeach him - impeach Bush? Clinton- Clinton was impeached over what, a blow job? … Also, are you a member- were you a member of Skull and Bones in college with Bush? Were you in the same secret society?”
So how was he hostile to Kerry here? What names did he call him or insults did he make, how did he try to hurt Kerry? That’s what defines hostility.
True, but when you ask a complex question like the first one he asked and then let Kerry give a long answer, you would assume Meyer would be done. Yeah, one would think someone would have a follow up question if it was a simple yes or no question, but you saw how long Kerry’s answer was during the tasing of Meyer, right? Well, you’d think that would be it with the questions.
That’s really when a you’re not interested in what the other person has to say?Not necessarily. look at your own quote of Andrew Meyer asking his question again. “I’m not even done yet, I have two more questions.” That means he has two more questions left before Kerry can answer.
I don’t always trust governments, but I do trust people to understand decorum at a community event. This remains a really poor argument.
I’m not sure what this means. Are you trying to say “Our only options as a society are to regulate everything or to regulate nothing?” “Either everything is a judgment call, or nothing is, because people can’t think on their own and need to be told what to do all the time?” That’s such a false dichotomy that I don’t think I need to argue against it.
I don’t think that matters anyway because it’s such a side point: you seem to believe Meyer just miscalculated how much time he was allowed. That’s not what happened. Having seen the video, I think he was just being an ass (as also evidenced by his cutting in line). He didn’t care about any time limit we could have made up.
Because that isn’t what happened here. It’s a hypothetical, and I’m not sure why it’s become a problem you think I need to solve. Basically I think people should get to take the time they need to ask a question. Some questions require some set-up, and those shouldn’t be verboten. None of it really applies here.
Please don’t make up definitions. I know what hostility is, and in this case I used it to mean antagonistic. He was hostile because he was giving him an attitude. After Kerry asks what his question is - prior to the part I quoted - he gives him a sarcastic reply about ‘We’ve listened to you for two hours, you can listen for two minutes while I set up my question.’ And by the end of the thing, he’s suggesting Kerry is part of a conspiracy with Bush. He’s not threatening him, but it’s hostile, and it’s the questions and that tone that set the security people on edge.
You can identify what you’re doing as a two-part question, or simply hang on to the mic. Or, as happens sometimes, you can leave without getting all of the parts of your questions answered because hogging the mic is rude.
So he’s required to keep talking about not allow Kerry to answer because he has more questions? That’s not a good way to handle that; it’s better to ask the three questions quickly without the huge preamble. Or ask them simply without all the extraneous remarks he made. If he was pressed for time it was his own fault.
That’s how it comes across to me. I’m sorry that you are unable to tell the difference between sincerely asking questions and what Meyer was doing, but that isn’t my problem. He was repeating the arguments of the book with some rhetorical questions thrown in. He was not seeking information from Kerry, which is typically the purpose of asking questions. He was badgering Kerry. There’s no law against that and there shouldn’t be one, but this was mostly Meyer’s own fault.
If it “remains a poor argument” then just tell explain to me exactly how it is a “poor argument” (which you haven’t really). the point I tried to make was, if you say we can trust people on making good time judgement calls so we shouldn’t have time rules, then we can trust people on all sorts of other judgement calls and we don’t need rules for many basic American laws (like the free speech ammendmnt).
Now let me go more into a more secific line in that quote I just quoted above
I already told you, people have totally different judgements on what’s a long question in different situations. Even the most logical people disagree on stuff, People just have different opinions, that’s human nature. People will never agree on what’s reasonable exactly length even if they’re the most logical people out there. We simply need a single rule so everybody can be clarified or people will get different ideas on what’s long and what’s not and the forum will get messy.
Not what I meant to say at all. Forget it, what you don’t understand about what I’m saying is what you don’t understand. What I said was not that important anyways and I didn’t mean for it to go into this and be this unclear.
Maybe it’s not a part of this situation specifically, but it’s still a problem that could arise from having no time limit rules like you suggested.
That quote (‘We’ve listened to you for two hours, you can listen for two minutes while I set up my question.’) is taken out of the whole context of it. He says it not directly to Kerry, but to the officers who interrupt him and act like the time he’s taken to set up his question was bad. You can’t really prove Meyer was necessarily having an negative attitude about Kerry talking for two hours, all you can really say is that he thought that him having two minute was no big deal and it’s only a fraction of Kerry’s time, so it doesn’t seem like a problem that he talks for two minutes in Meyer’s opinion.
And with that conspiracy theory thing, he never accused John Kerry of being in skull & Bones or any secret society, he simply asked a question about it. I hate conspiracy theorists too, but as long as they just ask questions, I don’t see a problem with it. And I would like to see Kerry’s answer about the false rumors so I think it’s a good question.
Like I said, not in this case because each question would have such a long and complex answer, it doesn’t look like another question will be asked.
Andrew Meyer was clearly showboating, attempting (and succeeding) in disturbing a school event. With that said, I agree with you, the tasing was unjustified. Should he been arrested? I dunno, that’s up to Florida law.
I apologize, I suppose for the further interruption, but did you not read what I posted.
The police were acting under orders by Student Government to remove what SG officials felt was a disruptive participant.
Andrew then clearly pleaded for help in resisting a police action and resisted uniformed officers while they were taking no legal but administrative action (removal). Since he was not only resisting but asking for assistance from the crowd for help in doing so, he was, technically inciting a riot. I dunno if he should really be charged with that, but at any rate, at this point the police are going to arrest him for resist, and he continues to resist, and naturally since he’s continuing to resist the police up their containment methods by one step. It works, they detain him and arrest him. What the hell is the problem here?
You MIGHT be able to debate whether SG should have ejected him in the first place, but those aren’t “laws” or “arrest” but “guidelines” and “removal from the forum”, a totally different thing. And at that, he was being a jerk by the time they had him removed, so I’m not really against that.
Because it’s a false dichotomy, and an extreme one at that. We don’t need rules for everything, and I don’t see why you’d need a rule for this. Meyer wasn’t confused about the rules, he was being a jerk.
How is that different from my joking characterization that we need rules to tell us everything, and our own judgments can’t be trusted? Do we need laws to sort out everything that anybody might disagree on? I see the value of using the law to protect free speech. I don’t see the point of this.
Time limit rules would not have prevented the situation we’re talking about.
I could go either way on that, since Kerry’s asking ‘So what’s your question?’ at the same time.
No, but I’m able to exercise a little common sense based on his tone and his comments.
You know, people don’t always mean exactly what they say.
It was widely reported in 2004 that Kerry and Bush were both members of that group when they were at Yale, and they both acknowledged their membership. Meyer knew the answer to his question before he asked. So he was going somewhere else with it.
That’s his problem. He didn’t appear to have any intention of stopping, and he’d already asked several questions. Who knows how much longer he actually planned to talk at that point.
Ok, now tell me then the values of the first ammendment you see that makes it necessary, and how those values don’t apply to this rule.
Actually, a time limit rule could have been a big help in this situation. It wouldnt necessarily have prevented the situation but it could have, Meyer could have reallized that time was limited with his questions, and perhaps may have stopped ranting and thus may have put his three questions more succinctly. I reallize I’m only being hypthetical in this case, but it’s still a possibility of how the rule could have prevented the situation.
But here’s something not so hypothotical, I think. Maybe it would have not prevented the situation, but it would definitely make it more crystal clear that Meyer was planning to take forever since you’d look to see how much he’s passed that time limit and think, “he’s planning to take forever, cut him off”. It won’t be so clear without the rule because there’s different ways to classify if something is too long, so it’s confusing to me if something is really too long in a lot of cases.
True, Kerry did say that, but I think he was making eye contact with the police if I remember the vid carefully, not Kerry, so it seems obvious to me that he was talking to the police. but even if I’m wrong, you can only speculate because you can go either way, not say it’s true of very likely to be true.
(words in this color indicates additions I made to the original quote (to specify what it’s trying to say))
And I’m able to exercise a little bit of my common sense too and say that it’s also a possibility that his angry tone could have been from not his anger towards Kerry but the police officers trying to cut him off.
Well, not exactly, he knew half the answer. Yes, he could see that the answer was, yes, he want to Yale with Bush in the same group, but he couldn’t really see the exact answer of Kerry’s response to this conspiracy theory behind the idea he went to the same group. Like you said, people don’t always mean what they say. It’s pretty obvious he wasn’t actually asking if he was in Skull and Bones or not, it’s obvious though that he’s trying to see what Kerry’s take is on this conspiracy theory.
It wouldn’t be obvious that he has another question not because “He didn’t appear to have any intention of stopping” (makes no sense), but because each question involves a long answer that it just wouldn’t seem obvious he would have another question in any way but just asking the other questions before letting Kerry answer the first one.
The first amendment is necessary because it protects people’s ability to speak, practice their religion and so on without government resitriction. So how is that like a rule that says “a question cannot last longer than 60 seconds?”
Like I said: I see no reason to believe he accidentally took too much time. I think he was trying to make a spectacle of himself.
He took a similar tone even when he wasn’t talking to the police officers.
Why would he want Kerry’s take on a conspiracy theory that involves Kerry as part of the conspiracy? I think he was just accusing him of being in on it.
That’s not obvious at all. It’s your supposition.
You keep making this excuse for him. “His questions had long answers, so he had to ask three or five or six questions with long answers at once.” I don’t believe that.
What was unclear about that other comment, by the way? I’ll reword it if you like: he never slowed down, and he gave no indication he was going to stop talking. He didn’t stop to let Kerry answer any of the questions he’d asked, so I don’t think he was going to just ask two more questions and then wait for an answer. I think he was trying to stir shit up.
I apologize too for not really getting to your first post, it’s just that as you can see here Marley23 has been keeping me busy with his posts.
Yeah, I don’t know if he should be charged with that either (obviously, I would think this). Thanks for that information. I honestly didn’t know about this and thought the “starting a riot” charge was something made up, or just some dumb technecality check of a very general rule like a lot of other charges placed on him (which is what it turned out to be).
Yeah, I don’t think it’s much of a debate in this thread any more about whether he was a jerk or not and whether he should have been sent out or not. Most of us here think that he deserved to be taken out and was a jerk (in one way or another). Now this debate is about the details like should Meyer have been arrested? Should he have been tased and sent out by force? Did he intend to take forever and not find out Kerry’s answer to his questions? Should the forum have placed a time limit rule in advance? (Maybe some other details too)
As for my take on these issues involving the incident, I think that Meyer shouldn’t have been arrested, he shouldn’t have been tased or taken out by force, though I think he was an ass when he tried to cut in front of three students to ask the last question, I don’t think he intended to take forever on the mic or didn’t want to findout Kerry’s answer in any other way, and I think the forum should have placed a time limit rule in advance (though Marley23 might have some disareements).
So there you go, this is what I see as the debated issues involving the forum and what happened in some way. If you want to talk about any one or have some other issue that you think the other posters and I might disagree with you on, go right ahead on posting.
Ah, it is sort of like that in a way. This rule protects the people’s ability to speak and ask a question without some mean campus official just being able to say, It’s just too long, get out!" and then sending the cops on you. They need to see that the question breaks the time limit before they take any action to stop you.
Yeah, he might’ve tried to make a speculation of himself, but I even said “that’s only hypothetical, but a possibility”, so your opinion is aken to account here. If you read below, I also said if he was trying to be a spectacle, it would be very obvious if he breaks a time limit rule. Here, it isn’t so obvious what his intentions were because there just wasn’t a time limit. All you’ve shown to me were simple possibilities, but not evidence.
Yeah, but he still could have had anger from the police interrupting but not necessarily angertowards Kerry. I’ll tell you an example of how what I’m trying to say could apply here. One day, I met my dad and he bumped his head. He was yelling accross the house in anger, so I went upstairs and asked “what’s the matter?”
“I hurt myself!!!” He yelled to me in a very angry tone.
So you see? My dad here was not necessarily angry at me for asking the question, he was still angry because he bumped his head so damn hard! Could have been the same kinda with this situation.
Just because he’s asking Kerry a question involving something bad that Kerry did doesn’t mean he’s accused him of anything. What if it was a Bush forum, and I asked a question about whether Bush broke the sixth ammendment when he took foreigners to Guantamino Bay or not and why (like many people would), does that really mean I’m accusing Bush of this, or is it just your speculation? Yeah, I might have an inner thought inside of accusation but you can’t read my mind, you have to prove that (and all you’ve done in my perspective is come up with more possibilities, but not evidence, in the Kerry situation). So just because I might’ve een accusing Bush, does that mean I can’t ask any question about a mistake or something like that at all?
Okay, sorry, what I said wasn’t obvious and it was my supposition. but all of what you said to me wasn’t really obvious either, it would also be a supposition.
Yes, that’s my excuse but you saying I’m saying, “His questions had long answers, so he had to ask three or five or six questions with long answers at once,” is half the story. No, if it’s “three or five or six” questions that wold take too long to ask, no, that’s not okay, but “three or five or six” was not the number, it was two. Neither was 3, 4,or 5 minutes the length, it was a minute and a half. And no, it’s not as simple as saying he gave no implication of stopping. First when he said “We’ve listened to you for two hours, you can listen for two minutes while I set up my question.”, would give some implication that he was going to ask his question for two minutes. Now whether this is too long or not is a different situation than him having the intention of taking forever, never intending to finish, and being a jerk or not. Also, he said, “I’m not even done yet, I have two more questions” could be translated as him intending to ask two more questions, now whether that’s true or not, I don’t think we will ever know because we didn’t really give Meyer a chance to see if he’d take longer than two minutes or ask more than two questions because the police reacted too fast.
You were talking about a time limit, now you’re talking about a minimum. That’s nothing like what happened here. There was no mean campus official restricting speech, just officers who noticed that the guy WAS acting like a bit of a nutbar.
It’s not obvious to you, but that’s because you don’t want it to be true. The guy cut in front of the line and talked for a minute and a half without stopping, and was asking increasingly odd questions. I think that’s enough evidence right there. Apparently, you think a guy has to cut in line and ramble for two or three minutes before we can know for sure what he’s doing.
Let me ask you this: did Florida need to post a “no cutting” rule, or is that rule just assumed to be in place? He already ignored that. Why did he need to ignore a second rule before we can judge what he’s doing?
I’ve already watched this video more times than I cared to, transcribed a chunk of it, and pointed out that when asking people questions, one normally waits for an answer, which this guy clearly didn’t do.
Do tell.
Depending on how you asked it, yes, you’d be accusing Bush of violating the amendment. And I think it’d be plain as day to everyone but you and Andrew Meyer.
Mind-reading isn’t necessary. I’m perfectly comfortable with reading a person’s words.
[quote]
you have to prove that (and all you’ve done in my perspective is come up with more possibilities, but not evidence, in the Kerry situation).
We’ve gone over all the evidence there is, I think. All you’ve done is say “But it could be something else!” without giving me any reason to think that it’s so. You’re now insisting that my interpretation isn’t valid because I can’t read Meyer’s mind. But I think I have a pretty good read on his actions, which I’ve backed up in some detail.
I never said you couldn’t ask the question. You’ve lost track of what I was saying here: his questions, and the way he asked them, are one of the reasons I think he was trying to put on a show and not just ask questions. Those were also some of the things that put security on edge.
I don’t believe he had two more questions. He said he had “a question” at the beginning and asked at least three.
He didn’t give any.
You think he timed his questions beforehand? Come on. “Two minutes” is figurative.
Why is this “two minutes” so important to you? You mean you would only question his intentions if he went longer than some amount of time he made up?
It’s worth noting, by the way, that he also overreacted to the security people, which made the whole thing worse. If he had calmed down or gotten to the point more quickly when they tapped him on the shoulder instead of giving a sarcastic reaction, it might have gone down differently.
my take here is that you have to look at two seperate events.
One, was the SG official right in cutting him off? Maybe not. Senator Kerry even said he would answer the questions that had been asked up to the point where the mic was cut. So yeah, I can see here just letting a douche have his moment in the sun, they probably shouldn’t have had him forcibly removed
Now, the SECOND debate is, GIVEN that he was being removed, was the police response appropriate? Ignoring why the police siezed him (or at least, assuming for a moment that the police has a legitimate reason to attempt to peaceably remove him from the forum), what happened? Meyer resisted arrest attempts, and called for help. Then subsequently attempted to escape again, at which point he was wrestled to the floor, and continued struggling. He was then tased once, and arrested. Given the second part was happening, I think the police responded appropriately.
Again, whether or not they should have attempted to lead him out in the first place, maybe, maybe not, but the police themselves should not be faulted, only the SG official who ordered the mic cut and Meyer removed.
I never talked about a time minimum, where the heck did I say, “people have to talk for a minimum of x minutes”? Oh, is it because I was telling you how the campus officials have to wait until the limit before they can stop someone from asking their question? Yeah, being all technecal, that would be a minimum for the campus officials, but it’s still a limit (limits the questioners from taking longer than wanted, limits the officials from just trying to stop you).
And yes actually, that was the case, mean officials. They tried to cut him off before he even got to his first question. And they intended to arrest him from the start, when they should of just sent him out.
Bullshit, okay. Should I just accuse you of wanting to believe that the campus officials did the right thing, okay? I can tell you are inside trying to call me a retard but trying not to do it in an obvious way. Your sarcasm seems to show me just that. And you don’t really seem to be listening to me, especially if this is all you have to say about me.
He did cut in front of line, that’s bad, but it’s not really evidence. You can’t really say that just because he cut in line, you intend to talk about bad things, and I don’t really know if he would have stopped or not, we should’ve waitedfor two minutes (I’ll explain later)
What’s so odd about what he asked. Those are all reasonable questions (whether you think those questions were rhetoricle or not is a different story from the questions being “odd”).
Well, yes, but it’s a little more complicated than that. I want him to talk for two minutes and then tell him, “look, you talked for two minutes like you said you would, now please just get out”. If he doesn’t even listen and tries to continue ranting, then it would just be so obvious that he intended to take forever that way.
Yeah, it is figurative, but a minute an a half isn’t even close to two minutes, and I think it would seem just not two minutes just being figurative. No, Meyer did not time his questions before hand, but the police could have looked at the clock to give a reasoned appoximation.
But it’s quite likely that’s a common error. I hear everyone who talks about the situation say “a question” rather than “three questions”, would all of them be lying or just using a misnomer for what they really mean. It just could have been that kind of error, quite likely. However, saying you have two more questions, that is clear you have two more questions, and if they ask one more question than that, it is prety clear you are lying. But we just cut the mic before we really had a chance to see if he would so we’ll never really will know.
The two minutes thing is important to me because I just wouldn’t know his intentions otherwise. He gave no real obvious clues he was going tojust smart talk Kerry or anything like that. All he did was ask questions, he made clear that he’d talk for two minutes so if hed go contradictory to that, then obviously he intended to talk forever.
Well, the “no cutting” rule would already be in place, since it’s a rule to wait in line for a question, cutting would be not really waiting in a line. With question length it’s just not that simple. Yeah, five minutes would be obviously too long, but when we get around the verge point of too long and not too long, when exactly does it have to stop? And it really depends on the expectations and the kinds of questions the campus officials would want in this forum. The students would have no idea unless the campus officials just made it clear.
You know perfectly well my explanation about why this wouldn’t be the case here.
First of all, how is “Also, are you a member- were you a member of Skull and Bones in college with Bush? Were you in the same secret society?” as plain as day to be an accusation. It’s a simple question. And don’t act like I’m a tard and try to say it’s so obvious to everyone except Meyer and I. You know very well there are people, lots, all over the world, some even in this thread who don’t see that it’s so obvious “as plain as day”. This smart talk does not make you any smarter, it makes you a smart alec.
Glad you think so. Reading those words, you wouldn’t really get an idea he intended to insult Kerry and more of your accusations. If you find anything from his words that prove any of your points, tell me.
I think I gave reasons too for my other possibilities, and if you haven’t agreed with me completely on what I said, you’ve agreed on me partially looking at your past comments. So don’t just erase what I am telling you from your head and say i gave no reasons because I did. Your explanations are reasonable too, it’s just that you can’t really prove which one is right or wrong therefore you can’t prove his intentions.
Then why did they tap him on the shoulder and let him keep talking for another minute? He did something to concern them right away, but like I said, if he’d calmed down a little he would have gotten away with cutting in line.
You could accuse me of it, but the difference is you wouldn’t find any evidence for it since I said from the beginning that they shouldn’t have Tasered him. I’ve said this entire time that security’s actions weren’t justified. And I’d prefer they let him ask his question - but he was being a jerk and I can see why security [you keep saying ‘campus officials’ and things, but I don’t think any orders came down from university suits] was not comfortable with what he was doing. They overreacted, but he’s still responsible for part of that overreaction.
If you’d like me to change my mind, give me a reason to do it. You’ve repeated yourself on this topic for at least as long as I have, and I went to the trouble of watching this thing several times to inform myself.
Tell me why it’s not evidence.
That’s not a very good paraphrase. I said those two things were among the reasons security reacted like they did, and I said those are two reasons I think he was trying to stir shit up. I didn’t say “I knew he was going to say bad things because he cut in line.”
The point was he was getting less reasonable (and more worked up) as he went. “Why didn’t you contest the election results?” is a reasonable question, and so is “Why didn’t you impeach Bush?” But when you add in the worked-up tone of voice he was using and the fact that he was heading off into conspiracy theory territory, maybe you can see why security was getting worried.
Maybe he would have listened if security had said that. But given the other things you can see on that video, I really don’t think so.
If you say so.
The security people have better things to do than time everybody’s questions. (I should have thought of that in my list of objections earlier.) And what use is looking at the clock when you acknowledge he didn’t really mean exactly two minutes?
I’m sure it is, but there’s no reason to take his “two questions” statement literally when he’s just trying to stall and keep talking. If his first question was three questions, the other two might have also been three-parters.
Alas. Again, that could have been avoided if he didn’t act like a jerk.
I’m sorry you feel like you don’t know his intentions and he may have been unjustly deprived of his right to speak. I think the 90 seconds he did speak makes those intentions pretty clear.
I’m not sure what you mean. If “no cutting” is a rule that’s widely understood by anyone without being officially written down, why can’t “don’t hog the microphone” be a widely understood rule?
I’m okay with it being a judgment call. I’m not bothered by a maniac or somebody using profanity being cut off sooner (that’s a hypothetical person, not Meyer), and I don’t mind somebody with a detailed question going on longer than you might normally want.
I think the other students had a general idea what was expected. If all of them went on and on the way Meyer did, he wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Or else they all would have been arrested or something!
I know your explanation, I just don’t accept that it’s a good one.
Because in context, I think it’s clear that he is moving toward a suggestion that Kerry didn’t contest the election results because he and Bush were in cahoots. The general theme of his questions is ‘Why didn’t you oppose Bush more, by impeaching him or contesting the election results?’ At the end, he was suggesting that Kerry has a personal connection to Bush, so I think he was saying Kerry didn’t impeach Bush or contest the Florida and Ohio votes because of that secret society membership. That’s an accusation.
Can I ask what your problem is? You’re acting like I’m oppressing you by disagreeing with you. I do think you’re refusing to consider anything that doesn’t support your opinion.
I’m talking to you, not to everybody all over the world. I do think it’s plain as day to most of the people here - not that anyone other than you, myself and enigm4tic is paying attention at this point - that he was accusing Kerry of something.
Are you trying to sound like my grandmother or something?
Who is “you?” I certainly do get that idea. Are you presuming to speak for somebody else?
I’ve gone on at quite a bit of length about why I think what I think.
You didn’t. You’ve suggested possibilities but you haven’t given me much reason to think those possibilities are what happened, as opposed to the ones I’ve offered.
I never claimed I can prove anything. But I think the most reasonable explanation is that the guy was being a jerk.
By the way, this Christian Science Monitor article says that the police were ready to arrest Meyer because he was making a scene even before the YouTube video starts.
So you can add that to my comments about his actions - he cut in line, interrupted a question, and shouted at Kerry before being allowed to ask his question in the first place. Does that make it a little more reasonable that the police tapped him on the shoulder and then tried to get him to leave? Add that to his questioning time and it’s probably closer to two minutes anyway.
I’d say this argument, at its core, is corrupting your whole point. Not sure if you were too busy responding to the other poster in the thread or what, but if you had, you’d notice that it’s a major (IMO) point that it was not originally the police who took action. An SG official decided to cut his mic and then eject him, the police were responding based on the SG officials and weren’t taking a “legal” action, or at least, did not intend to charge him with a crime, merely to escort him from the forum. If you focus on the whole chain of events, the police response to Meyers’ resistance becomes even more reasonable.
Maybe I’m too tired, but I don’t see why. You make a good point that he might not have been arrested if he’d just left, though. And perhaps that means you can’t blame this on “mean campus officials.”
We can go on with this nitpick if you want, but I think most people can judge what an appropriate amount of time is without being told. Meyer says right there in the video that he has more questions, so who knows how long he planned on talking. If he was so interested in the answers to his questions, why didn’t he let Kerry answer them? Kerry is a windbag, and he could barely get two words in edgewise because Meyer kept right on talking. And he evidently planned to keep doing more of the same.