So you are okay with the sucker punch of the protester, and with the candidate paying the puncher’s legal fees? Not that it would surprise me if you were…
I do not know what may be a good and peaceful mechanism for the ones “on the bottom” or on the losing end (and they are in this position not due to their own fault) to protest that they should be treated fairly.
A small crowd of “sanders’s people” in a much larger crowd of “Trump’s people” are on the losing end in that environment. Ditto for a smaller crowd of the latter group in a much larger crowd of the former group.
If there were nobody on the bottom who were out there taking the beating in the 1960s and early 1970s (I think), do you think the ones “on the top” at that time would be willingly give up their exclusive provileges just because they thought this would be the right way? I am no social activist and I do not know a good answer to this.
Do you prefer that we go back to the days when one group of people were pushed back by the other group violently (and brutally treated by the police) as in 1960s?
The guy that punched the man being escorted out should be charged not only with assault but also with endangering everyone there. He could have started a riot.
This applies to Trump so well I doubt I could’ve said it better.
Precisely! Minorities that Trump insulted have finally reached breaking point. They are no longer willing to stand by and listen to his fear mongering and naked hatred. I’m glad they are protesting, just as I’m glad the Civil Rights movement happened (where the protestors were beaten up by law enforcement for “causing civil unrest”. Well, that “unruly behavior” is the reason black people are afforded rights today, but I digress). Anyways, the rally supporters are almost always the ones who initiate violence, not the protesters.
I don’t understand how anyone can justify the cowboy hat guy’s action.
Sure, the protesters were disruptive, and the police were right to escort them out since they were creating a disturbance.
But the guy in the audience who gets up, pushes his way accross sitting people, and just punches a random protester in the face as he’s escorted out by the police? How can anyone be okay with that?
I understand being angry that your favorite speaker’s show has been cancelled. But you don’t go punching random people because you’re angry. Do you?
Punching someone in the face is never okay (I can’t believe I have to say that!!!)
There’s another problem: the fact his legal fees will be covered pretty much incites others to do the same.
To me the police behavior reads as “Black guy + agitated: let’s cuff him”, textbook problem of prejudice; while it’s a problem, it shouldn’t come as a total surprise o anyone who’s been following the news regardless of favorite channel, and at least it is being addressed as a problem by the police chief himself (which is a relative progress compared). You can say there may be no consequences for them or whatever, but let’s see what happens.
I don’t think the guy who cuffed the protester was watching the crowd - another issue!! since that was his job! - but clearly others did see it and didn’t intervene, which brings in another problem.
How we’ll get rid of the reflex “Black guy is agitated, must have done something wrong” is more complicated than training the police to speak up when their colleagues make an honest mistake. (We can think it wasn’t, or that it was, but let’s say the police officer didn’t see what had happened and thus thought the protester was the problem.)
Hopefully police will be trained much better as such things are likely to escalate again now that punching in the face of protesters has been condoned by the speaker.
I also notice that cowboy hat guy is 78. Born in 1938. Likely spent most of his youth on the losing side of the desegregation movement. And who doesn’t think that your country was the greatest when you were 20 or 25?
Reporters say the violence only started when the event was cancelled, and that news popped the cork off everyone’s feelings, both attendees amd protesters alike. The candidate’s people said the police told them to cancel, yet the police were very clear that they did no such thing. The exact same thing happened at an Ohio rally, and again the police denied they were the ones who cancelled. Both cancelled rallies were scheduled in venues in city locations near where students live. Many people on both sides of the political spectrum are suggesting the violence was expected amd engineered.
I think the rally was strategically placed in that location. The school is VERY diverse. They had to have known many in the student body would object to the rally being held there.
What do you expect when you put a bunch of extremely passionate people together in one spot, supporting a guy who is extremely controversial? I mean really…
Regardless, I could think of a thousand others ways I would rather spend my free time then attending a rally.
I remember when some Nazi group was planning to march in DC. The police promised to protect them. The group canceled though (not the police) because they realized they would be outnumbered by 5000 to 1!
The famous case where the American Nazi party wanted to parade in Skokie, IL was horrible, but still considered protected speech. The ACLU stood up for them in a case that went to the Supreme Court. They ended up not marching in Skokie, but they had won the case.
Ugly speech is still protected speech unless it devolves into “fighting words”. Physical assault is not protected unless it is physical self defense. Police should protect someone who is just shouting (or holding a sign) from anyone who tries to use physical force against them. Even if what they are shouting is awful, rude, etc.
25 year old raises hand
Wait, you think it’s against the law to enter a rally that’s open to the public, and then protest in there? What law is that? Perhaps it’s legal for the organizers of the event to eject you, but I’m not even sure of that if it’s taking place in a public place. It certainly wouldn’t be appropriate to kick you out if you’re not being disruptive.
And it is absolutely, positively the moral obligation of a leader to tell his followers not to attack protestors. The failure to do that is, well…
Michele Fields and Editor-at-Large Ben Shapiro have now both resigned from Breitbart News. She was grabbed and bruised by a Trump staffer who didn’t recognize her as being from a “friendly” source and Breitbart didn’t back her up at all.
The apparent attitude of the cowboy who threw the punch is undeniably similar to that of the members of the White Citizens Councils of the southland in the 1960s; those “outside agitators” deserve it!, as the popular feeling was at the time.
I agree. Though we will need to define personal space. Anti-abortion protesters were, until the latest supreme court ruling in 2014, kept a distance from patients when they protest outside clinics. Now there is no limit. Not sure if/how that can apply to political protests at rallies and such.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/free-speech-outside-the-abortion-clinic/388162/
Don’t kill your baby, you’re a racist, it seems it’s all allowed and in pretty close quarters.
What is that distance, exactly? At what point is self-defense allowed? Is it anything short of actual physical contact? I don’t think so. Abortion protesters are allowed to block doorways, forcing women to physically go past them into a clinic.
Back to the original point, leadership starts at the top. I think the police response at this particular rally was due to the organizer of the rally. Just as the attendees start embracing the fervor, I imagine the hired security does as well. Unfortunately for some cops/security, it is par for the course to always assume the person of color is in the wrong. So you have cops arresting the person who actually got punched, brown journalists being detained, women being accosted, etc…Until the leader starts saying the behavior is unacceptable it will continue.
I find this kind of absolutist denialism of actual fact to be incredibly disturbing. It reflects exactly the kind of mindset displayed by the person who deliberately provokes the violence against protesters in the first place. There’s a video of someone going out of his way to “sucker punch” a protester being led out peacefully from a rally? Who cares what the video shows! I say the protester was being violent and throwing punches and deserved what he got! The same thing with the group of college students sitting peacefully waiting for the speech at their own university to begin, that was kicked out solely because of the color of their skin – an action which the police confirmed was taken at the request of the candidate’s “people,” despite the campaign’s denial that it had anything to do with it.
Whatever I say is true; never mind reality!
It would have been much more likely true in his case as he was part of the American generation who benefited from the post-war economic boom brought about partially due to the beginnings of a social safety net passed as part of FDR’s New Deal policies a few years before he was born.
For instance, he had the benefit of having the option to be hired for a middle-class wage job with great pension & benefits with a high school diploma or sometimes less thanks to postwar prosperity and strong unions or if he wanted to go on to higher education and was academically tracked for it…could avail himself to public colleges which was exceedingly inexpensive or even free*. And keep in mind, this was an era when many of these benefits were often denied…sometimes by the prevailing laws of the era to non-White populations.
His case is reminiscent of the phenomenon described in many US history/political analysis books/studies about the conditions of poor southern Whites as a SES class in the antebellum, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and to the present. Their position and status places them nearly at the very bottom of the southern social order and they were secretly and strongly disdained by the southern White economic and social elites similar to how Trump likely secretly views most of his supporters.
However, one effective way those elites used to divert the attention of the poor southern Whites class from actual lowness and stigmatization of their SES status at the elite’s hands was to maintain strong discriminatory policies against African-Americans and otherwise use them as scapegoats for all their troubles.
And this diversionary tactic has been used in many other places and times in history…Nazi Germany anyone? Imperial Japan**?
- I.e. CUNY/CCNY and several other public college systems were free for in-state students in the era of his youth provided they met the bar for extremely selective admissions or if the system operated on the basis of open admissions....accept the high probability they may be weeded out by the end of freshman or sophomore year. .
** Imperial Japan used ethnic Koreans and other colonized Asians for the same ends. One illustration of this was the massive targeting of ethnic Koreans for assaults and killings because they were scapegoats for the damage and chaos after the 1923 earthquake which devastated large sections of Tokyo.
If you read my other posts I clearly stated that the protestors should be able to protest. What is happening is very different and crosses the line. For example, jumping a barrier to get on stage and rushing at someone is potentially assault. And the action must be treated as a potential assault until proven otherwise because no one knows another’s intent. It is also potentially assault going up in someone face and shouting at them and pointing your finger inches from his face. That is not rallying; that is serious taunting at that point.
I am totally fine with protestors as that is their right. However, they do not have a right to abuse people and encroach on their personal space because the people are saying things they do not like.
Sure. This was addressed this morning in press conference. It was stated that it is fine for attendees fighting back if directly threatened and if assaulted. In one case cited where a person was told that he is fine with punching someone, the protestor had already pushed a couple people. People need not wait around of security if they are being pushed - they can hit back.
I totally agree that unprovoked attacking is wrong - I said that already in my posts. However, there are protestors who are going too far and people do have the right to fight back when protestors go too far in approaching them.
On the most basic level, there is huge difference between rallying and disturbing the peace.
Agreed in a totally open public event.
You made the distinction my chief of police made yesterday. He said the issue is some protestors have crossed the line into disturbing the proceedings and being disruptive. That is where he says the problem lies. And he also stated that even in a public place at a public event, once that line is crossed, they are actually obligated upon request of the organizers to clear that person or persons.
So, one protester points a finger and you feel it’s okay to punch him ? Seriously ?
In a public hall ? How is that different from justifications given by drunken louts who start bar fights ? How is that justified at a political rally ?
If acwndt’s thinking is prevalent, then the police need to get special training because instead of isolated incident we could well have a larger problem on our hands.
For what it’s worth I’ve been in the group targeted by protesters who try to prevent a speaker from speaking. It’s ugly and demoralizing in a democracy. But I’ve never EVER seen any of the protesters punched, hit, or physically attacked.
Indeed. Especially considering I know of a few older adult males and kids in my old NYC neighborhood who were known to be hotheads lacking even the barest minimal self-restraint expected in the prevalent male subculture. They weren’t well-regarded* by most males in the neighborhood whether it’s the kids or moreso…the adults.
The ones who were inclined and did react to someone getting in their face…even to the point of pointing a finger by punching them ended up getting arrested for physical assault and accumulating arrest and prison records. And the neighborhood consensus was that they got their just desserts.
- Let's just say their rack of minimal self-restraint was viewed as one evidence they actually seriously lacking in the machismo department despite their overcompensating protests to the contrary.