<p>^^^ well, I hope at least the FCC rattles its sabers. (responding to cobrat)</p>
<p>marie, you said the station had not edited the chant but only cut it off. Cutting it off IS EDITING IT. (no one said anything about splicing). Also, adding the woman’s voice over is pretty damning. If you’ve seen the unedited video, the protesters chant their 4-line spiel over and over and over. There is no way that any bystander could have misunderstood them. </p>
<p>The Baltimore station picked the wrong tape, I agree. They were looking for a kill the cops chant and thought they found one and used it. They were wrong. Then they apologized and had the chanter on the air to clarify and speak her piece which is admirable and their FCC license is going to be just fine. The NBC case was thrown out and there was actual splicing in that one. This one I can believe was an honest mistake. And, yeah, they should have used one of the other many cop killing chanters of which there are plenty available.</p>
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<p>Funny you say that considering Peter Lynch’s very act of claiming the mayor had blood on his hands, encouraging police officers to turn their backs on the mayor, issuing petitions to bar the mayor from attending funerals of LEOs fallen in the line of duty, and the very nature of his job as President of the PBA ARE ALL POLITICAL. </p>
<p>Encouraging an act which if my cousin had acted the same versus Bill Clinton back when he was a Naval officer IN UNIFORM would have had him brought before a disciplinary board for insubordination and a likely discharge under other than honorable conditions as a possible consequence is also by its very nature POLITICAL. </p>
<p>Especially considering the serious possible consequences of what could happen if such open disrespect and insubordination by military or quasi-military personnel like the police are allowed to pass unchallenged as it was in some societies in history. </p>
<p>There’s a good reason why there’s the following saying along the lines of “The military* is a great servant, but a horrible master of a given society.”</p>
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<li>The police can be substituted here as it is also professionally trained, armed, and charged by the state to fulfill its duty to the state and society.<br></li>
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<p>It reminds me of when Sen. Jesse Helms said that Bill Clinton shouldn’t go to a military base in North Carolina. As if he wouldn’t be safe. Disgusting. Both to threaten an elected government official and to also assume that members of the military would let any personal or political beliefs overtake their sense of duty and fairness and discipline. </p>
<p>“Encouraging an act which if my cousin had acted the same versus Bill Clinton back when he was a Naval officer IN UNIFORM would have had him brought before a disciplinary board for insubordination and a likely discharge under other than honorable conditions as a possible consequence is also by its very nature POLITICAL.”</p>
<p>No. It is not political. An overtly disrespectful act towards a president, any president, no matter which party he came from, would be treated in the same way. </p>
<p>Here’s the thing. You can pull one of hundreds of examples from history to support your viewpoint. And if that doesn’t suffice, or the example needs to be current, you can give an example from one of your many thousands of friends or cousins. But it’s all to support your particular bias. If you had a different bias, you could easily find hundreds of examples to support the opposite side. And if none of those examples work, you can ignore it, or just declare the person questioning to be stupid.</p>
<p>I would lay a hefty bet that you would happily support police officers questioning or showing disrespect to a conservative mayor. You’d have all sorts of examples justifying it, based upon freedom of speech and what could happen if the police are too tightly controlled by government officials. A different party, well, you expect them to act just like good little soldiers, and fulfill their obligations as if they were robots.</p>
<p>You might think yourself as the brilliant intellectual, yet if you look at the world with such a highly biased eye, you are blind.</p>
<p>The couple who assassinated the two Vegas cop were part of the show down with LEO’s at the Bundy ranch. Bundy and his supporters are part of the Sovereign Citizen movement. They are “true believers.” it’s a growing problem. </p>
<p><a href=“What is a Sovereign Citizen?”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjmacnab/2012/02/13/what-is-a-sovereign-citizen/</a></p>
<p>Who are the government officials inflaming the Bundys?</p>
<p>It’s also very appalling that the bogus chant apparently was repeated as fact, obviously without any vetting, on other media outlets. Some posters even repeated it was what the protestors were chanting on this thread. </p>
<p>What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want them? Now. is the corrected chant. I’m not sure it’s better, though.</p>
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That is what I have posted all through and it is the truth. I know because I was there, and there is video.</p>
<p>The Mayor has asked for calm and for the unions and the protesters to observe a period of calm while the officers are laid to rest. The unions have agreed. The major protest groups have issued statements stating that they will not observe such a period of calm. </p>
<p>So that was different protest than the one with the edited chant? Ok. My apologies. I should bave checked first before posting but the thread is so long. </p>
<p>As to the protests continuing, I haven’t heard anything about that but they have every right to continue regardless of the mayor’ request. Personally, I think it would be wise to honor his request, at least in NYC, but it’s not up to me. </p>
<p>There was even a small group protesting yesterday (via CNN) at the makeshift memorial where the officers were killed. This is all very unfortunate and indicates clearly that there is a great deal of work to be done and strong, serious leadership is needed.</p>
<p>Reverend Calvin Butts came out today to express his concern as a well-respected leader of the black community that he and other black civic and religious leaders have been shut out by the mayor, leaving Mr. Sharpton as the sole voice to the mayor, which is seen as very problematic by those leaders.</p>
<p>My point is not that x or y say thing but that in this society there is free expression and a very long history of court cases and laws that make clear you aren’t responsible when some idiot becomes violent just because of your words or your song lyrics. </p>
<p>Take Judas Priest. They were sued because a kid killed himself. Their lyrics can be a downer but it’s not their fault. People actually alleged the song contained a subliminal phrase “do it” that pushed 2 really screwed up and very drunk people to shoot themselves. (One died. The other died 3 years later.)</p>
<p>In law, we go back to the “it’s not free speech to yell fire in a crowded theater” because that’s immediate, that causes immediate harm. There are laws against inciting violence but the Supreme Court has made clear that hate speech is illegal only when it leads to imminent hate violence and that “imminent” in there means right away in that place or as close as that as possible. In other words, you yell out “Kill that ***” and someone tries to do that right there, then that is not protected speech. This is called the “fighting words” exception. That goes back to a famous case (Chaplinsky) when a Jehovah’s Witness was prosecuted for calling a town marshall in NH a fascist. The Court said words that aren’t protected: “include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” See the word “immediate”. None of this stuff by idiots and nutcases from any group has been “immediate”. </p>
<p>Brandenburg v. Ohio protected speech by the KKK that threatened “revengeance” - yeah, but remember these are idiots. In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, they said a cross burning wasn’t illegal as speech. Here’s Scalia: “A State may choose to prohibit only that obscenity which is the most patently offensive in its prurience — i.e., that which involves the most lascivious displays of sexual activity. But it may not prohibit, for example, only that obscenity which includes offensive political messages. And the Federal Government can criminalize only those threats of violence that are directed against the President, since the reasons why threats of violence are outside the First Amendment (protecting individuals from the fear of violence, from the disruption that fear engenders, and from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur) have special force when applied to the person of the President.” He concluded with this line: “Let there be no mistake about our belief that burning a cross in someone’s front yard is reprehensible. But St. Paul has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire.”</p>
<p>There’s a trend in society to forget that we’re a nation of laws. We seem more and more drawn to argue about things as though we’ve never thought about them before. Maybe the internet is to blame. The social rules of free speech have been dealt with by the courts and they’re covered in our laws. But we ignore that to say “These people have blood on their hands” when the reality is the person or persons who pulled the trigger are the killers. </p>
<p>I see this as further proof we still haven’t learned the very first lesson of the Bible: that God says to Adam, what did you do and Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the serpent when they each chose of their accord to eat the fruit. Avoidance of blame and placing of blame is an essential failing and we are no closer to getting past that than 3000 years ago and more. </p>
<p>In this case, it is more than just words. It’s about deeds and setting boundaries and enforcing them. Stopping allowing the protesters from blocking traffic and bridges, preventing emergency vehicles from passing through, warning that violence will not be tolerated, warning that threates of violence will not be tolerated. And meaning it. Those are actions, not words.</p>
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<p>Which part of the protests and when? I didn’t hear that chant when I passed and observed those protests while enroute/leaving a client site in the Union Square/Flatiron area. Several friends and former colleagues of mine were at those protests as participants or journalists and they never heard and would never utter such words…especially considering some are children of current/retired NYPD/LEO officers. </p>
<p>Sorry, but I have to call BS on that. </p>
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<p>On the Internet, TV and posts like this one, certain people keep mentioning leaders of the black community. Who elected or appointed these leaders? Do Hispanics and whites have a leader? Are blacks in NYC all of one community? How about throughout the USA?</p>
<p>When people don’t have permits to protest, etc., the issue isn’t speech but assembly and there are cases on the right to peaceable assembly as well. Most of these cases involve religion and groups like the KKK. This is how permitting evolved with requirements of reasonableness and why there are still court cases because a place denies a permit due to the possibility of violence. They generally can’t because unpopular views have a right to be expressed through assembly.</p>
<p>I have to note I read the Baltimore TV station’s apology and it reeks: they said their engineer thought that was said but that’s utterly stupid because the entire chant goes “till killer cops are in cell blocks” without a pause. I think they didn’t expect to get caught. </p>
<p>Yeah, I think it was sloppy but ultimately meaningless except to the misquoted chanter on camera. And, they invited her on the air to the clear it up, promptly. </p>
<p>Here’s another one for those who seem to think it didn’t happen. There are more.</p>
<p><a href=“Video Shows NYC Protesters Chanting for “Dead Cops” – NBC New York”>Video Shows NYC Protesters Chanting for “Dead Cops” – NBC New York;
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You are missing the point. The protesters blocked streets, bridges and tunnels. They actually prevented the passage of emergency vehicles. There is no right to that, there is only the failure to enforce laws preventing those things and preserving public safety.</p>
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That’s exactly the point. They are not. However, men of integrity and universal trust have been shut out of the dialogue by the mayor. It is only the voice of Al Sharpton, who does not represent all, most or even many actual black people, to which the mayor is listening.</p>