Okay, that's pretty funny.Primula Baggins wrote: I also liked a chant heard a lot today (because of the many, many people, possibly thousands, who've gone downtown to stand with them): "Too big to jail! Too big to jail!"
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/77tongue.gif)
Okay, that's pretty funny.Primula Baggins wrote: I also liked a chant heard a lot today (because of the many, many people, possibly thousands, who've gone downtown to stand with them): "Too big to jail! Too big to jail!"
Why, when we're talking about how they should be valued externally?Ghân-buri-Ghân wrote:Without veering too far from the topic (I hope), I think, Aravar, that there is a major dissonance between our positions. I, truthfully, do not think it is 'silly' to claim that an hour of a street cleaner's life has any less value, intrinsically, than an hour of a brain surgeon's life (to take extremes). I would go so far as to claim that, to the street cleaner, and hour of the street cleaner's life is more important than the hour of the brain surgeon's. Personal subjectivity trumps impersonal objectivity...
Don't know about nurses, and some of them earn a surprising large amount, but GPs certainly earn more than most lawyers.But I will concede that there is, probably, some room to play with pay differentials. For example, nurses could have some moral claim for greater remuneration than lawyers, for example...
You can say it, but you haven't really said why.However, I would say that nobody deserves to earn more than ten times for an hour of their life than any other person.
But this is it: youv'e created a false dichotomy between accepting your view and going the whole Gordon Gecko.It requires a change of mindset, admittedly, but that is no bad thing. the "Greed is Good", Gordon Gecko mindset quite obviously (I would say) needs changing...
The Walk of Shame is getting all the press for the effective tactics the Davis students are using, but they struck another blow just minutes after the pepper spray event. Those who did not get sprayed got angry, but they did it in a very non-violent and peaceful way. They closed ranks and chanted. The cops reloaded with pepper spray and then decided that maybe they'd rather retreat. So they did. First they clumped up backed up, (on video, this is borderline hilarious because, though they're out-numbered by angry students, the angry students aren't actually being threatening) but then, when they realized that the students were just standing and talking, they turned their backs and walked away. No one moved to follow.Primula Baggins wrote:I'm proud of those students for using a peaceful tactic so effectively.
Atrios wrote:If it's ok for police to torture people with pepper spray given the circumstances at UC Davis, it's basically always ok for police to torture people with pepper spray.
And if it's ok for university administrators to order such things in those circumstances, it's always ok for university administrators to order such things.
Oh, my, yes. There are people who believe that protesters are always, by definition, wrong, and police are always, by definition, right. There are people who believe that the benefit of the doubt should always go to the police. And there are some who believe that the students are a danger to our society because of what they were protesting, and society was acting to protect itself by suppressing the protest by any means necessary.Voronwë the Faithful wrote:That's an interesting comment, because it suggests that there are people who actually think that the officers were justified in doing what they did. Is there actually anyone who thinks that?
I doubt that there is. Atrios has a dry sense of humor. He was not suggesting that these were the facts. He was suggesting that people who would make this argument, that it is OK to do these things in circumstances like those at Davis, are in fact making a much larger and more frightening argument.Voronwë the Faithful wrote:It also suggests that the administrators actually ordered the officers to go in and pepper spray the students while they were just sitting there. Is there any evidence that that is true?
I'd be interested in seeing it, specifically about this incident, if anyone can point me to any legitimate examples of this (as opposed to "comments" which I ignore on either side of the political spectrum). I went to Fox News, and I only saw condemnation of the police action there. That's really the only place I know to look for conservative news commentary.Primula Baggins wrote:There's an awful lot of this sort of writing and talking-heads discussion out there—more every day. See any conservative news commentary.
Here's one:Voronwë the Faithful wrote:I'd be interested in seeing it, specifically about this incident, if anyone can point me to any legitimate examples of this (as opposed to "comments" which I ignore on either side of the political spectrum). I went to Fox News, and I only saw condemnation of the police action there. That's really the only place I know to look for conservative news commentary.Primula Baggins wrote:There's an awful lot of this sort of writing and talking-heads discussion out there—more every day. See any conservative news commentary.
This Kelly guy is saying what he saw was "standard police procedure", which to me seems unreasonable and I don't find his points valid.Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.
"When you start picking up human bodies, you risk hurting them," Kelly said. "Bodies don't have handles on them."
After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques.
"What I'm looking at is fairly standard police procedure," Kelly said.
The federal courts have ruled on such cases. At the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers courts in nine western states, the cases have centered on whether or not the protesters were involved in what is called "active resistance."
The court used the term in considering a case about another highly circulated video of a group of passive demonstrators being swabbed with pepper spray in 1997. The protesters had linked arms on the floor of a California congressman's office to protest the logging of old-growth redwood trees on California's North Coast.
Because demonstrators were using a metal sleeve to prevent the county sheriff's office from separating them, attorneys argued the protestors' "active resistance" left officers no other way to disperse them than dabbing their eyelids with Q-tips soaked in pepper spray, said Jim Wheaton, an attorney who assisted in the prosecution of the civil case.
The 9th Circuit ruled that the protesters weren't in "active resistance," and because they were sitting peacefully, the use of pepper spray was excessive.
"Pepper spray is designed to protect people from a violent attack, to stop somebody from doing something," said Wheaton, senior counsel for the Oakland-based First Amendment Project.
UC Davis police used "it as a torture device to force someone to do something, and that's exactly what the 9th Circuit said was unreasonable and excessive."