Even though I’ve expressed a small bit of sympathy for their motives, I’m not a fan of the OWS protesters. But other than sharing some jokes about the movement (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), I haven’t had much to say.
But this video showing a clash with police at UC Davis is rather troubling.
I realize that I don’t know the context, but the police reaction seems rather excessive. Two questions spring to mind.
1. Why does anyone care that they’re blocking a sidewalk? I can understand that the police have to act if protesters decide to block a street,but why was there a need to have a big confrontation (one that the protesters obviously wanted) to clear a sidewalk? My instinct would be to leave them alone.
2. Why did they use mace? Surely there ought to be some rule of proportionality. If a bunch of protesters are smashing windows or overturning cars, then a more aggressive response obviously is needed. But why use pepper spray on some college kids sitting on a sidewalk?
I consider myself a tough-on-crime conservative, but mixed with a strong libertarian belief in individual rights. As I said in an earlier post, the real key is to make sure laws are just.
That’s why I’ve criticized abuses of police power, in cases such as asset forfeiture, the destructive war on drugs, videotaping of public officials, and persecution of victimless crime.
Is this video another example of a government doing the wrong thing? Again, we don’t know the context, but this doesn’t seem right.
I assume the cops are just following orders, so the real issue is decision making by local politicians or university administrators.
Broken clocks are quite correct, as long as you only look at them at select times.
Please read this and let me know what you think: http://www.eutimes.net/2010/05/new-obama-law-warned-will-jail-500000-americans/
Don’t forget the extent that police unionization enables this.
Things like this are occasionally at least started by a cop who doesn’t really know what he’s doing (or worse…). As unions always and everywhere do, they close ranks to protect their worst members.
Exactly my thoughts….
But to answer Mr. Mitchell’s question:
Because the majority is against the protesters being in the public space. Therefore, if need be, they will be crucified.
The majority never gives up in its pursuit if you disobey its laws. It only escalates. Until you are taken by force into jail. That is the terminal outcome of any resistance to the majority laws, whether it’s sustained resistance to paying a parking ticket or refusing to work half the week for the benefit of some distant others.
So that is the central answer that matches the pivotal philosophical transformation in the American psyche in the delusional era of CopyEurope-HopeNChange mandatory collectivism. So, yes, in a democracy whose electorate is turning towards mandatory collectivism, the pitchforks meet the police guns. And just like fascism and communism; it’s a nasty clash because it is a fight amongst brothers. They both claim total control of the individual, alas, to different central plans. Hence the nasty fight between the pitchforks and the mace the handcuffs and the steel bars.
That being said, …Americans prepare yourselves for a lot more demonstrations.
As mandatory collectivism makes every issue a political matter, to be voted upon, legislated and finally mandated by shifting majorities, and as our desire to subjugate all activity under communal management takes hold, prepare for politics to enter everything — and for everything to become a political issue to be resolved by demonstrating in the streets.
Welcome to Europe! Guess you haven’t seen the movie eh?
As someone who has been subjected to pepper gas (same active ingredient as mace) I can assure you: what you are seeing here is *extremely* painful.
Why is this a semi-defense? You believe in fair and just laws, evenly applied. If they are evenly applied, they apply to the cops. This is a clear case where, whatever law was being broken, the response was disproportionate. Pepper-spraying sitting protestors is assault. If someone occupies your lawn, you don’t get to hit them with a shovel. If someone is blocking a sidewalk, you don’t get to spray poison in their eyes.
There’s no question what should happen in response. The cop ought to be fired and prosecuted for numerous counts of assault, possibly aggravated, since pepper spray can kill. His superiors ought to be fired, possibly prosecuted. The chancellor ought to be fired. And the police department should issue a public apology and pay for any injuries suffered by the protestors.
You know, if we’re taking the rule of law seriously.
Anyone should be able to protest without fear. However, when the protests turn into long term encampments that are disrupting others (some even becoming a threat to public safety) it starts to get a bit grayer. I seems the police were under orders to clear the area.
The protestors refused to do so. It is obvious they could have avoided being sprayed had they obeyed the direction to disperse. So, it escalated into a battle for control of the situation. The police did what they normally do in that situation and exercised non-lethal force.
I don’t like it but I wasn’t one of the outnumbered officers who were being screamed at in the middle of a mob that could turn violent at any point. The pepper spray was probably counterproductive, but lets not pretend that the protestors aren’t trying to provoke incidents like this in order to turn public opinion back to their favor.
They want to be seen as the underdogs but in reality they have been violent aggressors in many situations. Their rap sheet is growing by the day.
It is my understanding that the students set up an encampment with tents when they were warned not to do so. Then, as the police were preparing to remove the tents, the students formed some form of human chain where they were blocking the police from performing their duty.
When these students are forewarned and then go about defying the order by blocking the police, I believe the pepper spray was necessary.
…and if the orders of the police were to shoot to kill, I suppose that would be OK with you too?
[…] though I expressed some support for the Occupy protesters the other day, I strongly reject their entitlement […]
UC Davis Pepper Spraying incident:
I have trouble finding a whole lot of sympathy for the protestors for a few reasons, not because I don’t feel bad for them being pepper sprayed. I feel bad they had to suffer pain and humiliation at the hands of the police via pepper spray and detention, yet it must be remembered that the protestors choose their consequence, using their agency, knowing full well what would happen if they did not comply with the at first non-forceful dispersal requests of the police. I say this for 3 specific reasons:
1.) There is a difference between non-violent legal protests and non-violent illegal protests, namely one is legal, having obtained permits to do so, and one is illegal, bypassing the obtaining of permits to protest on either private or public land. These individuals, from all accounts, did not obtain permits to occupy UC Davis, and especially did not obtain permits to occupy this sidewalk. As such, regardless of whether a protest is peaceful or not, it all depends on whether it is legal. I have no problem with civil disobedience when, as Locke explained, the government uses force to execute laws that it has no right to execute. And I see nothing wrong with civil disobedience when all other lawful means of redress have been exhausted or denied. But these students appear to have violated this important process of redress of grievances. They bypassed from the get-go, the first step of obtaining a lawful permit to protest on UC Davis, and particularly on this walkway, blocking it to all pedestrian traffic, and went straight for civil disobedience. If these students had applied for a lawful permit to protest, and had been denied this permit for illegitimate reasons, solely because the city didn’t want them to express their 1st Amendment rights, then occupying, and had been denied repeatedly, as well as denied help from other government officials in obtaining this permit, then civil disobedience would be in order for these students to express their 1st Amendment rights. Or, if these students had been granted the lawful permit to protest at UC Davis, including on the sidewalk, and had been asked by the police to vacant the sidewalk in direct disagreement with the permit granted, then the protesters have the right to civil disobedience and not move. But neither of these scenarios was the case. They did not seek, and thus did not obtain the lawful permit to protest, and thus they must adhere to the lawful requests of the police to disperse and cease from areas of pedestrian traffic. But they didn’t, obviously.
2.) A sidewalk is an area designed for pedestrian traffic, as a road is designed for vehicular traffic. Just as one may receive a ticket for purposefully blocking vehicular traffic on a road, one may receive a ticket for purposefully blocking pedestrian traffic on a sidewalk. For example, if one parks in someone’s driveway, and blocks the sidewalk, they are typically in violation of a city ordinance, and either can be asked to move their vehicle or receive a ticket or citation of some kind. For the sidewalks are meant for pedestrian traffic, especially those who may be handicap in some way and need the sidewalk, like a blind person, or a person in a wheel chair. If a car or even people are blocking their way on the sidewalk, then it’s not like they can just easily pass around them on street or in the case of UC Davis, on the grass. This could be done, of course, but not so easily for a blind person, someone with crutches, or someone in a wheel chair. A permit may be obtained for purposefully blocking a road or sidewalk for protestation of grievances, and blocking vehicular or pedestrian traffic in this manner would be perfectly legal. But, the UC Davis protesters did not seek to obtain, nor did they obtain such a permit to block the sidewalk, and therefore, when they refused to disperse and stop blocking the sidewalk, the police were justified in forcibly removing them, for the protesters ignored a lawful dispersal order.
3.) There is no difference between peacefully violating the law in unjustified situations and violently violating the law in unjustified situations, other than one reeks of physical violence while the other remains relatively passive in physical exertions by the protesters. But both are unjustified and violate the law, which in a way could not necessarily be called passive or peaceful. Resisting officers of the law in their attempts to clear public places of traffic or other public areas that are occupied illegally by protesters, either in their verbal attempts or in their physical attempts to pull the protesters away, is difficult to label as peaceful or passive protest. How can one peacefully or passively yet unjustifiably violate legitimate laws? And can be screaming slogans and pre-written, often cliché chants at the police after unjustifiably disobeying the their lawful dispersal orders be called passive and peaceful? Perhaps physically, but what about mentally? Police are human too, and humans often react in stressful situations in sometimes unpredictable ways, and if there are screaming people disobeying your lawful orders, tempers can boil, as is natural to expect, and it is natural to expect something to result from such a situation, be it from the police’s end or the protester’s end, or perhaps both, and this time it resulted from the police. Was the police spraying pepper spray “excessive force?” Well, perhaps to some, or perhaps not to others, but before we make such judgments, we must make sure we have as many of the facts on our side as possible. We don’t know exactly how many times the police tried to get the illegal protesters to disperse, particularly from the sidewalk, and how many times they tried to do so without force and using tame means of doing so. But it seems from the video that they had been warned at least once to move. Using pepper spray from the get-go in such a situation would be uncalled for and excessive force, to be sure, but if all other means had been exhausted by the police, and pepper-spray was the next most humane step in getting the illegal protesters to disperse, then they are justified in doing so, and the protesters receive their reward for disobeying a lawful order to disperse from the police during an illegal protest, unjustified by the fact that the protesters bypassed attempting to seek a permit so as to protest legally.