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Originally Posted by TheMercenary
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What's your problem with American citizens exercising their rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech? LA is pretty far from Georgia last time I checked. Plus, the LA group has been very peaceful. From your link:
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But given the congenial southern California climate and largely sympathetic politicians, Los Angeles' protesters have had few incentives to leave, and have given officials few official reasons – like crime or sanitation problems – to act. Indeed, the camp itself has largely steered clear of the kinds of small-time crimes, drug overdoses, and even shootings that have tainted other camps, and which have given other mayors public backing to close down the camps and tear down tents.
It wasn't clear why Villaraigosa chose this moment to act. At the Friday press conference, the mayor and Police Chief Charlie Beck wouldn't say how far police would go to clear protesters – or whether tear gas and rubber bullets would be used.
"The goal is to do this as peacefully as possible," Chief Beck said.
But some Occupy protesters have already indicated that they will resist eviction from the City Hall park.
"Elected leaders should be more concerned about enforcing regulations on banks than enforcing park rules," spokesman Jacob Hay tells the Los Angeles Times. "They should be busy creating jobs, not creating conflict with peaceful protesters."
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You just don't want people walking around and freely expressing a point of view that does not agree with your own. Well, you can always move somewhere that does not allow freedom of speech - many places you could choose from.
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Originally Posted by Undertoad
"Unparallelled police brutality" it is to laugh. I have a video of Syrian protesters getting shot in the face...
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What Gvidas said. What is it about this movement that has sprung up lately among conservatives to hold the US and the Third World to the same bar? "At least we are not as bad as Syria" is a cop out. We are not in some competition with countries run by dictators and/or governments where the military has seized power away from the people.
This is not about "only" wounding people instead of killing them. This is about the rights given the American people by our constitution. Apparently you think its fine to restrict these freedoms whenever you don't agree with what some group is saying. Yet, whether you agree with the ideas of a given group or not should NEVER be the most important question. Ultimately, it is the right to free speech that we should be monitoring here. Whatever happened to the attitude, "I disagree with what you say, but I'll give my life for your right to say it"?
What's next? The US is better than Sri Lanka during its horrible civil war some years back? Better than Cambodia in the days of the "Killing Fields? Better than Argentina when It was "disappearing" people by pushing them out of airplanes at 15,000 ft? I have seen this "better than THAT atrocity" mindset on other boards besides this one. This outlook baffles me. And nobody would have dreamed of making such crazy comparisons a while ago.
Oh, so they've been hanging black people and civil rights workers? At least the US is better than Hitler's Germany since we don't put African Americans in concentration camps.
Just what kind of behaviors and to what degree of integrity do people in the US aspire to now, anyway?
11-26-2011, 08:30 PM
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