Student gets tasered.

I understand the whole strength in numbers argument, and to be honest, your point is valid. At the same time, though, they didn't abuse the taser, they used it to subdue someone who could have made the situation even worse. I just can't help but think of what would have happened had they not stopped him when they did. The whole struggle probably would have went on for a long time with someone truly getting hurt. This guy was obviously trying to start some shit. He was trying to get the other students involved which could have escalated into a full-scale riot. Then some people would have truly been hurt or, even worse, killed.

With that said, I'm not immune to police brutality. Just today, some police car video surfaced of a cop tasering a drunk women repeatedly, while she was handcuffed. This was a case of abuse, and I just don't see this incident at FSU fitting that tag.

 

I used the gun analogy to show something: just because you warn someone of what you're going to do if they disobey, that doesn't give you the right to do it. I was just showing that the argument of "well, he was warned!" is not enough to make it right on it's own. I used an extreme example to point out the flaws in that particular train of reasoning. It is a pretty typical method of exposing holes in the logic of an argument.

And, if the campus cops had that little training, why even have them there, really? I mean, it seems to kind of defeat the purpose.


Thirdly, I just can't get past the fact that Kerry had told them not to take him, but they did anyway. It seems that if anyone should have been able to let him stay, Kerry would be that person.

I do think it is obvious that this guy wanted to cause a scene. The fact that 7 campus police tackled him to the ground and tazered him seemed to only make that scene. It was a horrible way to handle the situation.


And, really, I still just don't know how seven campus police, even with minimal training, had to electrocute a guy to get him out of the building. Didn't we go for centuries without tasers? It just seemed like laziness at best to me, and at worst a chance for them to try out their new toy.

 

I'm gonna draw attention to this because if the police hadn't tried to detain the guy for no reason then none of this would have happened in the first place.

 

You could also go farther back and say that the guy should have left the podium when his time was up. I know what your going to say "if Kerry would have answered his question..." Here's my reasoning. John Kerry is a politician. What does a politician do when he doesn't want to answer a tough question?
He dodges it. So who's to say that this guy would have been satisfied with Kerrys answer? The truth is, this guy was trying to disrupt this event and he did.

 

Amen.

Kerry didn't seem to have a problem with the quiestions at all.

 

I remember hearing Kerry say that he would answer the guys question?

That and from what I've gathered, the police wouldn't let the guy get a full question out anyway. I feel that no one else in the place was bothered by the guy asking questions as they were probably curious as well. If they were bothered, I'm sure one of them would have stood up and confronted the guy.

 

Just 'cause he said he would answer him, doesn't mean he would. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but politicians in the U.S. have a habit of going off on completely unrelated subjects, or answering so vaguely that you don't know what the fuck their talking about!

The guy tried to ask multiple questions and went well beyond his alloted time-limit. What were they supposed to do, just let him ask away willy-nilly?
It wouldn't have been fair to everybody else. It wasn't like they just rushed in and started tasering the guy. They asked him to leave and he refused. He doesn't own that place. If you told someone to leave your home and they wouldn't I imagine you'd be pretty pissed (and rightly so).

As far as the other students being bothered, they were laughing at the guy
as he was being dragged away. Nobody even gave a shit until he started getting tasered, and that only appeared to be a handful of people at best.

 

I probably wouldn't get 7 people I know to jump on the person and taser them, that's for sure


Not sure about the people you know, but that cheering is the general reaction anyone I know gets when they do anything which may piss of the authorities. Mainly 'cause people understand how things like this can happen and are pleased when things don't go the way the police have planned. Hell, I would have been cheering for the guy if I were there.

 

1) Well sane cops would have thrown him on the ground, handcuffed him and dragged him away. How hard is that when you're 7 against 1?

2) The american way of peace keaping...

3) Errr... I think a lot of people would like to know the truth about that.

 

I sense a lot of that as well. It seems like righteous indignation only spreads
to the U.S. Does America have a lot of problems? Yes, and I'll be the first to call our government out on it's bullshit, but anti-Americanism is such an easy way
of writing us off. It's such a cop-out.

 

You know what, if everyone is so damn worried about Anti-Americanism then why don't you do something to help change people's opinions because to be perfectly honest I'd say a large part of it is completly justified. Yes your government is to blame for several of your problems and turning most of the world against the US but may I remind you that the majority voted this government in - Twice.

 

So obviously everyone in this country deserves to be scrutinized because of the choice of a majority derived from a screwed up electoral process. Yeah that seems reasonable.

 

I wasn't even old enough to vote in either of those elections so I'm not a part of that. It's just that I sense a hint of elitism whenever I hear people talking about the U.S. As far as I can remember, the whole world has always hated the U.S. Some of it justified, some of it hyperbole. The point I'm trying to make is how is it relevant to this issue? Are you trying to say that if Bush wouldn't have been reelected, there'd be no police brutality? It just gets a little old whenever something happens to hear "well that's America for you." It's not that simple. Every country has it's pros and cons. A lot of Iranians voted for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Does that mean that they're all delusional nut-jobs? Fuck no! Generalizations of Americans based off of the performance of their president is ignorant and stupid. You can't paint us all with the same brush.

 

Did I say that? No I didn't.

I think what I said may have been a little extreme and I apologise. I was basing what I said off of a majority (the majority being the ones who voted bush in). But you have to understand it's difficult, particularly in the UK not to think negative things about America simply because we got dragged into involvement with both the Afgan and Iraq conflicts even though the majority of the UK didn't want to go to war. It's exactly why over the past 5 years this country's government has lost a considerable amount of creadibility not only from it's citezens but in the world because now we're seen as America's bitch and that's dragged the UK down with America's stereotypes.

I apologise for making a generalisation though. It's just an extremely touchy subject for me. The fact is that America is probably my favourite place to go in the world because some parts are beautiful and have some really cool people in it. However when I go to Florida I'd like it if I wasn't practicly ordered to salute the troops and sing the fucking national anthem when I'm trying to watch Shamu.

 

It wasn't what you said but that's what I felt like it implied.

I never supported the election of Bush, but when he was elected I was way too young to vote. I do see where you are coming from, but a lot of the US now regrets having Bush in office and has finally seen what they did to this country by electing him.

However this is off topic

 

Hence why the electoral process is screwed up.