Street protests are usually a waste of time for those protesting as well as a nuisance to the passing public. But, from the public’s point of view, between this nuisance and the police described below I’d choose the nuisance any day.

Three of Greenwald’s blog entries about the police outside the Republican National Convention:

Sept. 1, 2008
Scenes from St. Paul -- Democracy Now's Amy Goodman arrested

Beginning last night, St. Paul was the most militarized I have ever seen an American city be, even more so than Manhattan in the week of 9/11 – with troops of federal, state and local law enforcement agents marching around with riot gear, machine guns, and tear gas canisters, shouting military chants and marching in military formations. Humvees and law enforcement officers with rifles were posted on various buildings and balconies. Numerous protesters and observers were tear gassed and injured.
...
Here are several photographs taken from around St. Paul from this morning – before the march or any of the protests started – showing how militarized the city was. For whatever reasons, the brigades of police officers would periodically chant military terms and march around in formation (“Double Time!”), while helicopters hovered overhead and Humvees drove by frequently ...

Aug. 31, 2008
Federal government involved in raids on protesters

... the raids were specifically “aided by informants planted in protest groups.” Back in May, Marcy Wheeler presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force – an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led by the FBI – was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve as plants, to infiltrate “vegan groups” and other left-wing activist groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing. There seems to be little doubt that it was this domestic spying by the Federal Government that led to the ... home assaults by the police yesterday.

So here we have a massive assault led by Federal Government law enforcement agencies on left-wing dissidents and protesters who have committed no acts of violence or illegality whatsoever, preceded by months-long espionage efforts to track what they do.

Aug. 30, 2008
Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis

Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff’s department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than “fire code violations,” and early this morning, the Sheriff’s department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Good for the police!

With an elapsed time of four minutes since it was posted, and a statistically estimated time of two minutes since you found it, I wonder if you gave it much thought.

How much ~additional~ thought does Ted Keer, or anyone reasonably alert and perceptive and informed, have to give to your slanted post, after having seen television reports of all the destruction of property caused by illegally masked "demonstrators"?

I second Ted's post and give you a swift metaphorical kick in the butt for being either terminally naive or disingenuous. You either need to do a much better job of informing yourself and thinking about the rights issues involved -- or find some other group to con into giving aid and sympathy to the thugs who were in smash-property mode.

I lived through this B.S. during the 60s, when the New Left just about turned the campuses and cities inside out. The Thin Blue Line wasn't always up to the task of keeping the lid on the violent radicals, but they tried, and we should support their efforts, not act like they are "fascist pigs" whenever they apprehend those destroying or conspiring to destroy people's property.

REB

I read the first paragraph of Bissell’s post. the first line of the next, then stopped.

Besides his thuggish manner of expression, Bissell seems incapable of making even course distinctions. As Greenwald makes clear, Greenwald approves of the arrest of some of the “protesters.” But there’s more to the situation than that. Attacking bona fide journalists, arresting bona fide journalists, arresting people in their own homes who’d done nothing wrong, the use of spies against people who’d done nothing wrong, and more that you can read about in the links.

I just found out that this jerk’s an OL moderator!

My last post to OL.

Mark; I believe the expression is don't let the door hit you in ass as you go out it. I'm sorry I'm being sarcastic.

The description of Amy Goodman as a "journalist" is what made me dismiss Mark's post with my appropriately brief response. The Left knows the value of hiding behind the absurdly absolutist notion held in this country regarding the "freedom of the press." Such freedom should rightly apply to freedom of speech - not the "freedom" of journalists to do as they like in the guise of being journalists. I am reminded of the hijacking of the news media by Black Panthers in the movie Network, and my mind wanders off into Tom Wolfe's seminal essay Radical Chic.



The freedom of the press does not extend to the "freedom" to print outright lies without liability. Nor does it extend to the "right" to engage in harrassment such as chasing Princess Diana to her death. Nor does it extend to the "right" to engage in a little criminal mischief on the side, while wearing one's press badge.

Good for the police!

Ted only calls someone a journalist if they agree with him 100%. Anyone who disagrees with him is a terrorist.

Even though Ted has admitted elsewhere that he has actually been a victim of pig brutality, he still loves the pigs when they are beating up on people who disagree with him.

Admitted? Link, please, you terrorist.

Ted; I'm wondering if Chris B doesn't disprove your quote. He is really beginning to offend me.

Chris B. This is a small correction. You refer to Roger Bissell as being course. Even a graduate from a public high school would know the word was "coarse".

The terrorist might be misinterpreting an old RoR post, here, in which you were briefly detained, or here, where you crossed paths with cops again. He could also be referring to your claim to have been arrested dozens of times for being white in black circumstances.

Mark,

That "jerk" happens to be a contributor (and my friend) who has posted a huge amount of essays from Objectivist and Objectivism-friendly intellectuals in the Corners of Insight, where he is moderator (he is not moderator on the other sections). He is also featured in Corners of Insight for his own valuable writings.

I only mention this to undo a nasty tribal insinuation you are trying to make.

Roger and I certainly go at it at times, but I would not trade my friendship with him for the world. He is a first-class independent mind and has my full respect, even when I know he is wrong (i.e, when we disagree ).

You see, OL is for independent thinkers, not ones who necessarily agree with each other. There is no intellectual intimidation or ganging up here. If that is your intention, you do well by moving on. If not, I suggest developing a thicker skin because some people are going to disagree with you. Independence of thinking is a chosen site policy. Each person has to stand on his own two feet and agree or disagree with others according to his own intellectual merits. Here you must convince people by reason, not nastiness or snarkiness.

That policy will not change by you staying or leaving. It's your life so please yourself as to your actions, but it's not your forum and it never will be.

The only issue I have is for posters to stay within the posting guidelines, and even then, I am flexible. I try to weigh intellectual value against momentary flare-ups and vanity problems.

For the record, I don't really need to say it, but I will. You are free to come and go as you please.

Michael

What are you babbling about?

What are babbling about?

Simon William, please let Chris bear his own Cross. Did you seriously think I had forgotten those incidents? If Chris wants to embarrass himself by claiming that I had "admitted" these incidents then please let him do his own work explaining himself.

In any case, you missed my definitive statement on the matter. I'll post the essay separately.

Too Many Cops are Opportunistic Bullies, But not All

...Back in 1990, at age 22, when I drove into Manhattan for the first time to drive home my boyfriend (I am white, and wear a ponytail, he was black and well dressed) I made an improper turn in the traffic circle one flows into when exiting the Holland Tunnel. I was stopped and the police made us get out of the car, and questioned us separately, obviously assuming we were conducting a drug deal. In my pocket I had one prescription allergy pill, given that I have very bad allergies. I told him that I had the empty bottle in the car, but was not sure where it was. It became obvious that they were going to take us in, so I told the cop holding me that we were on our first date, and that this was the first time I had driven into Manhattan, and couldn't he cut us some slack. I figured that such an out of the blue statement would jar him and make him reconsider our criminality. He yelled to his partner to let my friend go, and told me he was going to write me up a warning, but that I better find that prescription bottle before he was through or he would arrest me. I told my friend (and lover-to-be of six years what I had said to let us be released. He said "Christ, they'll beat the shit out of us." I said, let's just find the bottle. It had fallen between the seats. The cop gave me the ticket. I said thanks, and he said "Make sure you faggots just keep the fuck out of New York." Needless to say, I did not take his advice.

I was still living in New Jersey and driving into the City to visit my boyfriend Jay, when I fell at work, breaking my arm. On the day I was to have the cast removed, I got stopped by a state trooper for going 72mph, which was no faster than the surrounding traffic. When he approached my window, his first words were, "So where are you headed in such a hurry?!" I calmly told him the simple truth, that I was on my way to have the cast removed. He responded "Well it's not on your fucking foot, is it?" I got a ticket.

Two years later, my boyfriend and I had two $100 tickets to a concert downtown. He was babysitting his nieces in Harlem, so I went to meet him at his Grandmother's. On the way from the apartment to the subway, we walked past a cop car that was parked on the curb. As soon as we passed, the sirens were flashing and they were out and had us up against the wall. My first time in "the position." They started asking us where the drugs were, being very sarcastic and pushing us around. I made the mistake of asking what probable cause they had to stop us. With a straight face, one of the cops said that when I "reached inside my jacket to pull out my baseball cap" (which I kept folded in the inside breast pocket) I "could have been pulling out a gun." In other words, they knew it wasn't a gun, but they already had their lie prepared. Jay had a NY license and no warrants, so they let him go. I had a Jersey license so they said that it was obvious I must have a warrant out for me since I knew what probable cause was, and they said they were going to hold me at the station and check me out. One was officer Greenberg, and the other officer Hernandez. (I still have the ticket I got for "disorderly conduct.") With me in the back handcuffed, they started baiting me, saying "So whatcha doin' in this neighborhood, Whitey?" I responded, "So what got a Spick and a Heeb like you assholes assigned here?" They held me in the locker room for six hours with my boyfriend finally tracking me down and making a stink at the front desk. The Sergeant got angry at them for holding me. They wrote up the "disorderly conduct ticket" and let me go. I had to take a day off work unpaid to fight the charge. When I got to the court, the clerk said that I wasn't on the docket. I asked what that meant. She said the cops had never turned the ticket in. I asked if that meant I could go. She said no, I would have to wait to see if they showed up. They didn't. I didn't get to plead not-guilty, the charges were dismissed before I got to the bench. My boyfriend and I missed a day of work each. I was told that if I wanted to pay a $500 retainer and wait two years I would get a five to twenty thousand dollar settlement for false arrest. I declined. And we missed the concert.

That was the same year a Puerto Rican kid got strangled to death by a cop because his football hit a cop car during a game of touch football. The cop got off, but was fired.

(End Part I)

Ted Keer, 10 November, 2006

The standard is wrong in this discussion. It is not cops or government-controlled force. The standard is bullies.

There are bullies in the police force and there are really good cops. Ditto for the underworld.

Ditto even for the Democrats.

The evil is bullying and the good is standing up to bullies.

Cops and demonstrators are not inherently good or evil. They are evil when they bully, but not all of them bully. Not even the vast majority from what I have seen.

(Still, the word "pigs" brought back a pang of nostalgic memories. Good times, those...)

Michael

Not All Cops are Opportunistic Bullies, Just Too Many.

A year later, it was almost 9PM when the public bathrooms close in NYC parks. I was in the Village, so I ran one block to the Washington Square Park urinals. I ran past a cop car on the way. Again, the lights and sirens. I stood there jumping up and down holding my crotch about ready to wet myself while the cops threw the contents of my pockets, my radio and valuables on the ground. Again, I asked why I was being stopped. The said they had a "description of a white guy in the area." Imagine that, a white guy in Greenwich Village. What a bizarre coincidence! They let me go. But the restroom was now locked. So I peed in the corner, and was left to do so unmolested.

Although I am white, with blue eyes and a ponytail, I speak fluent Spanish. In early 1996 I was working at night, living in the South Bronx, (effectively a neighborhood of Spanish Harlem,) when a local trouble-maker attempted to pick my pocket. I did have $500 dollars in one pocket, but he picked my empty wallet out of the other. I didn't immediately notice that the wallet was gone. When he bumped me I had patted my cash by habit and thought nothing of it. The bodega manager, who ran me a tab, (a bodega is a small private general store) told me what had happened. I thanked him and calmly took my money and my dinner home. I went back out looking for the pick-pocket. I found him back at the same bodega (with cash he�d have been off to buy smack) and I went up to him without a word and patted him down. He pulled a pair of scissors on me. The bodega owner feared we might topple his shelves. We took it outside. I said, go ahead, but kill me with the first stab, or I will kill you. I got the wallet back, with a lot of noise, but I got it back.

It wasn't that the wallet was of any value. Rather, I knew that if word got out that I could be robbed, then I would be robbed, repeatedly, probably to death. The following day I went to the local police station to file a complaint. I had called them the night before, but after pulling up in front of my building, they went away without ringing my bell. (Think U.N.) The officer at the desk basically asked me why "a person like you" was living in that neighborhood. Later that evening, I got a knock on my door from someone I didn't know. He said he was one of the dealers who ran the drugs on the block. He gave me his card. He told me he didn�t like trouble, and told me to come to him if I had any other trouble. His card had two phone numbers on it. In 1996, that was impressive.

In 2002, I was living in Inwood, the very upper tip of Manhattan. It was just after 11PM, which I know because the Simpson�s had just started on Fox. I heard a loud bang in the hallway that sounded as if someone had dropped a hundred pound metal plate on the floor outside my apartment. The thought occurred that it was a gunshot, but I said no, and went back to watching the show. I heard what sounded like a woman cursing in Spanish, and then again, and this time knew, another gunshot. I called 911. They said that it had already been reported, to stay inside and the police would knock. Within 9o seconds the building was crawling with police. I heard a knock at my door. There were two police officers, crouched, guns pointed at my face. I had answered with my hands up. I said I had called it in. They said they knew (they had my address from 911, apparently) asked if I was okay, which I was, for the circumstances. They said stay inside, someone would knock in ten minutes. I waited, and two detectives right out of NYPD Blue, a fat Italian guy and a sexy Puerto Rican lady in street clothes knocked on my door and asked to come in. I could see down the hall that the shooting was across from me, two doors down. They asked my name, what I�d heard. I said that I thought it was a lady cursing in Spanish between the shots. I said, "So he finally killed her?" They said no, he was dead.

(End Part II)

And All Good Cops are Underpaid

I did not know the poor gentleman who had so recently lived across the hall from me. I knew him from his two dogs which were his pride and joy and which I liked to pet in the elevator when he took them out on walks. Most of the time he was accompanied by his two young sons, probably six and eight years old, who scampered about while the dogs strutted dignifiedly down the street with the deceased following along as if he were on the leash. A week before the shooting, I had seen him, the boys, the dogs, and a woman whom I assumed to be his wife a block from our building. The boys were scampering and the dogs were strutting as usual. He was dutifully being dragged along behind and she was alternately berating him in one ear then, as he turned to avoid her abuse, she trotted around to the other ear and began deafening that one in turn. I watched them approach from a block away, thinking that someone was going to trip and get tangled up in the leashes, or to be more honest, I thought he was going to trip her on purpose. I had never seen such a look on a married man�s face. My exact and literal final thought as we passed and I saw him for the last time was that someday he was going to kill her.

Well, just one week later the marriage was over, but it was not with the settlement that I had expected. I found out from neighbors that they had long been separated. The boys only visited him, hence our encounters always on the elevator with the dogs. She was a harpy. She bought the gun. She came over and shot him to death unprovoked. She left the dogs alone with his dead body on the floor and it was her whom I had heard flee past my door down the stairs beside my apartment seconds after the second shot. She fled the country, most likely to the Dominican Republic and then perhaps beyond. They hung up posters in my building: "ASESINO" "MURDER" "Cash Reward." I still have the poster. About an hour after the shooting, I tried to leave the building. You would have thought every cop in New York City was there. They didn't want to let me leave the crime scene. I said I needed to buy milk. But the sexy detective said it was okay. I bought a gallon of milk and two forties of O.E., which means eighty ounces of malt liquor in two bottles. So far as I know, she was never caught.

Later that year in the summer I left the house one Sunday evening to get a steak and some ingredients for dinner, but I didn�t have any cash. As I crossed the street to go to the ATM, again with the sirens and the lights. After 15 years of police harassment; after my lover Jay was shot dead in a botched car-jacking which the police refused to investigate, but which was solved when the murderer�s own mother turned him in; after being stopped by every cop in the precinct where I had lived in the South Bronx for being the wrong color, until every single pair of cops on patrol had met me and frisked me for having blue eyes; after getting sick in the waiting room at the dentist - not from the after effects of the drilling but from watching the Rodney King beating on the overhead TV and hearing the other white patients say the "nigger deserved it"; after getting so enraged that I told a cop if he wanted to arrest me to go ahead and do it and when he asked why I was angry I told him just to tell me which god-damn form I had to fill out to get his permission as a white man to live in that neighborhood; after two decades of proof that the police are not necessarily my friend, I stood there and had them frisk me and ask me "Just to tell where the bag of coke was" and they "wouldn't take me down to the station" while the local business owners who all knew me watched me spread up against the wall. I stood there and held my tongue. I offered to show them my I.D. that I lived in the building from which they had followed me. They apologized and said that they were "just doing their job." And I asked them if they had caught the lady that had killed the guy in 507 yet. They knew it was sarcasm, apologized again, and drove off.

I am, through my brother-in-law, distantly related to Daniel Faulkner, (pictured above) the otherwise unknown victim of the celebrated confessed-cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. I listened and watched as dozens of Cops' funeral corteges passed by my workplace on Broadway after 9/11. I have friends and family who have served and died in the military. I have seen cops behave with amazing wherewithal and dignity under the most trying circumstances. And I have seen pigs for whom the name pig was invented. And I have never been more relieved that that night when I opened my door to have two cops pointing their revolvers in my face. Can I respect a cop? Why not, if he deserves it?

Here's an article on how a pig in Michigan uses tickets to increase his income:

http://www.motorists.org/blog/traffic-tick...p-sign-tickets/

Chris Baker: "Here's an article on how a pig in Michigan uses tickets to increase his income."

Police officers daily risk their lives-- and even forfeit their lives-- to protect you. Is your life so insignificant that you call them pigs? But perhaps you know best.

Barbara

One of my closest friends in the world (my bassist) is a policeman, he works in the worst part of Cleveland. So, "pig" doesn't cut it for me.

The thing is, it's like anything else, there's good cops, and rotten ones. It's more serious, though, because they wield power--the ability to detain, search, even deadly force.

The real problem is deeper, much deeper. Look around the country--see what has evolved. We are being moved more and more into a, well, police state. There is ample evidence to support this. We are being conditioned to military rule.

Here in Ohio, I am given countless, near-daily examples of how police have changed their attitude--it's getting tight. Under the Ohio Patriot Act (heh) you can go to jail if you don't have an i.d. on you ("May I see your papers, please?"). They are constantly running anyone and everyone for warrants, and the highway fishing expeditions are beyond belief. They want to get as many people as they can into the system.

Do the work. Find out that there are already internment camps built throughout the United States. This is part of the Globalists' plan, the Elite's plan. This is not conspiracy theory, it's right out there to find and there's more.

People are being told to report any and all suspicious activities (including that of your neighbors). This is NOT about "Homeland Security." It's about Martial Law Training.

Here's one for you:

http://infowars.net/articles/august2008/110808martiallaw.htm

Rich; Are the little green men coming for you? I find your last post to be a paranoid fantasy.

Police spend very little time actually protecting anyone other than themselves. The courts have ruled that the police are under absolutely no obligation to protect the citizens whose job it allegedly is to protect. If you are being brutally assaulted, and a policeman just stands there watching, you have absolutely no legal recourse against either the officer or the police department. They don't work for the citizens and they don't for the most part give a damn what the public thinks. Their salaries are paid from our involuntary extracted taxation, and like all government employees, they are in no danger of getting fired for poor job performance.

Radley Balko, a writer for Reason magazine, has spent years meticulously documenting the ever-increasing, systematic abuses of police departments across the country. SWAT teams have become ubiquitous as police are becoming more and more militarized. They are receiving military training and military style weapons. No-knock raids against innocent people, carried out without warrants, are becoming commonplace. This militarization of the police first started largely in response to the insane "War on Drugs", which has filled our prisons with non-violent "criminals" whose only crime is using a drug that the government goons don't approve of. The militarization of the police has continued to accelerate in response to the "War on Terror".

Here in California, there is going to be placed on the ballot a proposition limiting the power of the govenrment to incarcerate people in state prisons for non-violent drug use, proposing instead the non-libertarian but still much preferable alternative of drug treatment. Our esteemed boys in blue have done everything in their power to prevent this ballot proposition from ever reaching the ballot, and will vigorously campaign against it. The war on drugs has been the full employment act for overpaid police officers and prison guards. They have profited handsomely from screwing over the American public.

So in response to your question, raised to Chris Baker, "Is your life so insignificant that you call them pigs?", I will provide an answer. My life is so significant to me that I would never dream of depending upon the police to protect me, if I had any other plausible alternative. The police have become armed, dangeous, and trained to view the rest of us the way soldiers view civilians in an enemy nation. The police are not your friend.

Martin

Did you bother to click on the link that Rich provided? It documented a specific instance in which the rough equivalent of martial law was imposed on a small town. There has been much discussion of resorting to such repression in Chicago and Washington, DC.

The US is now one terrorist attack away from the possible imposition of martial law on the entire country. Such enabling legislation has been passed by the criminals in Congress and signed into law by the criminal Bush administration. The president now has the power to commandeer the state national guards. to declare US citizens enemy combatants, and to have them imprisoned without trial. Such provisions are found in the Military Commissions Act and various other totalitarian style legislation that has been passed in the last several years, all to protect us against the "terrorists", of course.

If you want to believe that this is all a paranoid fantasy equivalent to a belief in an invasion of little green men, help yourself. But you might want to consider at least researching the issue before reaching this conclusion.

Martin

The police are a necessary component of law enforcement, but you have to have the right laws or they are very dangerous and rights' violating. Even with the right laws they can do you and your loved ones grevious harm. They'd mostly rather shoot than be heroic, and they do. They take serious instruction on when they can legally do that. Good luck on legally shooting a police officer.

--Brant

Martin Radwin: "Did you bother to click on the link that Rich provided?"

I clicked on it, Did you really expect me to take seriously the ravings of the likes of Alex Jones? Here's the announcement of his "documentary," Endgame:

"For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME."

You'll have to do better than wacko conspiracy theorists.

Barbara

I get along well with cops.

But then I get along well with, er... others who... er... are not cops, too.



(I have not had too much contact with the latter since I have been back in the USA.)

Sometimes the line blurs...

As to this discussion, there are good cops and there are bad cops. Is that complicated all of a sudden?

Michael

No. Parasites who call cops pigs do so because they resent their benefactors. Rand exemplified this type of mentality well enough in AS.

As for the paranoids, they tend to be vocal in on line fora. Their neighbors have stopped answering the door, and their relatives have caller ID.

Ted,

Your insinuation is that a poster on this thread is a parasite.

Do you know that person well enough to say that about him and be accurate? Is he, for instance, on welfare? Does he refuse to work?

I don't care for calling cops pigs for several reasons (despite my nostalgia of the Vietnam years), but not because of parasitism. I do not detect any parasitism in anyone on OL. I often detect oversimplification and excesses of rhetoric, but those are another matters.

Michael

I know the parasite Chris Baker from two years of posts on another site, and dozens of gratuitous comments such as:

"The fact that all these Alaskan boys are going into the military tells me that the economy up there must be in the toilet."

This was his comment on Palin's selection, with its implications for Palin's record, and the motivations of those who join the military.

I do not call people who are on welfare parasites. I do call people who survive because of the efforts of men they deride parasites - in the moral sense. Conspiracy theorist and misogynist are also titles that would apply, but I think parasite is enough for now.

Ted,

Words and gobbledygook and very subjective handling of an insulting term.

You have a lot of value, and to be blunt, you are better than that. Why do that when you can do the real deal on the ideas? Not everyone can.

Michael

I can understand thinking Jones is a "whacko" at first blush, but there's a problem with that.

It's called evidence. Yes, the most beloved of beloved: Evidence<tm>

Jones is a fierce documenter, and he archives. There are facts, facts, facts. His archives are legit.

There's no need to rave when you have the real deal. Truth being stranger than fiction, and all that.

I took his work the same way at first, but then I decided to start verifying. Guess what?

Is this the Alex Jones of infowars.com? The promoter of 9/11 truth sites?

Yeah, that's him, William... infowars.com , prisonplanet.com , prisonplanettv.com .

It's a shock to find out there actually are globalists, an elite. But it's either wake up, or not. Hell, just google the Bilderberg Group. Research Bohemian Grove. Research the upper end of Freemasonry. There's thousands and thousands of pieces of data.

Of course Jones comes off as flamboyant and extreme. You need a grinding, noisy wheel in battles like this. But he's one of the sanest men I've ever seen. Heck, ask Ron Paul, if you like where he's coming from. He's on the show constantly.

Rich,

With or without Jones, there is plenty of stuff out there. All one has to do is look up the name Sibel Edmonds to see what things are coming to here. To their credit, the _London Times_ did give her some press. I doubt that her story will never see the light of day in an American newspaper.

Woodward and Bernstein would have never gotten any press today. Watergate would have been dismissed as the third-rate burglary that it was. It wasn't the break-in that got Nixon in trouble. It was the fact that he tried to cover it up.

I'm willing to accept any evidence from credible sources on what happened at the WTC. Still, I do think Hanlon's Razor applies to many things like this. Basically it says: "Never attribute to malice that which can easily be explained by stupidity." With regard to the WTC, there is plenty of evidence of stupidity. The biggest failure was that the government made sure that the pilots could not defend their planes.

That was one of the few good things that came out of that fateful day. Right after the WTC, people started buying guns. While they said in polls that they trusted the government, their actions demonstrated that they knew that they were the only ones who would defend themselves.

I have seen Jones make quite a few errors, though, much like the legacy media that he despises.

If people who worked for the legacy media would just do their jobs, then Alex Jones would be out of business. As long as CNN, MSNBC, and other simply repeat the lies that they are fed, then someone like Alex Jones will be necessary.

One part of the legacy media where journalists still are honest is in the world of sports. If it's about politics, forget it.

It doesn't help that they are being told to do more and more work that they shouldn't be doing. I have met guys from LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) who seem pretty cool--they are cops who want to legalize drugs.

Acton had a rule for this: "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupt absolutely." I think police officers would be better if they just went back to protecting.



I lived in Columbus for six years (1998-2004). From 1987 to 2002, I never got a speeding ticket. I got another in 2003 and 2006. I am convinced that they got more arrogant after the WTC. I don't think my driving changed much.

Drive a red car for ten years. I bought it because it was a good car and a great deal. I never imagined all the harassment I would get because of it. I remember up near Ashtabula one of them followed me for about six miles. He eventually gave up because we got close to the state line.



Work is something a lot of people don't want to do. It also takes a lot of time. It's easier for some to just repeat what they are told and stay in their comfort zone. I believe Rand once said: "You can evade reality. You can not evade the consequences of evading reality."

I am a Wikipedia addict. That was also created by an Objectivist.

The term "jerk" is entirely inaccurate and inappropriate. Roger has reacted quite reasonably, in response to a propaganda piece from you.

Bill P

**decline in intellectual level of this psuedo-objectivist community**

I have a suggestion for those who have been using the words "pig", "jerk", "parasite", and "wacko" here recently:

Try to post thoughtful items whose content is restricted to facts and arguments or first hand evidence (not usually merely links). Make them well-argued without attacking other posters or using slander or insult or ad hominem or emotionalist, contemptuous language flung at other posters.

Don't air your old grudges for all of us. The likelihood is that no one has the slightest interest.

Don't tell us how little you think of another poster.

Don't tell us of previous conflicts you had with an individual on another site. It's unlikely that anyone can or will take the time to research this. And you are simply wasting good bandwidth on 'personalities'. Remember that your readers have limited time and limited patience.

A good gauge for the intellectual level of your posts is: Would you find it used by a news announcer or in an editorial column in the Wall Street Journal or any other major newspaper.

In the current presidential and congressional campaigns, would journalists - or the candidates and their ads - call their political opponents "jerk" or "parasite" or "wacko" or "pig"? Or would they use language more appropriate to the college-educated? Would they find a more intelligent, thoughtful way to identify -- giving proof or instances -- in what ways they are in strong disagreement with their opponent?

I like the part on the post screen that says "Insert Special Item." It makes me feel all dirty inside.

Do we get those special items at Cafe Press, or what? Do they come with directions? Are they legal in Ohio? Will they get me through these endlessly lonely nights more better than re-reading "Naked Lunch," and searching around for my bottle of Lonely Man Hand Lotion<tm>?

But I digress...

Phil once again tries to tame the Helen Keller at the Dinner Table set:


'A good gauge for the intellectual level of your posts is: Would you find it used by a news announcer or in an editorial column in the Wall Street Journal or any other major newspaper.
'


I see where you're coming from, Phil, but if I did that, I'd be out of business. I wouldn't want to write like most of them anyway. They have funny hair, and most of them look like they have, in fact, Inserted A Special Item. If the median of that lot represents an intellectual baseline to which I need to aspire, well...(wondering if there's enough of anything good in the medicine chest to swallow and end it all).

It's amazing how these cute little feuds go on for years. I know that these guys don't look for topics--they look for where their sparring partner is hanging out. I remember doing that, but I've traded up--when I cave in I just pick on James Valliant. Even Perigo no longer has any appeal to me. I mean, once I got done mining that whole air conducting thing, there was nowhere else to fly: how could that be trumped? <---blatant mission creep

It's an itch they can never sufficiently scratch; an itch that turns into a rash that they continually pass to and fro.

"Language is a virus from outer space." --William S. Burroughs.

But back to the police state. I have a fairly fresh take on it, since I managed to get put in jail last year (only a few days, but trust me, that's sufficient). And yes, I was innocent. MMMMM...Lorain County Jail! Average cost-per-meal: .17 . You think some cops are lousy--try dealing with a freshly-empowered C.O. sporting self-esteem issues. Yikes.

That was great. You know, you can't take books in there anymore, even benign ones. I managed, though. I used two for bait, the third planned as a ringer. Obviously they rejected Bruce Campbell's biography. And e.e. cummings didn't fly either because it had a lot of lower case in it or too much sex stuff. But, Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy" flew right through (along with a picture of my girl in there for a bookmark). Imagine reading that while you're in a pod full of psychopaths, skinheads, and wife-beaters.

They do let you watch TV, though, and provide a small amount of crap novels from the library's Young Readers section. Odd, all that...I can't read Cummings, but no problem watching films like "Blow," "Gangs of New York," and some other drug movie I forget which.

Advice: DO NOT DRINK THE FRUIT PUNCH.

This is not even close to being true. In Rand's great novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, Rand's benefactors were architects, artists, writers, composers, philosophers, scientists, engineers, and industrialists. Not one of the heroes or even decent characters she portrayed was a police officer or any other type of government employee. In AS, all of her heroes not only didn't work for the government but wanted nothing to do with the government and ran their lives and businesses accordingly.

As for Rand's attitude toward the police in a statist society such as that found in AS, the following passage is quite illustrative:

"He carried a gun in his pocket, as advised by the policemen of the radio car that patrolled the roads; they had warned him that no road was safe after dark, these days. He felt, with a touch of mirthless amusement, the the gun had been needed at the mills, not in the peaceful safety of loneliness and night; what could some starving vagrant take from him, compared to what had been taken by men who claimed to be his protectors?"

Considering that the average American spends almost half of his or her income paying taxes and complying, directly, or indirectly, with the cost of government regulations, the same question posed by Rearden seems rather applicable to life in modern day America -- what could criminals take from us, compared to what is taken from us every day by our own government, with police as the government's enforcement arm?

The scene above concluded when two police officers suddenly approached Rearden while he was talking with Danneskjold, taking them both by surprise. After the police officers departed, "Rearden realized that he had stood facing the policemen with his hand clutching the gun in his pocket and that he had been prepared to use it". Rearden was prepared to kill two police officers in order to protect Danneskjold, a man who would certainly be labeled as a "terrorist" these days. So much for the idea that Rand considered the police to be any kind of societal benefactors.

Martin

Outside of your basic power junky/control freak type, most police, I believe, are not even aware that they are tools. Not to insult, but for the most part, they are not in the kind of head space where they'd go digging around to find out how the world is being run, and who's on first. The good ones are just decent, patriotic types. They want to help people. That, and the huge majority of them are adrenaline junkies. I've been around, know, seen ample evidence to know that's the case.

But this is changing. It is the nature of evil. And make no mistake, ladies and gents, evil is out in the light a little more than usual these days. That's part of the problem for them--their planned demise of things, the social unrest, the running down of things, it all worked too quickly, and they are having trouble controlling it. This was discussed at the last Bilderberg conference.

The power, the programming, the format, the pressures...good cops will break. The new ones will never know anything different. It is a desensitization to the human condition.

One of the few main things that can be done is expose, expose, expose, share the facts. Open people's eyes. Globalists really can't stand being outted, it queers up their game.

Rich,

Just another brick in the (evil) wall, eh?

--Brant

PHIL: "I have a suggestion for those who have been using the words "pig", "jerk", "parasite", and "wacko" here recently:
Try to post thoughtful items whose content is restricted to facts and arguments or first hand evidence. "

Physician, heal thyself! Have you read some of your OL posts about Solo and Lindsay Perigo? They were almost as insulting as mine.

By the way, although I used the term "wacko," it did not refer to any OL member, but to Alex Jones -- about whom it is almost a compliment.

Barbara

Whoa...(scratches head)...

So, it's OK to call Alex names, but we're supposed to lay off Perigo? Ponderous.

But still, in essence I agree with Phil on some level. You get a thread going, and the next thing you know you have a couple of Nancy Boys rolling around on the pavement, scratching and pulling hair over some old fallout that has nothing to do with the business at hand.

Woops...was that bad?

rde
"When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro." --Oh, most everyone knows who said that.

I have no problem with this, so long as I am not asked to justify my brief and appropriate response to such remarks as Baker's.



This forum is unmodified. Baker is free to gratuitously insult me, relatives, friends, and people I respect, and he exercises that freedom. When I very justifiedly and briefly call him a (moral) parasite - not a "pig" - but a name which expresses a meaningful evaluation and behind which I stand, I am challenged to defend myself and then am criticized for answering the accusation. It is not I who have gone on at length about this nonsense, Phil. If you don't want me to explain, don't ask me any further.

I certainly trust this is enough.

The forum is unmoderated but people get called out on the name-calling. Phil likes to lecture folks on their Internet manners because he's afraid any given forum tends to degenerate into nastiness. His concern is misplaced here--just try to go on and on with it. The guy who called Roger a "jerk" packed his bags and moved out on his own. And it's not necessary to answer in kind. Just point out what the other fellow is actually doing, as I did.

--Brant

> Physician, heal thyself! Have you read some of your OL posts about Solo and Lindsay Perigo? They were almost as insulting as mine. [Barbara]

Well, my advice is soooo good, I sometimes might need to take it myself.

Infallible and perfect though I might be . . .

Please provide evidence comparing previous intellectual levels here on OL with the current levels. Let's see some facts which back up your claims.




Why do you call OL a "pseudo-objectivist" community? Is it because people here think for themselves and sometimes question or challenge certain Objectivist ideas? Is it because non-Objectivists are allowed to freely express their views here? Please provide the evidence and facts which have led you to label this forum "pseudo-objectivist."




But wouldn't it be "pseudo-objectivist" to stick to the facts and evidence, and to argue about issues without using insults, ad hominem attacks and contemptuous language? After all, Objectivism's history, going all the way back to Rand's own methods, is loaded with the use of insults, attacks and contempt while often ignoring facts and neglecting to present any evidence -- certain thinkers were judged to be evil and responsible for the ideas and actions of others, without evidence to support such judgments; certain creators' works were judged as "malevolent," "trash," "disgusting," etc., without evidence to support such judgments; and it appears that the works of some thinkers had probably not even been read, and apparently no effort was made to understand the context of their times and the ideas to which the were responding, before being morally condemned by Rand and her fellow proper Objectivists.

I think the level of intellectual discourse and civility here on OL is generally a vast improvement compared to the overall history of the Objectivist movement.

J