Fresh Loaf

Re: Andrew “Don’t Tase me, bro” Meyer

I’ve watched the videos, read the news reports and absorbed the opinions of local bloggingheads.

What have I learned?

1) If I were stuck at a John Kerry speech, I might just walk up to police and request a Tasering. With a side of pepper spray. How else could I be expected to stay awake?

2) The local blogosphere has critiqued the media coverage and Andrew Meyer’s state of mind, while ignoring THE key point.

The question to be asking about this event is not “Should the police have Tasered Meyer?”

The question you should all be asking yourselves is “Why did police officers approach him in the first place?”

Regardless of how rude or publicity-hungry Andrew Meyer may be, police had no business laying a hand on him.

Rude, showboaty, weird people are a staple of public forums. Go to your next neighborhood association meeting if you think I’m exaggerating.

The correct way to deal with people like that is to let them drone for a few minutes, then politely move on. That’s how they’re dealt with every day at civilized public talks.

Meyer was seemingly talking out of turn, but he wasn’t breaking any laws. Police had no business trying to stop him from talking. The police had no more legal right to grab him than any of the other people in the room did.

I’m stunned that bloggers, of all people, don’t instinctively recognize that police officers — agents of the government — should not be mediating public discussions. Inserting opinions where they aren’t necessarily welcome is what bloggers do. If you value your right to irritate people with words, you should be horrified by what happened to Meyer.

Do those who say Meyer deserved to be zapped not see how dangerous it is to accept the notion that public discussions should be policed?

Police should be at public gatherings to protect personal safety and property. They should NOT be protecting our sensitive ears from annoying people.

Bookmark It

People who had been yearning deep down inside for a chance to play political organizer and rabble-rouser like back in the heady 60s and 70s that they’ve always heard about finally got their chance, and boy did they take it.

– Sara at Going Through The Motions on a University of Florida campus protest that followed the videotaped arrest and Tasering of a student asking questions at a speech by Sen. John Kerry. And I thought I was cynical.

—–

I’m just not down with envisioning any type of socialist utopia circle jerk that Hillary Clinton wants, a place where individual sovereignty and liberty seem to be non-existent.

– Jason Pye on Hillary Clinton. He evidently prefers the country’s current dystopian health-care circle jerk.

—–

In the end, I don’t have any regrets whatsoever. The people decided and the people will have to live with their decision along with the consequences of their decision far into the future.

– Andre Walker at Peach Pundit goes all Edith Piaf in response to yesterday’s overwhelming defeat of a referendum that would have turned unincorporated south Fulton County into a city called South Fulton. Walker supported the referendum.

Bookmark It