Wednesday February 15, 2012

JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

yabits's past comments

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yabitsNov. 30, 2011 - 05:20AM JST

Stick a fork in him, he's done.

Cain is reportedly telling his campaign staff that he's ready to call it quits.

Posted in: Woman alleges affair with presidential hopeful Cain
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yabitsNov. 29, 2011 - 09:53PM JST

I love freedom of speech, but when you are asked to go, then you should leave, especially when the police tell you to do so!

You mean you claim to love freedom of speech only when it doesn't become inconvenient for the listener. At that point, measures taken by the police to suppress it are acceptable to you. What other freedoms do you hate?

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 29, 2011 - 11:53AM JST

Ate students were protesting, they were asked to leave.

The students know their rights, and the police had no right to order them to leave. The orders that the police were given were to remove the tents, not the students.

we got these do nothing hippie culture that thinks they can go anywhere, disrupt anything, being a total anucence to the rest of the school and students that are minding their business and want to study and not be bothered by these nut jobs.

So you hate Americans in the exercise of legitimate freedom to assemble to protest a grievance. What other freedoms do you hate?

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 29, 2011 - 11:18AM JST

Black Sabbath hasn't been mentioned, so I'll include their name. Also, The Kinks.

One writer mentioned the ability to "hum a few bars" as one criterion of a great rock act. One individual and group that qualifies is Jeff Lynne and Electric Light Orchestra.

But there is another rock-oriented group that had tremendous international appeal, and a unique massive appeal among many age and social groups. I recall a trip to the Florida Everglades in the early 70s and a visit to a Seminole village. As isolated as that place was, this group's songs were all the rage -- as they were in downtown Manhattan and on the West Coast.

The group: CCR. (Don't kid yourself; John Fogerty is a great guitarist.)

Posted in: Who gets your vote for the greatest rock band of all time?
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yabitsNov. 29, 2011 - 11:01AM JST

In terms of waiting for the next shoe to drop, this is a bit like hiding in Imelda Marcos's closet during an earthquake.

Posted in: Woman alleges affair with presidential hopeful Cain
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yabitsNov. 25, 2011 - 10:27PM JST

I chuckle to read Yabits denounce a supposedly indefensible abuse of power by these cops and work himself into an indignant rage

Rage? (It is only par for the course that right-wingers get things so completely wrong.)

so-called protesters destroying public property

Right-wing goons attempt to plant lies that peaceful protesters were destroying property in Wisconsin in an attempt to provide justification for the police to crack heads.

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 25, 2011 - 11:53AM JST

Then Katehi DID have the authority to order UCD police to clear the area of tents and protestors.

No believer in the freedoms recognized by the First Amendment would agree that an administrator of a public institution would have the authority to clear an area of protesters who have assembled peacefully and do not threaten property or other people. Especially if that public institution were devoted to learning and the protesters were students. In the absence of a threat to property or other people, such an order would be unlawful. (There is no such right to erect tents.)

Katehi says NOW that campus police "defied" her orders when it used force against the protestors.

The police are not absolved for carrying out an unlawful order, if the chancellor did issue one -- which I do not believe for an instant she did. Therefore, there are not two sides to this issue. The police are there to protect students -- even (and especially) when they are involved in the active practice of their first amendment rights to assemble and protest a grievance. The simple and correct procedure would have been for the police authority to have asked for the order to clear or otherwise abuse students to be issued in written form. A competent, professional police authority -- who is also American -- would have replied in writing that the order is unlawful and would not be complied with. Absent that, the responsibility for the improper use of force would be entirely on the police.

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 25, 2011 - 09:35AM JST

Did the chancellor have the authority to order the UCD police to clear the area of tents and protestors? Yes she did.

No. Katehi's contention is that she authorized the police to clear the area of tents only -- NOT protesters. The police apparently took it on themselves to extend the order to include protesters.

Since the chancellor of the university did not specifically order the protesters removed, the police had no legal authority to act on their own as long as the protesters were not breaking any laws. Any order given to them by the police to disburse would have been arbitrary and unauthorized -- therefore an unlawful abuse of authority.

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 23, 2011 - 04:56AM JST

As with most incidents like this I think libertarians (can't speak for all em...) regard the various actors involved in this unfortunate event as citizens who long ago surrendered their liberty, or their common sense, or both.

I disagree. Genuine Americans, above all, know that there is such a thing as legitimate protest and a lawful, peaceful manner for engaging in it. No real American or lover of liberty would ever say that a fellow citizen who engaged in peaceful and lawful protest had "surrendered" their liberty, however, a loyal subject of King George certainly would.

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 22, 2011 - 09:37PM JST

Sitting across a roadway and blocking it so that no-one can pass is forbidden.

Is this, in fact, what happened? Were the students situated so that there was no way a person wanting to get from Point A to Point B could do so? Or is it (more likely) a situation of someone feeling themselves entitled to the straightest line between the two points no matter if it would have to violate another's freedom to protest?

Were students maliciously maced because they made things merely inconvenient for others? Was the expression of their freedom to protest so threatening to the authoritarians who wanted them to respect "their" rules?

Generally speaking, there are two types of rules: One type are those rules which are absolutely necessary for the health and well-being of all concerned; the other type are those rules which are there to demonstrate that someone else can keep you in line.

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 22, 2011 - 08:52PM JST

Read a little and you'll find that the officers were asked to remove the students from the pathway. It was college property and the college may do with it as it pleases.

I would like to draw some similarities and distinctions between peaceful, lawful acts of protest in the USA, notably this subject incident, with protest actions in other places like outside the Gdansk shipyard and Tienanmen Square. In all cases, the authorities involved felt that they had the right to use force against those peacefully assembled.

Another commonality is that the "property" involved could be construed by the forces working against the expression of freedom as not belonging to those whom they wished to suppress.

Warren v. District of Columbia found that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." So as fun as that motto is to day it's not really rooted in reality.

You can reach for any random court case to try to prove something that any kangaroo court in any fascist or totalitarian regime could also "prove." It does not negate the fact that people operate under a moral obligation. What is rooted in reality is the fact that you have no sense of any such obligation when it suits your purposes. The security forces on campus were under a moral obligation to achieve their objective in a manner which, as the article states, quoting the leader of the university system: "protect[s] the rights of our students, faculty and staff to engage in non-violent protest."

It is the moral obligation that ultimately should separate nations that profess to be based upon certain inalienable rights of individuals from the authoritarian regimes that seek to control their behavior -- by force if necessary. We who are liberals within the United States know that the totalitarian, authoritarian mindset exists within our society -- cheered on by those who defend the immoral and unlawful use of force in this case. We read that many "laughed and cheered" when viewing the macing of the students.

Assault is defined as an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.

So when a police officer visibly deploys a weapon designed to cause severe physical discomfort to an individual, I believe most intelligent Americans would agree that an apprehension would be created in the target of an imminent offensive contact. I also know that many Americans who laugh and cheer and otherwise defend the assault on peacefully assembled students will not have a clue as to what is going on in front of their eyes, from a moral standpoint, as they seek to pick out random legalisms to justify it. As such, they are the authoritarians' best foot-soldiers -- masquerading themselves as "libertarians.".

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 22, 2011 - 01:39PM JST

The way the reactionaries are in knee-jerk agreement with the authorities leads me to think they have a bright future in China or Russia.

Some of these reactionaries will try to sell you on their self-delusion that they are "libertarians." Some of us can see just how far away from reality that is.

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 22, 2011 - 01:34PM JST

Right now, there has been a speculation that there may be a possible criminal charge fle against these officers/university of California, Davis.

It is abundantly clear that they all seriously abused their authority and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. There is no law making it OK for a police officer to abuse his/her authority by assaulting students who have peacefully assembled. Were such a law even nominally in place, it would immediately negate itself when subject to a test.

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 22, 2011 - 01:13PM JST

The two officers were put on leave, not fired, and will probably go back to work in some capacity after they are cleared.

That has not been determined yet. The right of students to peaceably assemble on their own campus -- so long as they were not impeding the ability of other students and faculty to perform their duties -- far outweighs any "right" of a policing function to assault them with force. The immediate suspensions underline and support this basic fact.

but in the end the police followed the rules, the students didn't

"rules" that the police just made up arbitrarily at the time. The basic duty of a police officer is to "protect and serve." All rules derive from that fundamental duty. The police were not protecting anything by spraying peacefully assembled students -- just the opposite. Indeed, the police were just serving themselves in the abuse of individuals when they felt their authority was being defied through the exercise of freedom by others. The defense of the assault on such individuals, as well as the assault itself, constitutes an attack on the concept of freedom spelled out in the first amendment to the Bill of Rights.

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 22, 2011 - 11:40AM JST

Students did not comply. Students got pepper sprayed.

And the people who pepper-sprayed the peacefully-assembled students got fired. I'm having a difficult time understanding how people can't understand the officers who assaulted the students did wrong.

Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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yabitsNov. 20, 2011 - 10:33PM JST

Democrats belong to the party that has big problems with people of color who do not know their places in life.

And which party is it that is most supportive of the giant wall being built to keep brown-skinned Hispanics in their places below our southern border? The one Cain wants to "electrify."

but it does make 'em feel better about themselves.

Every time I read a comment from the "rabid far-right," I say a prayer of thanks for not having sunk to their depths of mental depravity.

Posted in: Herman Cain gets Secret Service protection
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yabitsNov. 20, 2011 - 05:33PM JST

Democratic strategist and MSNBC analyst Karen Finney said that Cain is “a black man who knows his place.”

That's not what she said. She actually said that the white "base" of the Republican Party likes Cain because they think he is a black man who knows his place.

Like slave owners from the old days, democrats are OK with black people as long as they know their place.

And that place is called "the White House." (A fact that many in the white base of the Republican Party despise.) Slave owners in the old days? You mean like Washington and Jefferson? It's very clear that any black person who rejects conservatism is declared by many whites to be "living on a plantation."

"Tell him not to run" and "there's no such thing as a black Republican," the man said

Obviously another social conservative who didn't get the memo on Cain.

Posted in: Herman Cain gets Secret Service protection
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yabitsNov. 20, 2011 - 09:02AM JST

Pressed further, Cain elaborated that he reads the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and his local newspaper.

Cain, who told a journalist this week -- after making a series of totally ignorant statements -- "This nation needs leaders, not readers."

Not exactly the kind of endorsement the WSJ and USA Today are looking for.

Posted in: Herman Cain gets Secret Service protection
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yabitsNov. 19, 2011 - 11:38PM JST

had asked for the protection after a series of incidents involving journalists covering his public meetings.

Ooooo....scary journalists getting out of control and hurling tough questions at the hapless candidate.

Meanwhile, Cain, looking to explain a gaffe earlier this week on Libya, on Friday suggested the Taliban was part of the new government in Tripoli in a new slip-up.

Yeah, the handlers of a person who goes around spouting off incredibly stupid things like that would feel the need for extra protection.

Cain stumbled badly and paused before finally saying he had “all this stuff twirling around in my head.”

There's a name for that stuff, Herman, and it appears you weren't successful flushing it all away, like you did with your memories of all those women. His most memorable line in that regard was the one where he started off with (paraphrasing), "For every one of these women accusers, there must be thousands of others who can vouch I never made a grab for them." Right, Herman, and there were thousands of women who Ted Bundy didn't kill.

Posted in: Herman Cain gets Secret Service protection
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yabitsNov. 18, 2011 - 01:19AM JST

I'm not sure if "surprised" or "amazed" is the right word to describe the popularity (and expense) of Beaujolais Nouveau in Japan. Definitely amazed at the price of the stuff, which is dirt-cheap here in the States -- with good reason.

Posted in: Beaujolais Nouveau goes on sale at 12:01 a.m.