The_Dunedan

Hmm. Well. Isn't this interesting. An obviously intoxicated NC Congresscritter, upon being asked a single question by a well-dressed University student standing on a public sidewalk, reacts with violence and attempted theft. Refuses repeated requests to desist from his violence, and instead escalates against people who had the temerity to ask a single question.

Private non-violence met with State violence. These two kids are to commended: they showed far greater restraint and forbearance than I or many other people would have in the face of a drunken assault.

FuglyStick

That's not State violence; that's an asshole. Let's turn the hyperbole down a notch, shall we?

The_Dunedan

Is Mr. Ehteridge an agent of the State? Yes.

Is he protected by the State? Yes: ask yourself these two questions:
1: What legal consequences will Mr. Etheridge suffer?
2: What legal consequences would the filming party have suffered if -he- had dared to lay hands on Mr. Etheridge, or a Policeman, or any other State functionary?

Ergo, State violence. The violent actor is an agent of the State, in all likelihood protected by the State from any sanction for his violent act.

"Asshole," while certainly accurate and appropriate, fails IMO to address the State-sanctioned aspect of this.

FuglyStick

"State-sanctioned"? Really? This was on some official memo, "act like a prick"?

Horseshit.

Back to the ignore list with ye.

Plan9

Whooo, boy. Dunedan, you're spinning this shit so hard I'm going to need one of those compression suits they give the guys that fly F16s.

Yeah... I must be a liberal. As far as I see it, when one old guy in a suit acts a fool, it isn't The Man Trying To Keep A Brother Down.

It's not any different than that fatass bruiser cop in Chicago beating up the female bartender. It wasn't The Man, just some ogre.

Actual problems with The Man: The LAPD purchasing bayonets in the '90s and that recent police beating outside the B-ball game in Maryland.

I do like to see the obsolete codgers that run our fine nation make douchebags outta themselves. It reinforces my urge to vote.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

The_Dunedan

The -individual- is just an ogre, yes. The State support and condoning of such ogreish behavior (pun intended) is my primary issue here. IMO the State supports and condones such things by not only not punishing official State actors who commit such egregious violence, but also by drastically enhancing the penalties for a non-State actor committing similar or lesser acts upon a State actor, thereby enacting an egregious double-standard backed up by threat of legally-sanctioned violence.

Baraka_Guru

Where are we going with this? That the American people are being oppressed by drunken congressmen?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Plan9

Dunedan,

It isn't the state, though. It's the good old boy network. Believe it or not, they're actually two separate entities.

Example: covering up "an incident" while deployed. It wasn't the DoD that covered it up, it was some O-rank. People, not institution.

Just because you wear a uniform, hold an office, etc. doesn't mean that you always act in an official capacity. Especially when drunk.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

The_Dunedan

Possible Topics For Discussion:

1: State/private-violence double standard.
2: Violence not unique to Rightists, despite stereotypes. See also: Peaceful Tea Party Rallies Where Nobody Got Their Fingers Bitten Off.
3: The apparent self-appointed "right" of State functionaries (in this case a drunken Congressman) to enact violence at will upon those Plebs who annoy them.
4: Whether a person with such an obvious impulse-control problem should be allowed to continue working for people he sees no problem assaulting on the street.
5: Whether "Public Servant" still means anything: when the Butler assaults the Master Of The House, or the Steward, or one of the guests, the Butler gets fired and then arrested, after all.
6: Whether we should be paying a Congressman's salary for someone to get that drunk on "Company time."

The_Jazz

Dunedan, no one, and I mean NO ONE is a 24/7/365 agent of the state. It's just not possible. With that in mind, was the Congressman acting as an agent of the state? Did he abuse his powers?

No and no, in my mind.

As for "egregious violence" I don't see any of that. Sure, he's guilty of the lowest level of assault - a misdemeanor - but this isn't even the most violent confrontation I've seen today (right now, that's the Vince Young upside-down-Hookem-Horns debacle). This isn't even in the same ballpark.

For the State to have done anything wrong the state has to, you know, do something. If an off-duty cop beats someone up, that's not on the city/state/county. It's on the cop. I just see a drunk on his way back from a 5 martini lunch proving he's an ass.

---------- Post added at 12:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:57 PM ----------

Is this a concession that your OP sucks and that you want this thread deleted so you can try again? Because that sure seems appropriate based on what you've done thus far.

You're smarter than this thread makes you look, Dunedan.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

guy44

So what when Senator Preston Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner with a cane on the floor of the United States Senate, was that Civil War? Give me a break, Dunedan.

But yeah, that Congressman is an asshole and I hope he's defeated in November.

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"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

dksuddeth

you know as well as I that this congress bottom feeder will face no charges and simply have to offer up a BS apology, whereas had it been the other way around, this student would already be arrested for assaulting a public official.

---------- Post added at 01:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:12 PM ----------

how about a state that mandates off duty officers carry their service weapons so that they may respond to emergencies while off duty? and then when that officer kills an unarmed man after that guy improperly grabs the ass of the woman that the offduty cop is with? would that be on the state?

---------- Post added at 01:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:15 PM ----------

why not charged with a crime?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Plan9

And if it had been a young black male, the poor kid would have gone to jail for 99 years.

If it had been hot brunette with big fakies working for Citibank... no charges would have been filed.

Let's keep it going.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

The_Jazz

Irrelevant to the clip. Start another thread.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Plan9

You, of all paranoid loudmouthed pro gun mofos, should know that guns are operated by people, not institutions.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

FuglyStick

Cimarron29414

Too early to tell. There's been no opportunity for the "state" to do anything wrong yet. So far, it's just a drunk guy assaulting a reporter. The drunk guy happens to be a congressman. There are other things which could still happen.

1) The kid can press assault charges.
2) The congress can file an ethics violation (I guess?).

Now, if the kid files charges and there's evidence the "state" gets them dismissed, then I agree with Dunedan. If congress "can" file an ethics investigation and doesn't, well then I guess I agree with Dunedan again.

I think we all expect these things to happen at the same speed the information gets dispensed. I'll have the patience to see how it plays out.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

FuglyStick

Where's the ethics violation here?
And if the kid presses charges (and he has every right to), what kind of penalty would be sufficient to satiate Dunedan and his ilk? The chair?

The_Dunedan

No? Take a swing at an off-duty cop sometime, watch what happens. Better yet, blow past one on your motorcycle while he's riding in an unmarked car. The last guy managed -not- to get his shit kicked or his head shot off, but he's also not getting his computers or helmet-cam back anytime soon either.

No, it's a concession that I should either have been excruciatingly explicit in my OP, because people here can't seem to find anything debate-able in the OP other than my opinion of the violent act itself and need their hands held to find the topic, or should have just stayed out of Tilted Politics altogether.

I would say "thank you," but...no. I'll simply say that this thread's making a -lot- of people look dumber than they are, myself included.

I'd settle for a Congressional impeachment (loss of job upon conviction) and charges/trial/conviction on whatever variation of Assault & Battery is on the books in DC, with punishment commensurate to what an ordinary person would receive for assaulting another ordinary person.

Plan9

Obviously we're all giant idiots here, Dunedan. Can't seem to wrap my head around what has got you seeing red like Charles Bronson in Death Wish III.

I mean, I'll freely admit that I've only got a pair of braincells to rub together... I'm a big dummy... but I think the rest of the crowd is pretty smart.

How about this:

Take a swing at a reasonable guy with a CCW. Just because you choose to attack another or defend yourself doesn't make you The Man.

If some refrigerator-sized dude at the grocery store gets all pissed and decides he wants to kick my ass into next Thursday and I as, say, a paranoid ice cream truck driver, draw my gun... it doesn't mean I'm playing GI Joe. It just means that I don't want to end up in the ER with my spleen in a bucket next to me.

And in conclusion:

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

powerclown

I would be tempted to say class warfare but that young man had a tie on.

The_Dunedan

However, taking a swing at an off-duty cop will get you arrested, convicted, and jailed (if not shot) for Assaulting an Officer: compare the penalties for Assaulting an Officer and Simple Assault sometime. If he shoots you, it will be ruled a "clean shoot" and he will go home. Ask the folks on the Danziger Bridge in NOLA. Taking a swing at someone with a CCW will probably result in him taking a swing at you, and you being arrested for Assault. If he shoots you, he'll go to jail for murder (as he should). That's the difference.

Plan9

Not that I've studied the topic for years or anything, but rumor has it that cops aren't legally bulletproof.

As I said above, the stuff that pisses you off is an example of the good ole boys network, not the organization.

Cops can't use their "assaulting an officer" gimmick to start fights. Most DAs see right through that shit.

Just as in the OP... it isn't the formal mechanisms that are failing should Drunky McWhitebread get off clean.

You wanna bitch about something... bitch about how old white men are ruining our country by playing nobility.

...

Oh, wait...

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

The_Dunedan

I can see my way to this. However, the question then becomes: "To what degree do the State and the "network" function in concert or opposition? Are they symbiotic, parasitic, antagonistic? My contention is that the State and the "network" have become so closely intertwined as to be all but inseparable, that it is a symbiotic relationship (each gains something), and that the two institutions usually work -very- closely with one another to protect their mutual interests.

You don't wanna get me started on the Federal Reserve and Title Of Nobility. Now political homogenity and the rise of an un-landed psuedo-aristocracy (Kennedys, Bushes, etc) is a good starting point, but that's for another thread.

Cimarron29414

Well, I'm not certain (sincerely), but I hope that the Congress ethics book includes "You aren't allowed to take swings at reporters who ask you questions." On what basis? Well, I suppose a free press needs to operate under the assumption that petitioning their government won't result in a sidewalk beatdown. That might tend to discourage a free press, if not acted upon by an ethics hearing. Again, I don't know if this is addressed in the ethics handbook, I just hope that it is.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

guy44

Man, if I got into with a dude in a bar who then grabbed my hand firmly, but without intent to cause pain, and then went to the nearest cop I could find to press charges, do you know what he'd say? He'd tell me to piss off because that's some trifling shit. And he'd be right.

If the situation were reversed, and a citizen held a congressman's hand like that, would that person be charged? Maybe. And I can see good arguments both for and against that (we should protect congressmen closely because political intimidation is especially heinous vs. who cares, no harm done). But if you think that act shouldn't earn a citizen a charge, then it doesn't make it right to give Etheridge a charge here. Two wrongs don't make a right, etc.

__________________
"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

FuglyStick

This is an issue of criminal behavior, not unethical behavior. Unless, of course, you want to consider every criminal act an unethical act, and that's just redundant.

The_Jazz

You've yet to prove that this has shit to do with the State. He's not in the Capitol Building or an office building. He's not at a rally. He's walking down the street. The onus is on YOU to prove that he's somehow an agent of the state.

Congressmen aren't cops, so I'll point and laugh at your unclothed emporer/strawman/red herring. You who else are agents of the state? DMV workers, building inspectors, garbagemen, t-ball coaches, coach guardsmen, ambulance drivers, meter maids (outside of Chicago, of course) and accountants. So if one of these punches me in the mouth on the street because I asked them a question, are they acting as an agent of the state?

I've already conceeded that there's a misdemeanor here. There's definitely no felony. And I've seen no evidence that suggests that this is being swept under the rug or that anyone's failed to prosecute or anything of the sort.

So how about either sharing the rest of the story with us, Paul Harvey? If there isn't any, this just makes your post look like a partisan smear campaign.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Plan9

...I wanna be punched in the face by a T-ball coach! How awesome would that be?

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

The_Jazz

Someone get a camera and t-ball coach to NOVA stat! I'll pay to see this.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

FuglyStick

Can you spot the gestapo?

Cimarron29414

One could argue, that since the "reporter" referenced him by his title and asked him a question which was definitely in the context of his duties as a federal Congressman that it's implied his response and subsequent actions were in the context of his title and duties to that title. I don't view it that way, but I'm sure you could find 12 jurors who view it that way.

Fuglystick, I'm simply saying that a congressman beating up a reporter for asking a question does get pretty close to the line on the government allowing a free press to operate...freely. It could be argued that such a lashing out would create a chilling affect on future reporters. So, to that end, it could be seen as a congressman has an ethical responsibility to accommodate the press.

I'm waiting to see how this plays out before I feel any indignation. Honestly, I don't really care for how the video is framed/shot/edited. Something seems fishy about it...

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

The_Jazz

His title is an honorific. Just like the "Coach" I'm gonna pay to pop Plan9 one in the mouth.

So basically, Cimmarron, you're saying that anytime anyone asks any sort of government employee a question, the responder is a state actor. Given a large enough jury pool, I'm sure I can find 12 jurors that think you're the Lindbergh baby.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Cimarron29414

No, I'm repeating that I don't see it that way. But, one could argue it that way, and could be successful.

Shut the fuck up, man! Bastard, now I have to change my identity, again! See you next week as Cimarron29415.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

Plan9

Uh, is it me or have the tags been modified since this thread started?

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

dksuddeth

not irrelevant. it's not about the gun specifically, but the policy. If the policy is followed and then a crime is committed within that policy, is it on the state?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Derwood

why would you take a swing at an off-duty cop? why would you take a swing at anyone?

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

dksuddeth

I can't believe you played the 'old white men are ruining our country' card.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

silent_jay

...

dksuddeth

Did you totally blow out your logic because you assumed I would not want the citizen charged if the situation was reversed? Bad, Guy44, Bad.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."