It's scary because our country is getting taken over by fear. That fear is also causing us to lose our rights. We also have to face higher security measures that tend to be a pain in the ass and don't do squat but make people feel safer. Do you know what rights we lost in the Patriot Act? We lost those rights mainly because "anyone in the country can be considered a threat to national security." Anyone can be and will be considered a terrorist now. And it's the mentality that that "security" personnel has that got us there.
"djcubez" wrote:
Why bring up the patriot act now? We're in agreement as far as that goes, but the notion that this lady was exposed to security above and beyond what's been in place for 100+ years is pretty silly. Doesn't really have anything to do with this video as far as I see it.
In the one video the guy was antagonizing a group of peaceful protesters over an unfortunate offensive mistake. No one was violating the law here.
"djcubez" wrote:
Hey, surely you'll err on the side of caution when it comes to assuming good intentions in other videos with clear bias. And this lady was violating the law if she was illegally parked here. Obviously an incredibly minor offense, but hey.
I can almost guarantee you the protesters would never take action like that if they knew the consequences beforehand. Yet despite that the guy with the camera tries to make them out to be the devil.
"djcubez" wrote:
Why's that? Do you know these people? Or are you just deciding to not condemn them because we don't have all the facts? Again, clearly you'd take the same stance in other videos if the political spectrum involved were reversed.
I definitely had a problem with that. The biggest difference in this case is that everyone here is a citizen and no one is representing an authority or the government.
"djcubez" wrote:
I'll agree with you on this one.
In this video the woman had a right to be there and some unnamed personnel were telling her to leave.
"djcubez" wrote:
Again, you're siding with the lady here despite having no evidence to back up her side of the story and no evidence to suggest that this was in fact a free, public parking ramp and parking spot. Or that it was a private spot she paid for.
If she has to leave a public place she deserves an explanation and she wasn't getting one. She wasn't harassing a group of people that made a mistake. She was harassing people who were portraying themselves as government or authority figures. Yet by not identifying themselves they wouldn't follow the law as commonly applied to authority figures.
"djcubez" wrote:
Again, I'll grant you that their behavior was not perfect at all, but again we don't have all the facts about who they were, what they were doing there, or the events leading up to this confrontation. But again, it seems like you're instantly siding with her on the count that this was in fact a public parking area, or she was not aware that it was not a public parking area.
Also if you read my post I didn't give the woman a great endorsement either:
The tactics of the woman recording the video are pretty blatant and she doesn't ask very good questions but the responses by the men are even more interesting.
"djcubez" wrote:
I'm sorry, but all you're doing is shrugging your shoulders and saying "hey, she's not perfect". You're taking a much, much more aggressive and combative stance towards the other parties involved despite all my above points. Sure, you're not endorsing her but if you agree with her intentions (to show the public shady activities going on) I can't see how your statement can't be interpreted as a "hey, what are you gonna do?" sort of thing.
With all that said I'll completely agree that I'm wishy-washy on politics. The reason is because "new" information is always coming to light. I'll form an opinion and represent it. Then someone will disagree and state their opinion. Instead of immediately clashing I take some time to consider what they said and some of the time I can understand where they're coming from. Then my opinion is reformed bringing in the new logic. Other times I get defensive. It's an information gathering process.
"djcubez" wrote:
I do appreciate you explaining your thought process, I'm of the opinion that the world is a bad place primarily because of people's inability or unwillingness to see things from others' points of view. You can certainly still disagree with someone after trying to see things from their perspective, but if you refuse to even entertain their side of things, that's an awfully self-centered way of thinking. As much as I often hate to admit it, my opinion is not always right. It's simply my opinion.
The problem is that the world is about "us" only because everyone lives in their own world. I don't live in the same "world" as you even though we both live on planet Earth. Our perceptions of everything around us help create the "world" that each individual lives in. Not to get all philosophical on you.
To be honest this whole situation has no direct consequence for me. I'm in my last semester at college and about to graduate. I could move out of the country in a few months for all I care. The tuition hikes, the collective bargaining cancellation, the pension lowering, etc., none of this affects me. However I hate to see people crushed this bad for no apparent reason. I try to use logic most of the time to discern situations and in a few of these scenarios I fail to see the logic. That's what makes me upset. That for no apparent logical reason people are losing their jobs and their rights. And in the cases where I find logic, I find it illogical how it's being practiced.
The thing is I'm from Madison and live in Milwaukee so it's very close to home. I know a lot of people protesting in Madison now. I come from a pretty liberal background even though I try to be as moderate as possible. I see people I know hurting. It bothers me.
I'm not trying to attack you either. You ask reasonable questions. It's just impossible to get people to agree in situations where there's no clear right or wrong answer.
"djcubez" wrote:
This sort of thing is why I still bother debating politics. When I'm singling you out like I did above, it's not a personal attack, just an attempt to try to get you to spot what I perceive to be a series of errors in thinking. I do really appreciate you responding to me and while I'm sure we'll never agree with eachother, at least we've explained our viewpoints without resorting to accusations and personal attacks. Who knows, maybe the next time we look at a news story we'll see things a little bit differently. ;)
A little bit of an off-note, I spent 21 of my 24 years in Wisconsin, my first 18 in La Crosse and years 19-21 in Milwaukee. In fact, I still work for a company based in Milwaukee even though I now live in Indiana.