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.
"Porforis" wrote:
I was just trying to explain why I thought what the guard sad was scary. That's all.
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.
They weren't telling her to move her car. They were telling her to move herself out of there. Her car may or may have been illegally parked. I don't know that. What I do know is that that is a public area and they were telling her to leave it when she had every right to be there.
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.
No I don't know those people personally. But for what it's worth I know those types of people. I've been in constant communication with over 5 different contacts protesting at the capitol over this time. People I know personally. I know what type of tactics these peaceful protesters are using. I've read the articles about how non-confrontational and non-violent the protests are. In addition if the protesters were purposefully putting the posters up on the memorial and knew it would be offensive they would greatly be hurting their cause and tarnishing the image of the peaceful protest. I sincerely doubt that they'd want to do that. So I draw my conclusion from that knowledge of the protests and the type of people I think the protesters are. I still could be wrong obviously.
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.
Like I said, I'm unsure about the parking space. But the space itself is public and they were asking her to remove herself. If the space was not a public area there would be absolutely no point to the video. In the case of an actual trespassing the police would immediately remove the violator. It's that simple. Also, being from Madison and living 5-10 minutes away from the capitol I have yet to hear of a parking ramp that's inaccessible to public. Yes, there are private parking spots. But that doesn't mean the public can't be in the ramp. I could be wrong about that though.
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.
My justification for the public area is above.
I picked sides the way I did mainly because of the content and the actual confrontation. In the first video you have people vs. people. In the second video you have people vs. possible government. I almost always take the people's side in those cases. Mainly because I've had bad experiences with police officers and I've seen officers do unethical things to try to force a person to admit to criminal activity.
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.
I'll just break it down for you.
Video A: Protesters putting signs on the memorial. The guy with the camera had a point. The protesters did something others find offensive. That much was clear. The protesters were starting to understand that and you could tell they didn't know what to do. He doesn't politely ask them to take them down. He demands they remove everything. Then he starts trying to put words in their mouth. Listen to this exchange in the first minute of the video:
Camera Man: "I don't want to be hardcore but you're hurting your own cause. These images go out everywhere. And it's like you just don't give a shit about the people who died to keep Wisconsin--"
Protester: "That's not true at all."
Camera Man: "No. It's absolutely true. It's absolutely true."
The protesters haven't even SAID anything to him yet and he's already saying they don't give a shit about the troops. That's ridiculously insulting. To put those words in someone's mouth is just as offensive. On top of that he names the video "Wisconsin Capitol protesters disrespect the Veterans Memorial." He clearly wanted to make the protesters look bad.
The protesters didn't put any posters on the actual plaque of the memorial. They're just on the sides and back. They also put cardboard up so they wouldn't get any sticky residue on the thing. The protesters were being courteous, kept trying to defend their cause and they kept getting attacked. In the end a protester comes and helps him with the situation.
Video B: Women in supposedly private parking garage trying to get answers from a group of "police" officers. This video features what could be ACTUAL ILLEGAL ACTIVITY. I didn't like the way the woman was trying to unearth the information but it's quite easy to see that something is being hidden here. If she had no right to be there and those men in suits were actual police officers she would've been arrested for trespassing on the spot. It's that simple. And unlike the man in the first video she was relatively peaceful and didn't insult anyone despite harassing the men a bit. But in her situation that seemed to be the only way to even get one of the men to talk to her (and it worked!).
I'm not right. You're not wrong. These are opinions. But I just want to make clear why I was thinking the way I was.