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Yeah and it doesn't say you can hurt other people's feelings when you make fun of them during your protest...
The Constitution is about rights and the law, not feelings. Public buffoonery should always be exposed and ridiculed.
Additionally, civil disobedience typically indicates a protest against an injustice. What was the injustice here? That the new board was considering replacing a failed policy? The new board wasn't a Democratic majority anymore? The real injustice was the horrid minority graduation rates over the last 10 years that somehow weren't a concern until non-Democrats got a majority of board seats.
Public buffoonery should always be exposed and ridiculed.
Isn't that what the protesters were doing?
I haven't really been following this issue so I don't have an informed opinion, but in the spirit of this thread I will not let that stop me from expressing the opinion I do have:
So, I skimmed the article linked in the original post and am confused. Is the real question whether the people who were arrested should be charged with a crime or not? I don't understand why it is even a question whether these people should be tried. If they are charged with a crime and they do not want to plead guilty then of course there should be a trial. Tim Tyson's (protester) quote in the article sounds like he agrees with Ghandi, MLK, and Mike Janquish (do they form some kind of Trinity?):
Quote:
When you engage in civil disobedience, you are saying, 'I believe in this so deeply and it is so important for me to say so, for my conscience and my community, that I am willing to pay whatever price is required.'
So, if he is ok with being charged with a crime I am ok with him being charged with a crime.
Anyway, I'm glad this discussion had remained so civil and no one has made any Nazi references.
They were charged with a crime: trespassing. The issue is whether or not the board should have agreed to mediation, which would have potentially avoided all of the protesters going to trial. It is still in the hands of the DA, he can decide whether to push for a trial or to reduce or drop the charges since the board did not agree to mediation.
They were charged with a crime: trespassing. The issue is whether or not the board should have agreed to mediation, which would have potentially avoided all of the protesters going to trial. It is still in the hands of the DA, he can decide whether to push for a trial or to reduce or drop the charges since the board did not agree to mediation.
That's what I don't get - the whole mediation thing. How would that have worked and what would potential results of that have been? If they are convicted of trespassing I'm assuming they would suffer the horrors of donning an orange vest and picking up trash on a Saturday afternoon. If they went to mediation (who is the mediator) and were found to be "at fault" or whatever, what would have happened.
I don't know the exact details of what would happen if mediation were agreed upon, but since mediation isn't a trial, they wouldn't be found "at fault" or "guilty" or anything. I think mediation is generally accomplished through lawyers (probably between the board's lawyers and the accused's lawyers). They may be asked by the board to pay some restitution or do volunteer work or something in order to avoid both a trial and a criminal record (some of the protesters were teenagers).
Mediation would be an attempt to resolve it as a civil matter with some agreed-upon result between the parties, rather than as a criminal matter.
Exactly. If any of us tried to disrupt a meeting of a civic board or leaders, we would be dragged out in handcuffs and had a court date scheduled. The fact that Barber's group is being treated with kid gloves is telling. Selective enforcement of the law should never be tolerated.
That's what the N&O article said that Margiotta said.
Oh, I know. That was just me perpetually amazed at His Assness. I swear. "We don't want to encourage civil disobedience." Who the frick does he think he is, anyway?
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