It's the same thing as in the US with the tazers where they are routinely used, not as non-lethal stopping power for those violently resisting arrest into subduing those who are insufficiently compliant. keep to the Fen Causeway
19 people were abducted in total. Now, if you are gonna believe that the police didn't have 19 sets of handcuffs available for an operation that they decided to run on their time table, then I have a couple of Bear Stearns shares I'd like to sell you.
Oh, and the 19 people were men and old boys. Women, girls and infants were not taken. It ain't the Met police they've been learning from; it's the fucking School of the Americas.
Banana republic.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
As long as the protest is illegal (is this one illegal?) those two things are the same. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
In Sweden, permits are always given as long as the Police feel the protest will be nonviolent and not impede the working of society. Looking at these pictures, either the Police made a mistake in granting a permit, or the protest is illegal and should be broken up.
If the law is not a good one, or it is used in a bad way, the Danish people are sure to force their politicians into changing it. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
I don't think Article 11 includes the right to commit crimes. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
OK, so it's settled, the state has criminalised this form of peaceful protest, and those who continue it are criminals and may legally be bashed by riot police.
When are you joining the police, Starvid?
If you think this is ok, what other peaceful sabotage of government work is ok? Hiding your tax money on the Bermudas? Mailing shit-filled letters to social offices? Blockading mass transit so people can't get to work?
Watching the footage it looks like the police are using far more than a proportional amount of force, and it does look quite outrageous. However, the police actually doing their job is not outrageous. Their refusal to do it would be. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
That is the outrage. There was no need to use force for the police to carry out their work. They are using force in order to intimidate the protesters. The difference between them and brownshirts is only that they are employed by the government. Which is the core of Jake's criticism of the government in this connection. The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
Seems like they've learnt from the Met police on how re-label the right to dissent and to protest as a criminal refual to compy with lawful instruction.
When "criminal refusal to comply with lawful instruction" was pretty much exactly what they were doing. This doesn't mean I believe they should have their heads smashed in, just like I don't think people who steal jewelry from stores should have their heads smashed in when the police arrive to deal with them. I considered it so obvious that I didn't even mention it, but to clarify even further: I think the police overreacted. Peaceful protesters can be arrested or dispersed without the use of nightsticks. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
I had read your comment as you intended it, but it is reassuring to read your further clarification. I agree with you and Migeru below that civil disobedience entails the commission of a crime legally speaking, even if the act is not a crime (indeed, is just the opposite) meta-legally -- i.e. morally -- speaking. The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.
I wasn't familiar with the term "legal positivism", but from a quick about it, I guess I'm a "legal positivist", as that understanding of the law seems to leave open the possibility of evolution in the law in response to the changing behavioral norms and/or philosophical ideals in society; and one spur to such an evolution of the law is civil disobedience. Natural law, on the other hand, seems to imply that there are universal and unchanging principles of behavior, morality, justice, etc., and I am not comfortable with that notion. The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.
Laws against homicide are of the few 'morally absolute' laws - except of course in uniform. And even homicide is treated differently by different cultures - crimes of passion, honour, rebellion. You can't be me, I'm taken
An attempt was made to cooperate with the police in order to get rid of the heroin pushers, which was something many Christianites felt extremely uncomfortable about due to their anarchical tradition and the continuous clashes between Christiania and the police. Despite the shared feelings of distrust, however, some Christianites felt there was no other way to fix such problem, and supplied the police with a list of suspected hard drug networks. The intention of the Christianites' decision was made very clear: police were to concentrate only on hard drugs. This did not happen, and instead the police ignored the Christianites' requests and made a large crackdown only on the hash network, oddly leaving the heroin ring untouched. The police gave the names of "cooperating Christianites" to the hash dealers, and they had to leave Christiania for fear of reprisals. Feeling betrayed and bitter the Christianites decided not to cooperate any further with the authorities, and instead launched what was to be known as the Junk Blockade. For 40 days and nights the Christianites--men, women, and children--patrolled 'The Arc of Peace' and whenever they found junkies or pushers they gave them an ultimatum: either quit all activities with hard drugs or leave Christiania. In the end, the pushers were forced to leave, and sixty people entered drug rehabilitation.
An attempt was made to cooperate with the police in order to get rid of the heroin pushers, which was something many Christianites felt extremely uncomfortable about due to their anarchical tradition and the continuous clashes between Christiania and the police. Despite the shared feelings of distrust, however, some Christianites felt there was no other way to fix such problem, and supplied the police with a list of suspected hard drug networks. The intention of the Christianites' decision was made very clear: police were to concentrate only on hard drugs. This did not happen, and instead the police ignored the Christianites' requests and made a large crackdown only on the hash network, oddly leaving the heroin ring untouched.
The police gave the names of "cooperating Christianites" to the hash dealers, and they had to leave Christiania for fear of reprisals.
Feeling betrayed and bitter the Christianites decided not to cooperate any further with the authorities, and instead launched what was to be known as the Junk Blockade. For 40 days and nights the Christianites--men, women, and children--patrolled 'The Arc of Peace' and whenever they found junkies or pushers they gave them an ultimatum: either quit all activities with hard drugs or leave Christiania. In the end, the pushers were forced to leave, and sixty people entered drug rehabilitation.
A legal positivist would say that drug use is clearly wrong, because it is illegal, while a supporter of natural law would say that we have an inherent right to use drugs if we feel like, and no amount of law can turn this right into a wrong. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
My understanding of legal positivism is that it makes no statement on whether the law is right or wrong, morally. It's just the rules we have chosen to give ourselves. That doesn't make them morally right in an absolute sense. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
Legal positivism is a school of thought in philosophy of law and jurisprudence. The principal claims of legal positivism are that: There is no inherent or necessary connection between the validity conditions of law and ethics or morality. Laws are rules made, whether deliberately or unintentionally, by human beings. Laws must follow the rules of determinism.
Legal positivism is a school of thought in philosophy of law and jurisprudence. The principal claims of legal positivism are that:
Rättspositivism - Wikipedia
Enligt rättspositivismen kan inte en lag vara orätt, eftersom rätt bara är en idé eller känsla som skapats genom till exempel uppfostran, eller ett instrument för makthavare att utöva makt.
Det finns olika skolor inom rättspositivismen, varav en del menar att moral existerar och andra inte gör det.
Starvid appears to adher to the school within legal positivism that claims that moral does not exist. Therefore - if I understand it correctly - there is no moral that the law could contradict.
After reading some wikipedia I start to suspect that legal positivism is a school that highly values its internal model of the legal system. It should then not be surprising if changes in the laws are simply external factors that are uninteresting... A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
In other words: there's what's legal and illegal; what's done or not done (morals); and right and wrong (ethics).
One doesn't have to believe in natural law (which is a sort of absolute standard) in order to believe that ethical behaviour exists and can be illegal.
But one can also decide that law dictates morality and there's no difference between morality and ethics. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
for expeciency reasons
I start to suspect that legal positivism is a school that highly values its internal model of the legal system. It should then not be surprising if changes in the laws are simply external factors that are uninteresting...
Nomic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nomic is a game created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber in which the rules of the game include mechanisms for the players to change those rules, usually beginning through a system of democratic voting.[1] Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed. --Peter Suber, the creator of Nomic, The Paradox of Self-Amendment, Appendix 3, p. 362. Nomic actually refers to a large number of games based on the initial ruleset laid out by Peter Suber in his book The Paradox of Self-Amendment. (The ruleset was actually first published in Douglas Hofstadter's column Metamagical Themas in Scientific American in June 1982. The column discussed Suber's then-upcoming book, which was published some years later.) The game is in some ways modeled on modern government systems, and demonstrates that any such system where rule-changes are possible, a situation may arise in which the resulting laws are contradictory or insufficient to determine what is in fact legal. Because the game models (and exposes conceptual questions about) a legal system and the problems of legal interpretation, it is named after νόμος (nomos), Greek for "law". (See also nomos.)
Nomic is a game created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber in which the rules of the game include mechanisms for the players to change those rules, usually beginning through a system of democratic voting.[1]
Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed. --Peter Suber, the creator of Nomic, The Paradox of Self-Amendment, Appendix 3, p. 362.
Nomic actually refers to a large number of games based on the initial ruleset laid out by Peter Suber in his book The Paradox of Self-Amendment. (The ruleset was actually first published in Douglas Hofstadter's column Metamagical Themas in Scientific American in June 1982. The column discussed Suber's then-upcoming book, which was published some years later.) The game is in some ways modeled on modern government systems, and demonstrates that any such system where rule-changes are possible, a situation may arise in which the resulting laws are contradictory or insufficient to determine what is in fact legal. Because the game models (and exposes conceptual questions about) a legal system and the problems of legal interpretation, it is named after νόμος (nomos), Greek for "law". (See also nomos.)
Starvid appears to adher to the school within legal positivism that claims that moral does not exist.
Thanks for clearing that out. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
If the protesters didn't have a permit, they were acting outside the law and thus proper police action could be justified. However, regardless of whether the protesters did or did not have a permit, it appears the police in this instance were unjustified in the harsh action they took.
The only real question to ponder is whether or not any police action was necessary at all. The presumption would be that perhaps, if necessary to enforce a court order of some sort, whether one agrees with it or not. Obviously, our sympathies lie with the Iraqi refugees. I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears
it looks like the police are using far more than a proportional amount of force, and it does look quite outrageous. However, the police actually doing their job is not outrageous. Their refusal to do it would be.
er, hello?
it's outrageous how they're 'doing their job' and it'd be outrageous if they did no job at all.
if the protest was non-violent, where is there any justification for the police to set such a bad example?
one incident would be worrying, the fact that this is rapidly becoming a global pattern even more so.
starvid, isn't this 'doublethink'? ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
That's what I said. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
The figures I saw said that 27 % thought that the police should not have abducted the refugees. Which is a rather different question.
I målingen siger 54 procent, at nattens politiaktion mod irakerne var i orden, mens 27 procent mener, at den var for voldsom.
The law is perfectly clear: demonstrations are legal when they have a permit. Otherwise they are illegal. There are no question marks what so ever.
This is an incorrect (though increasingly common) representation of at least the swedish law on the subject.
You have a constitutional right to organise or participate in demonstrations:
2 kap. Grundläggande fri- och rättigheter 1 § Varje medborgare är gentemot det allmänna tillförsäkrad 4. demonstrationsfrihet: frihet att anordna och deltaga i demonstration på allmän plats,
1 § Varje medborgare är gentemot det allmänna tillförsäkrad
4. demonstrationsfrihet: frihet att anordna och deltaga i demonstration på allmän plats,
The function of the permits is to make sure that your demonstration interacts easily with other functions, like traffic. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
But using clubs and pepper spray against completely civilian people sitting on the ground is armed assault.
The police has no special dispensation in this regard from the principle of proportional force: Tear gas is use for crowd dispersion. Clubs are used to subdue people who are violent but not dangerous (drunks who try to pick fights, etc.) and for crowd dispersion when the crowd is obstructing access to people who are committing serious crimes (arson, assault, etc.). Pepper sprays are used to pacify armed and dangerous opponents at medium range (dudes with knives, basically). Guns are used to kill people dead.
Specifically, clubs are not supposed to be used for crowd dispersion unless there is an urgent time constraint, which there wasn't in this case. "Obstructing traffic" is not an urgent time constraint. "Vandalism" is not an urgent time constraint either.
And pepper sprays are not supposed to be used at anyone who isn't armed with a melee weapon and willing to use it. Full stop, no exceptions.
And if the pictures had shown tear gas being fired into the protesters, I would not have been particularly outraged.
do you really mean that?
you'd just shrug and say 'fair deal', if you were protesting something you were willing to risk arrest for and were 'dispersed' with tear gas?
i guess we all draw the line somewhere.
societies have no right to boast 'free speech' and 'civil rights' if they use them to needle foreign culture, then stomp on their own citizens in this way.
i think the authoritarian wings in the usa and yurp are caught in a bind, actually. they know ultimately the people have more power than they do, and some discontented misfits like to use sports events to try and whip up drunken crowds into facing up to the security and testing their mettle.
if governments banned sports events, they might have a force they cannot repress spring out of that, yet the sheer numbers at these vents encourage the more sociopathic to come out and get their jollies.
loose-lose...
ultimately the only way to socially engineer a populace who didn't want to create mayhem would be to allow conditions that led to more general happiness, which is hard to even pretend is happening when there are so many uneducated, disenfranchised, marginalised people whose only outlet for anger is torching cars and seeing if they can wind up a goon. ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
do you really mean that? you'd just shrug and say 'fair deal', if you were protesting something you were willing to risk arrest for and were 'dispersed' with tear gas?
Yes. Been there, done that.
Tear gas is not dangerous - in fact, if you've remembered to bring powdered aluminium or lemons, it's not worse than a moderate inconvenience. And it's part of the game. You obstruct traffic or protect graffiti artists, you get tear gas. You don't do civil disobedience if you're not prepared to accept the moderate inconvenience of tear gas, a peaceful arrest and a night in the detention.
What you're not supposed to get is a beatdown or a dose of pepper spray. Or tazers, or water cannons. Or a beating in the paddy-waggon. But tear gas and a sleepover downtown are par for the course for civil disobedience.
The Am. Embassy (not the only target in town) always had a "legion" of police recruits living in buses on the perimeters. Rumor was that the government recruited them into national police service from the ranks of students (former protesters), dressed them in black clothing, tennis shoes and riot gear. I once saw a small group (12-15) of protesters emerge from a subway entrance and march, peacefully with their placards, along the sidewalk in front of the embassy. They had taken no more than five breaths when a large squad of police descended upon them like vultures on a carcass, billy clubs flying. I had to ask myself - why would anyone subject themselves to that kind of pain. I understand the need to protest sometimes, but why in that environment and for what purpose? It's more ritualistic than purposeful. I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears
they're all mates, go and have a beer after the game, lol.
they should hire out to steve spielberg. ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
rugby with tear gas! ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
At one point you see them grabbing them to move them away so it was definitely possible to clear the sit-in without extreme violence as the sitters were not resisting. The way those policemen were grabbing crouching people with one arm so they can better club them on the head with the other is just shocking. It reminds me of the salt march scene in Gandhi where slow walkers are clubbed to the ground one after another. The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
