don't taser me, don't taser me, please... (Page 2)

Not Ironic...

It was specific to the case....if you are asked to leave....do you leave? Do you behave in a way that is inappropriate?  What is the next step? Ask him to leave again?  Maybe again?  Maybe then he will leave.  Maybe one more time....since he said he would leave that is good enough.  He will leave then.

I dop not understand why the student is not responsible and could not help control the situation.

I never said anything about him being arrested.  I said the reason for the escalation was the students behavior.  I think they are both wrong.  I think the kid tried to use an opportunity for a political statement.  Which is fine.  He was asked to leave he did not, It was escalated.  My point was about the student.  Why is he not responsible?  Why could he not leave? 

Maybe I do not understand the behavior....I did not say the police were right.  I just understand why it happened.  He wasn't arrested and tasered for asking questions.  He was arrested and tasered because of his behavior.

Now that I've seen the longer version, this guy needed to be tasered...

He was totally out of place and trying to instigate something with Kerry. It sounds like he was asked to leave the microphone several times, and the police only finally took him out after he refused. He continued to be combative and resist the officers. They did what they thought they needed to do.

It's not like they didn't give him ample opportunity to comply with their direction.

...the land of the free....and the home of the brave.....

just don't ask any questions of a speaker in a public forum.....

Thank you - - - exactly what I was thinking.

The first time I saw this "taser incident" I thought it was a promo for a new Adam Sandler movie. And what was Kerry doing at UF? Isn't he more suited to the Boston College crowd? but I digress.

The little turd student deserved what he got. He was resisting arrest and his actions could have resulted in rioting or other chaotic crowd behavior. Cops had to nip it, nip it, nip it in the bud.

Now had he been taken outside and caned, well that would have been excessive.....hilarious, but excessive.

This had absolutely nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with the kid being a .  People keep saying "if the police had just waited...."  Well, if the kid had just shut up and stopped jumping around for a minute Kerry could have answered his question.  It was the kid who escalated the situation.

Two more points: 

1.  It takes a LOT of people to SAFELY subdue a person acting manic.  The point isn't how many of them there were, the point is that no harm came to him other than the harm they felt was necessary to get him to leave.  While it was ugly, I think they used appropriate force to ENSURE HIS SAFETY.  Suppose one or two cops tried to subdue him and he fell and hit his head on the ground, or on a chair, or knocked someone else over.  Then they'd REALLY have a problem, right?  Are you hearing me? 

2.  For all of you who are concerned about his free speech being denied I'm just curious, what was Kerry's answer?  If the question was so important, and Kerry said he'd answer it I'm assuming he answered it after the incident was over.  Surely you've researched this to find the answer to this information that the republic had to have to continue to exist.  I'm shocked that we haven't been discussing that in this or another thread.  Or is it that the question was just an inflammatory prop used to draw attention so this moron could try to portray himself as some kind of martyr and nobody really cares about the answer?  Nah, that couldn't be.  Oh wait - you're going to say that the point isn't what the question was but that he should have been allowed to ask it.  You're right, that is the point.  But he shouldn't have been allowed to ask it because he was over his time limit.  That's where we move from freedom of speech to following the rules of the event.  Again, this has nothing to do with free speech, but if you want to play that it does, then he was denying everyone else who had a question the right to free speech by taking up more than his allotted amount of time.

Got off the high horse and just admit that this kid was a jackazz. 

Yeah, but the taser standard should be higher than "jackasz".

Are you sure? 

But you have a point.  I think THAT is a more interesting and valid discussion than whether this kid's freedom of speech was violated.  Maybe we need a poll on the level of behavior that warrants tasering/stun gunning. 

Does this change anyone's opinion?

http://www.local10.com/news/14138122/detail.html?rss=mia&psp=news

Probably, but to me the standard of acceptable behavior should be a little different for say, some guest lecturer than for a political figure's Q&A. Whatever this guy's motivation, he was at a microphone, asking a question of a politician. A question the candidate wanted to answer. He should have been given some leeway.

Read the stories posted.  You might change your mind.  Leeway was given.  Time was given.  The questions from the video were random.  What was Keery going to answer?  Why he conceded the election so early.  Was he part of skull and bones.  Shouldn't Bush be impeached.  He was all over the place.

I think that the incident was unfortunate....but...I do not beleive I am going to change your opinion about it. 

I think the joke was on all of us.

But from all I've read, he wasn't so much asking a question (some of them were questions) but more going off on a tangential diatribe.  That lasted way too long.

It wasn't that long. He spoke for exactly 30 seconds before they started to usher him off. He could have been just talking, but he also could have been framing his quesiotns. When you listen to the White House press corps asking questions, for example, they take longer to set up questions than that. We'll never know, I guess, what the guys intention really were, but the bottom line is Kerry told the security folks to back off and let the guy speak. Shouldn't that have been enough?

I think there's a difference between exercising free speech and abusing free speech. The first requires responsibility, the second is simply vanity.

I can imagine that the audience members, who were responsibly engaging in an act of free speech with a US Senator, were relieved when they cut the mike for this child having a tantrum.