When Free Speech isn't Free Speech
The Mercury News reports today: "Nine people sentenced for involvement in UC Berkeley tree-sit."
Hopefully this will be a lesson to the rest of Berkeley's crazies: defy court orders to protest a pointless cause and you will pay the price.
It's not free speech if it's costing students millions of dollars while you throw your feces at our police officers.
Hopefully this will be a lesson to the rest of Berkeley's crazies: defy court orders to protest a pointless cause and you will pay the price.
It's not free speech if it's costing students millions of dollars while you throw your feces at our police officers.
Labels: Only In Berkeley
posted by tj at 2:47 PM
11 Comments:
50 hours of community service? Weak sauce. I'd opt for summary execution!
Submitted without comment:
"I'm very disappointed in the judge's ruling," Lim said Monday. "I believe the real criminals are the Police Department for misconduct and unprofessionalism and the UC Regents for continuing to pursue punishment after the grove is gone."
A lesson? Ha!
They're already protesting Obama!
Part of me feels like they should have to be in prison for the same amount of time that they were in the trees, day for day.
Then I realize that we would again, as taxpayers, have to pay for their meals, just as we did, as Cal students, when the UCPD gave them food everyday.
Is no one going to stick up for the tree sitters? If we've learned nothing else from con law, it is that the First Amendment protects all conduct in defense of the oppressed. The trees friggin' died people, how much more oppressed could they be?
Yes, no one is going to stick up for the tree sitters.
I admired people that stick up for their beliefs. Just not when their beliefs suck :)
You guys are SQUARE CUBES. It takes courage to stand up for something you believe in, especially when the people who you would expect to be learned about the value of protesting -- or at least somewhat open minded -- turn out to be a bunch of cocky little shitbirds in with massive egos and no balls. So yeah, I'll defend them: not because I agree with the cause, but because I value civil disobedience and abhor overly-entitled weenie talk like that above.
I can't speak for these other square-cube (that makes no sense - how can something be 2D AND 3D? Does that mean we're 6D?) cocky little shitbirds with massive egos and no balls spouting overly-entitled weenie talk, but as for myself, I protested something just this last Saturday. But that doesn't matter. I also value civil disobedience when it isn't something I disagree with, costing me hundreds of thousands.
Make no mistake - the tree-sitting hate here isn't an issue of protesting; it's an issue of the most useless protesting in the history of protesting. Seriously, it's like protesting sailboats in Nebraska. It's like protesting hunting in outer space. It's like protesting corn anywhere.
9:44 - haha. They were mentally deranged washed-up hippies who got stoned all the time. I doubt "courage" had anything to do with it.
PS: Is "shitbird" a technical term? Is that what those protesters called their arsenal against the arborists and police?
Wow - is 9:44 one of the tree sitters?
Are you posting from People's Park?
I'm pretty sure that's where the tree sitters came from before the "protest." I'm convinced it was an ingenious ploy to be fed consistently for over a year.
And I second the concern over the "square cubes" accusation. We're all apparently ourselves to the sixth power right now.
I'm pretty sympathetic to civil disobedience and I believe in free speech, blah, blah, blah, and that's exactly why the tree sitters are so insulting. They remind me of the kid with a cardboard sign camped out in a doorway on Shattuck today who asked me (aggressively) for change. When I ignored him, he told me to fuck off and then pulled a cell phone from his pocket and went back to texting . . .
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