That’s pretty close to what he did say. I guess your knee was jerking so hard it affected your hearing.

You’re banned from my site for being an asshole, btw.

That says it all in terms of the ‘liberal blogosphere’, the Democratic Party and modern America.

There is no excuse for either arresting much less tasering a student who asked the questions he did, and if you don’t immediately object in strong terms you have lost your way.

Instead, it’s all about “Kerry’s not at fault here”.

Kerry, if he had the presence of mind, could (and should) have said, ‘let him go, I’ll answer the question, let him ask, let him go, I will answer it.’

The students could have surrounded the cops and said or clapped ‘let him go, let him go.’

I guess you wouldn’t approve because of your extreme nervousness regarding protest or direct action. Better to sit back and watch the police state develop, and defend its beneficiaries (members of the US ruling elite) rather than its victims.

There has hardly ever been a meeting without someone using question time to make a statement or air an obsession. In civilised society this is dealt with by the moderator or chairperson, not by half a dozen thugs with a shock gun. Even so, the guy was asking some perfectly legitimate questions.

Agree completely.

Well, they sounded legitimate to me. Maybe it is forbidden.

It’s obvious from the first video that Meyer wasn’t tasered because of the questions he asked, but because he was resisting arrest. Disclaimer — I seem to be writing a lot of disclaimers this week — he didn’t need to be arrested. But the cops weren’t working for Kerry, so I can’t imagine why they cared what questions he asked. It’s evident from the first video that Meyer was behaving in a belligerent manner, and (I learned elsewhere) he was breaking rules about not hogging the microphone announced to the audience sometime earlier. The cops moved in to maintain order, not to censor his questions.

Kerry lacked the courage or presence of mind to insist the questioner he heard and a response given.

Had you listened, you would have heard Kerry say he wanted to answer the questions and to calm the situation down. Don’t let your knee jerk so fast to bash Kerry.

Even worse the cowardice of the students that they let this thuggery occur without objecting, and ‘liberal’ bloggers who also dont strongly object.

Had you watched the second video, you would have noticed lots of audience members objecting strongly to what was happening.

America is in deep trouble.

From idiots who jump to stupid conclusions, I would say.

There has hardly ever been a meeting without someone using question time to make a statement or air an obsession. In civilised society this is dealt with by the moderator or chairperson, not by half a dozen thugs with a shock gun. Even so, the guy was asking some perfectly legitimate questions.

Well, they sounded legitimate to me. Maybe it is forbidden.

Kerry lacked the courage or presence of mind to insist the questioner he heard and a response given.

Even worse the cowardice of the students that they let this thuggery occur without objecting, and ‘liberal’ bloggers who also dont strongly object.

America is in deep trouble.

Hall monitors with attitude. Arming them is a bad, bad idea. Arming them with tasers is insane.

I agree that the police moved in way too fast. Another minute or two and the crowd would have booed the guy down, I suspect.

I don’t agree with rioting, though. There’s a time-honored convention of civil disobedience that advises one not to resist arrest; see Thoreau, Gandhi, Fortas, MLK, etc. on this point. I also want to point out that the kid wasn’t giving Kerry a chance to answer the questions. If the kid had asked his questions and given Kerry a chance to answer, there wouldn’t have been a problem.

(TIP: For those who just want to watch the videos, I’ve embedded 3, and linked to another. So scroll down and skip my pontificating if you’re simply here for the vids)
By now it would be shocking if you hadn’t heard about the antics …