Occupy L.A. Loses a Sign
A friend of mine told me this story yesterday.
He was walking past the Occupy L.A. site downtown — which, if you’ve been there, is rather small, filthy, and smelly. As he approached the cloud of marijuana smoke, he saw a sign that offended him. It said, in effect: “Don’t bomb Iraq. Bomb the feds.”
My friend’s wife works for the federal government.
He told me he took the sign away.
“Wow,” I said. “I’d like a picture of that sign.”
“Oh, I can’t do that,” he said. “I ripped it up in front of them.”
I gave him a high five.
I need more friends like that.
Oh: I strongly disapprove of the anti-speech thuggery on display in this post. Speech should be met with more speech.
And all that.
For the record.
(High five!)
Patterico (f724ca) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:02 amAmen.
DohBiden (d54602) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:03 amI don’t get this at all Mr. P. You don’t rip up people’s signs. It’s like a rule. Also the federal government of the United States is decidedly not unloathsome. I have links. But you’re for sure not supposed to bomb it though cause of that’s even worse than ripping up people’s signs.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:05 amoh. I should’ve refreshed sorry my bad
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:06 amI heard the occupy protests are getting violent and out of control.
Maybe if they had required permits, like the tea party…
Amphipolis (b120ce) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:11 amSpeech that advocates violence against the guvmint is speech that could earn the speechifyer an extended all-expense paid vacation in the federal pokey. That protester should be thanking your friend for saving his sorry do-nothing butt!
Icy (2cca78) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:11 amIt’s all fun and games until someone
loses a signbombs the Feds.Not advocating ripping up signs and all, but aren’t there laws against that kind of incitement to violence?
no one you know (3e92e3) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:11 amI like the free speech even when it’s incitey. Letting loser government officials decide what constitutes incitement is a very European idea, not an American one.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:15 amNo one you know – while there are such laws, the rule is that the “incitement” must carry with it a clear and present danger that someone is actually going to act on the incitement.
At least at this time, I think you’d have a difficult time demonstrating it.
aphrael (a0f788) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:18 amSo your friend doesn’t support the idea of property rights for people with whom he disagrees?
aunursa (33da2f) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:18 amAll of these Occupy people could be arrested for inciting a riot. That is what they want to occur and they will do their damnest to make sure that happens.
Stan25 (103775) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:25 amIn all seriousness, what my friend did is not my style. I would have taken a picture and blogged it.
Patterico (886ffd) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:28 amyou have to rage against the machine you see
that’s how you know you’re still alive
and then after the ragings you can go to Rite Aid and get some tasty cotton candy ice cream
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:28 amWas his name Jack?
EricPWJohnson (719277) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:30 amDemocrats are cheap and greedy too bad the Occupy useful idiots don’t see it.
DohBiden (d54602) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:36 amThat’s ironic, given that the OWS crowd isn’t exactly supportive of property rights for those with whom they disagree.
Chuck Bartowski (78646d) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:38 am______________________________________________
“Don’t bomb Iraq. Bomb the feds.”
Since most of the protestors are usual-suspect leftists and not anarchists — meaning they’re infused with “limousine liberal” hypocrisy/phoniness and the types who deepdown admire garden-variety leftwing politicians like Obama and shrug over the idea of an overgrown, big-nanny bureaucracy — most of them likely would have preferred a sign that read “Don’t bomb Iraq. Bomb Wall Street” (or “Bomb the Tea Party,” or “Bomb Corporate America”). So in a way the sign that person encountered actually was rather atypical of the prevailing biases throughout the OWS crowd.
Mark (411533) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:41 amEither the sign poster thinks it is still 2003, or he’s mixing up Iraq and Iran.
Sammy Finkelman (3a0ae4) — 11/3/2011 @ 8:42 amI give a high five for that, Patterico.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/3/2011 @ 9:06 amStan25: I think at the point where it’s gone on for weeks without an actual riot materializing, it would be fairly easy to demonstrate that there was no incitement involved.
aphrael (a0f788) — 11/3/2011 @ 9:10 amB-but the tea partiers are inciting something though.
DohBiden (d54602) — 11/3/2011 @ 9:13 amWhen you look at the long list of apolitical grandmothers officially supporting the OWS, it is truly hard to contemplate any of them wishing harm on our country or government.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/3/2011 @ 9:32 am#Just like the Tea Party.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/3/2011 @ 9:32 amAlso, they have to be going to do it immediately upon being incited, without stopping to think about it. Otherwise it’s not incitement. And this reaction has to be predictable by the reasonable man, and also intended by the alleged inciter. The whole point of incitement is that you’re really doing the violence, through someone else, by turning him into an unthinking robot who does what you told him. Such as when you whip up a crowd and tell them “KILL THE JEWS”, and they go immediately and kill one. That’s why in the trial of Charles Price the prosecution had to convince the jury that even though they only had him on video shouting “kill the Jews” half an hour before and half the neighbourhood away from the murder, he had repeated it on the scene.
Milhouse (f8511c) — 11/3/2011 @ 1:11 pmI would have ripped up the sign too. They don’t believe in private property so why should I respect theirs?
Milhouse (f8511c) — 11/3/2011 @ 1:12 pmI would have ripped up the sign too. They don’t believe in private property so why should I respect theirs?
Because you have to lower yourself to reach their level.
aunursa (862ba9) — 11/3/2011 @ 5:15 pmOh: I strongly disapprove of the anti-speech thuggery on display in this post. Speech should be met with more speech.
And all that.
For the record.
(High five!)
Comment by Patterico — 11/3/2011 @ 8:02 am
But it was met with more free speech Pat. Libturd displays sign “Don’t bomb Iraq. Bomb the feds.” = Free Speech.
Ripping up a libturd’s stupid sign= priceless free speech.
peedoffamerican (ee1de0) — 11/3/2011 @ 7:38 pmDon’t bomb Iraq bomb the feds=Free Speech?
DohBiden (d54602) — 11/5/2011 @ 10:12 amComment by peedoffamerican — 11/3/2011 @ 7:38 pm
Though the action was not without justification, since when does destroying someone else’s property come under the protection of “Free Speech”?
Sort of comes up a little short of the Libertarian ideal of “your freedom of speech/etc. ends at the tip of my nose”, doesn’t it?
AD-RtR/OS! (5397f3) — 11/5/2011 @ 11:07 amI wonder when will that anti-semetic dyke show up?
Ya know the one who said all dem jews need to be deported?
DohBiden (d54602) — 11/5/2011 @ 11:19 amZionist Jews to be specific.
DohBiden (d54602) — 11/5/2011 @ 11:20 amDoh, I thought all the Zionists were now neo-Cons?
AD-RtR/OS! (5397f3) — 11/5/2011 @ 11:38 amWouldn’t that make them Rethuglicans?
Drew, you’re encouraging him again!
Icy (8bf790) — 11/5/2011 @ 12:32 pm