There's always another side to the story

[Brugdor]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/30/police_raids/

I have to admit that when I first heard about these raids it ticked me off. I was ready to head over to Hotair and rant about it until they put up a thread about the story. Then I figured I'd wait it out and see if there was more to the story than what I had heard so far from the few far left websites that had posted about it. As it turns out, there was.

http://www.startribune.com/local/27703754.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUX

Now I'm not saying that the authorities are automatically in the right here. The story is just more interesting now that we can see both sides. However if the police are telling the truth -

"At least five suspected leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist group, were taken to the Hennepin County jail, and another was being sought, said Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher.

On Saturday afternoon, he displayed a number of the confiscated items: a gun, throwing knives, a bow and arrows, flammable liquids, paint, slingshots, rocks and buckets of urine.

"We know these things were going to be used as weapons," Fletcher said, a charge protesters and their advocates vigorously disputed."

Then it's pretty clear they did the right thing.

[Brugdor]

Ok, on this one I can definitely say the authorities acted correctly.

Here's a link to the DKos page so you can see how the far left is trying to portray this. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/1/19345/31771/170/582581

Link to the video is there.

Now, if you watch the video of course they cut off whatever led up to her getting to the police line so there's that to consider too. However just the fact that she walks up to the police line and is told at least twice to move back from it before she is turned around by an officer and told to go to the sidewalk should tell us something. Then when she digs her feet in and is finally arrested you hear one of the cops say something like, "You were told not to cross this line or you'd be arrested" which strangely doesn't appear on the tape so we can probably assume that's part of what was cut out at the beginning.

All I have to say after watching it is that we pay good money for those nightsticks police carry. The least they could do is use them. Oh and about this lady -

[BlueCross]

On Saturday afternoon, he displayed a number of the confiscated items: a gun, throwing knives, a bow and arrows, flammable liquids, paint, slingshots, rocks and buckets of urine.

Except for the bow and arrows, I pretty much have all that stuff in my garage.  Well, OK, my urine isn't in a bucket.

Are they gonna arrest me?

[Brugdor]

On Saturday afternoon, he displayed a number of the confiscated items: a gun, throwing knives, a bow and arrows, flammable liquids, paint, slingshots, rocks and buckets of urine.

Except for the bow and arrows, I pretty much have all that stuff in my garage.  Well, OK, my urine isn't in a bucket.

Are they gonna arrest me?

I dunno. Do you have anyone close to you that's telling the authorities you plan on using those items to "protest" somewhere? Again, I'm not saying that the first situation I posted about is clear one way or the other. I just knew there had to be more to the story than what was first told by the leftist blogs. I still need more information to draw any kind of conclusion on that one. I do find it hard to believe though that the police just randomly raided houses full of hippy artists. I'm sure they had better things to do with their time like hitting the donut shop.

[BlueCross]

Sometimes we have donuts in our house as well.  And Cheerios.

[Night Owl]

I'm usually fairly liberal for the most part, but most protesters are idiots.

Listen, you want to protest something you think is wrong? That's fine. Hold up your sign, chant your slogan, etc etc. No harm, no foul. It's the results-oriented douchbags that piss me off. The ones that do more than that to get attention ("oh, they WILL listen to us") - those are the morons with the buckets of urine, the ones that cause damage, the ones that block people trying to go to work... to them, I say "fuck off and die - as painfully as possible please - you filthy hippie."

Yep, don't like em' much at all.

[Brugdor]

I'm usually fairly liberal for the most part

Yeah it's my libertarian side that got rather worked up over the initial story I linked before I saw the other side. Free speech being squelched really bothers me and I don't care who it is that's having that right violated.

*hates "free speech zones" as they are the most asinine idea that our federal imperialist government has come up with in recent years*

[Brugdor]

Sometimes we have donuts in our house as well.  And Cheerios.

Do you have Anarchist Nutty Flake Surprise? If not, I think you're safe.

[BlueCross]

I'm usually fairly liberal for the most part, but most protesters are idiots.

Listen, you want to protest something you think is wrong? That's fine. Hold up your sign, chant your slogan, etc etc. No harm, no foul. It's the results-oriented douchbags that piss me off. The ones that do more than that to get attention ("oh, they WILL listen to us") - those are the morons with the buckets of urine, the ones that cause damage, the ones that block people trying to go to work... to them, I say "fuck off and die - as painfully as possible please - you filthy hippie."

Yep, don't like em' much at all.

Heh, that's funny.  I was just yesterday thinking how idiotic most protesters are.  I have never wanted to protest something in that manner.  It always strikes me as a 'mindless mob' mentality, with most of them almost frothing with glazed eyes for principles they haven't really thought through.

OK, I'm generalizing.   But it's not something that I would ever want to do.