Here ladies and gentlemen is a clear case of what not to do. Other than totally embarrassing himself, what could possibly have come forth from such disgraceful behavior? I feel strongly that this student probably never received corporal punishment in his entire life. What a fool!
Of course I’m referring to Mr. Andrew Meyer, the University of Florida student who stayed at the microphone a bit too long. This is precisely what has gone wrong in American jurisprudence most likely as a result of being enabled and empowered by his parents.
The story is really quite an easy one: Predetermined time allocations for the asking of questions and responses. Andrew Meyer apparently felt that he was somehow immune from the rules and started asking more questions after his allotted time was up.
Did anyone other than me notice that there were two uniformed officers standing right next to Meyer as he spoke? The interesting thing would be to find out why the officers were there in the first place.
Amid his shouting, “What did I do? I just want to ask a question, what did I do?” Seriously now Mr. Meyer do you really need to be told? I’ll even bet that he goes for the “abuse-excuse” meaning he, of course, was a victim of abuse that led to him getting Tasered.
He was warned. He was informed as to what would happen if he continued to resist the authorities. “No, oh no, no Taser bro, c’mon what did I do, if you do bro I’ll get a lot of…Zap! Zap! “Ouch, Ouch, help me, somebody help me…”
Folks the reality of the matter is most in attendance were encouraging the uniformed personnel to Tase this guy. Quite frankly, after watching it over and over and over again, the only failure on behalf of the police was that they didn’t Taser the a$$hole earlier.
Just in case someone wants to go off the rails, this has nothing to do with the first Amendment of the US Constitution; furthermore, this bizaare behavior has nothing to do with Andrew Meyer’s freedom of speech.
September 18, 2007 at 8:52 pm |
Bizarre. Weird, not an outdoor shopping mall.
September 18, 2007 at 9:48 pm |
um, er…. did ye mean bizarre?
September 18, 2007 at 10:08 pm |
A bazaar is for shopping, Mr. Meyer’s behavior is bizarre.
September 19, 2007 at 1:39 am |
What do you expect?
September 19, 2007 at 2:03 am |
Matt, definitions, Anga2010, and JHC,
Oops! Sorry! I was just testing you folks! Thanks for having my back on the error; but now, how do you feel about the behavior?
September 19, 2007 at 3:19 am |
I guess I’d like to know a little more about the confrontation before I cheered on the “security” personnel (private or cops?) use of a taser to subdue a less than courteous questioner. Was this guy a potential threat? Physically? I agree that certain common courtesies have become far too uncommon in this country, and public civility as the norm has all to often been replaced by grown men and women behaving like spoiled toddlers. Nevertheless, I am more concerned that our national fixation with security is blinding us to a growing web of arbitrary encroachments on our liberties. When we turn a blind eye to increasingly harsh and arbitrary domestic police and private security actions (ESPECIALLY private security actions), we give away ground that is VERY difficult to regain in the future.
September 19, 2007 at 7:34 am |
I guess you people aren’t really into the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights or are knowledgeable that this man’s civil rights were violated. You witnessed a Federal crime against him. Behavior is interpretive, but the U.S. Constitution is the law of the land. After this is over, this young man will be rich and have his college tuition paid for several times over.
And what you think of his behavior really is quite futile when all is said and done.
September 19, 2007 at 4:08 pm |
I quite disagree with firedancer’s claim that the U.S. suffers a ‘national fixation with security’ which serves to blind us ‘to a growing web of arbitrary encroachment[s] on our liberties’. The ACLU functions to ensure that this ‘ground’ is not difficult to regain in the future and, in fact, they ensure that, while they ‘protect’ the ‘rights’ of the ill-bred, they’ll do so at the expense of the remainder of us.
This University of Florida incident hasn’t anything to do with national security or abuse of this man’s ‘liberties’. This incident has much more to do with the fact that officials recognized and acted upon the fact that this man wasn’t interested in having a speaker answer ‘questions’ – his ‘questions’ were designed to impose INDICTMENTS against John Kerry. Mr. Meyer used, in a very perverted manner, the opportunity to ask questions of a paid quest speaker to advance his own agenda. This is the type of behavior we might expect of a cutthroat lawyer who directs damaging statements, ‘veiled’ as questions, to a witness with full knowledge that a competent judge will shut down his line of questions and direct a jury to disregard his comments. The jury has heard line of statements, the ‘bad seed’ is planted… the damage is done. In this same manner, Mr. Meyer had no interest in having his ‘questions’ answered.
The greater ‘social statement’ derived from this incident is the sad knowledge that we live in a society where Q&A sessions require the imposition of a ‘time allotment’, that we have lost that social sense of appropriateness which should activate a learned understanding that we need to ‘yield the floor’. What does it indicate when we have a phrase of common understanding called ’15 minutes of fame’. Mr. Meyer will be remembered as the bore who got ‘shut-down’ because he wouldn’t
‘shut-up’. From my vantage point, this reaction from authorities was long overdue.
September 19, 2007 at 6:25 pm |
firedancer,
Thank you for your response. Here’s a few answers for you on the first part: Gauged by the student’s behavior I’d say it’s a “damned if you do…damned if you don’t” scenario. Maybe you’ve seen the video by now? If not it’s up at YouTube and every others vid-sharing site on the internet—Fox News has it.
In any case, in my humble opinion the student could easily gone off the rails and who knows what? Virginia Tech comes to mind. We’ve all been students at some level or another; I’ve been in those impassioned debates and I’ve seen folks carried off, however, each one deserved it.
I agree with prejudice on your second notion. With the called for “knee-jerk” reaction vis-a-vie national security, sure I think there may be some liberties that may be compromised; however, the world is in a much different form than when the writer’s got together and penned the original founding documents.
Thanks again, Cheers!!
OMC
September 19, 2007 at 6:46 pm |
Hey Cheril,
Nice of you to respond and I thank you. Inasmuch as you feel that Andrew Meyer’s civil rights were violated, would or even could you explain precisely how they were violated? I am unaware of any federal crime committed and I’d like to know your take on this one as well.
For some reason, and again, maybe it’s just me, but I could almost swear I heard Meyer’s state something to the effect of “…you’re going to pay for this…” which quite openly made me wonder if he was indeed acting out so as to abuse our legal system with some kind of claim for money.
“And what you think of his behavior really is quite futile when all is said and done” is exactly what’s wrong in America right now. I am entitled to what I think.
Now I am going to call on you…What part of the US Constitution supported this person’s behavior?
Cheers, OMC
September 21, 2007 at 5:54 pm |
What does a little taser shock do?
It is NOT a big deal, right! People are getting treated way worse all over the place.
YES. They are, and that is why we dont need this to happen here.
America must ACT, otherwise we will have nothing to defend!
Check out these videos of my reaction to the Andrew Meyer shocks.
http://www.hotconflict.com/blog/2007/09/florida-student.html