Ok, I'm bringing the UCLA tasering debate in here, because it's making me really upset

[rockymountaindem]

and because this is probably the last place on DU where we can talk about it in a civil manner. Oh, and because I respect your opinions. Hopeful that ego massage will get some replies (if nothing else does) ;)

As you may or may not be aware, the UCLA taser incident has been sparking a lot of threads and debate in GD today. I got into it quite heavily in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2759521

Some individuals are bemoaning the supposed lack of spine/guts/balls in the youth of today, who evidently are fascist-enabling sheep cowed by "the man". This is as opposed to the protest heroes of the '60s, who never would have stood for this and would have diffused the situation with "civil disobedience", which in their minds evidently means violence against the cops in this case. I come here to plead that it is completely unreasonable to expect a college student to confront the authorities with violence or anything that may be thus perceived, on the spur of the moment just like that. The reasoning behind this has nothing to do with the physical consequences, but with long-term legal and societal implications which should be on the mind of any bright college student at all times in every situation.

As posited in the linked thread, having a criminal record will negatively effect one's employment prospects in the short and long terms. I can tell you this from personal experience, as some people I knew in high school had a dickens of a time getting a minimum wage job as a result of a misdemeanor arrest. In the UCLA incident's case, this risk is accentuated because had anybody intervened physically it would be against law enforcement officers. Now, our society really dislikes people who hurt police officers. Lots of people freely bandy about the notion of an automatic death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer. "Assaulting an officer" is a charge that hardly anybody would overlook. I'm not saying whether or not this is a fair position. Indeed, respect for the law and those who represent and enforce it is very important in society. The point is that our society is not a forgiving society in general, and particularly not toward those who hurt the police.

Getting into a physical confrontation with the police in this situation could have had devastating long-term consequences for anyone who chose to do so. Firstly, they would most certainly be arrested. Secondly, they would likely be charged with assaulting an officer, and maybe incitement to riot of "the man" was feeling especially ornery. This would result in a trial, and if convicted a likely prison sentence. Now, I don't know about you, but hardly anybody is willing to go to one of those hell holes just to prove a point. There have been several recent threads noting our country's proclivity for locking people up. Now, even if you got off with probation, or some lesser punishment, that assault charge will follow you for the *rest of your life*. This means you can say goodbye to student loans, merit scholarships, and any employment with government agencies, the military etc. Since so many employers do background checks these days, it will also put you at a big disadvantage for any job, particularly if your competitors don't have such a stigma following them around. Saying "that cop had it coming" at the interview is not likely to get you far.

To review the risks:
Getting punched, getting hit with a taser, being arrested, being charged, being convicted, being imprisoned (with the myriad risks associated with imprisonment), and having a serious blemish on your permanent record that could keep you from ever getting a good job.

Now, why would I think about these things? It's because they really happen. These days, in my humble, most liberal opinion, anybody who thinks society will give them a second chance unless their last name is "Bush" is deluding themselves. This is the society that has created "sex offender databases" for 19 year olds who sleep with their 17 year old girlfriends. Doing your time, or paying a fine, is no longer the end of anybody's punishment. You can't split town and go where nobody knows you to start over. I don't know how many of you have ever googled your own name...

So what we have here is a bunch of older generation protesters looking down their nose at us supposed lightweights of the 21st century. They evidently really expect kids who probably had an important assignment or test due the next day, to start punching cops at 11 at night at a moment's notice. They expect us to think about Kent State, when all we're thinking about is how to get ahead in this increasingly competitive world (did you hear about the kid who included letters of recommendation from every member of his city's government in his Harvard application?). You're asking these college kids to risk their futures, those of their potential families and their ability to care for their parents in old age, over a situation that arose at a moment's notice and which few people could probably comprehend as it unfolded.

What's more, these 60s social movement veterans are shocked... shocked I tell you... at the products their own society has created. Today's society has been largely built by the Boomers (who are the college presidents, District attorneys of today). It is the Boomers who have, for better or worse, created the society that forces the youth of today to think about all the things I have mentioned above. It is their generation which passes judgment on us, just as we will pass judgment on our own children's' generation. And yet, they take no responsibility for any of that. They expect us to act like they brag about, back in days that were much more about forgiveness and didn't have surveillance cameras all over the place.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a little nuts?

[ginnyinWI]

1. As a boomer,

I'd say there's a real difference between then and now. It's true that there are a lot more consequences now and a lot less forgiveness. I don't blame any individual for trying to stay out of it.

It seems to me that back then, whenever there was a protest, there were usually great numbers of kids protesting, not just a few here or there trying to stop the police from doing anything. It was easier to just blend into a crowd, because they couldn't arrest everybody.

What's the same is that old cultural divide between the college kids (middle-class kids) and the police (for the most part working-class) and how the police see the college kids as snotty and spoiled, because they(the cops)didn't get that far in life themselves. So there's a natural antagonism there.

[rockymountaindem]

2. Well, at least I'm racking up a fair amount of views

I disagree with your assertion about the educational/experience divide between the police and the students. I think that a lot of police officers these days have at least some post high school education. Like I said, this is an increasingly competative world and one really can't get any kind of specialized job anymore without a degree of some kind. Three people I know who are or are planning on becoming police officers have or are planning degrees in criminology. I think that's increasingly prevalent.

[ginnyinWI]

8. probably more true today than back then.

You do need more education to become a law enforcement officer. But I also was referring to a kind of cultural difference, where they would tend to be more socially conservative. In my own experience, even working class people who are Dems are more socially conservative than middle class Dems.

[WildEyedLiberal]

3. I'm not sure I agree that all we care about are our future careers

I DO understand the point you were making and acknowledge it, and I do understand that you weren't saying that future careers are "all" we care about. Unfortunately, the Bush economy combined with rampant free trade globalization has made getting a decent job that much more difficult for our generation, so unfortunately, we can't afford to kick back and spend our college days smoking pot and going to protests and getting arrested, because, as you said, it WILL affect our future. But, I think if push came to shove, our generation would resist fascist police tactics.

That said, re: this specific incident, I think what the kids did was spot-on. They protested, they demanded the cops ID - which the cop is legally obligated to provide, and by refusing, just added another potential charge to their list of sins - and, most importantly, taped the encounter, providing valuable evidence of the crime committed. All of the above will result in justice being served far more than if the kids had "rushed the cops" - all that would have done is ruin any evidence that the cops had committed a crime and gotten the lot of them arrested and charged, and as a result the cops would walk.

And, lastly, I agree with your assessment of the boomer generation in general (no offense to boomers here in the Kerry group). They seem to forget that the New Left protested the DEMOCRATIC convention in Chicago and likely got America stuck with Nixon. They seem to forget how they all turned into Reagan Republicans in the 80s and lost their ideals in the pursuit of market riches (busting the unions and crippling the working class in the process). It seems they now have little better to do than relive their 60s counterculture glory days and cast aspersions on everyone who they, from their lofty keyboards, perceive to be inadequately suffering for the cause of "freedom." Of course, the only thing that galvanized that whole generation into action was the draft, which is the conspicuously absent variable between the two generations. I imagine that's why so many old hippies are clamoring for the draft in GD now - they want our generation to suffer as they did and storm the streets and get shot on college campuses just like they did. Until some of us die at the hands of "the man," we won't truly earn respect in their eyes. Of course, that by no means applies to every boomer here at DUer, but that thread you posted, as well as several of the draft threads, display the mentality quite nicely.

Frankly, I think it's abhorrent to clamor for MORE sacrificial lambs to send to the slaughter just to gain political points and/or "prove" a point to our generation. I also think it's abhorrent to suggest that college kids should essentially commit career suicide by recklessly swinging a fist at a cop just to make some old boomer feel better about "the kids" from behind his cozy computer monitor.

[rockymountaindem]

4. I guess I shouldn't have implied that's *all* we care about

It's not all we care about, but it is something that should be foremost in our minds. You can't look out for others if you don't look out for yourself. By that I mean the people of our generation can't make the world a better place if we fall into the traps the forces working against change have set for us.

I'll say though, it's been a busy day for the younger set on DU with this topic and the draft both coming up big this Sunday. We all need to start looking out for each other around here, I think, because the generational lines have become much more clearly drawn today than at any other time I've ever seen them on DU.

[sandnsea]

5. I haven't forgotten

Not a bit of it. I tend to walk around telling the younger generation 'sorry' because this Reaganomic dog eat dog judgmental big brother nanny state, that hasn't done a THING to change what really needed changing, is NOT what some of us boomers had in mind at all.

[ginnyinWI]

9. Nixon won by a huge landslide

So I don't think the convention did all that. It was more a generational fight, with Nixon representing the "grown-up, responsible" party. And besides that, he was of the opposite party to Johnson, who was seen as botching the Vietnam war. In that climate, a Dem didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

[sandnsea]

6. Decry the anarchy in Iraq

while rallying for it here at home.

Ignore the stupid people.

[karynnj]

7. As a baby boomer,

I don't think many of the people who protested did so in a way that actively courted any violence or even police notice. Like most, I protested on the campus I attended, where from a vote sponsored by the university over 90% of us were for "US out of Asia".

Protesting meant going to a large meadow in the center of campus and listening and reacting to people speaking against the war. It was serious, but it was completely without risk. This is probably the more common experience that lots of boomers had. (At IU, the administration actually led a candlelight protest after Kent State. )

It is true that there were protests in cities where there was confrontation - Chicage during the 68 convention, a NYC rally where they were met by construction workers etc, but they were less common than the peaceful protests.

Consider how hard John Kerry worked to keep his protest of angry vets absolutely non-violent and how he got all the necessary permits. The reason Nixon feared Kerry was because he was dissenting non-violently and spoke to convince people not to shock or iritate them. If the goal of a protest is to shift opinion, a violent or even a confrontational protest will not do that.

The people, like the weatherman, who advocted violence or revolution hurt the cause they supported.