This is a travesty. We officially don't have free speech in the US of A.

Democracy, freedom, free speech, etc. - mythbusted!

Cops are always right.

What else would they say???

That faint whine you hear in the middle of the night is George Orwell spinning in his grave at about 35,000 RPM and rising.

I agree that free speech is a core thing in democracy; but how would you handle this? You are organizing such an event; and in the end you allow questions; but you want
to make sure that all the folks have a chance for their questions, or?

So, what would YOU do about a person who refuses to leave and allow other people to use their right of free speech?

If I got it right ... this guy didnt wait in line; he preferred to basically ignore the process that was setup for questions. Then he was told to walk away; and he doesnt obey.

So again folks - what would YOU do in now?

Dumbo, good question. But I think there is a simple answer - 2 trained police officers could easily subdue and remove an obnoxious adult man, without resorting to a taser.

welcome to cruel and usual punishment.

what if the two cops had been subdued and disarmed by the 30-40 other potential victims instead?

"an injury to one is an injury to all."
---IWW slogan

"So, what would YOU do about a person who refuses to leave and allow other people to use their right of free speech?"

You firmly tell him that his time is up, please finish his question or comment, and allow the speaker to respond. Anyone who has been to any kind of public hearing at their city or town hall (has anyone?) knows that people making long-winded rambling, and eccentric comments are a perfectly common occurrence.

But, If I recall from video of the event, Mr. Meyer recieved no such notice. The police grabbed him and dragged him from the mike without warning - this was a bigger outrage than the subsequent tazing.

So, Americans help me to understand this. If you are a skinny student, told to walk away from a Q and A and you don't, the approved response from 6-8 heavily armed police is to jump on you and electrocute you?

In the outside world they have very different universities. You won't believe this. What they do is they ask the student to leave. They ask as many times as necessary and as long as necessary. Eventually everyone calms down. Nobody gets hurt.

It probably never occurred to those thugs in Florida to use alternatives to a beating. What was the rush? What if the student had not been healthy and had died from a heart attack? Was all this fighting because the police couldn't wait five minutes to take him to the station?

Maybe when you get the violence out of your schools you can start removing it from your foreign policy too.

Are we now defending the civic loss of our minds through some logical form of acceptance of a violent process for silencing human beings? This is insane and it is sick. Now, let me see... where was that piece of paper... you know... the one that had something like "Bill of Rights" written on it. Oh, that's right. It was last seen in a pile of sales receipts at the mall.

Gotta be brave in the this New World Order -- or Brave New World!

I am surprised this gentleman didn't get arrested and tazered. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiUDKI0ptyk

Along with Andrew, I learned that it is now unlawful to question authority or to voice dissent. I learned that the tone of my voice could warrant a criminal charges against me. I also learned that due to the condition of my health resisting arrest could cost me my life.

I guess Andrew was made an example and preview of our future "One World Order" society.

dumbo

I thought the guy was a jackass, myself, egotistically showing off by lecturing Kerry (and the other students) under the guise of asking questions beyond the time allotted, but tasering him was a bad bad response. I guess they did to him what they do to anyone who resists arrest.

I think the guy should have been removed, even if they had to drag him out the door by the feet, but no tasering him. They didn't do it until he was almost out the door anyway. If he hadn't been tasered, we probably wouldn't have heard about this at all.

The whole argument being posed is skewed. Its not just about the tasering its about the whole environment of civil discourse... especially on college campuses, the supposed bastion of free speech and exchange of diverse ideas.

The security seemed to be running the show. Accent, the organization that put on the event, should be ashamed of themselves and so should UF. In an academic setting with a guest who creates passion in an audience, there should be security on hand but there should also be an academic moderator who is controlling the event... if someone is out of line that moderator tells them to wait there turn or to leave and if he doesn't then that moderator should ask security to intervene.

You shouldn't get tackled for being obnoxious, you should be asked to leave and then escorted out... without goons putting their hands on you.

If there is a person who is being out of line with a large audience you'd be surprised how quickly a bunch of boos gets the person to shut up. This is ridiculous. Are we at a point where an organization or university can't handle diffusing a loud, rude questioner? Are we all ok with security and police running all events now?

I don't care if the guy does practical jokes... you have a protocol with violent thuggery as a last result. They act like he punched John Kerry in the face... the guy ignored the line and asked some questions... ones that I would have liked to hear the answers to.

Don't let the media and the right wing frame the whole story and then jibber jabber about their questions.

For those of you that haven't been paying attention the United States of America as the Constitution describes it was executed and buried without ceremony a long time ago.

What we have now is a plutocracy. Millionaires put in positions of policy making that benefit the billionaires that put them there. Our elections are nothing more than a farce put on to give the people the illusion we have some say in what policies go down. Because if we did have a true democratic/republic bush never would be president. We'd have no illegal wars. We'd have National Health Care, schools that actually educate, streets that are safe to walk and drive down and a host of commonsense policies that benefited the people instead of the few elite that really run this country.

Dissent is punished and squashed. I mean, what in the hell is a "free speech zone"? The fact that this practice has been allowed to continue without challenge is in of itself proof that a free America is dead and buried.

Bleve, I don't believe that guy was much more offensive than this guy is ..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiUDKI0ptyk

What are we trying to say, people can't express their concern and outrage?

When I first watched the video of this outrageous attack on legitimate questions of John Kerry that I would like answered, I wanted to reach through the TV with a blunt instrument and beat the Hell out of the cops who were doing that to the student. I know that probably would get me charged with attempted murder, but boy would it have felt good at the time. We obviously have a serious problem getting our elected representatives to answer pertinent and reasonable questions.

I think that wherever John Kerry speaks from now on, someone who is obviously physically impaired in such a way that a taser attack might kill them should rise up and demand that Sen. Kerry answer Mr. Meyer's questions, like a little old lady or a retired factory worker on oxygen; someone, like the gentleman at the AFL-CIO debate in Chicago who got a standing-O for his question about pension benefits and health care.

They are supposed to represent the people.......the people!

http://www.freedomtofascism.com/

Take my word for it; syringes and injections-only to control people of course-are next!

Who decided how much time he had, and when it was up?

Since when is overrunning your allotted time a criminal offence? If it was then every politician would be in jail.

when the guy was tasered, he had a dozen cops sitting on him...seemed pretty "subdued" to me.

This was clearly a denial of free speech by way of intimidation...how many other students would want to go up to the microphone to ask a question after this display of facsism?

"too long...ZAPPP!"...NEXT..."wrong question...BZZZAPP!"

John Kerry is thus a beneficiary of the protection of a police state.

RE: safiyyah at 1:28 pm

"Cops are always right."

...and also included in that book of axioms: The cause of the crash was pilot error.

The guy might have been really annoying, but the last time I checked, that is not against the law. Kerry, in not demanding that the police stop their aggressions against this student, (asking what was a legitimate question) is milquetoast, as he was during the race when the Republicans stomped all over him.

I can't believe we were all deceived in 2004 into supporting this guy. I will never again vote for someone who is electable only. That is just not good enough.

1750 "DON'T TREAD ON ME"
2007 "DON'T TASE ME BRO"

So, basically the rule now is that anyone who doesn't instantly comply with a police officer can be tasered into submission. This is justified by saying that the police would instead beat someone into submission, so being tased instead is ok.

The problem is with the basic assumption that a police officer has the right to use force anytime there is someone who doesn't instantly comply. That's a big change in this country, where the rule used to be that a police officer could only use force if they felt their safety was in danger.

In this case, what's the harm if this guy had just walked away from the officers and the building. They knew who he was. He'd just given his name into a microphone when he started his question. So if the law required that he be given some misdemeanor ticket for disturbing the peace by daring to ask a question a politician didn't want to answer, then just go deliver a ticket to him the next day.

BTW, you can tell a war is coming. They are upping the number of fascists trolls to come out and try to disrupt and divert discussion. A very common fascist technique. And its no surprise that 'beforeitstoolate' says he's a member of the military in other posts.

beforeitstoolate... can you say Chickenhawk. Your mind is tiny.

MA_Matriarch... I really don't know what you're talking about. I'm all for calling out people. The link you left is not really analogous. I don't think anybody should have been arrested and I wanted to hear the answers like I said.

The gentleman that was speaking in your link had the floor in a different forum. You've kind of lost me on your point.

Translation: The wolves reviewed the incident, and concluded unambiguously that the foxes were well within state guidelines in devouring that chicken.

And, while "well within state guidelines" is OK for CYA purposes, it's not much of a vote of confidence when one considers that even torture is now well within government guidelines.

As in the Jena 6 case, there are those who are unable or unwilling to see the forest for the trees. They seek to dismiss or discredit the charges that the police acted wrongly by blaming the victim(s), and can't or won't admit that such tactics evidence a general intent to repress dissent and free speech. Sure, there are legitimate disputes and differences of opinion-- but I'm referring to those who attempt to evade or refute the proposition that there's a broad top-down push to repress dissent and non-conformity by refusing to connect the dots.

There are numerous incidents of blatant excessive force or overreaction by police or private security, e.g. Capitol police brutally apprehending Lennox Yearwood when he was peacefully waiting in line to attend the Petraeus hearings; Nicole and Jeffery Rank handcuffed and taken into custody for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts to a public rally; Cindy Sheehan manhandled at the 2006 SOTU for wearing a T-shirt that transformed her into verboten "protestor". Matthew Rothschild has documented scores of similar incidents, such as when an off-duty state trooper working as a Barnes & Noble security guard ejected and briefly arrested teenage girls at the store waiting to see Rick Santorum, there for a book signing.

In each case, defenders of the police were quick to explain away any charge of overreaction or impropriety. Everything was done well within state guidelines. (The ACLU won a settlement against the Barnes & Noble goon.) And there are always secondary rationalizations, e.g. Sheehan is a notorious activist and provocateur-- of course the cops have to get the jump on her!

Perhaps I'm just paranoid to believe that our government is deliberately turning a blind eye, or at least winking, when it comes to heavy-handed law enforcement, not to mention military atrocities.

Slavery and the associated tortures and killings were 'well within state guidelines' in Florida for quite some time.

I've seen many skilled politicians handle situations like this in many question periods. The answer is you talk to the crowd as a whole, and get them on your side as opposed to the obnoxious questioner at the microphone. You start saying things like 'I'd like to answer your question if you give me a chance.' Or, after you've answered the question a bit and the guy goes on, you appeal to the crowd by saying 'you'd like to take as many questions as possible'. Do this correctly, and a skilled politician can easily get the other people in line to ask questions saying things like 'move on buddy, you had your turn'.

The common assumption from violent people is that violence is the only answer. But rarely is that truly the case.

I didn't think the Andrew was terribly rude or obnoxious. I thought he just expressing his feelings, just like the guy in the video.

The link is just an explanation as to where this country is heading.

Someone mentioned injections..... get a load of this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS3mhjt7TrY

"So, basically the rule now is that anyone who doesn't instantly comply with a police officer can be tasered into submission".

That really troubles me........

What sucks about this repoprt is that he didn't refuse to quit questioning Kerry. Kerry said he would answer the question as the guy was being dragged away.

Wait a minute here! It can't be over at this point. If the AG presses charges(?), wouldn't the whole thing be reviewed: report, videos, witnesses have a chance to speak? That would be a great opportunity to air this issue more fully, NO? Or is that not possible in Forida?

Up with these systems and up with these laws. Police are not necessary. Federal government is not necessary. When we all realize this we can truly begin to work towards freedom = RESPONSIBILITY.

Two words: Police state

Look out folks--Taser International Inc.'s sales rose 55.9% in the last quarter and doubled its profits! It's a sign of the sick times we're living in.

PJD and anney

Watch the videos; they didn't give him a chance to leave on his own. All he was objecting to was being grabbed, pushed, carried, tackled, etc. If they'd have been just a tad more patient there would have been no issue and no incident. The tasering was a result of his resisting being attacked for no good justification. The idea that asking obvious questions that no one else seems to have the guts to ask is enough to get 6 cops running up to throw you out--- is pretty sketchy stuff.

we should put economic sanctions on this university until the military junta lead by the president Bernie Machen is pushed out.

What I found disturbing about this whole fracas was how most bloggers I encountered on other sites defended the tasing incident. And most of those I was familiar with were not conservatives--they were "progressives".

Like it or not, we live in a society of 'Good Germans'.

Let's tase bush until he admits he's psychotic, sadistic and a pathological liar and keep going until he begs for impeachment. Better yet, let's start with Cheney and then do bush.

I just sent an email to John Kerry urging to speak out against the University and to speak up for Mr. Meyer's rights. I urge everyone here to do the same. I am sure our esteemed Senator would wish the whole incident to disappear.

I made sure to point out how "great" it was that he continued to speak so calmly as an innocent man was tasered.

Please take this important step, it is the least we can do to get someone to acknowledge this atrocity!

If Kerry would speak out on this, he'd earn major brownie points with the thinking public.

Dumbo;

Good name you chose for yourself.

The cops want to shoot. They desperately yearn for the thrill. But the aftermath is too messy, and the restrictions too loopy. They want to beat, but the image is too polarizing, and they're still smarting from the Rodney King fiasco. They want to manhandle, but that can get tricky, and their egos get bruised. And of course there are all the civil lawsuits to contend with, too.

But here's a perfect solution for them: the state decides that some form of nonlethal means of subduing a person they don't like is perfectly OK, and you see Taser's sales skyrocket, police everywhere are equipping themselves, and all of a sudden people are getting tased left-and-right for anything from being drunk to just being obnoxious.

Forget the motto of "To Protect And To Serve," because it's too scary of a debate to figure out who or what is being protected and served. Look closely at the embroidered patches on "state police" uniforms: in Newspeak, they read right-to-left.

Just the facts: Andrew was down and surrounded by 4-5 cops at the time he was tased. The tasing was obviously gratuitous, unnecessary, cruel and unusual punishment. The video tape(s) also show that it was immediately after Meyer's mention of the secret Yale "Skull and Bones" society (of which Kerry and Bush are both members -- I use present tense because they both still honor the code of conduct in refusing to talk about it).

FIRST OF ALL IF THOSE CAMPUS COPS WERE ACTING WITHIN THEIR GUIDELINES,WHAT THE HELL IS IN THOSE GUIDLINES? THE LAME STATEMENT ABOUT NOT WANTING TO HIT THE KID CLOSE FISTED JUST FLUMMOXES ME.WE SHOULD BE GLAD THAT THOSE STALWART OFFICERS OF THE LAW DIDN'T STOMP THE STUDENT.PATRICIA HARRIS,THE SUPURB ESSAYIST AND COLUMBIA UNIV "MAD LAW PROFESSOR",OPINED THAT IT IS PRECISELY BECAUSE THE GOV CAN JUSTIFY NEARLY ANYTHING ON PROCEDURAL GROUNDS,THAT WE NEED SERIOUS OVERIGHT,NOT IN HOUSE WHITE WASHES.WE HAVE TOO MUCH OF COPS EVALUATING COPS,DOCS EVALUATING DOCS ETC-HENCE SELF SERVING JARGON IS EMPLOYED TO COVER UP AN EVALUATION OF WHAT ACTUALLY TRANSPIRED-IN THIS CASE BEHAVIOR WHICH WOULD HAVE GOTTEN THE BOUNCER AT A HOT COLLEGE BAR FIRED.THIS DECISION STINKS SO MUCH,THAT ONE MIGHT SURMISE THAT THE WHOLE EPISODE WAS STAGED TO SEND A MESSAGE TO ALL CONCERNED PARTIES THAT FREE SPEECH WILL NOT BE PROTECTED AT UFLA.

Duh???!
You were expecting a different conclusion?

You can next expect to be tasered for the comments emblazoned on your T-shirts.