Two days ago I heard on the radio an ad for Tazers. Pitched as a security device no one should be without, they gave a numer to call and a web site to visit to order your very own. I was shocked (woops!) for about 2 seconds before thinking, What the hell, why not. Can you imagine half the population or so of this Land armed and primed with Tasers one fine day?

Yes I can (imagine) waiguoren and it makes me sick to my stomach. This device can replace date rape drugs and that scares me.

The National has a special on the Taser. If you think that you are disgusted enough already, you are not. Do you know what happened to the 4 RCMP Officers involved?

(link good for 24 hours)
http://www.cbc.ca/national/latestbroadcast.html

Re 4 RCMP Officers: Didn't they used to do the same thing to bad Priests?!

Seems that Taser wants to influence the outcome of any inquiry - probably so as to protect the reputation of their product. Think of it, unless their product is legally held responsible for a death in the Court of Law, Taser can keep claiming that their product is perfectly safe:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071121/taser_review_071121/20071121/

Pay your taxes, support the troops, pretend to be a rightwing fundamentalist, hate every one exept rich white men, never think of demonstrating, vote Republican, do what you are told, shut up, and you may not get zapped by the storm troopers.

Anybody who grew up in with science fiction in the fifties knows all about this stuff -- and lots, lots more.

In Asimov's "Foundation" universe it was "neural whips" = "extreme pain with no marks or damage" -- and that is the tempter with tasers, they don't leave marks (unless the vicim dies)

Maybe tasers would be like nukes and guns. A great equalizer. If everybody had one, people would tend to respect each other with the added benefit that no one (usually) dies.

Nothing like watching a bunch of taser vids to get one's hate juices flowing. That Utah cop should loose his job, and get tased. I cant wait to hear how that plays out…

Chuck Cliff, where do you think Smith got the name for his product from? He did steal it from some comic book during that era.

Sadly for the Repugs (who consider themselves immune from this) is that it doesn't seem that police officers ask how a person votes. Did you hear about how we treat former soldiers?

Manitoba man sues RCMP over Taser use

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/11/21/mba-taser.html

And then there's the rest of the always fun array of "non-lethal" weapons - ever feel the tickle of a rubber bullet in the groin? Little microwave gun to heat up your insides? Sound lasers to puncture your drums?

We should all heed the words of truthteller Ari Fliesher: "Americans need to watch what they say, watch what they do." That's why he's the top dog at Freedom Watch - cause he's all about the freedom. And the watching.

This sort of generalized brutality has been a long time coming. Certainly, the war fever that the present regime has been relentlessly trying to promote is a major factor. But the vindictive, judgemental zero tolerance mentality that began with the Rockefeller drug laws in the sixties and spread everywhere, the ever increasing militarization of police tactics, general public tolerance of police malfeasance, and perhaps most of all, the barbaric conditions in our penal institutions due to lack of funding, overcrowding, abandonment of rehabilitation and total public indifference, have had a toxic effect on the civility of our society. Quick, dirty solutions are the order of the day, and, as has been said, if you only have a hammer, every problem has to be a nail. What does our nation produce anymore aside from history's greatest Ponzi scheme? We have the most gigantic, overfed military machine, apparently now financed by the Chinese in the end, to bully the rest of the world to remain in that Ponzi scheme. As Malcolm said, "Chickens coming home to roost".

ban guns. legalize tasers. even though both are deadly.

Definately need to stop using these.

TONY VODVARKA: You define the LOGISTICS of the problem, however its roots stem from the rising tide of authoritarianism, a new take on old church creeds that narrowly mask an idolotry of punitive measures. OURS is a sick society. An issue of Tom Dispatch provided a chilling report on the many weapons issuing straight out of sci-fi.

JOBSON: That initiative is worth exploring!

Seems to me that the things which make Americans feel safer tend to scare Canadians. Some of the things that make Americans feel safer:

guns
tasers
patriot act
going to war
changing the laws of Canada so that they are the same as those in the US

Liked the taser? You will lover the puke ray :-

http://www.inteldaily.com/?c=138&a=4196

Dear Souixrose, I expect we are saying much the same thing. Many of our fellow citizens are so alienated from one another as to have little sympathy for another's plight, little mutual trust, difficulty in identifying common interests and are easy targets for particularist propaganda. The result is vindictive and judgemental fear. Traditional philosophical views come in to play here but I fear that the breakdown of much of our culture, much that was communal and progressive, is at the center of our national malaise.

If we care not about another's plight - is that their strategy of divide and conquer?

Of course, if that white male Republican voting, torture supporting, non-protesting corporate employee delays too long in signing a traffic citation some day, they'll still get 'tased.'

Since these were promoted as an alternative to shooting someone with a gun, the simplist solution would be for police departments to implement rules that said they could only be used in circumstances that would also justify the use of a firearm.

That would be if the police departments wanted to control the use of these as torture devices, which I doubt.

The Taser has caused at least 300 deaths. While it is less lethal than live ammunition, it is not a harmless device and should only be used in circumstances where potentially lethal force is warranted, i.e., when the lives of citizens or police officers are in imminent danger. Its use against unarmed persons constitutes aggravated battery at the least. If Congress had any decency left (a dubious proposition) it would pass a law imposing strict guidelines for the use of these devices, and prosecutors should use existing laws against assault, battery, etc., to bring charges against officers who torture people with Tasers. The above comments are correct that this is part of a disturbing pattern of authoritian rule and erosion of constitutional and basic human rights.

Nothing can get me screaming and crying in a furious rage as when I try to watch someone be tasered.

I cannot bear to watch someone be tortured by 50,000 volts of electricity. The screams, the body jerking uncontrollably, the person trying to fight off the the next jolt of electricity in shock.

It is a horrifying weapon that is used to not only subdue the one being "tased" but I feel it is being used to create fear in the national consciousness.

The "taser" is a deplorable weapon and I can only wonder what it will be like for the souls that created and marketed this weapon when they "cross over". It is my deep belief that the taser is a tool of evil being used on the people of the 'nation of compassion'. I often wonder at the consciousness' of those who use Taser's as they are watching the people they have just shot 50,000 volts of electricity into who are screaming in agony, writhing on the ground.

As someone once remarked to me "your dead a lot longer than you are alive." Wow, if that is true, then that's a long time to pay off a debt of pathocratic cruelty.

Want to learn the meaning of 'pathocratic"? Check out this interesting blog: http://ponerology.blogspot.com/

Peace.

Thank you AlexLawyer. Could not have said it better myself!

What do you expect from a nation ruled by thugs? No wonder Americans are looked upon suspiciously when they visit other countries. People are afraid of them. But I guess that's what the thug leaders want -- people to be afraid of America. They got their wish.

I've fought against police brutality for forty years, and I appreciate your column. Back when I started this struggle, it was a few bad apples and a few bad departments (most cops in one city were ok, most in Chicago were thugs). Now, it seems that most cops in most cities and states are thugs.

Since Nixon, the police have militarized and now identify the people as the enemy. This is a necessary pre-cursor to totalinarianism, since one must have the police thinking "us vs. them" in order to check the arbitrary displays of power by the authoritarians; this is designed to cowe those who would oppose the establishment.

As the government becomes more corrupt and thuggish, so the police will become more concerned about exercising power than they are with serving the public.

Thanks for a good column.

THE SOLUTION MAY BE TO PUT ALL OFFICERS ON LEAVE WITHOUT PAY UNTIL AN INVESTIGATION IS COMPLETE. IF THE OFFICER IS CLEARED, ONLY THEN CAN HE RECEIVE HIS PAY. THIS WILL NOT COMPLETELY SOLVE THIS PROBLEM OF EASY TORTURE, BUT IT MAY SLOW IT DOWN A BIT.

Can't wait to hear they used such a Pain-Ray against 'Cindy's-friends' near the Bush-'ranch'...(just prior to charging them under new-Laws against 'Domestic-Terrorism').
Or, until Mr./Ms. Middle-Class American hears their little-Johnny just confessed to 'insert current Crime-of-Priority here', after being water-boarded at the local-precinct...

Think we'll all "wake-up" by then...? [I personally doubt-it...]

Disobedient cattle get the electric cattle prod, disobedient sheeple get the taser.

Just admit it, American society has always been brutal and exploitative. We often hide behind the pretty platitudes of our constitution and so-called "Christian heritage," but what we are deep down inside is starting to surface in ways that are disturbing to most. What the media really does is help us lie to ourselves, but there is a gnawing demon inside that won't let go, leading to more fragmentation and polarization. We must start being honest with ourselves and see this, if we wish to stop this downward spiral.

ATTENTION PLEASE, go to this morning's report on CNN on line and watch a video of some coward scum cop in an airport approach a pregnant woman with a child in her lap for "information" and when she attempts to walk away, one cop drags the child from her and the other throws her to the floor and tasers her in the neck. THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE COME TO. WAKE UP, FOLKS! Tasers were supposed to have been a substitute for shooting someone, they have become a part of normal police work. Scenes such as these tell us that we are truly riding the beast.

Just goes to show, there is a little bit of Nazi in many people, no matter their nationality. I once worked in a minimum security prison, and witnessed firsthand what absolutely unlimited power does to some repressed psychos! A taser in the hands of this type personality is about as scarey as anything one can imagine. Of course, all criminals on both sides of the law will get them, and we will all board ourselves up in our homes more and more!!! This police state has been created by the Fascist Bushites and we must send them packing....to prison where they can enjoy firsthand the tools they love so much !!!

I am more glad than ever that my hypertension, diabetes, HIV, COPD: ILD - LIP-type, oxygen dependency 24-hours-a-day is going to take me out of here sooner than later, and that I never had any children, to have to fret about their fate, and the fate of any grandchildren, in this wretched world, the way that it is going. And I am only 50 years old.

Truely enraged, I love your tone. I'm guessing there's no training required to man a taser. If these cops were being taught where to taser a man to kill him they would be criminally liable, if ever a cop were held to the standard the rest of us face.

I'm pretty sure though, if you taser someone's stomach, it's not nearly as deadly as tasering the back of their neck, which is, I'm guessing, where so many sadist cops choose to taze people.

That there's a job which calls for nonspecific situational, daily carrying of human splattering weapons speaks to the fascist approach the present dominant finance and policy actors command toward meeting their greedy agenda.

AlexLawyer says: The Taser has caused at least 300 deaths.

Caused or contributed to. BTW - How would you like a vacation in Las Vegas at this time of year? The pro-taser group held their conference there - it was on The National Last Night:

http://www.cbc.ca/national/latestbroadcast.html

What strikes me as odd is how they insisted that Robert Dziekanski was going through alcoholic withdrawal which caused his death. There is not enough information at present to figure out whether or not this guy drank or how much. His girlfriend in Poland was a drinker, but there is no indication at this point that he was. Speculation which occurs at exotic locations does not strike me as very scientific! Yet, those who come home from there with their tans are going to be accusing US of being irrational - that was the purpose of it.

A Deadly Landing (collection of videos)
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/special_feature/a_deadly_landing/

AlexLawyer, besides the many investigations going on in Canada, Poland has started their own investigation into the death. It is going to take a while, though.

1messengerofmany says: The "taser" is a deplorable weapon and I can only wonder what it will be like for the souls that created and marketed this weapon when they "cross over".

I don't need to wonder - renting "Little Nicky" tends to open one's mind to the possibilities. Seriously, I believe in purgatory (rather than Hell) and that every one makes it to heaven after paying for their sins. I personally think that Smith will be keeping Cheney, Reagan and Pinochet good company.

1messengerofmany says: It is my deep belief that the taser is a tool of evil being used on the people of the 'nation of compassion'.

I don't think even Canada could ever claim to be that - as a nation we have committed too many attrocities. Ironic that history seems to repeat, though. Do you realise that both the Irish (under the hands of the English) and the Ukrainians (under the hands of the Russians) experienced potato "famines"?

Robert Dziekanski went at least 10 hours without access to food or drink. I wonder if being tasered on an empty stomach or a full stomach makes a difference. It tends to make a difference for medication and a few days ago when I was holding nothing down my muscles were very weak.

foxwizard says: I've fought against police brutality for forty years, and I appreciate your column. Back when I started this struggle, it was a few bad apples and a few bad departments (most cops in one city were ok, most in Chicago were thugs).

It was never a few bad apples - problems which are endemic tend to almost always be to systematic problems. Think of it, where do these officers get their information from - people who attend conferences in exotic locations or irrational people like us! Part of this is where the cops are getting their information and who they believe (which seems to be the liars).

Part of this is a practice which has evolved over time where one slowly starts using the taser in more and more situations.

Part of this is job stress - which goes up when one of your own is injured or killed while on duty.

And even good cops. It is human nature to cut some slack to anyone who has saved your life in the past no matter how much of an asshole they are. Thus the good cops always feel indebted to the assholes (as well as the other good cops who have saved their lives).

TonyVodvarka, that would have been very traumatic for the child!

gwmRNpozSC, I wish I could get oxygen. My lungs are OK but I pass out when exposed to airfreshioner. Try not being exposed to airfreshioner - it is the drug of choice in schools (even by those who insist that they don't do drugs).