“The Price of Apathy towards public affairs is to be Ruled by Evil Men.” – Plato
Ebert made a new blog entry about gaming as art and admits he was a fool for saying games could NEVER be art and for weighing in on something he has no intention of participating in. Which is just like reviewing a movie you’ve never seen.
He has not changed his opinion, but that is just fine by me. With this, I’m satisfied.
———————–
In other news, people from ages 16 to 76 who were in the wrong place at the wrong time (as well as legitimate protesters) were arrested in Toronto during the G20 summit recently.
This first-person account is pretty amazing. Not allowing people to disperse, setting up bait cars, pepper-spraying people who have given their hands up to you to detain them – this is upsetting behavior. Our right to peacefully protest injustice, whether it is injustice or not, is very important to me. I do not automatically come to the conclusion that police are cruel, or have ulterior motives, or would behave without due process, and so when it happens on such a large scale, it leaves me feeling very disappointed. And angry.
They were put into cages without having been read their rights, left without water, proper sanitation, sanitary equipment for the ladies. They were abandoned when they needed medical treatment. A teen with Cerebral Palsy was mocked, they were threatened with violence by police officers when they were just sitting quietly.
15 hours in police custody, bleeding from plastic ties around the wrists, with an open stall bathroom, all for having been standing on the wrong street.
… you know, I didn’t know how affected I was by the story I was reading until I got to the end, when the guy was shoved back out into the pouring rain slightly a little less than 24 hours later to the cheers of people under tarps who had apples and water ready for the people finally let go. That’s when I felt tears on my face.
I know I can be a pretty emotional person, but the idea of witnessing a peaceful protest, and for that crime being tied up, thrown in a small cage with 40 men, and left to rot for a day with no one knowing where I am and no indication of how long it will last … it’s very upsetting. “Due process” is perhaps the most important human right.
It’s the kind of thing I’d want everyone to know about, because it isn’t right. It isn’t right for anyone.
20 accounts of arrest at the G20 – “I will not forget what they have done to me.”
Welcome to the new world order
This is Canada
Remember, this is Canada where your rights to free speech and to assemble are not guaranteed in the same fashion as the USA.
The Canadian bill of rights allow them the equivalent to our first ammendment “to a reasonable degree” is the qualifier that is actually used.
So, if some local government decides that even one person goes over the line, they can suspend the rights of everyone present.
They have done this before. This is one of the benefits of the US over Canada, thought we lose sight of that sometimes too (and have to fight to make sure we don’t lose that right too.)
Re: This is Canada
Found the exact language:
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.