Posts by tussock
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The name and address bit is presumably supposed to be for the guy who's paying you to talk, or more to the point the guy paying for the mobile loudspeaker vehicle. I'm sure some clever lawyer can work out a way to legally differentiate them from people speaking off their own bat.
At the very least, if the name and address would be of the person speaking, it's probably OK to leave it off, ditto for making your own placards (though not for waving 'round mass produced 3rd party placards).
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Angus:
I can't see how a web community would be caught, unless they're spending a great deal of money in a coordinated advertising campaign. If they all do their own thing toward a common goal, they're fine. More amateur voices, less million dollar professional leaflet drops: that's the whole point.
If you want to coordinate a nation-wide walk down the main street of every city with ten thousand other amateurs shouting "don't vote Labour, vote National", that's fine, because no one spent all that much money to do it. If you want to pay a million dollars for rent-a-crowds to do the same thing, you're out of luck.
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I/S wrote:
You mean... participate?
Heh. I do believe that's exactly the problem the National party has with it. Unpaid participatory campaigns might hit trouble on the whole "tax cuts for the rich urgently needed" bandwagon. Especially if said rich have to put their name to it, quite a few "mainstream" kiwis don't seem to like following the demands of their betters for some reason. 8]
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Yea. 200 rounds. 18 people. 11 each. It's like there's a war on, only it's 1432, no one showed up, and those who did bought along sporting weapons, hung out, and talked shit. OK, it wasn't like a war at all.
What it was almost like was those other countries, where people who dissent in public get spied on, and charged with sedition or terrorism, all based on some pretty bogus evidence of somewhat obnoxious but perfectly legal behaviour.
Just as well that doesn't happen here. We have a right to protest, you see. We have freedom of association, freedom of movement, and freedom of speech. We have a right to privacy. We don't spy on dissidents, we don't lock them up and tell everyone they're dangerous terrorists, we don't pass laws to increase the powers of police and spies around the same time this happens, like it coincidently happens in all those other countries. We're not like that at all.
Who, those guys? They're dangerous terrorists, trust us, we've been spying on them for ages.
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And still so few care that the police have criminalised dissent.
It's all cool, because someone out there sounds pretty creepy, context be damned. It's all cool, because you can never be too careful with people like that, and it's better to be safe than sorry. It's all cool, because dissent is a sure sign of insanity anyway, they all think someone's out to get them. It's all cool, because 9/11 is the worst thing to ever happen anywhere and could also happen here tomorrow.
It's all cool, because I'm a little bit scared off the boogeyman.
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David: As an interesting comparison, at the country school in Oz I attended kids were taught to use guns, understand basic military tactics, and to not ever trust the police under any circumstances.
Seriously. Yr 10 sport option, history stuff, and civics course.
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RB wrote:
There has been an order of magnitude more hysteria from supporters of those arrested than from the general public.
And then there's the police, who've been running around locking people up for a month, calling them terrorists, and illegally disseminating private and prejudicial material to the media.
Something which 90% of the public seems to believe, according to my ever faulty late night memory. What's more hysterical than thinking the hills are full of Maori terrorists in league with protesters everywhere? Seems to pretty much fit the definition square on, in light of who was arrested and what they actually did, like an absolute and undeniable lack of any terrorism of any sort.
Oh, right, but thinking the cops just believe their own bullshit, that's hysterical, like Ross Meurant.
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I/S wrote:
Ignoring the nasty streak of bigotry there, I can only say that these aren't the sort of role-playing games I or my many gamer friends play.
Dude, some of my old RPGer buddies were way too much into guns and talking about shooting people for my comfort. One turned to the army (East Timor, Afghanistan, etc.) another to a serious paintball habit, but they got married, had kids, and settled down like everyone else does. Except for Mr Army Ranger, I guess.
But OMFG the things that would've shown up in logs of my RPGer bullshitting sessions. I totally planned the pancake of the WTC in many easily achievable ways before the real terrorists managed it, and a great many more ways only achievable with super powers; which are totally cool now there's a TV series about them, but totally weren't then.
<sigh> I also know how to use a gun. Obviously not a real lefty.
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RB wrote:
If a group of off-duty policemen were shown to have discussed killing people for practice (let alone having secretly acquired and trained with weapons) I would expect them at the very least to be thrown out of the force.
Secretly? Please, the word is privately.
But dude, senior police officers just recently participated in sending around an email suggesting officers should "just shoot the bastard" (or similar), in the case of people observed to be carrying knives and the like.
A couple days later an officer, who had acquired and trained with weapons with his buddies in secret (by which I mean out of public view), killed a man who was breaking windows with a hammer.
But it's all cool. 'Cause they're cops, so it was all innocent coincidence you see, no one was really suggesting murdering people who were carrying a hammer, and the shooter was only protecting innocent civilians (except for the one he shot).
I mean, it's not exactly like they held a man down and shot him seven times in the head because they'd spent all week talking about killing terrorists, except that it may as well be. Similar outcome and all. "Oops, sorry, but it was all his fault, really."
And the whole idea of killing people to practice for the upcoming surprise killing of people is obviously ludicrous. It's verge of sleep rambling from boys playing "I'm a hard man" in the bush. -
Yea, Angus, nice idea in general, but the minimum wage is still a ways off $12.50 an hour, so at $1000 you're talking 5% of gross yearly income for a sizable chunk of the population, and 10-15% for beneficiaries or part timers. I don't see politics being worth more than $20 to most people (even if it's worth far more in real terms), and only a very few would seriously consider $200.
Still, that some can spend thousands of times that amount or more, seeing a good return on the investment coming, is a problem that needs dealt to. Make it all publicly accountable at the very least.