A Rand Paul supporter stomped on a protester. Lone wolf, condemned by campaign, right? Well, not quite: Rand Paul's lame response: Won't condemn or disavow assault by supporter, calls it 'unusual situation'.
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Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Miami School of Law
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I don’t know why I bother anymore, since you just routinely call people a Nazi (the touchstone of an argument off the rails), but you might want to step away from Daily Kos or whatever long enough to look up some of the rest of the story of this woman and what was actually going on. We can agree that this might have been a hard reaction by Paul’s protectors, but this was not some innocent protestor who was stomped by the Brownshirts celebrating kristallnacht. Nor was it the only bad thing that happened at this event.
That you feel compelled to try to justify this violence speaks worlds.
There is no excuse for throwing a protester to the ground (especially one who doesn’t appear violent) and then **holding her down and stomping on her head**. Police have announced that the stomper is facing a criminal investigation, and I presume charges are all but certain.
Yes, the woman was trying a media stunt — to get photographed handing the candidate a fake “award” for bad behavior. I don’t have a problem with security keeping her away from the candidate. But they can’t shoot her, knife her, or stomp on her head while holding her down on the ground if she’s not an armed threat and there’s no hint of anything like that or any reason to have suspected anything like that. The reaction was far in excess of any provocation present. It was, in fact, a crime, and is being treated appropriately as one by local police. Lexington Police issue statement on Curbstomper. The stomper, incidentally, is Rand Paul’s Bourbon County coordinator, not some random volunteer.
Now, if you want to defend violent crime in the course of electoral activity, fire away.
Now the stomper believes the victim owes him an apology.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/10/woman-stomped-outside-rand-pau.html
I don’t need to justify anything. I abhore violence, but I also recognize that sometimes it must be employed in society’s behalf. Or would you rather our elections devolve into those foreign elections which involve the candidates themselves getting the crap beaten out of them by those who oppose them?
Ask yourself this:
What if someone in a “disguise,” with a foreign object in her hand, sidled up to the President, and the Secret Service perceived this as a threat (as if they wouldn’t) – as WAS the case here, do you think for one second this person would not be on the pavement with a secret service boot on her neck? Even if they didn’t perceive this as a threat, the secret service likely would have removed her from the President’s proximity immediately and roughly if she resisted removal.
I suspect there are facts neither of us know, but OBVIOUSLY there are also particularized security concerns for persons who are candidates for political offices since they can be targets as well. In this case, the “overreaction” is mostly in retrospect I think. At the time, it may well have seemed reasonable in the heat of the moment. Life is not lived in 20/20 hindsight.
Again, this is not some innocent protestor that was making her own political voice heard. This was a professional rabble-rouser HIRED by Moveon.org to raise hell, due to her past record raising hell at the Beijing olympics and other protest hotspots. Someone not opposed to being arrested and roughed up for the cause. It was clearly INTENDED that she provoke Paul’s security force into man-handling her for exactly this purpose. Do you think the fact that she wore an obvious wig was for any other purpose than to gain the attention of Paul’s security? If it serves your purpose to provoke someone’s security into overreacting for the cameras, isn’t this exactly how you’d do it and exactly who you’d hire to be the fall guy?
You also need to look up the readily available raw video of what happened before you go describing it.
Don’t be naive.
Now the stomper believes the victim owes him an apology.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/10/woman-stomped-outside-rand-pau.html
BTW, I recognize that the violence was not committed by Paul’s hired security (assuming he had any), but since the actual security that was there (the police) refused to intervene when asked, the Paul supporters took matters into their own hands – as consevatives are generally wont to do when they see a problem.
The real issue that we are all avoiding, is why someone who is perceived as a threat in some way, was not at least investigated by police before this whole thing got out of hand?
Not having been there, and having no testimony from the officers, one can only speculate. Perhaps the most obvious hypothesis is that it isn’t illegal to try to hand a candidate something in a public place, or get close to the candidate, and that it isn’t the cops duty (or power) to prevent people getting close to the candidate just because it suits his or his staff’s convenience?
In short, the cops are their own (trained, we hope) judge of what’s a threat, and are likely quite skittish about being used by staff for other purposes.
What kind of a coward hits a woman?
No it’s likely NOT illegal to try to hand a canidate something in a public place, nor is it to try to approach a candidate on public property, or even (within the boundaries of the First Amend) say various things to a candidate – or even an office holder. But clearly, illegality is not the standard that we as a society expect nor practice. Again, Imagine if she did the same “legal” things in the presence of the President!
I agree with you that this was a bit over the top, however, we as a society expect a higher standard of security and control around our political leaders and candidates for the overall good of ensuring that candidates and political leaders are not intimidated by threats and/or violence, and that our government transitions are accomplished through constitutional, rather than forced, means. We expect, and CAN expect, that shenanigans in certain situations that are not illegal will be dealt with very strongly by appropriate parties. We make sure such security actions don’t get out of hand by having official procedures and an official or quasi-official security force in charge of the situation – rather than the mob. Anarchy works for the vast majority of us, but that’s not enough for social order.
Again, the failure here, as in many similar situations in the past, was that there was nobody willing to take charge of the actual security of the situation. I agree – police probably did have different orders in play – but guess who’d get the blame if she DID have really bad intent. If she, or someone else there, had brought real physical harm to Paul or some other candidate, you’d best believe we’d all be wondering where the police were and why they didn’t respond when asked! Nobody knew what this woman would do, but everyone expected her to do something – exactly the sort of thing which should be watched closely – but police looked the other way until it got out of hand. (remind you of a certain fire department?)
But to take this general failure of security methodology as an indication of the actions of the Brown Shirts is just silly. For an even worse example of this kind of political mob violence, look for the video of the SEIU reps beating up a supposed Tea Party guy at a Russ Carnahan forum on aging back in ’09. This stuff happens – thankfully not that often. Rather than getting all high-horsey and breaking out our nazi-hunting gear, we should be addressing what sort of behavior should be allowed at political rallies and who should be in authority to guide such bahavior. The mob works most of the time, but clearly not always.
I just saw the entire video of the incident, and it looks pretty blatantly malicious to me. She was already down and secured when the guy gratuitously stomped on her head.
Funny. I just saw the video of what happened just before they closed in and took her down:
And I’d guess when this ends, she’ll be lucky if SHE isn’t charged with assaulting the candidate with a sign.
She’s a professional agent provocateur, it seems, and got the result she was paid to produce, but maybe just a little too well documented this time for her sake.
I recognize that the violence was not committed by Paul’s hired security.
I recognize that the violence was not committed by Paul’s hired security.