Correction Simone..... it's about inequality, not just money. Money, or lack of it, may be a cause for inequality, but the main problem is lack of representation by government, preserving our rights and freedoms, greed, and corruption of government, by Wall Street and bankers.

Yes but the common denominator here is money..GREED...people get corrupted for more MONEY...Govnmt is one of those most corrupted gangs ever esp when it comes to money, so why in the heck would they want to help us?

True, and you've hit at the core of it, but the BIG problem is the Central Banking Cartel (FED) and one of theirs in control of our Treasury Dept.!

A little known fact is.... Tim Giettner, as the Sec of Treasury, thanks to Presiden JFK, has the power to print money for us without debt attached, AND PUT THE FED LITERALLY OUT OF BUSINESS. The FEDs influence on our gov't has ALWAYS assured that one of their cronies is appointed, by the President, to sit in that position.....SO IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!

yeah...but it is still nice to be heard sometimes.

I'm listening, and agreed with you.

I definately wasn't yelling at you my dear, I was only stressing a point with the capitals that it will never happen

I'm sorry if you thought it was personal in ANY way

I know, i understand completely and I couldnt agree more..

Its hard to be heard with a .... .. .... .....

I know, it is hard to hear with a trumpet in your ear.....it's deafening.

try a wannabe rock band of teenagers complete with drums .... beginners!

Im sure these protestors have their bongo circles set up...

Thanks for focusing in, narrowing the domain under discussion.

That seems like a simple question, but to me it isn't. Consider that we have reality: that which actually happens. And then we have some person's utopian vision - at the other end of the spectrum. Now with any discrepancy between these you, when you ask: "What should happen?" you can choose any point along that spectrum and come to a different answer. I could argue (naively and pointlessly) that we shouldn't have 'laws' as we know them (tied to regions, enforced by threat of violence) at all, but simple teach our children respect, honesty, self restraint, the value of honoring contracts, etc etc

Sensible people may reject that argument as having nothing to do with reality - and insist that we need permits precisely because of how people 'actually are' (and point to the public defecation happening at ows to illustrate their point). This isn't necessarily a different basic position, not a different spectrum, but a different place on the spectrum between, for lack of better terms, realism and idealism.

So, regarding permits: Ultimately, ideally, no. There 'should' be no permitting process for public spaces. We 'should' be a sufficient mature society that we can resolve our competing needs for public spaces without a top-down, enforced by threat of violence, power structure keeping us civil.

But we aren't, and thus we have permits. Here is where I might say 'given that we are not so mature a society, we 'should' have permits' - but at the moment I don't see it that way. Its just what happens. I see permits as a tool, not as absolute authority that must be respected. Groups of people tend to create structures that serve needs; sometimes those structures do a great job of actually serving the needs of the group, and sometimes they don't.


----

You can approach 'should' from a 'this is how the whole system ought to function' perspective, but also from the 'this is what this person in this position should do' perspective, and I don't see any reason that we should expect these to always be aligned.

I was outraged that a cell station was shut down, preventing phone calls, during a protest here in oakland. It reminded me of tactics used by cuba, iran, china. While debating whether citizens in a democracy should expect and demand that their basic means of communication be left open, someone raised the argument that "The person who shut down the station was just doing their job - s/he did what s/he should have done."

I agree. Fine. Thats what they should do, in their world, doing their job. And what I should do, as a citizen that cares about personal freedom, is publicly criticize it. And what we should do (imo) as a populace, is continue debating the trade off of liberty and security.


Similarly, you should be criticizing the ows for their flaws, and maybe you should be making the argument that we should reject protests and protesters who are unwilling to respect the laws and civil expectations. And I should be arguing that people should be willing to break the law for what they believe in, and that permits are a tool created to serve some of our needs - and that lacking permits should not stop people from protesting. The mayors in these cities should be stressing about how to handle this, the cops should be following orders, the protesters should be resolved to continue struggling for the rights that they believe they have.



You mention 'evenly enforced'. The only laws which have even a shot at being evenly enforced are those laws whose enforcement is automated. (No human bias effects the stop-light cameras.) The world is insanely unjust when it comes to law enforcement. I'm not saying we shouldn't aspire to more just and balanced enforcement, I'm saying that even enforcement is a fantasy, and its worth looking at that when asking what tolerances and priorities we 'should' have when it comes to 'even enforcement' of permit laws.


So we not only have a question of 'basic values', and the question of 'from where on the spectrum are deriving your notion of should', and also 'from which point of view', but also: even if you agree that they 'should' enforce permit laws.... what measures are appropriate?


IMO, the efforts made to 'enforce' whatever laws were invoked as the motive (I'm sure its more than 'permitting' laws) the other week in oakland were completely inappropriate. In my personal value system, the situation in oakland absolutely did not justify the force that was used. Oakland has made a tremendous effort to enforce these laws, but the protesters are committed.


Which brings me back to:

tl;dr

Cool. That's much better than skimming and strawmanning, as others do.

Quan's top legal adviser resigns over raid


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%2F11%2F14%2FBAGA1LURQ7.DTL#ixzz1dhggDgBS

Drawing up laws and orders for protests is totally lame. It's like union bargaining. People protest for their rights, and then slap a bunch of rules and regulations on them is like saying you dont have rights...I mean loitering is already a law anyways..so protesting is a voice of many saying "we dont care about the law, we want to be heard."

They are sure enforcing laws now, by regulating what times people can come and protest and how long they can stay, and they are allowed one bag each, no sleeping bags allowed.

What about the NUMEROUS rapes, assaults, vandalisms, theft related charges both Felony and Misd. Disturbing The Peace, Resisting Arrest, Escape from Custody, Weapons Charges, Assaults, Batteries, Threats Trespassing, Conspiracy, commercial burglaries and the list goes on and on and on and on.

In NYC? Shoot, that happens every day!

Same in oakland!

Plus, those are all charges.

Everyone knows the police will charge people with crimes they are not actually guilty of.

lol, good point

What about the SEVERAL incidents of sexual assault and robbery? Guess you support that too.