In another proud day in Florida's storied history, UF student Andrew Meyer was videotaped being hit with a taser gun at a John Kerry speech. There has been a lot of debate about whether or not this has justified, which is to be expected, because there are a lot of stupid people.
If you haven't had the pleasure of watching it as many times as I have (1), I implore you to youtube some of the coverage of it. That's right. I just verbed youtube, and while I was doing that I verbed verb. And you can't do anything about it except leave little passive aggressive comments that pale in comparison to the sorts of things my nana says when she starts up with the hooch. Ahem. But I've digressed.
In case you don't like clicking on links (and I couldn't blame you – once I clicked on a link that came to my house, punched me in the groin, slapped my mother across the face and fed my cat off-brand dry food), this is the basic rundown: The aforementioned Meyer was allowed to ask a question after the alloted number of questions had been reached, then took his time to ramble aimlessly before asking a couple of questions about whose answers he seemed unconcerned. When his microphone was cut off, be began caterwauling and complaining, at which point security began to escort him off stage.
Being the future Rhodes scholar that he undoubtedly is, he began to thrash about like a tweaking octopus, loudly demanding to know why he was being arrested (he wasn't) and whether anybody was seeing this (despite the fact that he had personally handed a girl a video camera to tape it right before his question). Needless to say, la policia were less than amusida, and tried to escort him out of the theater. When he continued to struggle (against common sense, among other things), they informed him that unless he lied on his stomach he WOULD be on the business end of a taser (which I guess means that the cop was on the pleasure end?). His mouth yelped, “No, no, don't tase me bro”, but his saucy little wiggle screamed “Yes, yes, juice me up”, and as experts in body language, the police complied with his nonverbal request.
All of that foreplay was to get to this; many people out there are rallying around this as a free speech issue, as an innocent student getting assaulted on camera for DARING to question a senator. That there is some sort of fascist machine in place all too ready and willing to savagely attack anybody who would question Presidential also-rans. All, no doubt, in order to protect the sort of secrets that only a member of Congress or anybody with internet access and a library card would know.
Look, I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy. I believe that the Chinese are trying to kill the real Jack Bauer with faulty toys and toothpaste. I'm on board with the fact that George Bush creeps around wearing a mask and tripping black people. And I'm more than positive that at least half of the columnists for PIC are sleeping with Court.*
But that's not what this is about. The police used a textbook escalation of force to subdue a potentially rowdy and disruptive loudmouth who asked frankly stupid questions. Questions that, in my mind, are grounds enough for tasing by themselves. He continually defied what they said, even after being warned, so they followed through on their threats. Tasing somebody is actually SAFER in general than trying to restrain an unruly offender, and has a low rate of injury.
Andrew Meyer got all the buzz he deserved.
*Though to be fair, the males are REALLY getting Courtnee, his beautiful and saucy alter-ego.
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