What if? (Special weird kid in Florida edition)

Posted at 5:50 PM on September 18, 2007 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

No doubt, if you have a computer (you obviously do) and a desire to goof off for at least part of the day (guilty!), you have seen the video of this kid who got himself tasered. Personally, I think the kid was looking to make a splash for his Web site, but let's take that out of the mix for just a second.

This comment from Sen. Kerry, to me anyway, seems like an odd thing for a U.S. senator to say. This is a note from the Associated Press.

"Whatever happened, the police had a reason, had made their decision that there was something they needed to do. Then it's a law enforcement issue, not mine."

And for the sake of the hypothetical discussion on the question of the right to free speech, let's assume that the reason the campus cop first put her arm on the kid -- ostensibly because he exceeded his allotted time in asking the question (which means they gave people 30 seconds to ask questions as near as I can tell) -- was because she didn't like what the kid was saying politically to a, ummm, politician.

At the time, of course, Kerry didn't know. He said as much. But what if the "disturbing the peace" allegation was directly linked to the politics about which he was speaking?

How would this quote sound then?

Whatever happened, the police had a reason, had made their decision that there was something they needed to do. Then it's a law enforcement issue, not mine.

It's not exactly Boris Yeltsin standing atop a tank... or a man in Tiananmen Square standing in front of one.

On his Web site, Kerry posted a statement today, saying...

"I regret enormously that a good healthy discussion was interrupted."

I suppose the story there is a politician thinking giving someone 30 seconds to ask you something constitutes "a discussion."

NBC Nightly News, by the way, had an interesting question: "is this part of something bigger?"

According to the "Future of the First Amendment Survey," nearly three-fourths of high school students don't know how they feel about the First Amendment, or they take it for granted (see pdf of survey questions).

Even worse: 24% of the students surveyed say they disagree -- or don't know how they feel -- with this statement:

People should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.

How could that be? Over to you, senator.

Comments (4)

I keep hearing that this kid was trying to get media attention. That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

Had this kid asked his question, and Kerry responded, what kind of attention would have been received? Most likely the 6 regular readers of this kid’s blog or myspace page would have thought he was pretty cool for confronting a US Senator. The rest of the world would never have known Senator Kerry was even in Florida.

It was the actions of the police (campus police I think) that caused the kid to get attention. Even if he is the biggest jerk, and from his question and action it sure seems that way, it was the cops over reaction to him that caused this to be news, nothing that he did (at the time) made any part of this news worthy.

Again I ask - unless one of the cops was in on it, how would he have ever known that the police would drag him out, taser him etc.
So how could he get a splash for his web site?

Asking if the Senator knew about voter fraud in 2004 and confronting him about upcoming voting right legislation would hardly be something the average news organization would cover, especially since I don’t believe any were there (since all we have is the simple phone or whatever devices junky images).

At best a news organization would do a - “wing-nut” confronts Kerry - story on this kid.

Posted by Brian Hanf | September 19, 2007 12:45 PM

Also - Bob your way right on the Kerry angle, what a hoser. Try defending the First Amendment, or at least understanding it.

Posted by Brian Hanf | September 19, 2007 12:49 PM

Actually, unless i heard it wrong, I think the question that the guy was posing to Kerry wasn't so much "hey, what do you think of the voter fraud of 2004" but was more along the lines of, "hey, if you thought there was voter fraud in 2004, why did you concede the election?"

Thus, he turned the entire discussion -- which (and this is entirely my presumption) would have been the typical John Kerry rant against Republicans -- back on Kerry himself, exploring the depth of his convictions toward things such as voter fraud (much the same way I'm exploring the depth of his conviction on the Constitution).

BTW, my contention is that the media generally starts with the assumption that the average person is a "wingnut" until proven otherwise, so you're probably right . The only thing that made it a news story was the actions of the cops.

Which is to bad because the question -- at least as I heard it -- actually needs an answer.

Posted by Bob Collins | September 19, 2007 12:56 PM

I think you are correct - "back on Kerry himself, exploring the depth of his convictions toward things such as voter fraud"

But even more I think, from what I heard, the kid was going the route that Kerry and Bush worked together in a skull and bones society plot to control the universe (well at least earth, but when we finally do actually visit the moon that also).

Posted by Brian Hanf | September 19, 2007 1:38 PM

Services

• Hourly Newscast
• HD Radio
• iPhone App / Mobile
• E-mail newsletters
• RSS feeds
• Podcasts
• Submit your photos
• Videos
• Weather
• Most e-mailed stories