Those pinko hippy beatniks! They didn't give Kate any discipline! Now Kate expresses her anger with violent fantasies of assault. (Kate, you should just do what Ned Flanders does: a couple of diddlies and a few ooglies, and you'll feel fine.)

Note my emphasis on the second part of that sentence. "Accept the consequences". You are free to say "No" to anything you like. I am free to say "No" to anything I like. But if you or I engage in defiance then we cannot turn around and say that we should have been exempt from punishment. If the punishment is within the bounds of law, then either change the law or shut the fuck up and accept your choice.

What you fail to understand, it seems, is that in this country, the police are not the givers of punishment. Before you are punished, you have a right to be in some way before a judge and possibly a jury, and the punishment is given to you by a competent tribunal, on the evidence or on your own admissions, and executed by the correctional department. The police's role is not punishment. The police have absolutely no authority under the law to punish you.

If law enforcement believes that *lives* are in danger (i.e. "self defense" or I think "necessity" if it's someone else's life) they use lethal force. End of story.

It's not as simple as that. The police are subject to a requirement of proportional force. That's why they can't beat the fuck out of you when they arrest you. please read my post above about proportionality: the police do not have a blank check on the use of force. A cop can't shoot you in the head for calling him an asshole. No lives were in danger in this case. Nothing, it seems, was in danger here. This is exactly the type of case for which we have legal causes of action for citizens like "police brutality" and "malicious arrest."

And I still would have slapped my Bio textbook across the fucker's jaw

Me I probably would have cracked him across the head with my 20lb copy of "Introduction to Cell Biology" but only because I would have really enjoyed hearing the thump.

You seem a little bloodthirsty. I'm not sure why you're so angry at this guy.

This guy didn't get tazed because he didn't have his ID on him. He got tazed for being an asshole, refusing to comply with university regulations (of which he was well aware and agreed to by default by attending), and finally resisting arrest.

Again,it's a question of proportionality. Do you think everyone who is an asshole to campus security or violates university regulations (e.g. no sixpacks in your dorm room) deserves to be tazed? I sure don't.

And even if he was resisting arrest, there are ways to subdue suspects without repeatedly tazing them and then threatening to taze onlookers.

"Figures of authority" like these security guards are not infallible. Often, they turn into assholes themselves, high on their power trip, high on the fact that they are people who most likely never went to college, yet they get to boss these wussy UCLA students around. I bet there's a lot of resentment there, between the security guards of UCLA and the privileged and often very wealthy student body. Plus, I imagine these security people thought they could get away with it because the guy's name is Mostafa.

These letters are full of so much awesomeness.

Awesomely silly questions (gee, why would the ID policy at the library go into effect at night?)

Awesome confusions, (that the tazing was done by security guards and not police officers).

Awesomely unjustified nostalgia for an imagined past (thinking that American cops earlier in the century were more professional and less violent. That one had me laughing the hardest.)

Awesome red herrings (thinking, along with the tazed student, that the ID policy has anything to do with the war on terror or racial profiling).

Awesomely nonsensical claims (that the video, which has audio but pretty much no view of what happened, "speaks for itself").

Awesomely bad ideas (we should attack cops in the middle of a situation like this, and will make everyone safer if we do).

Almost the only good comments have been from college students and librarians.

Kate Hates Her Parents

Those pinko hippy beatniks! They didn't give Kate any discipline! Now Kate expresses her anger with violent fantasies of assault. (Kate, you should just do what Ned Flanders does: a couple of diddlies and a few ooglies, and you'll feel fine.)

On the contrary, I love my parents! They're great people, a lot of fun, and didn't need to engage in physical discipline because I had a healthy dose of ex-Catholic guilt instilled from an early age. My folks weren't pinko peacenik (not beatnik) activists but they were friends with quite a few and we lived in an area with a high pinko-peacenik-activist-density population.

Because of this, though, most of the kids I grew up with and went to school with were raised on the "no hitting! use your words!" ethos. The idea behind that is noble, in practice it usually works just fine, and I would probably raise my own kids that way *mostly*, but you know what? There are just some folks who would be well-served by a good punch in the face every now and again.

Wow, when I was growing up, the police could use force, but not pain. They could carry you out, but not inflict pain on you.

Yes this guy was a jerk and a possible danger to the other patrons and librarians. Until he was handcuffed and held by two officers. If those two guys couldn't carry him, why didn't they just phone for back up?

And *how* can all these letter writers think inflicting pain on an innocent man is OK? Innocent? UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. Oh yeah, that's not true in America anymore either. Trials are optional.

I'm glad I left. Tell my mom I'm never going back.