Chris just sent us all a link of the University of Florida student who got tasered at a John Kerry political rally (thanks Chris!). If you haven't seen the video, check it out. I'm posting one here, but there are a few more that give different angles and stuff.
Yes, the guy is stupid and yes the cops were stupid. The thing I'm interested in is seeing how viral this phrase gets: "Don't taze me bro! Don't taze me!" Watch near the end of the video as the student begs for mercy. It's not funny, but I cracked up at it. Then, a number of people commented on the phrase. I'm guessing it's a matter of time before it becomes a phenomenon. Anyways, enjoy.
7 comments:
The "Don't taze me, bro!" plea resonated with me so much that I put it into a blog post and designed a line of merchandise featuring the plea. If nothing else, you'll find it worth a look.
You can see another video where they are taking him out of the place and the guy is clearly off his rocker. He was babbling that they were taking him away to kill him and hide his body.
On the one hand, the guy was an idiot. On the other hand, it's pathetic to see the absolute authority we place in police officers. This kind of thing seriously scares me because it calls to mind the fact that if you saw some cop brutally beating or raping someone, most people would simply pull out their cell phones and start filming it rather than doing something about it.
Luckily, most of the time cops are good and don't do these things. However, if I were someone from a culture (like Mexico) where cops were corrupt and did do these sorts of things, I would seriously be afraid of police, and would resist arrest every time (run from them, etc.).
The thing that saddens me most is that none of the people here acted like normal rational people. All they had to do was turn off his mic. Then a cop, or better yet a moderator, could have just come up and politely asked him to go sit down or leave. If he refused, then they could have tried to forcibly remove him by herding him out the door. There is no way anyone could tell me that two of those cops couldn't have picked him up under the armpits and marched him out the back door.
I also think that the whole thing could have been stopped by Jon Kerry being a man, walking down off the stage, walking back to the back, tapping a cop on the shoulder and requesting to speak to the young man, securing a promise that the young man would calm down and sit down, or leave, or else he would allow the cops to take him away. Once having the promise secured they could have let the man sit down in a chair, and then Kerry could have returned to the stage and answered the questions and moved on. This would have shown power, quick thinking, caring, and control (imo), but would absolutely never ever ever happen because we no longer function as rational normal human beings.
We are worse than children, because even children would not have handled it this badly. Children are not all puffed up and pretentious and hiding half of themselves (or more) behind some mask that they have created over time.
Bah. I could go on, but this guy probably didn't deserve to be tazed, but he got it, and the whole thing was just a big power struggle and of course the cops won, because how could they not. Bah.
Don't taze me bro!
Bob- Although I doubt you'll come back to this blog, you've done a nice bit of marketing there. For anyone who hasn't noticed, he must have done a blog search for "Don't Taze Me Bro!", then put a link to his site on every blog he found. If you google "don't taze me bro t shirt," his site is number one. And he's selling all the merchandise. Indeed, I've gotten around 50 hits so far from people looking for just such a t-shirt. If I were a smarter man, I would've made the stupid shirt myself and would no doubt have a nice chunk of change for it. So well done Bob, you lucky base-turd.
I've also discovered how this phrase can be used. If someone is getting upset at you for no reason and is all up in your grill, just yell in his face, "Don't taze me bro!" It's perfect!
Chris- I pretty much agree with everything you said. It is scary, and not to beat a dead horse, but it reminds me of the discussion we had about blind obedience in Pan's Labyrinth. It's crazy how quickly this situation escalated. Totally unnecessary and absurd.
ROFL, this is great. It's a techno re-mix of the incident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkMkGOpAF4s
And the shirts this guy is selling are way better (sorry bob! Don't taze me bro!)
Hrm... It's interesting how much two more minutes of video *prior* to where this video started would change things...
http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2007/09/andrew_meyer_deserved_to_be_ta.php
Sorry Art. I'll stop commenting now... Please don't shut my mike off... Don't taze me bro!
Dude, don't stop commenting, those links are great! Anyone even halfway interested in this story should definitely read that "rightwingnews.com" article. I wonder if anyone will come up with a video that includes that 2 minute prelude?
Well, apparently the guy staged the whole thing with a buddy of his, and so they started the camera at the opportune time. He really does ham it all up though, and he reminds me of briar rabbit. "Don't tase be bro!" is the new, "Don't throw me in the briar patch whatever you do!" I guess. Soon liberals everywhere will be reading their children this revised bed time story, "Tazy Reporter", then Disney will replace the briar rabbit log floom with some scary 3d adventure movie where at the end your seat jiggles and shakes to simulate being tased and all the little liberal children will go there to be indoctrinated on how to try and incite riots, cast suspicion and doubt upon politics and authority, get attention, protest (unpeacefuly while appearing peaceful), and at what moment to turn on the camera... Just kidding... Kind of... Don't tase me bro!
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