A anti-statist website is demanding a state inquiry into police actions at the G20, and they’re hosting a poll to that effect – but something seems to have gone horribly wrong. The total votes cast seem to have hung at around 60.
Maybe it’s a server malfunction, maybe it’s because the story over two weeks old and most people outside media don’t give a rats ass. But if you have a few moments, head on over and push some buttons. Let’s see if we can get it working again.
(And as SDA commentors – contrary to popular myth – are pretty much split down the middle on this, it might be interesting to see how an actual “vote” rattles out.)
That’s kinda vague. For instance, some might want an inquiry to investigate why cops weren’t cracking heads while hooligans smashed windows and set cars on fire on Saturday, whereas others might want an inquiry to investigate why libertarians out for a stroll were being hassled on Sunday.
Well, they’re better known for their verbosity than their precision.
Waterhouse,
Did it matter that they were “libertarians”, are we going for group victimhood? What a world we live in, “organized anarchists” and a “Libertarian community”
Next we’ll be talking about jumbo shrimp.
Waterhouse
I agree to a point but riots are not spectator sports……
Any loon who attends a planed riot (yeah it was planned) is a participant…according to the “RIOT ACT”.
On the other hand, the authorities IMHO facilitated the riot….as much as inviting the lawlessness. From my prospective it was like a coupla tribes of New Guinea/Bornio spearchuckers having a ritual battle at the usual place……
inevitably some-body gets a spear in the butt.
The poll is very imprecise. I voted “yes”, because I would like to see a different police response to hooligans (i.e. anarchists smashing windows in TO, or Natives in Caledonia) – use necessary force where law is broken to restore order. I don’t care that much about some people mishandled on G20 Sunday…
Does no one else see the irony of an anti-statist group asking the state for an inquiry?
I’m all for an inclusive inquiry as long as it examines all parties. Not only the police but the protest/march organizers/organizations who provide cover for so-called anarchists and other arseholes who just want to break things. Who knew what, when?
In an ideal world, there should probably be a rigorous and objective after-action process for just about every event.
But in the real world nobody really wants to examine themselves quite that honestly.
Police do what they’re told.
The party which should be “investigated” and prosecuted is a police chief who makes up his own laws then commands his force to make hundereds of false arrests leaving the city’s taxpayers responsible for the legal tab run up by people filing false arrest charges.
I’m not sure this is an “anti-statist” blog either, but in any case, most of us I believe have mixed feelings about the whole question and many other security-related questions. We want security, but we don’t want a complete overturning of long-cherished rights and freedoms to get a bit more security. It’s always a balancing act and “statism” is only one factor involved in that balance.
If I have to choose a heavy-handed authoritarian conservative state over effective “de facto” government from disorganized bands of citizens of far-left views using lawfare and indoctrination through schools and media, then my choice is none of the above — suppress the power of the ideologues of the left, and replace the current leadership of the conservative party to reflect our concerns for truth, freedom and limited government.
Since no poll is likely to be complex enough to offer me that voting choice, why bother voting at all?
As I told someone recently, everything would be better if I were in charge, because I would do nothing.
Just raised a point on the thread, wondering how a lunatic fringe Toronto issue reflects the blog’s Western Standard title.
I’m sure they’ll let the post through eventually.
This is not a normal state of affairs. Envision what would have happened had the crowd become involved. I think they followed the trouble makers. Found out where they went and rounded some up. The instant communication of the time made a request to protest to block the police was averted by mass arrests.
Every agency involved will review the procedures used. If mistakes were made they will be addressed. You are already paying for this. I do not see the value in a Public Inquiry. Would that be the Dept. of Moral Outrage? I would have shut the cell towers down in the area.
An inguiry is a waste of money, however a class action lawsuit would give the public the answers to their questions. One such question I have is who gave the police the extreme power to detain Canadian Citizens without reading them their Charter of Rights? That’s suppose to be a violation of our Chartered Rights, when the cops can pick you off the street two days after the riots yes I have problems with that. However many of those detained were not law abiding citizens they were riot tourists and deserved to be detained.
polls working.
I vote NO, I have little confidence that such an inquiry would accomplish anything.
Ah yes, the Canadian solution to everything: let’s have a public inquiry. It is the perfect vehicle for those responsible to completely avoid accountability, for special interest groups to pursue their limited agendas and for governments to avoid having to do anything because it takes years to finish.
Better would be for just one judge to issue one massive judgment, just once, against a police officer that violated someone’s rights or broke the law – like a hundred million or so. This would drive insurers’ rates for cities through the roof and it would force our betters in government to properly train and monitor their minor bureaucratic functionaries.
I’d be interested in an investigation into the ORDERS police were given during the G-20. Such as, who exactly thought it would be ok to let the pukes burn a cop car, and who thought -union- demonstrators required more police restraint than -regular- demonstrators.
I’d be VERY interested to know who set the policy on Saturday and why it changed on Sunday. I’d be exquisitely interested to discover how much of all-of-the-above came from Dalton McGuinty’s office.
Good ideas and sentiments, Phantom.
Thanks SYF. It just gets me wondering -who- were the guys that decided “hands off” on Saturday and “go nuts!” on Sunday and Monday? I think it would be good if they were FIRED and never be in charge of anything bigger than a paper route ever again.
Cops do what they are told. I want the guy who was doing the telling.
The inquiry would show why police stood by when hoodlums were ransacking stores on Yonge Str and Queen Str. Was it because too many union brothers were cheering the destruction ?
The inquiry would determine why day later police attacked innocent bystanders, people who live downtown Toronto. I am 62 years old male walking from City Jazz Festival home, not taking part in any protest, when I was assaulted by policman
73% when I voted say yes investigate.
Thing is we already know the problem.
Yeah Rev, but I want to see the problem’s name on the front page of the Mope&Wail so he can be recalled and chucked out of public life.
opps 73% against. My stupidity.
Ignoring window smashers on Saturday and grabbing everyone in sight on Sunday and detaining them for over 10 hours w/o charges should be investigated.
Echoes Caledonia IMO. I am with ‘andrew’ at 4:46 and with the guy on prosthetic leg which was yanked off by police.
Currently at 506 NO, 206 YES.
I voted no, inquiries are useless wastes of tax dollars. The police acted stupidly seven ways from Sunday, but an inquiry is not going to solve anything.
There is no rule of law in Ontario, the police act, (or more often, don’t act), on the day to day whim of the provincial and Tranna governments. It will take rational thinking on the part of voters to fix that problem, not an inquiry.
Kate from my read I didn’t get the view that SDA readers were evenly divided on this. I thought there was a divide between the libertarians and the law and order conservatives and that there seemed to be more law and order conservatives commenting.
From my perspective, this is something that needs to be fixed at the ballot box.
One of the main terms in the social contract that governs our society is for police to uphold the law. They plainly don’t do that in Ontario. The RCMP have had a series of missteps with officers applying more force than is necessary and stepping over ethical boundaries. We need a government that will ensure that our police force enforces the laws we make and is held accountable when/if they overstep.
A poll about an enquiry wouldn’t help with that – so I voted no. I’m hoping for a poll about who will form the next government and I’m counting on that poll to come when the desired outcome is more likely. Events like this will help to define the problem.
And for the record, my problem with extreme libertarians is that they when you put it all together they are nothing more than anarchists with a sense of morality that for the moment conforms to the current consensus on what makes a civil society.
If there is to be an inquiry perhaps it would better serve the public interest if it was to determine what role the protest organizers played and their culpability in allowing the anarchists to co-opt their protest. Was it neglect, or did they actively encourage these vandals to show up, and even provide them a cover for their illegal acts.
By the “logic” of several of the posters here, there should never have been a Gomery inquiry because it would be just a huge waste of public money. But keep trying, your feeble efforts amuse us at the Western Standard.