Pants-of-dog wrote:Note that my argument does not centre around not believing in the law.
You argument has centered around wanting the university and the police to ignore the law and not enforce it because you believe the people breaking the law were righteous. Now based on the opinion of one legal scholar from another province based evidence they didn't cite your opinion has changed.
I believe the law exists. I believe it is unequally applied. I believe it is inherently unjust.
Unfortunately there are occasionally laws which are unjust or that are applied unequally or unfairly. This is the cost of living in a human society with humans with their own biases writing and enforcing the laws. All we can do is do our best to make the law more fair and more accountable, which have done for millennia and will continue to do.
The fact that the university and the cops went ahead and assaulted the protesters even though encampments are legal on Alberta campuses supports that claim and contradicts the idea that laws are applied equally,
You nor anyone else has cited any Alberta law or case law that states that encampments without permit/authorization are legal on Alberta campuses or anywhere else in Alberta cities, whether on private or public land. Until I do i'll assume that ordinarily property and trespass laws are applicable.
Yes, that is why I included the phrase “or mistaken” in my claim.
Ok fair enough, I missed that.
Okay.
As far as I can tell, the cops showed up, looked around, and then out out an advisory for the public to use alternate routes.
As far as I know, they are still blocking the highway.
If that's the case it's insane. People shouldn't be able to arbitrarily hijack public infrastructure. Getting a permit for a protest march in the street for a few hours, especially on a weekend, seems fine to me.
And if the protesters are blocking the highway and the coos do absolutely nothing, what does that mean?
It means the cops aren't doing their jobs, which is to enforce the law and maintain the peace.
Yes, I know the difference.
I will try again one last time: when one witnesses a situation where the police create inequality, how can you tell if it is a problem with the laws or with the applcation?
If someone thinks the police acted unjustly, they'd have to review the law, and also review all of the evidence of what happened in that circumstance to see if the cops were following or not following the law.
Let's remember that neither cops nor protestors are saints 100% of the time. The cops might have acted wrongly here, but protestors are also just as capable of committing illegal acts of violence, which could legitimate the use of batons, it totally depends on what events unfolded. Note that the police allege that some protestors were assaulting them by throwing objects at them, and at least one protestor was arrested for assaulting a police officer.
For me it doesn't matter who may have committed illegal acts of violence in this case (cops or protestors), what matters is that those who did so are held accountable, because illegal acts of violence shouldn't be tolerated in our society. My priority is justice, not the interests of one group or another.
Well, this is what this thread is about.
Batons were used by the police against the protesters.
Is this an example of the cops acting wrongly or the law being wrong?
I don't know, and it could be neither. You're assuming it's always wrong for police to use batons. It depends on the circumstance. Police have a right to self-defense and they have a right to assault people who resist arrest in order to complete the arrest, for instance.
Students physically blocking other students from accessing public parts of campus is rude. It may even be illegal depending on how it was done.
The footage shown in this thread shows a man trying to cross a line of protesters. The protesters stand in his way and do not move aside when he approaches. In order to avoid physical contact, the man stops and tries to go another way only to again be stopped in the same way; i.e. without physical contact.
This is definitely rude and morally questionable. It does not seem illegal, though. And it does not have the same implications of government overreach as police batons hitting peaceful protesters.
A makeshift barricade (such as the ones protecting the protesters at UCLA when the counter protesters attacked so violently) is a flimsy thing. At most, one could argue that the protesters destroyed some random signage when they vandalized some parking signs for materials.[/quote]
Students completely took over (occupied) pieces of university property that's free for all students to use and walk through without authorization, and used barricades and human chains/barricading to keep some students out, typically based on political opinion or ethnicity. That's not illegal, but it's against the rules of many of these universities, including rules against discrimination. Students have a right, provided by many if not all of these universities, to be free from harassment and discrimination based on religion, race etc.
The illegal part is when the universities issued trespass orders when the students failed to comply with university regulations re: the encampments and the students failed to comply with those trespass orders. I suppose it's possible the encampments were legal in Alberta, but I've yet to see any law or legal decision showing this. What i've read from the AB case law is that the judge ruled that the Charter applies to universities in AB, therefore freedom to protest applies. But freedom to protest in itself doesn't include the freedom to put up encampments without permit, similar to how the Ottawa convoy truckers weren't allowed to just park in the street and set up encampments and other temporary infrastructure.
This makes the (easily disproved) assumption that democracies always act in a democratic manner.
When the USA had slaves, it was a democracy. The laws that impelled slavery were “determined by the representatives of the voting citizens” as you put it.
No. There are no judges or bailiffs running behind the cops watching them.
Cops can't be charged with a crime, and if illegal acts are caught on camera or eye witnesses or other evidence shows a cop broke the law the courts can hold them accountable.
Then the cops allowing the protest to disrupt highway traffic are doing something wrong, or the cops at the U of A did something wrong.
Neither are being punished.
If someone did something wrong they may be punished if someone decides to press charges or make a complaint to the PD or sue etc.
If you are correct, the only answer is that the cops and the courts are both corrupt.
Look at that. We found that Alberta (a conservative province in a well developed western country) has a justice system that is so corrupt that police are not held accountable.
No, you're making a lot of assumptions here.
If a cop breaks the law by abusing their authority and commits illegal violence against the public they are objectively an antidemocratic entitled brat, no?
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