We hear so often about the antics and corruption infecting some police officers and precincts. So here is an anecdotal story about one cop who grasps the notion of the Bill of Rights. A Daily Kos diarist writes that s/he spent their lunch hour handing out flyers dissing bankstas and bailouts on the public sidewalk in front of a branch of BofA. The manager inside didn’t take too kindly that and called the cops. After hearing what was going on, here’s what our diarist says the cop told the bank manager:
“He has the right to speak and the right to hand out flyers. Unless he blocks you or causes a disturbance, he has the right to be here – please don’t call the police again if he is not bothering you. If you don’t like free speech you should move to another country.”
Maybe this cop was unusually conscientious, perhaps he understood the law and his role in enforcing it. But I’d like to think this particular cop has also watched the Wall Street funded effort to raid the benefits and pensions of local emergency responders and give the savings to wingnut zillionaires, and it made him a little sick.
Good on that cop. Its nice when one actually knows the law.
Hopefully the reality of the situation will sink with more cops.
Unfortunately, in my experience (my brother-in-law is a Police Captain of a precinct), most cops are not this way. And considering what I’ve seen reported in news from all over the nation, my experience appears to be the norm.
There are times when I’m quite proud to be a Canadian. Our banks are stable, and well-capitalized, and have been for well over a century. In the 20th century, precisely three banks collapsed, and none of the Big Six came anywhere close to following them (one of those three was back in the 1920’s). In the worldwide financial crisis that precipitated this protest, when the United States and Europe were pouring government funds into recapitalizing their banks, Canada’s banks received nary a penny – not needed, thank you very much.
Our gap between rich and poor is narrower than the obscene levels in the States. We have our incredibly rich, but proportionately much fewer.
We have a decent public health system. It’s not perfect, we often rely on the American system to pick up the slack, it’s not particularly efficient at how it spends money (too much spent to administer the system in proportion to that spent to actually treat people) and the issue of wait times remains unresolved, but it seems to provide an adequate basic level of care for all.
We have our problems, but when Canada speaks, the rest of the G-20 listens, respectfully. And then decides to keep trying solutions which aren’t working now.
Yep, free speech is kind of a basic part of law here. Glad someone understands it. I was at the Occupy Houston Divestment March yesterday and we were allowed to send account holders into multiple banks in two or three at a time to close their accounts as a form of protest. There were no problems.
Hey, they were account holders, they have a right to do business with their bank in a non disruptive manner.