Day 23

4 Responses to Day 23

1. 

   Benjamin Kerensa on November 1, 2011 at 7:45 am

   Considering a Federal Court just held curfews to infringe on constitutional rights perhaps its time for Portland Police and the City to halt arrests:

   The protesters went to federal court seeking a temporary restraining order against Gov. Bill Haslam, arguing the curfew and arrests of dozens of supporters violated their rights to free speech and freedom of assembly.

   State Attorney General’s Office Senior Counsel Bill Marett announced at the beginning of a hearing before Judge Aleta Trauger that the state would not fight efforts to halt the policy.

   The judge said she had already decided to grant the restraining order because the curfew was a “clear prior restraint on free speech rights.”

   “I can’t think of a more quintessential public forum than Legislative Plaza,” Trauger said.

   • 

     Justin Kertson on November 1, 2011 at 1:01 pm

     Where did you hear that? Are you talking about the Nashville lawsuit? If so, no ruling has been made yet. But hopefully the judge will rule exactly as you’ve suggested. These curfews are clearly designed to stifle our constitutional rights.

2. 

   Eric on November 1, 2011 at 3:15 pm

   I keep hearing you Occupiers say that “something needs to be done about the wealth inequality in this nation.” Yet, is income and wealth inequality really the issue? Why does it matter to ANYONE if someone else is getting far wealthier, if the entire population sees its income and wealth stay the same or increase? Isn’t what’s really important the equality of opportunity, not the equality of outcome as long as all have their basic needs met? Those in the lowest quintiles have all sorts of entitlements available that don’t get included in the measurement of income. Here’s a link to a chart that shows the average household income by income quintile in inflation adjusted dollars: http://lobbyingcongress.org/charts/mean_hh_income_quintiles.html
   What it shows is that while the lowest quintile average didn’t increase by hardly anything, it slightly outpaced inflation from 1967-2005: so there was not a loss by the lowest quintile – simply not a significant increase. Two other points: 1, the standard of living for the same amount of money has increased (i.e. in 1985 it would have cost $0.50/minute to call someone long distance, today it is practically free; in 1999 only the wealthy could afford a large flat screen TV, but today many of the bottom quintile households have affordable flat screen TVs; ten years ago if someone wanted to rent 10 DVDs in a month, it would have cost them $30, today there are abundant websites that allow people to view hundreds of movies for free or netflix will allow abundant viewing for less than $10 per month); and 2, there are very few people and households that stay in the same income quintile over time. Most people experience significant income mobility from year to year. A study found that nearly 58 percent of the households that were in the lowest income quintile in 1996 moved to a higher income quintile by 2005. Similarly, nearly 50 percent of the households in the second-lowest quintile in 1996 moved to a higher income quintile by 2005. The only reason I can think of that Occupiers keep bringing up the issue of income inequality is if they are trying to promote Marxism. Yet, Marxism has never worked to better a society. Why would it work now? All that Marxism does is bring down income and quality of living for nearly everyone, while leaving a few elite central control government officials with greater wealth. Marxism = equal poverty for all.

3. 

   Bee on November 2, 2011 at 10:44 pm

   It’s impossible to take you seriously any more. You don’t post comments and replys, several days of GA minutes are missing, it appears 40-50 people are asserting they speak and vote for 495,000 people in PDX (40-50, the GA minutes posted indicate this number), the camp is clearly divided into the haves and have nots with haves moving and distancing themselves from the have nots by moving to Terry Schrunk Plaza, square footage occupied by porta-potties, kids story time, capoeria classes, cuddle parties,generators, tents, kitchen eqmnt, etc. masquerades as freedom of speech and you are consistently off topic.Michael Moore is even scared of you. I’m bored and you’re fired.