Oregonian legislator: Life imprisonment for protestors

[Ladewig]

Story from the Oregonian

An Oregonian state senator has introduced a bill to "create the crime of terrorism" and apply it to people who intentionally cause injury while disrupting commerce or traffic. If convicted, they would face imprisonment for life.

Well, it looks as if we have found someone further to the right than Jedi Knight.


State Senate site showing the bill

The bill is being revised before being brought to a vote, but the current revision does not even require the intentional causing of injury.

 

[iain]

SECTION 1.
(1) A person commits the crime of terrorism if the person knowingly plans, participates in or carries out any
act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to disrupt:
(a) The free and orderly assembly of the inhabitants of the State of Oregon;
(b) Commerce or the transportation systems of the State of Oregon; or
(c) The educational or governmental institutions of the State of Oregon or its inhabitants.

(2) A person commits the crime of terrorism if the person
conspires to do any of the activities described in subsection (1)
of this section.

Recently in London there were protests against the new Congestion Charging laws, where protestors held up traffic and caused substantial traffic jams. If I'm reading this right, that's life in prison if it was Oregon.

Presumably with Saddam soon to be out of the picture, Oregon sees a gap to be filled.

 

[Kthulhu]

Do you get a free lobotomy with your state senate seat in Oregon? DAMN, this stupid over-legislation trend to whip up some popular support with your voters is irritating. Oh wait, he's a police detective as well. Nice way to disspell those feelings that policemen are just fascist dickheads on a power trip there, John.

~The Thing That Should Not Be

NOTE: I do not think that the police are fascist dickheads. Just making light of a not uncommon stereotype.

 

[Skeptic]

C'mon, people. This is not a serious suggestion--it's merely someone who is showing he is pissed at protestors. Since he is a legitlator, he does it by suggesting a stupid law (which doesn't have a snowball chance in hell of being enacted, or if it is, of withstanding constitutional challanges).

It's a bit like the old story about a British MP who once suggested the House of Commons pass a law making it a capital offense to publish non-fiction books without an index.

 

[Kthulhu]

Methinks Skeptic makes the fatal mistake of underestimating the capacity for sheer stupidity our duly elected officials are capable of.

~The Thing That Should Not Be

 

[Guest]

C'mon, people. This is not a serious suggestion--it's merely someone who is showing he is pissed at protestors. Since he is a legitlator, he does it by suggesting a stupid law (which doesn't have a snowball chance in hell of being enacted, or if it is, of withstanding constitutional challanges).

Ridiculous, over-the-top right wing hyperbole is fine if you're Jedi or Rik and want to strut your macho in an online forum. This is not acceptable behavior for a legislator.

Don't rush to think of a liberal counterexample - just admit the guy's a nutcase who shouldn't be in office.

 

[Jedi Knight]

Story from the Oregonian

An Oregonian state senator has introduced a bill to "create the crime of terrorism" and apply it to people who intentionally cause injury while disrupting commerce or traffic. If convicted, they would face imprisonment for life.

Well, it looks as if we have found someone further to the right than Jedi Knight.


State Senate site showing the bill

The bill is being revised before being brought to a vote, but the current revision does not even require the intentional causing of injury.

I am in the center politically.

What that politician in Oregon is doing is reacting to the leftist extremism in this country. It is about time. Leftist cultural terror has to be stopped. We don't tolerate it from Al Qaeda so why are we tolerating it from our own citizens?

JK

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Oregonian legislator: Life imprisonment for protestors

I am in the center politically.

JK

Of course you're not. I wonder why you say such things. They tend to invalidate the points you sometimes make.

So you support this legislation, yes or no?

 

[ZeeGerman]

Re: Re: Oregonian legislator: Life imprisonment for protestors

I am in the center politically.

JK

Hey, he openly admits that he is left to something!
Or should that be left over ?



Zee

 

[jj]

Re: Re: Oregonian legislator: Life imprisonment for protestors

I am in the center politically.

What that politician in Oregon is doing is reacting to the leftist extremism in this country. It is about time. Leftist cultural terror has to be stopped. We don't tolerate it from Al Qaeda so why are we tolerating it from our own citizens?

JK

Leftist my ()*&(*&.

Once again, you show just how similar to Saddamn you are, JK.

 

[jj]

[BThe bill is being revised before being brought to a vote, but the current revision does not even require the intentional causing of injury. [/B]

More interestingly, anyone enforcing the bill as presently written will be committing the crime itself.

Ooops. I wonder if they really meant that?

 

[Lemastre]

Oregon obviously has too many empty prison cells and not enough prisoners

Aside from the Constitutional problems with such a law, we don't need more ways to add to the overcrowding in our courts and prisons. I'm not easily surprised by what people do, but state legislators manage to do it more than any other group. Some of them have no idea what this country is supposed to be about. If they do, they seem unable to write laws that comprehend it, which is even worse.

 

[Agammamon]

I was just going to mention that. Isn't disrupting the free and orderly assembly of citizens exactly what this bill prohibits.
And it can be applied further. Does the guy in front of you in the hallway walk too slow? He's a terrorist because he's preventing you from assembling freely.

 

[Tmy]

So if a mob of U of O students spills into the streets in order to celebrate a Pac 10 champoinship, they should be thrown in jail for life??? If they rush to tear down the goalposts they should be shot because they are terrorists????


There seems to be a hate void in this war. You cant hate Iraqi's caue we are out to free them. Hating Saddam is juts not enough. Hating France only takes you so far. HMMMMM who to target with our frustration. I know! The anti-war protestors!!!!

 

[Agammamon]

And it's no like we need this law to prevent property damage or injuries from protests as laws against this already exist.

 

[Guest]

While I think the legislator is going too far, I do think that the organizers of a protest should be held accountable if they deliberately impede traffic, as they did last week, and someone loses life or property as a result. If an emergency vehicle can't get to the scene, the organizers should be jailed. For how long is debatable.

The protestors who blocked the traffic here in Portland, OR went so far as to go out onto the interstate and stopped that traffic during peak traffic. They did the same thing inside the city. It would have been impossible for an emergency vehicle to make it to a fire or medical emergency.

This was a well organized plan. They organized traffic blockages all over the country simultaneously. This is deliberate and malicious, and should be punished severely.

 

[jj]

While I think the legislator is going too far, I do think that the organizers of a protest should be held accountable if they deliberately impede traffic, as they did last week, and someone loses life or property as a result. If an emergency vehicle can't get to the scene, the organizers should be jailed. For how long is debatable.

And, of course, the laws to do this are already on the books, and can be enforced today if need be.

This new "law" is an attempt, in my mind a criminally traitorous act, of attempted extortion.

It is exactly the kind of atmosphere that Saddamn creates in his own (shrinking) country. It is exactly what Saddamn, Joe Stalin, or another dictator would do. Proposing such a law in the USA is at least bordering on purely traitorous activity.

 

[Skeptic]

Don't rush to think of a liberal counterexample

Here's one, all the same: In NY, on April 1st it's going to be illegal to smoke in restaurants AND in bars. Which of course will lead to the creation of "smoke-easies", with legal booze and illegal cigarettes, or simply make everybody go to NJ for a meal.

Just as stupid, IMHO--with the difference that it actually passed...

just admit the guy's a nutcase who shouldn't be in office.

I doubt it--never attribute to evil what can be explained by basic stupidity. Of course, that presumes the suggestion is earnestly believed and not merely an attention-getting device. In THAT case, I'd say he's pretty smart: he got what he wanted, didn't he?

 

[Tmy]

I have no problems wh busting people who break the law. But lets face it, alot of this outrage is triggered because people do not like the protestors message and not so much their actions.

 

[jj]

Don't rush to think of a liberal counterexample

Here's one, all the same: In NY, on April 1st it's going to be illegal to smoke in restaurants AND in bars. Which of course will lead to the creation of "smoke-easies", with legal booze and illegal cigarettes, or simply make everybody go to NJ for a meal.

Just as stupid, IMHO--with the difference that it actually passed...

just admit the guy's a nutcase who shouldn't be in office.

I doubt it--never attribute to evil what can be explained by basic stupidity. Of course, that presumes the suggestion is earnestly believed and not merely an attention-getting device. In THAT case, I'd say he's pretty smart: he got what he wanted, didn't he?

The antismoking laws have gone too far in some ways, it ought to be possible to create isolated rooms for smokers. In shared rooms, "no smoking" strikes me as a reasonable compromise, given the years of enforced second-hand smoking anyone over 30 has had to deal with.

As to stupid, yes, I think the guy IS stupid. People enforcing the law will be in many cases hindering a lawful assembly, and thereby violating the law themselves. Unless that was an intentional attack on police, that IS pretty stupid. If it was an intentional attack on police, that's pretty stupid, too. If it was intended as irony, give it to the press, not the legislature.