After watching some stuff about the Andrew Meyer incident on YouTube, I actually wonder why there is even a discussion about whether it was justified to taser him or not. Even if the student was provocative and "disturbed peace", the police's reaction was absolutely inappropriate and exaggerated. If at all, it would have been enough to grab him, drag him out and deny him reentrace to the hall, but my personal view is that all this was pretty ridiculous and shocking.

The video:


Fox News report, nothing surprising there:


Here is an article, defending the tasering of the student. What I really like about it, is the comment at the bottom:


Amen! What has the country come to, when obnoxious young intellectuals have the audacity to verbally challenge our senators in blatant defiance of forum rules and with no apparent fear of violent retribution? We need to start Tasing misbehaving children, too.

But seriously, the core problem with Miston's opinion, like so many of its ilk, is that it ignores the underlying issue: why was Meyer arrested in the first place? Disturbing the peace? Give me a break. He may have been obnoxious, but that would have warranted nothing more than being thrown out of the forum -- like an unruly patron would be thrown out of a nightclub by a bouncer. It was a violation of debate rules, not a violation of law.

It's good to know that debate about First Amendment issues on our college campuses has sunk to the level of people on one side telling people on the other to "shut up". There's more than a little irony in that.