What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?

[FlashLackey]

I guess if we accept your version of facts, then we need to accept that pretty much half of that troop of well-trained soldiers, armed with high-powered weapons, were so scared of imminent injury that they did not wait for a command from their commanding officers, but instead turned and blindly fired into a crowd without specific targets.

It wasn't half. And the reaction was probably affected by any shooting. In other words, someone shooting next to you could be taken as being shot at yourself or that there was an immediate danger that caused that person to shoot.

That's why the protesters shouldn't have attacked armed troops. It's a dangerous act. Not just to the troops or themselves but to by-standers.

They don't look in fear of imminent injury to me. So it seems that some were so fearful that they disobeyed any previous command, while the majority were not fearful at all, and just stood around watching. Weird how members of a group of soldiers can have such a different response to what they perceive as threatening their lives.

I would agree that they were not consistently disciplined. That isn't illegal and it doesn't change the fact that they were being attacked by rioters.

It only takes one to shoot to trigger a volley of shots from the troops around them. I believe that is a common phenomenon amongst armed groups. Are you trying to say that every troop present should have instantly felt the same threat at the same time in order for there to have been a threat at all?

I did provide links.
You can not only read the transcripts, but listen to the interviews with the people who were actually there and witnessed it, and were shot and paralyzed.

You have not provided any links with any evidence beyond those peoples word for it. So, it is no stronger evidence than anyone else's word for it.

DP also provided detailed links to the FBI's own files.
Files that showed that some of the guardsmen admitted that they were not in danger, did not fear for their lives, and decided to fabricate the story afterwards as a legal defense.

The FBI files also include accounts that contradict everything you claim. The Kent article I linked to, based on eye-witness accounts, contradicts many of your claims.

You on the otherhand provide an unsourced, unverifiable, fabricated story by a FOX News hack trying to push a book... and you say I have no case?!?
I have to agree with David that you truly are in reverso/bizarro world.

As I have already pointed out, my position doesn't rely on that article at all. I posted it as an interesting piece of relevant, recent news.

But, I can see how you would try and make that central to the debate since you have nothing on this:

Disbursing a riot and defending yourself = legal
Rioting and attacking the National Guard = illegal

The fact that a court makes a bad decision based on false testimony has no bearing on whether there is a case or not.

It's true that court decisions are not always correct. However, multiple court decisions involving the same evidence that you are presenting is stronger evidence than your personal preference to believe cherry picked pieces of evidence.

No I'm not.
We are not discussing a drunk driver.
We are discussing guardsmen firing indiscriminately at a campus filled with students out of frustration, not personal danger, executing innocent American students on American soil without reason or justification.

Disbursing a riot and defending yourself = legal
Rioting and attacking the National Guard = illegal

The guardsmen were doing their job. The rioters were attacking them. We allow people to defend themselves when they are attacked in this country.

[Loyal Rogue]

The guardsmen were doing their job. The rioters were attacking them. We allow people to defend themselves when they are attacked in this country.

That is the point.
The guardsmen were not doing their job and they were not defending themselves.

Chasing unarmed students into an enclosure and then opening fire on them does not equal disbursing a crowd or defending yourself.

[david petley]

LR, give up on this. Stop wasting your typing.

He will swear blind black is white, and find some long-arse links that prove it (in his eyes) while disproving (in his eyes) other long arse links we can find him...he will either ignore them or deny them.


....see, you can give him photographic evidence and he will argue about a fraction because I said 'almost half' ....and then dismiss casually that most of those soldiers in no way looked feared for their lives, they were standing around relaxed and watching other soldiers do all the shooting.

And be blowed that they fired indiscriminately into a crowd without orders

...lacking discipline, that is a friggin' understatement.

So do his arguments.

[FlashLackey]

That is the point.
The guardsmen were not doing their job and they were not defending themselves.

Chasing unarmed students into an enclosure and then opening fire on them does not equal disbursing a crowd or defending yourself.

It was the guardsmen's job to disburse the riot. When they told the rioters to go home, the rioters responded with violence.

The guard was moving away from the riot. The rioters were chasing them. Not the other way around.

The rioters were attacking the guardsmen with at least rocks and bottles that caused injuries. A rock or bottle can be a lethal weapon. A barrage of rocks, bottles and other items are obviously dangerous.

He will swear blind black is white, and find some long-arse links that prove it (in his eyes) while disproving (in his eyes) other long arse links we can find him...he will either ignore them or deny them.

My position is supported by the link that you posted.

....see, you can give him photographic evidence and he will argue about a fraction because I said 'almost half' ....and then dismiss casually that most of those soldiers in no way looked feared for their lives, they were standing around relaxed and watching other soldiers do all the shooting.

I think it's valid to argue points when you are exaggerating what happened to try and support your position.

Anyway, I already addressed this point.

[hanratty21]

My position is supported...

position...head in arse

YEAH!

Look at how many plates I can spin...

cue plate spinning music...

*thread resolved*

[Loyal Rogue]

*thread resolved*

...and so ends this moving and respectful memorial to the innocent lives lost in the long American history of bloody conflict over free speech.

May that infamous day of bloodshed in the pursuit of first amendment rights never be repeated on American soil or forgotten... well,.... at least by those without a revisionist political agenda in praise of fascism and authoritarianism...

*CRASH*

...dammit... dropped a plate.

[david petley]

amen.

[FlashLackey]

...dammit... dropped a plate.

Lessons to be learned:

The Kent State incident was tragic.
It is dangerous to attack armed soldiers.
We have better non-lethal but effective riot gear now.
Violence and destruction are not protected forms of free speech.
Martin Luther King had the right idea about protesting.

[david petley]

Martin Luther King had the right idea about protesting.

...and see where it got him.

Real lesson to be learned - don't send ill-disciplined, scaredy-cat soldiers (with high powered and deadly weapons) onto a university campus to control students shouting 'death to the pigs', 'get out of Cambodia' & 'get off of our campus'.

It is the USA, not China. Using soldiers on your own civilians is a sign of oppression ...Used by the worst governments and dictators.

Maybe some mod can close this now?

[Frets]

closed