Posts by Kyle Matthews
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What are you implying here, Kyle? Are you saying you need to form all of your beliefs, opinions, and strategies at a certain stage in your life and then never deviate them? Or is it that you need to have a proven track record of railing against something before you can state an opinion on it? Or is it something else entirely that I've missed?
I was just wondering if the poster had had this belief that bail should be given universally for a while, or if they'd just discovered it in the past month. 'Cause it looked like a plan for bail reform which they'd found in the back of a weetbix packet. There's been thousands of criminals denied bail over the years for very good reasons. If you're making an argument for everyone being free from jail until they're convicted, then I hope your system works for them as well as the peace/environment/sovereignty etc activists that are this month's story.
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No-one in living memory has tried to kill the PM etc or over throw the state by acts of violence.
No one had ever hijacked four passenger jets and flown them into buildings killing thousands of people either.
Anti-terrorism isn't about "have these people done this before and are therefore likely to do it again", it's about "what might these people?"
Perhaps, though it would be more likely if they were on their way to where the prime minister actually was. However, nobody has said they are going to kill a prime minister - the quote said somebody should, which is quite different.
That doesn't change the fact that occam's razor appears to be on the other side from you. You need to discard that argument.
Refusing bail is justified in some cases, but not many, and not this one (at least for the majority). According to the statistics I could find, only 3.3% of defendants are remanded in custody throughout the case, and that doesn't include cases which never get to court.
That's all fine, I don't disagree. It's the argument that no one who is yet to be found guilty should be denied bail. Which would let the serial rapists and violent P addicts out on the streets. That's whacked.
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How about Occam's razor often described as - The simplest explanation is usually the best.
Isn't the simplest explanation for someone saying they're going to kill a prime minister while on their way to a training camp where people fired weapons, that they were planning to do it?
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Dammit Finn, we need to coordinate these posts better. Some sorta txt messaging system should do it.
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Most of which is "comical".
Thankfully, bail hearings are under the purview of a judge, rather than, y'know, supporters of the accused. Presumably the judge is capable of making his own decisions having heard submissions from both sides.
they've had prompt access to their lawyers
Except when they haven't.
I don't know why people haven't had proper access to lawyers, that's not good enough. But some people in Guantanamo haven't seen any lawyers, and they've been waiting 5 years. They have no prospect of seeing one soon. Let's keep things in perspective.
I can claim that they shouldn't have been locked up for a month before the trial, though. People should not be punished for unknowns.
No doubt you have a history of railing against the bail system, which does this all the time for 'garden variety' criminals, and you're not just starting this campaign in the past month or so.
I don't know what was said in the initial bail hearings, but presumably both sides got to have a say, and the judge made a decision. It's a shocking comparison with Guantanamo, where not only was there not a defense lawyer, but no judge, and indeed, no hearing.
Bail is not a perfect system for 'innocent until proven guilty', but then again, it seems like a sensible system for 'should not be released back into the community until they've had their court case'. It's simply an attempt to balance people's civil liberties with public safety and integrity of the legal process. Judges take it quite seriously, and I note one of them initially was going to grant bail, and the police had to cough up more evidence to convince him/her to refuse it.
Maybe bail shouldn't have been denied to these people, I have no idea. But broad statements about how people shouldn't be locked up just because they're not yet proven guilty? That would have released some real sickos out onto the streets in the past 50 years. Lets keep our eye on the ball shall we?
Your argument should be "these people were not a risk and should have been released on bail", and that really comes down to whatever happened at the hearing.
there have been no allegations of beatings
Except Jamie Lockett's hospitalisation.
Wasn't Lockett beaten up while in custody, by fellow prisoners? How is that like Guantanamo, where prisoners have been beaten up by interrogators and soldiers? Has Commissioner Broad been heading down to the police cells with a couple of phone books and administering a bit of a beating that we don't know about?
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As an aside, Maia has posted on the evidence, and I think its worth reading
I didn't get much from that posting, but what she said here struck a chord:
There is a point in here, I think. I hated in the Ahmed Zaoui campaign that his worthiness was always a matter of debate. That he needed to be portrayed as a deeply spirtual man who wrote poetry in order to earn his freedom. We lose if we debate on those terms, because we make rights things we have to earn with perfection. Even though I know that some of those arrested are pretty fucking awesome, I don't think it's their awesomeness which means that they should be free, it's their humanity.
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So instead, all I can say is that my solidarity for those arrested is not conditional. I stand with my friends, because I know they're human, not in spite of that. I stand with those I don't know, because I know they will have strengths and weaknesses just like those I love. Those arrested I don't like? I'll demand their release, and continue to dislike them just as before.
And who couldn't like a blog entitled 'Capitalism bad; tree pretty'.
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The special pleading going on here is reaching self-parody levels: if people decide to stockpile guns, train how to use them and muse about murdering people for practice it's the fault of the police for listening to them; if people dress up as terrorists and dance around in front of a TV camera its the fault of the media for putting it on TV!
The cognitive dissonance around here is deafening.
Nice post Danyl. You get pie _and_ cake. Not irl. But y'know. Feel good about it.
Honestly, your point is just plain silly if, unfortunately, typical of the rhetoric around this.
What RB said x2.
Maureen, Marc Ellis is an idiot. At the very least, someone should be waving around 'wasting police time' for not telling emergency services beforehand about it. Rangitoto is DOC isn't it? Wonder what they have to say about it.
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And yet I know all these people - and some are quite young and interweb savvy - who share an email address with their honeys. Why?
Not only sharing an email address, but having only one. I need four - work, home, web-based for travelling or for things that I want to store online forever, and a throwaway one to put into all the registration enter your email here to be able to download this (which I never check).
To me the way I set things up in my digital life is part of who I am as sad as that may sound
I get really uncomfortable when people look at my computer screen when I haven't invited them to. Even if I'm only doing stuff that it wouldn't be a problem for them to see. It's my private little world that I only want other people to see if I invite them.
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What do PAS readers think? Am I right, or am I Don Quixote?
You're right. Feel free to be Don Quixote if you want, I don't mind what you do in the privacy of your own home.
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The point I wanted to make is that there was more to the march than presented in the media, and I think on a day like this, the media should be nothing short of accurate and fair.
I hope that the media does that every day. I'm not sure why they'd suddenly start just because Tuhoe have come to town.
Maori have plenty of experience with not being treated fairly by the mainstream media, I can't imagine they thought that they were going to get an in depth, balanced, analytical, put in context, 10 minute TV news item last night. The media were going to cover the most interesting and visual/aurally exciting bits, in sound bites. Tuhoe gave them bandanas and full on haka, so that's what ended up on the box.