Trump tries to smear Martin Gugino, Catholic Peace Activist

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goout said:
Common sense would seem to indicate that if you intentionally tangle with a line of armed men trying to clear an area bad things are going to happen.
But common sense? Of course not, in today’s world emotion and appearance are our idols.
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No, common sense says that when one member of the public is not using the best judgment that the situation can be de-escalated. I mean both by the police and by other members of the public who happen to have some common sense. That’s the ideal, at any rate: that is, that everyone ought to expect to have a part to play in keeping the peace. The police can’t do it by themselves, but they also can’t do it by rushing in shoving themselves when the least amount of defiance seems to be shown.
 
Veritatis said:
I watched the video and that older man appeared to persistently try to tap or hit something against the policeman’s hand. Catholic or not he seemed to be an agitator.
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He had his phone in his hand, as so many people do all the time these days, and he gestured toward something on the police officer’s uniform. Hardly a crime worthy of a hospital stay.
 
People need to remember some things.

First, police all over the US were getting pelted with rocks and bricks; getting spit on; having bottles thrown at them; being cussed out; etc.

Second, this man approached them, not the other way around. He may have been 75 but he was tall; seemed strident; and blocked the officers.

I’d think he was an agitator under those circumstances.

Further, the idea - not espoused by you, but by PetraG - that people expect kindness; a kind “are you Ok?” Etc., IMHO really asks too much of police, partularly ones who had been attacked at close range. People shouldn’t hang out in the vicinity of rioters:
Impede police; etc, then demand the police engage them with kindness and soft voices in return.

Many of these protesters should pray in thanks there was no “Kent State 2.0.”
 
Something that bothers me: several times police have been attacked but the media reports the attack occurs at what they term a “peaceful protest.” A policeman was shot in the head in Las Vegas and may need to be on a ventilator for the rest of his life; the media says it happened at a “peaceful protest.”

No, it wasn’t “peaceful” if a cop got shot at it.
 
The mere fact that the man is elderly should should engender some additional amount of respect and care.
 
neophyte said:
As a first responder, I’d say that at least one reason is that police aren’t trained in outdoor emergency care
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They should surely know basic first aid though, if they don’t what’s going on with police training in the US, or is it all about looking cool in Oakley’s and getting shiny toys to play with?

OP, is anyone surprised anymore? Trump is made out of Teflon, he makes will smear and mock anyone who questions him. He’s nothing but a spoiled rich bully, the problem is he has control of the world’s most well funded military to do his bidding.
 
Shakuhachi said:
Oh come on. Look at the video again, They pushed a 76 year old man off balance. Sound like common sense?
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A man who was approaching a crowd control line, disobeying clear orders to move away, and reaching down around an officer’s gun belt? Are you kidding me? If I did that I’d have every expectation of being shoved away, and count myself lucky if that was the only thing that happened.
 
That is ridiculous.

Even if they had no idea what to do, they had the means to contact an ambulance and wait with him until one arrived.

And officers do know how to render first aid.
 
neophyte said:
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Shakuhachi:
Oh come on. Look at the video again, They pushed a 76 year old man off balance. Sound like common sense?
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A man who was approaching a crowd control line, disobeying clear orders to move away, and reaching down around an officer’s gun belt? Are you kidding me? If I did that I’d have every expectation of being shoved away, and count myself lucky if that was the only thing that happened.
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If it was an inanimate object (say someone’s car or something) that was in the path of police and blocking the way, would police simply ram into it, not caring if they damaged or destroyed it, simply because they had orders to clear the area? You betcha they wouldn’t - they would carefully move it out of their path and try hard not to get even a scratch on it.

Why is an elderly human being less worthy of respect than an inanimate object would be in such situations?
 
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As I have commented before as a non-believer I am always astounded at how threads on CAF dealing with US politics seems to go on forever with no one ever mentioning relevant Catholic teaching. Do CAF Catholics actually take their Church teaching seriously? Do they apply it to US politics (outside the abortion-in-law issue)?

In this case could some Catholic please confirm that the issue involved here is that of the (potential) sins of calumny (lying to damage someone’s reputation), detraction (telling the truth without proper reason to damage someone’s reputation) and, possibly, the sin of sloth (not caring about the consequences of what you say)?

The issue also arises of course of whether innuendo that communicates calumny or detraction is as grave a matter as direct speech. In the UK defamation law to imply is to say. I assume it is the same in the US.

I am not saying the POTUS is guilty of any of these things just that it seems to me that these are some of the specifically Catholic teachings against which his statements in this matter would be measured, should some Catholic decide to look at them from a Catholic post of view.
 
VonDerTann said:
Further, the idea - not espoused by you, but by PetraG - that people expect kindness; a kind “are you Ok?” Etc., IMHO really asks too much of police, partularly ones who had been attacked at close range. People shouldn’t hang out in the vicinity of rioters:
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When you are laid out on the ground, you are a rioter?

Think about it–if you pushed someone away from you and did not mean to shove them on the ground, then if they go down, you check on them. You try to see if they’re OK, because you didn’t expect them to be laid out on the pavement and you are concerned that they may have suffered harm.

If you pushed someone and fully intended them to wind up on the ground or are satisfied to see that they fell, then maybe you just leave them there and keep going.

You said, “…police all over the US were getting pelted with rocks and bricks; getting spit on; having bottles thrown at them; being cussed out; etc.”…but why? Because they’re being accused of being willing to physically harm the public when there is no need!!

If you’re dealing with a crowd that is upset about what they think is systemic police brutality, the last thing you want to do is to put on a police uniform, get into a big group, then shove a lone gray-haired citizen down and act like you don’t care if you hurt him or not. That is not the message police want to be sending right now. Yes, because if that gray-haired man winds up in the ICU, you look like a [fill in the blank, but it isn’t what anybody wants to look like].
 
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I don’t think police are being pelted with rocks and bricks because they’re accused of bad things; most directly, they’re being pelted with rocks and bricks because lawless violent rioters are assaulting them.

As I see it, you’re asking police to act like social workers, i.e. Inquire after the welfare of those who accost them. That’s not the police’s job.

This person intentionally accosted police and interfered with them; he’s lucky worse didn’t happen to them. The police across the US showed enormous restraint collectively; some would say they showed too much restraint.
 
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FiveLinden said:
As I have commented before as a non-believer I am always astounded at how threads on CAF dealing with US politics seems to go on forever with no one ever mentioning relevant Catholic teaching. Do CAF Catholics actually take their Church teaching seriously? Do they apply it to US politics (outside the abortion-in-law issue)?
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The first responses were that the President’s attack didn’t even meet the level of common decency, so there is hardly any need to quote the Catechism.
The later responses were, “yeah, but…” and something along the lines of “too bad he’s in the ICU but maybe in spite of his grey hair he was a jerk who had it coming.”
This is in some way meant to support the President’s posting of an uncharitable attack that has no evidence to back it up unless you are squinting your eyes and looking for an excuse for why the police have no responsibility for anything that happened to put that man in the ICU.
 
VonDerTann said:
I don’t think police are being pelted with rocks and bricks because they’re accused of bad things; most directly, they’re being pelted with rocks and bricks because lawless violent rioters are assaulting them.

As I see it, you’re asking police to act like social workers, i.e. Inquire after the welfare of those who accost them. That’s not the police’s job.

This person intentionally accosted police and interfered with them; he’s lucky worse didn’t happen to them. The police across the US showed enormous restraint collectively; some would say they showed too much restraint.
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People are protesting because someone walks up to a police officer, gets in his face, winds up in the ICU, and the defense of the police about it is “he’s lucky worse didn’t happen.” You think somebody who winds up in the ICU after that interaction is LUCKY???

Yes, this is exactly why people are protesting. They’re protesting because no, what he did does NOT merit a trip to the ICU with no judge, no jury, no nothing. A ticket for misdemeanor interference, sure, but not a head injury. One hopes that is unfortunately what happened but no one’s idea of what he deserved, including the officer who shoved him.

As one black man said, when he was 15, his dad taught him that to be pulled over for a traffic violation was to have his head in the lion’s mouth.

I haven’t been pulled over more than a few occasions in my life, but I never feared more than getting an expensive citation instead of a warning. Yes, I keep my hands on the steering wheel and I try to be nice, but that is because I appreciate that they have a hard job and I want them to feel relaxed when they deal with me. I want to make their jobs easier. I have never been personally afraid of the police.

Why can’t everybody feel like that?

I think most police do act like decent human beings. They don’t see it as being “social workers.” They see it as serving the public and building a good relationship between the public and their police department. I admire them for that, and I do think that most police officers do deserve admiration and appreciation. I think school teachers do, too.
 
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Your narrative is changing a bit - it’s morphing into a claim that blacks have reason to fear the police, which they generally don’t.

Statistically, blacks are much more likely to be assaulted by other blacks than by the police.
 
VonDerTann said:
Your narrative is changing a bit - it’s morphing into a claim that blacks have reason to fear the police, which they generally don’t.

Statistically, blacks are much more likely to be assaulted by other blacks than by the police.
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You can argue about whether they have a reason to fear the police, but you can’t argue with the plain truth that they do. I can tell you this much: when I get into an elevator, nobody looks afraid of me. That woman who threatened the black man who called her on letting her dog run off the leash? She wouldn’t have made that threat in that way to me, because I’m not afraid the police would take her side.
 
Black “fear of police” is unreasonable.
Statistically blacks have much more to fear from other blacks than from police. The biggest killer of black men statistically is other black men.
 
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