The Toy Robot that Brought Denver to it's Knees!

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

I really love these people who use the Sharia Law argument. They really imagine the 2 million Muslims living in the United States are really wanting to, and going to try, and succeed forcing it on a nation of 400 million people.

I know, its literally incredible, eh? I wonder if such people have ever met any muslims? I've got neighbours who honestly look like clean & tidy versions of the Taliban. They're alright. There's a lot of muslims from various ethnic backgrounds round here. There's also a lot of students, many of whom are typical Brits.
Despite the snow on the ground currently, you see girls in 4" heels, bare-legged, wearing garments that are called skirts b/c they're worn on the waist, but could equally be called "wide belts", showing as much decolletage as they can without actually popping out by accident (on purpose is upto the intoxication level & personal discretion), with enough vodka Red Bulls onboard that they just dont care that hypothermia is a real possibility, if they dont get where they're going in a timely manner. I expect the TSA would salivate over the opportunity to find out if these girls are smuggling peanuts down their tops!
On Fridays, these cultural differences cannot but come up against each other, as the muslims traipse down to either of the muslim centres/mosques & the students excitedly dart about making arrangements for the logistics & comestibles of the coming evening's debauchery. There are some big houses round here too, so wherever the students begin, they often end up taking advanced studies in Partying Like A Monster. You'd think that, if the hype were true, this would cause severe "ethnic tensions", eh? It just doesn't happen. Nor have I seen anyone hopping around with a hand & foot missing... The only murder in 3+yrs was committed by some white British nutcase.
Sharia Law!

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Dear Proto,
Another superbly well written post from you my friend. I don't actually know whether to laugh or cry at this.. the robot was sooo menacing, tee hee.

Keep up the great work Proto, please!

Regards,
T

reply to post by torqpoc


Thanks my friend, and thanks for joining in.

From what I gather a number of posters have done both, laughed, first over the absurdity of it all, and then cried later over the absurdity of it all.

It really is a thought provokig and troubling symptom of the times we live in, where the absurdly laughable becomes deadly serious in the minds of the people who have siezed power and the reigns of the nation, and the better part of the world itself.

Hopefully there is a lesson to be learned in this story that won't escape the more intelligent amongst us.

Thanks.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


A. Once again you are trying to pass hind sight as proof of your argument. It was not determined to be a children's toy until after it was over. Unlike you, the people that dealt with this did not have the luxury of knowing it was a children's toy.

B. Not all bombings come with a bomb threat. How about the subway bombing in Madrid? Or the Bus bombings in London? Was there a bomb threat for those? Were they really bombs? Did people get killed?

C. It was at the base of a foot bridge on a public street. How do you know that wasnt a high traffic area? Do people use the foot bridge? Do people walk or drive past where the suspicious device was located?

You argue that in "classic" police work, motive and opportunity are factored in. I ask the question, do you really know what "classic" police work is? What is your experience in police work other than movies and television? Maybe a criminal justice or sociology class in college? Neither of these teach you anything about police work so I beg of you to provide how you know the first thing of police work other than "I have watched COPS on television." For some nut job, the motive is to kill people and the opportunity is anywhere people go.

The people that handled this situation are trained police officers who know police work. Not just claim to know it like you do. So when it comes to police department policy on how to handle a situation like this leave it up to the trained professionals.

For some reason you claim that I am arguing apples to oranges. I dont see where you are coming from with this but you are arguing sacrificing human lives to wasting tax dollars. What is the price tag on a human life? Would you be satisfied if the first patrol officer wandered up to it and set it off killing or seriously injuring him/her in the process? Or would you rather it have been ignored by the police and some child picked it up killing or seriously injuring him/her? It would have saved hundreds if not thousands of tax dollars. How much is one human life worth? $10,000, $1,000,000, $10,000,000? Im sure if someone gave you the option of going up to the package yourself and seeing if it is a real bomb or spending $10,000 tax dollars to have a trained professional do it you would choose the latter.

You make the argument that we are not learning from our mistakes and keep taking these things seriously. You are wrong. The mistake was not taking an event like this seriously and it got someone killed. What we have learned is that no matter what the situation, if there is no absolute proof that the suspicious package is not a bomb, treat it like a bomb so no one gets hurt and everyone goes home safely.

reply to post by areyouserious2010


Paranoia is still paranoia no matter how it's wrapped and presented.
This marketing and embrace of constant fear is crippling intelligence.
The safety and security angle that's being defended and hyped is only attainable when we're all chained in place to walls facing eachother so we can watch every move,
unfortunately with those marketed chains comes a great loss of liberty and freedom.
Everything is now suspect, including you !

reply to post by areyouserious2010


Oh dear, we sure are on the fear train this morning.

That robot would have had to have been a micro-nuclear weapon to take out that massive concrete pylon.

At best less than a pound of plastic explosives could have been fitted into that robot complete with a detonating device.

It would have taken several pounds of TNT strategically fitted into the pylon’s pressure points to bring that down.

Once again all you are doing is letting your imagination get the best of you, as a child’s toy takes on more and more sinister roles in your mind to the point of far exceeding any reality of physics and science and a rational person’s capacity to reason.

Your earlier clearly stated fear of the ‘imposition’ of Sharia Law simply displays you have a religious agenda that is not too different than the Nazis had, when all Jews became a potential threat to the Homeland.

While the child’s robot is not dangerous, the thinking of such easily swayed and often very ignorant people is.

Facts don’t get in the way of their fears and prejudices, reason and common sense does not deter or sway them, and even when events belie their fears and prejudices as being without any merit whatsoever, they still cling to them like the dogmas that they are.

Sadly such people lack the cognitive ability born of their reliance on crippled epistemology to wisely understand that the path they would like us all to follow is one that always leads to the utter ruin of the state.

I reject fascism and the vilification of an entire people and their religion as the hallmark of Nazism that it is.

While the message these people promote of blind fear and hatred will play well to those xenophobes who are most easily influenced and manipulated by it, those people who have learned the lessons of history are going to reject those arguments for the self destructive and insane things that they are.

Anyone with a half a brain, and a shred of honesty, can research how much and what kind of explosives it would have taken to take out that pylon or cause maximum carnage and realize that as I and others have said, that child’s toy would have never been able to do that, short of being packed with a micro-nuke.

Sadly the war on terror which is often all about reinventing the meaning of words to lead people to politically correct conclusions without critical thought being employed has actually altered the meaning of terrorism itself.

Terrorism is a political tool not a military strategy. As such military doctrine can not and has never defeated it.

The only thing that defeats terrorism is by rethinking the political stance that has led to disaffected people not being fairly considered to employ it.

The only thing that is going to win the war on terror is by us rethinking our gunboat foreign policy and strategies that employ dual standards that lead to some people being disaffected for no good reason that serves the people, but only serves the state and it’s partnered corporations looking to acquire and steal and horde resources, and make profits abroad by disenfranchising the people abroad at whose expense we are doing that.

Now since Exxon/Mobile and Halliburton, and Lockheed Martin aren’t sending me a dividend check, I don’t feel compelled to pay for this in money or fear, or a loss of my rights or dignity.

Maybe your religious compulsions make that tolerable to you, but compulsion is the key word there!

reply to post by HappilyEverAfter


It would be paranoia if we have never found an actual bomb when called to a suspicious condition. But we have. I even posted one of many news articles a few posts back if you were paying attention. Since ACTUAL BOMBS have been found in suspicious packages I think it would be a matter of thinking of self-preservation and the safety of others rather than paranoia.

There is no marketing and embrace of constant fear. If every day you heard of things like this then I would say maybe something is going on. It does not happen that often. If anything the Denver Police Department was telling the citizens, "Dont worry about it. We got it under control."

No one's freedoms were taken away in this incident or any other where a suspicious package was found. Except for maybe when it was ACTUALLY A BOMB. Then the wack job who planted it lost his freedom and rightfully so.

"Everything is now suspect, including you!" Now who is the one that is fearmongering? Except you do it against people who disagree with you. Instead of turning to actual discussion, you just throw that gem out there? I am not impressed.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


What it still boils down to is that it could still have been a bomb and the only way that was safely determined was by taking the actions the police department did. Simply stating that, "because it did not turn out to be a bomb we should not have taken the appropriate steps to guarantee safety," is absurd.

Without knowing the dimensions of the robot and support structure I think that you are again making an assumption. And what if the intentions were to have a child pick it up and take it home then detonate? Or to just injure a few people walking by?

Is it fearmongering or paranoia? Or is it a healthy sense of self-preservation and suspicion?

After about the sixth paragraph I lose you though because you begin speaking about the sharia law topic. Although I do agree with you that the subject probably has absolutely nothing to do with our discussion, I was not the one who brought the subject up. I believe it was works4dhs so this part of your argument should be directed towards him.

reply to post by areyouserious2010


Well if you want to really play that silly game that throws out reality and the facts, then we could say it could have been...

Chocolate!

or

Chewing Gum!

or

An Optical Illusion

or

God Manifesting Itself on Earth

or

A New Prototype Easter Bunny (the attena look a lot like ears)

A rose by any other name though still remains a rose, and this rose was a child's toy robot no matter what sick hateful fear inspired agenda anyone wants to push that turns a harmless child's toy into something to fear.

Your arguments lack reason, and the cognitive ability to deal with real facts as you go through a litany of absurd wishful and fear inspired speculations to push a destructive and debilitating agenda based on fear, irrationality and prejudice.

The facts nor the statistics support your conclusions and the truth is as others have pointed out these absurd reactions are happening more and more as dangerous fear infected and agenda driven people keep trying to bring their fears to life by insisting insanity is sane.

These people are the enemy, this nation was founded as the "Home of the Brave" not the fearfully delusional looking for big brother to inspect childrens toys for explosives.

I reject what you are espousing for the soundest of reasons, and please don't worry about protecting me from children's toys because I will never fear them. Well besides the price, rotten no good kids!

Originally posted by areyouserious2010
reply to post by HappilyEverAfter

 

1)There is no marketing and embrace of constant fear.

2)No one's freedoms were taken away in this incident or any other where a suspicious package was found.

3)"Everything is now suspect, including you!"

4)I am not impressed.

1)There is a constant marketing of fear, terrorists, taliban, iran, airplanes, bombers, nukes, swine flu, bird flu, wikileaks, housing foreclosures, homeless, korea, china, border killings, oil spills, dollar collapse, unemployment, jihad, muslims, 2012, scanners, radiation, poisoned food supplies, deadly toys, global warming, bio-terror, drug gangs, illegal aliens, outerspace aliens, my god man even the weather channel is now promoting fear with their weather updates all flashing the banner 'alert' deadly weather.

2)So the 4th amendment isnt being violated, in airports, bus terminals, train stations, and even on the streets against pedestrians? You can surely see the relation,
You can see the 'problem reaction solution' machine being used, to advance an agenda , correct?

3) And yes, everything is suspect now, even YOU,
I dont know why you want to turn that determination back on me, I didnt make it, your government did,
You WILL be searched, You ARE a possible trouble maker terrorist,
Your conversations, emails, travels, purchases, bank deposits basically everything about YOU is tracked, and records kept, not because I wanted it for you,
but because You , just like me, just like everyone else alive and breathing today in Amerika, could be, could turn into, a bad guy.

4) I'm not impressed either,
you thought I was attacking you, far from it !

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Originally posted by Bunken Drum
reply to post by works4dhs

 

If you think this beast is so bad it needs to be taken down, you'll love living under sharia law!

I was tempted to crush your entire post with verbose intellectual arguments, but then I noticed Proto had done it better with fewer words. All I'll add is this:

Danger, Will Robinson! Logic Failure Alert!
(ie there is nothing outside mathematics that is purely 1 thing or another) Shariah Law! Pfft!

I really love these people who use the Sharia Law argument. They really imagine the 2 million Muslims living in the United States are really wanting to, and going to try, and succeed forcing it on a nation of 400 million people.

news item...
news.yahoo.com...

and another

www.americanthinker.com...

www.cbn.com...

global sharia is the goal of the islamofascists.

reply to post by works4dhs


Oh to funny the Skyfloating "Islamofascist" buzzword, designed to convince the real fascists that they are anything but!

I love it.

Don't even get me started on the hatchet job I did on that absurd theory, attempting to tie Adolf Hitler into the Jihadist concepts that have been with Islam for milenia and caused a fundamental split in it.

The truth is that the vast majority of Muslims are no more interested in living under Sharia law than the vast majority of Christians want to live under the Cannons or like the Amish do.

It's just absurd fear mongering for people whose 'faith' can only be 'validated' by assailing and fearing anyone elses.

Even Skyfloating to his credit backed off his Islamofascist theories when so many members pointed out the inconsistencies in his argument.

It's all just a crude deflection from the fact that you would have us all live in a world devoid of humor and laughter, trust and kindness, to fear things like Children's toys for a religious inspired agenda of hate and prejudice aimed blindly at everyone and everything that doesn't conform to your own insane standards.

As I have clearly stated, I reject it for sound and very valid reasons, and have no problem identifying who the real fascists are, those that support an insane security state that wants us all to be afraid of children's toys and see some perverse validity in that, even when in fact all they are is children's toys.

Earth calling, come in, earth calling come in.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


do terrorists exist? yes.

are they islamofascist? yes.

are they targeting the U.S. and the West in general? yes.

do all muslims want us to be harmed? no. are all muslims terrorists? of course not.

are there islamofascists out there that want to impose global sharia law? yes. that is their stated goal. (see President Achmadinijad of Iran).

enough to actually accomplish this? probably not.

re the original thread topic; did the authorities overreact (WAY overreact) to the toy robot? probably. did someone in the chain of command take the safe course, either to protect the public or cover his a$$? probably.
do cops find abandoned stuff every day and ignore or pitch it? absolutely.

speaking for myself, and all the screeners and shooters I know, we DON'T want to implement a police state. We want to prevent same.

are there people higher up the ladder with an agenda? impossible to know.

I only read three pages of this thread... that's a lot, so I don't know if anybody pointed this out, but the robot was glued down, so it is unlikely that a kid accidentally left it there. While I agree that the response was most likely overkill, the fact that it was glued down does make it somewhat more suspicious. From the article linked in the original post:

Denver Police Spokesman Matt Murray said that a citizen called police at 3:27 p.m. to report the presence of the plastic white toy robot cemented to the base of a pillar supporting a footbridge near the intersection of 20th and Wazee streets.

reply to post by works4dhs


As I pointed out to much agreement in Skyfloating's thread there is no such thing as an Islamofascist.

Classic Fascism is based on four important pillars. Fascist states tend to feature corporate structures that exist to support the State while the State exists to support them.

1. A strong military industrial complex (we have the most expensive and extensive in the world)
2. A strong security industrial complex (we have the most expensive and extensive in the world)
3. A strong prision industial complex (designed to support the first two, we incarcerate more people per capita than any other nation on earth)
4. A strong leader/great decider (ring any bells)

Now tie that all in together by uniting the people based on enemies of the state (war on drugs, war on terror, war on Islam) and you have yourself a handy dandy fascist government.

Islamofascist is a dissengenous term meant to confuse people into how not to recognize all the classic hallmarks of fascism which in reality none of the Arab states had except for possibly Sadam Hussein's Iraq.

When you further understand that the grandparents and parents of our current leaders were openly touting the benefits of Fascism in the New York Times throughout the 30's and funding the Nazi State and doing business with it right on up through the U.S. Congress made them stop under the Trading with the Enemies Act in 1942, then ignoring the current political and industrial/corporate climate in the United States, in this insane obsession by some religious xenophobes to fear the advent of "Sharia Law" which clearly the majority of Muslim nations reject, and the majority of Muslim people do not want, is not only patently absurd, but patently dangerous.

This is the 1930's all over again, with America taking on the Fascist State role, and you better believe as long as I have breath to speak out against it, and fingers to write against it, I certainly am going to do just that.

Might nor propaganda makes right, right, makes right.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler



S&F. Delightful - if it wasn't so scary. And wasteful. Not to mention a complete waste of time.

But I, too, will justify my existence and the planetary budget allocated to my survival. Any day now.

Originally posted by soficrow
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

S&F. Delightful - if it wasn't so scary. And wasteful. Not to mention a complete waste of time.

But I, too, will justify my existence and the planetary budget allocated to my survival. Any day now.

We sure are lucky to have so many determined people looking to safegaurd our existence!



Who needs things like living wages, the anti-trust laws enforced, and job opportunities when you have the peace of mind and true security that the government will spend trillions protecting us from toy robots!

Thanks for joining in my friend.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Who needs things like living wages, the anti-trust laws enforced, and job opportunities when you have the peace of mind and true security that the government will spend trillions protecting us from toy robots!

That is the most profound post yet in this thread Proto, I have peace of mind now that I know we are being protected from toy robots, it must be very upsetting for Homeland Security to know this information has finally leaked out.

reply to post by Aquarius1


When you think about all the nonsense the government does spend money on, "our" money, and the selective way it applies the 600,000 laws us free people get to live under, you do tend to question the wisdom and honesty of it as an enterprise supposedly dedicated to protecting and serving the people.

They never seem to stop the Enrons and Lehman Brothers and Indi-macs of the world until after they rob the people blind have long absconded with the money.

Maybe toy robots are really this government's speed?

Has ANYBODY found out the name and brand of this robot ??

I really need to give some as gifts this year !!

WHERE can I buy one ??