Doctoral student at Oregon State University is facing felony hate crime charges over his allegedly placing racist bumper stickers on cars, including two counts of criminal mischief and two counts of intimidation.
Oswalt and another person allegedly placed stickers with a racist slur on two cars belonging to social activists parked outside the First Alternative Natural Foods Co-Op.
He has previously been connected with racist writings and ravings. Oswart reportedly expressed hostile views about minorities and women in a student newspaper article.
He has been associated with white nationalist groups and allegedly is shown in pictures giving a Nazi salute.
Last July, Oswalt and three others were stopped by officers on the University of Oregon campus, according to a UO police report. The four men were distributing fliers saying “diversity means fewer white people” or other slogans. He has been arrested on a concealed weapons charge involving a stiletto knife but found not guilty later.
It seems yall are missing the point. What precisely is the crime? Well, I suspect it is littering and/or defacing private property via bumper stickers. Someone then has to determine if the message on the sticker is hate, which of course is a highly subjective term, which is why I am definitely not a hate crime advocate. Should someone spend time in jail for littering or mildly defacing property? If I were a judge, I definitely say, NO.
Warning: negative information content below.
This is sane discourse?
“During his time within the House, Oswalt has extensively engaged in trolling—making offensive statements to provoke a reaction—such as introducing a resolution to replace leaf-blowers with rakes for university grounds maintenance.”
That’s from one of Turley’s links in the article to the school’s student paper. LOL
Clearly seditious! “Extremist” doesn’t come close to describing this menace to society!
Very serious charges, but whether the actions fit the alleged crime might need citation of some actual evidence. All of the links have a LOT to say about what this guy allegedly did, and LOTS of characterizations of things he’s allegedly said — but 99% of that information is just that — characterizations of what he’s said, not actual quotes of what he’s said. Not sure how a resolution to have quiet rakes replace noisy leaf-blowers on campus amounts to “making offensive statements to provoke a reaction” — and that, along with absence of actual quotes from the guy, makes me wonder whether much of this isn’t character assassination by characterization.
Without defending the defendant — because I’m not inclined to take serious allegations seriously without getting actual — whattaya call ’em? — oh, yeah — facts — my first thought is that it seems like a big bunch of people are going to a big bunch of trouble to frame this guy based upon their own characterizations of his actions and by inferences based upon his associates — and mostly by blowing a big bunch of social-justice dog whistles.
Not sure there’s a strong connection between the social-justice dog whistles and the substance of the criminal statutes identified. Could be Guilty of Criminal Mischief — and he might really annoy the judge with the “performance art” defense referenced in one of Turley’s links. Can’t disprove it, though, and taking the performance-art defense to the Supreme Court could be and interesting legal case, not to mention more performance art..
It would be nice to know why the jury found him not guilty on the concealed knife charge. Either he had one or he didn’t, and it’s either legal or it’s not. Was it a bogus charge?
Performance art is about inciting a response and he’s certainly done that. Sounds like he’s pushed the angry-button of every social justice warrior in the Northwest,
William Bayer – he is right about the leaf blowers, they are both noisy and cause pollution. Rakes are a perfect solution. Not sure how that is trolling. Michael Mann should be giving him an award. 😉
Leaf blowers are a plague upon the planet — and even if they weren’t, it was that statement in the school’s paper — portrayed as “making offensive statements to provoke a reaction” — that caused me to question the substance of ALL of the allegations against this guy, Nazi or not.
If it takes Nazis to rid the world of leaf blowers, let the war begin.
William Bayer – maybe the Nazis can be redirected to the extermination of leaf blowers. Certainly a worthy cause. 😉
A worthy cause, and a kinder, gentler form of Nazi — LOL. Never met Nazi, myself. Nazis are people I see on the news, and for all I know there might not be more than a hundred of them in the entire USA. Leaf blowers, however, are an enemy I’ve met face to face. They’re EVERYWHERE. If the Nazis go to war against the leaf blowers, I will not interfere, and I will not participate. But I certainly won’t be rooting for the leaf blowers.
By the way, Paul. Since your last name is likely as common as mine, this is probably a stupid question — but my first boss, at the library I worked at when I was young — South Euclid Branch of the Cuyahoga County Library (that’s the county that includes Cleveland, Ohio) — was a sweet little old lady named Schulte (maybe the best boss I ever had). Any chance she was a relation of yours?
William Bayer – unlikely. Most of my relatives live next door to each other in IL.
Figured it was a longshot, but I had to ask. Wouldn’t have bothered if she hadn’t been such a wonderful person.
At his trial, he should stand urp during the opening statement and sing:
Well. Your Flag Decal Won’t Get you into Heaven anymore…
It’s already overcrowded from youre dirty little war…
Jesus don’t like killing…
No matter what the reasons for…
Oh, you’re flag decal won’t get you…
Into Heaven… any mooooore!
Well, I got my windowshield so filled with flags I couldn’t see..
And I ran my car upside a curb and righti into a tree.
By the time they got a doctor down… I was already dead.
And, I’;; never understand.. why the man… standed at the Pearly Gate said:
etc
“At his trial, he should stand . . . ”
It is to be hoped that his lawyer will give him better counsel.
I would NEVER EVER put a politically opposite sticker on someone else’s car, but if I did I think it would be a prank, and not a crime.
tauzinger – the Confederate flag stunt was funny and I give him points for that. I think most people do not check their bumpers to see what stickers they have on there after they put the first few on. My bumpers are bare, but that is an old salesman’s trick, never take a side if you are going to make a sale. 🙂
I have gone back and forth on hate speech but right now I think hate speech is unconstitutional. With the right financial support and the right attorneys, this goes to the SC. Or FIRE gets involved and the school backs down rather than being sued into bankruptcy.
Bumper stickers encourage other drivers to follow too closely, to read the stickers.
Darren Smith – personalized license plates cause people to drive too closely as they try to translate them. 🙂 Ever see the episodes on Reno 911! where they are decyphering personalized plates?
Wow — Reno 911!
You must be a cultural sponge — sucking up information but excreting it just as quickly.
I am impressed.
David C. – I am a “culture vulture”.
just to be clear: are you saying “hate speech” is unconstitutional or “[regulation of] hate speech is unconstitutional”?
Fortunately, your opinion on the constitutionality of hate speech regulation is irrelevant as the Supremes actually decided the matter on the matter long ago.
JAY – there is a new Supreme, so a new look at hate speech. And the SC and I don’t always agree. 😉
I don’t see this passing Constitutional muster. If he has the money to appeal enough, this hate crime law is toast. It is probably too vague.
Hate crime: a crime in which one’s worth is greater than another’s simply based on some arbitrary characteristic.
One lives, experiences and grows or dies early but everyone without exception fulfills the three truisms. Birth, Life,Death. No exceptions one per customer.
i’ve often thought of changing that to five truisms. It’s still a postulate. as Number two is often skipped.
Such deep thought!
Thank you for putting it all out there; in my years of life I’ve not read such powerful words — for free anyway.
So, we went from your three ‘truisms’ of, “[b]irth, [l]ife, [d]eath” to you wanting to expand your truism trifecta to five in responding to yourself while leaving ‘number two’ — which is life, according to you — as a postulate that is often skipped?
You’re truly a fool.
David C – those of us who are closer to death than to birth tend to look at life differently. We are also old enough to be wise, not young enough to be a fool.
That explains everything. Thank you.
I must say, I’ve often been impressed with your perspectives
Such a wise man you must be — assumptions of youth or age as it suits your purpose — ignoring your own chapped ass from sitting so much as to comment here so much.
David C. – actually I am Irish, we do not have asses. Wisdom is knowledge plus experience. Experience is making mistakes and learning from them. I have made plenty of mistakes and hopefully, I have learned from them.
Before you get all full of yourself — which you do daily — why don’t you go back to Michael Aarethun’s post here:
https://jonathanturley.org/2018/02/05/oregon-state-doctoral-student-arrested-for-hate-crime/comment-page-1/#comment-1701527
and then the one where he responds to himself, here:
https://jonathanturley.org/2018/02/05/oregon-state-doctoral-student-arrested-for-hate-crime/comment-page-1/#comment-1701529
where he goes from three truisms to five.
Your argument is with him. Oh, but he’s your brother by another name, isn’t he, even if he spouts such foolishness in such a short time as this thread exposes, not considering his ramblings much farther past.
David C. – did your PSA shoot up over 10? You have no reason to come out of nowhere and attack people. At least give us a warning. I have read all of Darren’s articles and I enjoy them, they are a break from the stuff we regularly get, like the mugshot of the day. He hasn’t written anything for awhile though nor has the other supposed writers. I don’t remember you writing an article while I was on here, did I miss it? Are you someone important enough I should pay attention to your comments? All I can surmise at this point is that you are an old-timer who probably moved to Panties for Pluto in the Great Migration and has been hanging out as a voyeur lately. Or JT kicked you off and you are finally getting back on.
“You have no reason to come out of nowhere and attack people.”
What can I say — your feebleness endears me.
You attack others, why should you be shrouded from the same? Many read this blog, and like bile, many can stomach your attacks until it rises in their throat to the point of having to push the bile back.
“At least give us a warning.”
I have.
“I have read all of Darren’s articles and I enjoy them, they are a break from the stuff we regularly get, like the mugshot of the day.”
Darren’s ‘articles’ are not the issue here, PCS. The man assumes a stature beyond his means of persuasion.
“I don’t remember you writing an article while I was on here, did I miss it?”
And where are yours? Did I miss them?
“Are you someone important enough I should pay attention to your comments?”
Time will tell, PCS. You keep your one-line smack going though, it’s been quite a run for ya; drifting off into irrelevant subjects, claiming trivia as knowledge.
“I have made plenty of mistakes and hopefully, I have learned from them.”
Doesn’t seem to be true, PCS.
David C – trivia is knowledge and I have learned enough to identify you. You did a careful cutting of my comment to you. So, are you an old timer who went to Panties for Pluto? Or were you kicked off and are finally getting back on. You certainly have been in voyeur mode for awhile and you have a problem with Darren, that much is for sure. Why are you coming into the open? Is it just to go after Darren?
Some of us aren’t as hopeful about this.
While I agree the pasting of a bumper sticker on someone’s car without permission can constitute a vandalism, if instead of using the bumper sticker to say his point he called it out using his voice would that have constituted a hate crime or a constitutionally protected free speech right. I haven’t seen what was written on the bumper stickers but I am a bit dubious of the charge.
Also, the fact that this man was charged with the weapons charge an his handing out of leaflets promoting his views has no bearing on the case. For one, he was not convicted.
The school might have a difficult time expelling him on these grounds.
It’s so wonderful how you write so much yet say so little — every single time you post!
Yes, Darren, we are all holding our breath until you get the police report and can inform us all of the fallacies of justice.
We are, obviously, unaware.
OK, I’ll hold off getting that report until you pass out from lack of oxygen if that’s what you prefer.
You do that Darren.
I would also suggest that you try to write less like Shakespeare and just write like the forced out of the service imbecile you are.
You’re fooling no one.
David C – as a scholar of the Shakespeare period, Darren does not write like Shakespeare, rather like a cop filling out a report for the court. If you really knew what you were talking about, you would know this.
You have an axe to grind, don’t you? Let me assure you that if you leave it in Darren, I will leave it in you. I don’t care who you are or who you know, nobody scares me. Especially you.
You must not have read his latest attempts of the last year — therefores, art thous, subjects poorly misplaced — in the clumsy attempts of failing to write well while failing to make the point of the whole exercise.
An axe is only good if it’s ground, your threats are noted.
David C.
You are full of venom this morning.
I will know to avoid your posts going forward.
Who’s this “we” you’ve appointed yourself spokesman for while attacking another commenter? Try speaking for yourself when you’re embarrassing yourself, and leave me out of it.
Wait until the Oswalts read the above story about tranny freaks stopping a father-daughter dance!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
For every thing composed of atoms, for any action there is an equal yet opposite reaction. Oswalt is the reaction.
You completely misunderstand Newton. Not to mention psychology.
You completely misunderstand Mespo. Not to mention Hegel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis,_antithesis,_synthesis
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
and hegel misunderstood Plato an misunderstanding that led eventually through the enlightenment to a second dark ages feauring National and International Socialism. The point he missed? Plato after developing his one government one leader no franchise with a special exempt ruling class repudiated by recognizing the simple truism ‘my fellow Greeks will not tand for losing their freedoms.’ The same fault that is inherent in the progressive socialist theory today.
“and hegel misunderstood Plato an misunderstanding that led eventually through the enlightenment to a second dark ages feauring National and International Socialism.”
Yeah, that sentence will stand up to history and the arc you weave — brilliant thought.
I plead guilty to both charges.
There is no Hegel in physics; it looks all made up to me.
Start with Hume.
Whom??? Great Scot, but you can’t spell worth crap!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
David Hume.
Nothing wrong with my spelling this time.
You have to forgive squeeky, see saw the word ‘hume’ and thought of her cat’s litter box.
🙂
“Whom???” —- LOL — good one. And that’s a REAL LOL, not a symbolic one, ’cause I’m still laughing.
Squeeky can’t pernounce good.
And David Benson doesn’t find it curious that I said “Great Scot” instead of “Great Scott.”
🙂
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
It’s amazing, Mespo, how your comments over the years have degraded into the pap of onerous obligations — obligations that surprise.
I hope your flashing-light business is going well, because your propensity for the gutter has become very acute in the last year.
Heck, I think Mespo is getting better with age!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Of course you would, squeeky. Of course you would.
I think he should stay in the bottle even longer.
Pap smear
Now, now.
David C:
“… pap of onerous obligations”?
******************
Well there’s highfalutin drivel at it finest. BTW, I tend to evaluate my comments by how effectively they irritate your ilk. By that standard, they are like fine Bordeaux that improves with age. And since we’re talking Shakespeare, I’ll leave you my favorite insult, “ Away, you three-inch fool!”
That’s the Newtonian physics of it, however I’m not sure it’s applicable, since the engine of the feud is ideology and ideology isn’t composed of atoms.
Maybe it’s that for every ideology there’s an equal yet opposite ideology? — which is a good reason to chuck ideology into the dust bin where it belongs, since subscribing to an ideology more or less automatically creates the enemy ideology. For all of the complaining that conservatives do about liberals and the liberals do about conservatives, neither can exist without the other. They’ve all constructed a parallel universe of polar opposites to inhabit, and then complain that there are polar opposites. Doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense to me.
Maybe people should try some non-ideology for a while and forget about the ideologies that the media and politicians have mind-conditioned the public to subscribe to (to keep everyone fighting with each other while the oligarchs look down from their penthouse apartments and laugh at how easily the public is manipulated).
“pragmatism — n. — 2 a method or tendency in philosophy *** which determines the meaning and truth of all concepts by their practical consequences ***” Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Third Edition, copyright 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc., page 1059.
Go Pragmatism! (not the buzzword “ism” label, but the thought process represented by the label).
There is no ideology without that atom-based human agency.