Outrage: Berkeley proposal would regulate military recruiting centers like adult businesses
posted at 3:46 pm on January 28, 2008 by Bryan
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Last week, Jason Mattera hosted Vent and took a little flak for saying that young liberals are less likely than young conservatives to join the military. Jason responded to his critics with facts here and here, but as if to back up his point, just take a look at what left wing Berkeley, CA is considering doing to military recruiting offices.
In response to a Marine Corps recruiting office established in Berkeley last year, local activists are trying to make it more difficult for future recruiting centers to open in the city.
If passed by a majority of Berkeley voters, a proposed initiative would require military recruiting offices and private military companies in Berkeley to first acquire a special use permit.
To obtain this permit, a business must hold public hearings and a public comment period.
If the initiative passes, recruitment offices could not be opened within 600 feet of residential districts, public parks, public health clinics, public libraries, schools or churches.
Currently, a recruiting office is held to the same standards as most other businesses, which do not require a public hearing or have limits on where offices can be established.
The author of the initiative, Berkeley-based lawyer Sharon Adams, modeled the initiative after current zoning law that restricts the location of adult-oriented businesses.
“In the same way that many communities limit the location of pornographic stores, that’s the same way we feel about the military recruiting stations,” said PhoeBe sorgen, an initiative proponent and a member of the city’s Peace and Justice Commission. “Teenagers that really want to find them will be able to seek them out and find them, but we don’t want them in our face.”
These activists not only don’t support the military, they actively hate the military. Or they “loathe” it, as Bill Clinton infamously said. His saying that didn’t cost him any liberal votes. This initiative in Berkeley probably won’t cause a single liberal anywhere to reconsider just what values they support either directly or by alliance. In fact, this thing has the support of at least one member of the Berkeley city council.
Berkeley Councilmember Dona Spring said she supports the wording of the initiative, but said she would prefer the issue be passed by council so it can be enacted faster rather than waiting for the initiative to be placed on the ballot in November.
“I think we should just go ahead and pass it,” she said. “We can’t take everything to the voters.”
So, liberals, what is Berkeley to you guys? Is it an outlier on the fringe, or does it represent how you would all act and think if you could live exclusively among the hard left set the way they do in that crazy town out west? I’ve spent enough time around liberals when they had their hair down to suspect that it’s the latter.
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Not qualified as “Red Meat”?
JayHaw Phrenzie on January 28, 2008 at 3:47 PM
I lived in Alameda for a time, which is almost next door to Berkeley (via downtown Oakland – yay pr0n!).
I don’t think the world would miss it if Berkeley received the Lex Luthor Treatment for Dealing with California Municipalities™.
Mindcrime on January 28, 2008 at 3:48 PM
Ugh, no! This is a progressive thread, organic fair-trade free-range raw soy steak only.
doubleplusundead on January 28, 2008 at 3:53 PM
PhoeBe’s something else:
Vizzini on January 28, 2008 at 3:54 PM
Yeah, wouldn’t want those people and their recruiters that protect your freedom to act like a sad@ss wimp in your face, now would we?
What do these people really think would happen without the military and its recruiting efforts? Do they really think we’d be just as safe? Better question: Do they think?
amerpundit on January 28, 2008 at 3:54 PM
Fine. The US government should respond by blacklisting Berkeley from recieving any form of federal funding or business- including financial aid for students attending college there.
Hollowpoint on January 28, 2008 at 3:55 PM
Enough, already!
Wall off the Bay Area, and cast it off from the USA. Let them go it alone in the world!
Frozen Tex on January 28, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Berkeley is what happens when Liberals are aloud to implement their social fantasies.
liquidflorian on January 28, 2008 at 3:57 PM
Ugh.
yo on January 28, 2008 at 3:59 PM
JiangxiDad on January 28, 2008 at 4:01 PM
If the US is ever invaded, let California fight for itself.
Bladerunner1701 on January 28, 2008 at 4:02 PM
Seriously, why does the federal government not do this? The same goes for the “sanctuary cities” There does not appear to be any penalty for flaunting the federal government. These left-wing loons are all for creating these policies, but hear them scream when the federal gravy train stops.
tballard on January 28, 2008 at 4:02 PM
Don’t leave me hanging, Bro!
liquidflorian on January 28, 2008 at 4:04 PM
Berkeley scum
rplat on January 28, 2008 at 4:04 PM
Treat them like adult businesses so the “liberal children” will not be exposed to them.
BL@KBIRD on January 28, 2008 at 4:06 PM
Pretty much sums up the far left and their contempt for the people.
ThePrez on January 28, 2008 at 4:09 PM
My thoughts exactly.
BTW: Where’s this “great earthquake” that is supposed to separate CA from the rest of the US?? I’d be happy with just the separation of Berkeley.
heatherrc77 on January 28, 2008 at 4:09 PM
I’m sorry, the fact that Berkely voted in someone who says something this scary is a testament to their incrdible stupidity.
Seriously, Let Sodom and Gomorrah (San Fransicko and Beserkely) sink already, they clearly have no problem becoming the non-fictional version of 1984.
BKennedy on January 28, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Might I also add if there is ever a riot/clock tower shooter, etc. let them handle it. Don’t send in the guard to restore order. I’m sure those liberal imbciles will talk their way right out of any kind of bad situation…don’t you?
kcd on January 28, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Some rabble rousers out there would argue that California has already been invaded and occupied.
tlynch001 on January 28, 2008 at 4:11 PM
Not being a liberal myself, I can’t directly answer your exit question, but when I was nannying in Baltimore, my boss had me return a belt that I bought for her little boy, because it was camo-print, and she is “anti-military and doesn’t want to show support like that.” I knew she was a liberal, but that really shocked me. I can see being against the war, but against our soldiers? And camouflage? They’ll realize too late that they were wrong, but they’ll still find a way to blame it on Bush.
tikvah on January 28, 2008 at 4:11 PM
Leftists always give flak to people who point out self-evident truths. That just means you’re doing something right. Conservatives raise their kids to love our country; liberals raise their kids to hate it. Who’s more likely to serve?
I wish I could say that this latest Berkeley travesty surprises me, but I’d be lying. Leftists never run out of ways to hate our military.
ReubenJCogburn on January 28, 2008 at 4:13 PM
Frozen Tex on January 28, 2008 at 4:16 PM
Living in the South, I constantly hear “liberals” who claim that they don’t support the kind of stuff that goes on in Berkeley and Sodom-by-the-bay (aka San Francisco). I’m increasingly finding that hard to believe when there is never any outrage from so-called liberals when some town in Vermont wants to arrest the President or Washington State wants to force impeachment hearings.
highhopes on January 28, 2008 at 4:19 PM
Much the same way that “moderate” Muslims won’t denounce the Islamofascists.
Frozen Tex on January 28, 2008 at 4:21 PM
If some argue that the Left = Totalitarianism then this is proof of that:
Yeah, we prefer to do things the un-American, un-democratic method.
“Everything which is not forbidden, is compulsory.” – the Totalitarian principle
jcrue on January 28, 2008 at 4:24 PM
Ok, let’s make this simple. Anyplace where Birkenstocks are the majority footwear, (Berkeley, San Francisco, Cambridge Mass) ban all federal funding.
Birkenstocks = Birth Control Shoes
Berkeley sucks and I wouldn’t miss it if it evaporated today. Their contempt for this country is staggering and obscene.
Geronimo on January 28, 2008 at 4:25 PM
HEY! Southern California, from Camp Pendleton on down is just fine, a good Republican area. We still voted (R) even after the scandal.
So Cal should secede from Nor Cal.
Mazztek on January 28, 2008 at 4:27 PM
As a vet, this one burns me up to no end. The kooks at Berkeley have literally gone out of there way to hurl disrespect towards the military again.
“I do want to do something, whatever we can do, to shut down an agency that offends our public standards,” Berkeley Councilmember Dona Spring said. “It’s a detriment, it’s a danger to the public.”
What kind of outrageous crap is that?
BobUSMC on January 28, 2008 at 4:28 PM
I’m with you. Of course, if they would just hurry up and start the proceedings to secede already, the military could get in there and clean up. Perhaps it’s time for some ideological desegregation.
Numenorean on January 28, 2008 at 4:38 PM
As someone who lives in the Bay Area, all I can say is, this is the behavior of a small, vocal and very irritating group of “activists”. They only exist because there are actually, really and truly, jobs for them.
Full-time, professional agitators. All that’s missing is the rent-a-mobs. Most of us are not like this.
DiannaD on January 28, 2008 at 4:42 PM
The problem is, this would punish a lot of people not responsible for this nonsense. Now I agree, Hollowpoint, that the federal government should act if Berkely does this, but it seems to me a far better option would be simply to haul the town into federal court. There, the U.S. government could simply point to Article I, section 8 of the Constitution:
“The Congress shall have Power… to raise and support Armies… to provide and maintain a Navy…”
The feds would then point out that having recruiting centers is necessary and proper to exercising these functions and remind the court that about 190 years ago the Supreme Court settled in McCulloch v. Maryland that a state or local government may NOT interfere with the federal government exercising its Constitutional authority.
radjah shelduck on January 28, 2008 at 4:46 PM
How many Recruiting Centers are there in Berkeley anyway? Are they even building new Recruiting Centers?
BohicaTwentyTwo on January 28, 2008 at 4:46 PM
Blogged this yesterday.
FYI:
Contact info for the Berkeley “Peace and Justice Commission:”
Manuel Hector, Jr.
Health & Human Services
(510) 981-5110
E-mail: MHector@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Michelle on January 28, 2008 at 4:48 PM
As an alum of Cal, I am not surprised in the least. They protest JAG recruiting every year at Boalt by taping their mouths shut and sitting in, and their contempt for the military knows no bounds.
petit bourgeois on January 28, 2008 at 4:49 PM
I have the solution. if Mexico wants to recoup a part of the north, then give the California . . . today.
rplat on January 28, 2008 at 4:50 PM
Screw ‘em. I’m not sure what legal recourse the feds would have, since Berkeley would argue that it was just a zoning issue and not a ban on recruitment.
If it hurts all 15 non-moonbats left in that town, so be it- they can seek residence elsewhere, or those affected can rethink their choices come election day.
Hollowpoint on January 28, 2008 at 4:53 PM
Get out, now! We have just signed legislation outlawing Berkely; orbital bomardment begins in 5 minutes…
Frozen Tex on January 28, 2008 at 4:54 PM
LOL!
I’ve thought about it. But I have a job I like and a house I love.
DiannaD on January 28, 2008 at 4:57 PM
My apologies — hang in there.
Numenorean on January 28, 2008 at 5:07 PM
In a fight between the US Army and the Berzerkeley City Council, who would you bet on?
mojo on January 28, 2008 at 5:16 PM
As another Cal alumnus, I can say this is pretty mild stuff for the Peoples’ Republic of Berkeley. The University is seperate from the City, although it has many moonbats. The Fed has only itself to blame for letting such municipalities and schools thumb their noses at the law. An ideal solution for federal cowards and Berkeley moonbats is to put the recruiting station in Emeryville, bordering the Peoples’ Republic. This is where the biotech companies located when Berkeley declared Luddite Jihad on them. I can hear moonbat heads exploding now.
mcgilvra on January 28, 2008 at 5:16 PM
That’s positively Orwellian.
ReubenJCogburn on January 28, 2008 at 5:21 PM
I just read a great book, entitled “Hard Corps” by a ex-gangbanger turned U.S. Marine who won the Navy Cross in Iraq. He tells the reader in some detail what he thinks of these idiot left wing puzzies and their anti-military, lose-the-war, multi-culti, college-boy, punkazz bullsh!t. The lefties actually think they’re “saaaving” the Troops from a fate they don’t want. pppffffttt Morons. They have no idea who and what these men are and what they do to defend their freedom to prooootest. whaaaa whaaa whaaa! Spoiled punks.
Tony737 on January 28, 2008 at 5:21 PM
Why would the military even want these punks anyway? These hippie dudes would never make it through boot Camp.
“Ooooh, SGT, I need my mocha latte cappaccino! Whaaaa! I broke a nail! Whaaa! My puzzy hurts! Whaaaa!”
Tony737 on January 28, 2008 at 5:25 PM
That’s what I thought about “Will and Grace.”
hulbstar on January 28, 2008 at 5:32 PM
Why not make it illegal for any military member to enter Berkely. Flood-Sorry, National Guard can’t enter. Any disaster-Sorry, NO military allowed to help. An announcement to the world (especially terrorists, gang bangers and assorted bad people) Military will NOT protect Berkely. Problem Solved.
oakpack on January 28, 2008 at 5:34 PM
Berkeley isn’t liberal. It’s radical left. There’s a big difference.
Or are you trying to tell me that Fred Phelps represents mainstream conservatives?
Meryl Yourish on January 28, 2008 at 5:59 PM
The military should just say that there’s nobody worth recruiting in Berkeley, anyway, and throw the foolisness back in their faces.
And see if anyone in town objects to being called emasculated eunuchs.
If not, then it’s true.
If they do, they it gives the lie to the Berkeley anti-recruitment people.
A win-win.
And a deserved smackdown.
profitsbeard on January 28, 2008 at 6:04 PM
The military already has an Army-Navy-Marines-Air Force recruiting office in Berkeley. Berkeley’s a fairly small town. All they need is one recruiting office, and it’s already there. It’s an empty and hollow statement by the Berkheads… which fits their brain pans perfectly.
Much like the Berkeley “No Blood for Oil Peace Bus” they drive around up and down the hills of Berkeley choking out thick black smoke and guzzling oil to the tune of about 7 miles to the gallon, the whole thing belies their self-righteous vacant minds.
They’re a waste of space and accomplish nothing but self-serving little pathetic deeds that makes them feel about the same as if they’d just masturbated.
SilverStar830 on January 28, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Fred Phelps is a Democrat. Who supported Al Gore.
I never tire of pointing that out.
Plus he’s one guy with a small radical church. Berkeley is a whole frickin’ city.
Bryan on January 28, 2008 at 6:08 PM
Well this is just downright Orwellian… But it is Berkley, so I wouldn’t expect anything less. Damn Commies.
Gartrip on January 28, 2008 at 6:09 PM
Berkeleyites – You are under attack. Take up your vibrators and defend yourselves.
whitetop on January 28, 2008 at 6:11 PM
This was my 15 minutes at Cal, so everything else is mild in comparison:
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/81.html
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/case/12.html
It’s the only place I know of where the mayor has been convicted of stealing student newspapers that endorse his opponent and throwing them into the recycling bin.
And Tom Bates is still the mayor last time I checked.
petit bourgeois on January 28, 2008 at 6:31 PM
Oooo…*SmAK!!!*….likewise…*Whap!**
…cricket…cricket….
BigWyo on January 28, 2008 at 6:33 PM
I say we bus some insurgents to Berkly, then stop the army from dealing with them. Everyone learns a valuable lesson.
Capitana on January 28, 2008 at 6:47 PM
Did anyone notice petit bourgeois mention of College Republicans? Anyway, PB, you have to admit Berkeley has great restaurants, bookstores, and one of the finest universities in the world – needing only minor janitorial work to remove the apparatchiks.
I was at Cal in the late ’60s and early ’70s. That was some wild sh*t. Right now the most virulent commie pustule in CA is Santa Cruz. They are batshit crazy. Berkeley is crowded with drooling old Venceremos Brigade idiots.
mcgilvra on January 28, 2008 at 6:53 PM
That Military Times Poll showing 83% of those in the service are conservative – moderate and only 8% are liberal is just the answer I was looking for when I questioned his charge about conservative and not liberals joining the military. Not that I doubted him but it was just speculation IMO until there were some decent numbers to back up that claim.
Yakko77 on January 28, 2008 at 7:35 PM
every time i drive down 80 to go see the Raiders playing at home i give bezerkly the single finger salute they are so entitled to .
Mojack420 on January 28, 2008 at 7:51 PM
Fine, but first you have to give back your computer. You know, Bay Area technology and all….
Heh – true that. But it’s still a fun college town. Go Bears!
calbear on January 28, 2008 at 8:03 PM
Yes, I was in BCR (Berkeley College Republicans) before they drank the Ah-nold kool-aid. Those kids are so malleable to CAGOP propaganda, and they get what they deserve: a RINO and action movie star, just like in the Phillipines.
Here’s what really happened in response to my journalistic endeavor at Cal:
Copies of California Patriot Stolen; Publication Staff Allegedly Harassed
As result, BCR became the second largest student group on campus and the rest of the country poured thousands of dollars into the coffers of BCR. The theft of free speech at Cal had some unintended consequences: Money, membership and national recognition.
Public outrage to the city council of Berkeley has no such consequences. These people debate foreign policy while the crumbling 130 year old sewers spill raw fecal matter into the streets.
petit bourgeois on January 28, 2008 at 8:55 PM
Exactly. Take that attitude, enhance it with a heaping helping of meglomania, back it with an army and voila: the USSR and other commie states. The attitude of “we know better than you and we want the complete authority to implement and enforce our liberal ideas” is the same from the neighborhood to the “people’s palace.” The difference is amount of power the libs have at different levels.
Mallard T. Drake on January 28, 2008 at 9:01 PM
And the restaurants in Berkeley aren’t that great when compared to Southern California. College students cannot afford to eat brick oven pizzas, organic free range chicken and fancy french cuisine like most of the establishment hippie professors eat.
You can’t even find a decent taco in Berkeley, fer chrissake. The only thing good are the hot dogs (Top Dog) and deep dish pizza (Zachary’s), and you can get those anywhere else in the USA. Even with all of the Ethiopians and Punjabis, their food still sucks when compared to SoCal. The tikka masala and doro wat are not that edible, frankly.
I got my BA in 45 weeks of instruction. I could not get out of that Sino-Viet model of reeducation sh*thole fast enough. What did it for me was when the city council mandated “free trade coffee,” as if government mandated rent control was not offensive enough. What’s more, they banned smoking within 15 feet of any establishment as an exercise in “public safety,” when if you stand 15 feet from the front door you are standing in the slow lane of traffic.
If the entire city of Berkeley burned to the ground tomorrow, it would be the result of God’s wrath upon Marxists, and I would throw gasoline on the flames.
petit bourgeois on January 28, 2008 at 9:08 PM
God willing, I will never, ever live in any city that has a Peace and Justice Commission.
p.v. cornelius on January 28, 2008 at 9:33 PM
With the rise of the Internet, great bookstores and record shops have become less important, though I certainly did appreciate having them all those years ago. And Berkeley’s population will never be as diverse (nor students’ palates as refined) as in SoCal, as petit bourgeois notes, thus the restaurant selection, although S.F. is a quick subway ride over. I went there for the education, though, and, in spite of a few PC bumps along the way, it was great.
Thank you Pat Robertson.
calbear on January 28, 2008 at 10:25 PM
Naw, mine’s from Japan.
Frozen Tex on January 28, 2008 at 11:30 PM
Berkeley sits atop the Hayward fault while the San Andreas fault runs through San Francisco and those faults are ticking time bombs. The moonbats are generally oblivious.
joeyb on January 29, 2008 at 12:20 AM
I live in Santa Cruz. You are absolutely right.
trigon on January 29, 2008 at 12:45 AM
its no where big enough to be considered a city its a village full of idiots .
Bezerkly is doomed a lot of old Victorian wooden homes that are just primed for the aftermath fires from the big one.
As far as SF the same problems persist that were evident in 06, Fires will be the big problem after the big one. And as any native knows you don’t live on land fill in earthquake country. The liberal moonbats never figured that out when they invaded a once proud American city and turned it into a festering pile of monnbat s**t.
This is why the marina collapsed and just 2 blocks away the presidio stood just fine after the 89 shake.
Mojack420 on January 29, 2008 at 1:14 AM
I don’t know if that metaphor was intentional or not, but either way, it’s apt. ;)
ReubenJCogburn on January 29, 2008 at 1:29 AM
One more thing about the San Francisco bay area. The moonbat inability to do anything is well illustrated by the Bay Bridge fiasco. Damaged in the 1989 quake, the bridge has not been made safe and retrofit is still underway. Nothing completed in 18 years despite all the talk. What if a big one hits tomorrow? Blame Bush?
joeyb on January 29, 2008 at 1:47 AM
2 words: typical liberal
the motto ‘we know better than you and will just make up your mind for you, stupid’ may as well be on the DNC webpage in bold, up top and center.
I also wonder how much of a fit they will throw if their little game catches on and military is made compulsory for all 18 year olds like the rest of their socialist countries around the world.
MannyT-vA on January 29, 2008 at 6:55 AM
Do you think we could get them to do this every day?
James on January 29, 2008 at 8:47 AM
Put ALL FEDERAL MONIES destine for Berkeley on the back burners. And I do mean ALL, to include educational money.
oldelpasoan on January 29, 2008 at 2:01 PM
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