Religious Stupidity Kills 147 – Wounds 55 Others
India temple stampede kills 147
A stampede at a hill-top temple in western India killed more than 147 people and wounded 55 others who had gathered to celebrate the start of a religious holiday on Tuesday, police said.
More than 25,000 devotees were trying to reach the 15th-century temple through a steep and narrow pathway when the stampede occurred around dawn Tuesday, officials said.
The Chamunda Devi temple is located inside a fort atop a hill in Jodhpur, the second-largest city and a popular tourist destination in the Indian state of Rajasthan.
Authorities do not know what prompted the rush, but state Police Chief K.S. Bains rejected as “baseless” reports that it was triggered by rumors of a bomb.
“But one thing is clear that a cascading effect did take place as it was a slope where it happened,” he said.
India has been on edge in recent days after a string of deadly bombings across the country.
The crowd had gathered to celebrate the start of Navaratri or nine nights. For nine nights and 10 days, Hindus worship the various forms of a Hindu goddess.
Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria told reporters that police had planned for the event and deployed “enough” officers for crowd control. But the massive numbers overwhelmed them.
Saturday December 1st, 2012 @ 8:48am
persons have rights. No State shall dervpie any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. Well, corporate lawyers were very savvy, and they began to say look, corporations are persons. Corporations deserve the protection that was meant for freed slaves. I mean, if you look at the history, it’s very perverse. According to , Of the 150 cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment heard by the Supreme Court up to the Plessy v. Ferguson case, only 15 involved blacks. The other 135 were brought by corporations. And it is in this way that corporations gained personhood namely, through activist judges. Now we can corporations are people, so they deserve things like free speech; ability to sue others; right to life, liberty, or property ; the right to own other businesses; the right to run campaigns; and so on. But there’s nothing inherent to a corporation that says its a person and deserves the rights of flesh-and-blood people. That’s only come about through very perverse judicial decisions. I mean, there’s no law that says it. It’s not anywhere in the Constitution. In fact, prior to corporations being considered individuals, they were chartered by the state to carry out some function that was meant to serve the public good. They had a specific charter, their shareholders were accountable, they had limited rights, they were regulated, and so on. That they should be running campaigns was completely unfathomable, particularly to the Founding Fathers of the nation, who were vary wary of corporate power. Should people have the right to free speech in a democracy? Yes. Are corporations people? No.