Campus police tasered a student for asking John Kerry too many questions at a University of Florida event last week. Yes, he was acting like a pain in the ass. Andrew Meyer spoke more than the allotted time at a big function. But that’s it. That was his crime.

As a result, the police swarmed him, grabbed him, shoved him around, threw him on the floor, handcuffed him and then gave him a taste of the taser.

Police arrested and electrified a kid for taking too long asking questions.

How did we get to this point?

Almost as disturbing, most of the other students at the event sat calmly in their chairs. I wouldn’t recommend punching a cop, but they could have stood up, screamed, shouted and carried on, in some way demonstrating that they did not think the punishment was just. What are students in the post-9/11 America taught? That security means no civil liberties?

I should have known better than to have been surprised. I learned my lesson three years ago.

It was August 27, 2004, the Friday night before the Republican National Convention was coming to New York City. I had a date with Danny. It was the first time I had ridden a bike since I was 10. But Danny liked bikes, so I joined him on the monthly Critical Mass bike ride around Manhattan.

To my delight, I did not fall off and the ride was exhilarating. Crowds of pedestrians gathered on the streets, cheering on the bicyclists— a collection of hippies, hipsters, moms with kids.

I focused on learning how to use the brakes while listening to chants of “more bikes, less cars,” which often turned into “more bikes, less Bush.”

The ride ended on Second Avenue and 10th Street, when a clash broke out between some bicyclists and police officers. Danny and I eyed the confrontation from the sidewalk. We were surrounded by people chanting, “Let them go” and “No police state.”

We decided to leave the area just to be safe. But while walking our bikes away, we realized that police had formed a barricade across the avenue.

No problem, I thought. Being white and middle class, I thought cops in the United States were always on my side. I walked up to a sergeant, put on my innocent, 23-year-old voice and said, “Excuse me, sir. How do we get out of here?”

“Right this way,” he said, directing us through the barricade into the hands of another officer. “Cuff them,” he said.

As the officer put on the plastic-flexi cuffs, I shouted, “What are you doing? This is ridiculous!” I did not resist arrest like Andrew Meyer, but I was just as shocked by the police response.

The cops sat us on the pavement with a group of handcuffed bicyclists. On-lookers filled the sidewalks, chanting for us, “Let them go.”

I had no idea how I had gotten myself in this position. I had not chosen to lie down on the road and block traffic. I had not chained myself to a tree.

After about two hours the cops loaded us onto buses. I sat on the bus for hours, the cuffs digging into my wrists. It was hot and sweaty. The windows barely provided air.

A guy in the back vomited. Another complained, “I can’t feel my hands!”

One said, “Officer! My shoulder is dislocated!”

The cops ignored them.

“Yo,” screamed another. “His hands are blue. He wasn’t born with blue hands.”

They continued to ignore them.

“I need medical attention!”

One policeman said, “What do you want me to do? I’m not a doctor.”

Another said, “You guys had to riot. This is what happens.”

After a few more hours they let us out at Pier 57, a former bus depot, which they had turned into holding pens for the protesters. I sat there for 12 hours. There were metal cages with barbed wire on the top. The floor was covered with oily grime, and I was shivering in my shorts and t-shirt. When I asked to make a phone call, the cop laughed.

The exhaustion and powerlessness wore me down. I sobbed on and off for the next 18 hours.

At hour 14 of my arrest they transported us to Central Booking at the Center Street Courthouse, where everything took hours longer than anticipated. Mug shots, finger prints, health checks.

After 28 hours, they finally released me.

I later learned that the city and police had coordinated an effort to silence protesters during the RNC weekend and arrested hundreds at the Critical Mass event that night and thousands over the weekend. I am part of a lawsuit suing the city for unlawful arrest.

Before the bike-date arrest, I was a bit of an activist. I participated in numerous protests, including the 2003 rally in New York against going to war.

It kills me to admit this, but since being arrested, I haven’t participated in a single protest march. When I see them, I run the other way. I used to think that if I did everything right— if I obeyed the law and didn’t chain myself to a fence— I would be safe. Now, I know that isn’t true.

I look at cops differently. I know they could arrest me for no reason and throw me in jail.

Tens of thousands of monks have spent the past week protesting the military junta in Burma. They are risking their lives to demand national reconciliation and an end to the repressive, draconian rule of the government. I lived in Rangoon for a year and often heard people say they could not protest the junta because they would be killed.

These mark the largest protests since 1988, when the junta gunned down thousands of student activists.

I was traumatized after a night in jail. Many of the monks and other demonstrators were arrested in ’88 and spent ten or more years incarcerated. Yet they are willing to do it all over again. I’m in awe of their bravery. Read more about it here.

We should be looking to the monks for inspiration. The lesson we must take from events like the tasering episode and the RNC arrests is not that we should stop speaking our minds (or riding our bikes) because we might get thrown in jail. It’s that we must be as vocal as ever, even if we get thrown in jail.

We also need to recognize that society has an obligation to make it safe for protesters. Onlookers cannot sit quietly as the police or government cracks down. They must instead demand that activists have a right to speak their mind. And they must demand that we protect not just the person who is polite, but also the kid who is obnoxious.

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Hanna Ingber Win is a staff editor and columnist at P+P. Pushing Off is a column of her dispatches from twentysomething land. Contact her at: hingber@gmail.com