Of course it doesn't, the perps were discussing this openly and in plaintext on various websites which are still in the air. Who needs surveillance. What you do need is to react to available intelligence, but this isn't the first time in history that that doesn't happen.
They are also presently discussing their next day-out for rednecks in the form of another insurrection and coup attempt on the 17th of January. Let's hope that this time some people will take notice because while everybody seems to be happy that this effort failed from the perspective of the perps it looks like a major victory: they took the bloody capitol with such ease that 10 minutes more planning would have had them hold house or senate members or even the VP or the speaker hostage. Or worse.
The problem isn't that we don't have the tools to fight these terrorists. The problem is that many of our politicians and police are siding with the terrorists, or at the very least sympathetic to their cause.
This isn't a new phenomenon either. This has been documented [0] time and time again [1].
The fact that the DoD time line of events shows it took Army officials in charge of DC National Guard 90 minutes to approve deployment after DC mayoral request (while they watch it all in realtime on TV) certainly lends credence to the sympathy angle.
Also the DOJ and FBI have known for a while many local police departments are ideologically comprimised towards Right Extremism and aren't really doing much[0]
I don’t think even those politicians and officers wanted the Capitol breached; what happened was they didn’t think there people would do it. It’s a huge bias. If the same was discussed by anyone outside that category of people it would have been met with the appropriate preparation and mitigation measures.
The problem is that absolute power means people in power can become the terrorist. Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Polpot or Stalin took so much power that they became the terrorist themselves.
They killed hundreds of millions of people. You could be raped of tortured at any time.
It is not white supremacist. It is anyone with power.
Right now in the US, the antifa movement is as violent or more violent than anyone else. Certainly the Guardian is not an unbiased source.
> Let's hope that this time some people will take notice because while everybody seems to be happy that this effort failed from the perspective of the perps it looks like a major victory: they took the bloody capitol with such ease that 10 minutes more planning would have had them hold house or senate members or even the VP or the speaker hostage. Or worse.
Except that... then what? That isn't how a coup works. You can't just take hostages and then make demands about who gets to be the President. It has no effect. Official actions taken under duress are invalid. As soon as you leave the building nobody is going to honor anything you demanded.
It's easy to take a building. Just show up with greater numbers than there are cops in the area. But a building is not the government. Physical possession of the Senate floor isn't what grants the power to do anything. It's purely symbolic.
The fact is that law enforcement operates primarily through deterrence. You can install some bulletproof glass and things like that, but the main thing preventing murders and such is that if you do it then you go to jail for a long time after.
But if you play out the actual implications then you can use hyperbole and call it a coup. That's valuable language and you don't want to let a crisis go to waste.
This type of performative hyperbole coming from the left is going to make this whole situation worse. What those yahoo's did was bad enough, there's zero reason to throw gasoline on the fire.
I don't think the fact that taking hostages wouldn't actually succeed in making Trump president for the next four years is reason not to hope that law enforcement is suitably prepared to prevent emboldened 'patriots' from trying. Indeed it's precisely because such people are largely immune to normal deterrence measures you need law enforcement to be more effective.
Russia took Crimea by first just simply taking buildings. So once you physically possess important buildings you can do all sorts of interesting stuff.
Not only that, but multiple people were taking screenshots, linking authorities to posts, even sharing doxxed information with law enforcement prior to the event. They ignored it!
Election rules were changed in unorthodox ways due to a global pandemic. You have to admit that the election was unlike any other on recent memory.
The losing side, given this unorthodox election, wanted some validation of results, as well as to legally challenge the way they were done (PA's changes).
The response was one of derision and essentially shutting out the right from discourse. No effort was made a conciliation. This had the predictable effect of galvanizing people that there was indeed fraud.
If you think that these people had no reason to be angry, you aren't paying attention. If you can understand the frustrations and lead up to the BLM movement, but don't even want to pay lip service to this, you are either a horrible person or stupid. Take your pick: evil, ignorant, or both?
There are poll watchers from both parties - it's a role/position you apply beforehand to become a poll watcher. Their arrogance of the system, where in fact they all themselves could become poll watchers to make sure there isn't fraud, isn't a valid reason for them to be angry - though it's understandable that they would be angry with the propaganda they've been fed, when instead of they were told that there were Republican poll watchers at ALL of the polling stations - then their reaction would be "oh.. okay." Maybe if they didn't believe it then they themselves could work as a poll watcher to see for themselves. Likewise there were people saying exactly what I have - however it's highly unlikely the people watching Fox News (or other) would be putting that messages out, so who's at blame? Arguably the treasonous Republicans trying to start a civil war and mainstream media channels who are inciting themselves. In this circumstance, yes, it's predictable - but please do tell how you reach the ignorant people who will only listen to very specific sources and have primed for years, decades, to think Democrats are evil - and that the election is rigged, that is it's only rigged if their pick doesn't win.
PA’s changes were not challenged when they were first signed into law in 2019. That was the time to act if there was a good-faith concern about them. The fact that the GOP waited until it would cause problems with votes already counted / in transit, and therefore undermine faith in the election, is further evidence that that was their goal in the first place.
How did the right get “shut out”? The entirety of the right? That to me seems a quite hilarious claim when the President up until quite recently had a huge platform on Twitter.
Validation of the result? Beyond all the official counts and recounts? I’m confused.
Also your last paragraph was completely uncalled for.
This is a misrepresentation. They got that validation. It was addressed in courts, but they expected thousands of voters to have their votes ignored, and the courts found that unacceptable.
Then the losing side didn't accept the results from the courts, and that's where it became a ridiculous circus. Also, the demands were ridiculously out of proportion. In the end, because they couldn't get their way, they tried to overthrow the legal result of the election and threatened members of Congress with serious harm.
> "No effort was made a conciliation."
They never tried. They demanded a total surrender of democracy to their demands. That is completely unacceptable. You can't compromise with something like that.
The reason these people were angry is simple: they were lied to and manipulated by media and politicians manipulating them to do their dirty work. The lived in an ecosystem of lies that kept telling them they should be angry, so they were. The lies they believed have been refuted time and time again, but they did not tolerate reason.
> "evil, ignorant, or both?"
Considering how eager they were to hurt people, they definitely check the evil box. It's hard to believe they honestly believed the lies, but it appears that some of them definitely did. But they must have been unbelievably gullible to take it this far.
I really, really hope they will finally learn that their leaders and media have constantly fed them lies; lies that they keep repeating to each other, and I hope they stop listening to them.
But there is no way to compromise with their attitude. You can't say: alright, let's have some lies and some truth. Let's have some freedom and some oppression. Some democracy and some autocracy. A movement that is so eager to hurt people our of sheer hatred should not set the political direction of a country.
This was the Beer Hall Putsch. It's good it failed, but it needs to have consequences. The US can't allow this to happen again.
They had their day(s) in court. They were heard out. There were recounts. What else would have been needed? Was there any amicable resolution that didn't involve Trump getting elected? If the alternatives are Trump is elected or there is violence, this is not democracy.
You are 100% correct. The attitude on display in the parent comment is the same type of rhetoric you see everywhere, and it is not winning over anybody “on the other side”.
Clearly you haven't been here. There are plenty of areas in San Diego County that are rural and quite conservative. Despite Duncan Hunter being a literal felon, the 50th district still didn't flip this election.
There's gobs of intelligence on what was about to happen, what was happening, and what might yet be about to happen, all out there in the open on social media. I'm way more worried about the complete and utter lack of using existing intelligence that was served up on a silver platter and continues to be. That completely destroys any argument for expanding surveillance right there, without even considering human rights or legal angles. If they can't even act on what's given to them, or what they already know, maybe that should get the laser focus for the indefinite future.
The breach of the capitol building is an embarrassment. There's not reinforced glass on the first floor windows? The secured interior is 3 cops in front of a wooden door with plate glass windows? And those cops just kinda slinked away letting a woman breach it and get insta killed? The outside perimeter is just a few cops in front of some fencing? What a fucking failure.
I think it should be reasonably defensible. It's not just a failure of the architecture though. The tactics used were mostly ineffective. Defensive forces were positioned thinly with few real blockades. I saw one instance of police blocking an entrance through sheer mass and it was effective. The cops could have been done the same in the interior hallways instead of giving up their spread out weak positions. This would have prevented the use of firearms.
If you can stomach it, I ask everyone to watch the full lead up to the shot. It is an absolute failure of policing. Start at 37:20 on https://banned.video/watch?id=5ff6857e00bac0328da8e888 and yes it's NSFL (shot at 39:10).
We've seen what the capital looks like when leftists protest. The security was intentionally lax and the president intentionally restricted national guard response. It was so easy because there were people inside helping them out.
They literally took over the Senate building for hours during the scotus confirmation, snuck in restricted areas to harass senators, took selfies in offices while refusing to leave, and tried to block hallways and elevators, all with the stated intention of intimidating senators into changing their votes.
Zero resistance from the Police and only arrested the people who still refused to leave hours later.
> The Pentagon said Miller approved the request without speaking with the White House because he had gotten direction from the president days earlier to do whatever he deemed necessary with the Guard.
Especially on a day when there was a large protest planned for a vote taking place. It's a government building and it should be reasonably open to the public but common sense needs to raise its head at some point. Securing the building for a few hours would not have been unreasonable.
While the events of 1/6 are hardly justifiable, I find it deeply troubling that the same crowd who was calling for the abolition of the police a few months ago is now earnestly encouraging informing on their own friends, family, and neighbors because they deserve to be punished and most importantly, humiliated. I hardly believe the FBI needs any assistance in locating anyone, but I fear this is settling a troubling precedent that has not been seen since 20th century Europe.
In the months and years to come, we must try to not forget that the government exists solely for the benefit of its constituents, not the other way around.
The ruled class, red and blue, does not want freedom from oppression, they want to be the oppressors.
“Defund the police” (in general) doesn’t mean “don’t stop any crimes”.
It means things like “maybe we don’t need armed people to give tickets to drivers with a busted headlight” and “if we put more funds into mental health crisis teams we won’t have to send as many cops to violent incidents”.
There are full-on police abolitionists, but they’re far fewer in number.
I'm totally on board with that plan (it would be nice if there were someone I could call to check on a possibly-suicidal friend who wouldn't show up with guns drawn). Americans are four times more likely to be killed by cops than Canadians, and 1 in 1000 young black men is killed by a cop (or some number along those lines). Clearly something should change.
My question is, why call it "defund the police"? The core of the idea is that, in many cases we can change our response from involving police officers to involving some other group who will hopefully be able to do a better job. The fact that this can be accomplished by reallocating funds from the police department, to avoid needing to levy taxes to raise revenue, seems like almost the least important part of the plan. Even then, "defund the police" is only the first half of "defund the police and use the additional funding to create another group that picks up some of the police's responsibilities".
My feeling is that many people view police with antipathy, so they like the slogan and concept of "defund the police" because it feels like a retaliation against the police. I strongly suspect that other ideas, some of which may be much more beneficial than changing the response, will be ignored if they can't be phrased as a tactical strike in the culture war.
Here's one list of proposals [0] for police reform, many of which seem very promising for how little cultural sway they have (delegalize police unions, abolish QI, decriminalize victimless offenses, etc.) I wonder if they have so little sway because they can't be phrased in a sufficiently incendiary manner.
(And by the way, just because there's antipathy towards the police doesn't mean the police are directly at fault. For instance, if police are made to enforce unpopular legislation like the war on drugs, that will obviously make people dislike them but the root problem is somewhat upstream)
Yes, I agree with you. I would also add the ‘spirit’ of the Defund the Police movement was that a lack of oversight created a safe environment for bad officers to victimize their community.
Now, many of the same champions of this cause are taking on the role of the police themselves. Across Reddit, Twitter, and elsewhere, people are creating open source documents with the names of anyone they believe was at the riot.
Most troubling of all, I am seeing many people openly advocating the police should have shot more protesters or brutalized them in some manner.
This seems highly contrary to the goals of the movement.
>maybe we don’t need armed people to give tickets to drivers with a busted headlight
There are endless videos of normal cops being executed by unhinged drivers who were pulled over for things like "a busted headlight." You don't know who you're dealing with, how close to the edge some people are, or if they are dangerous felons, when you pull them over. If those situations were a very real possibility in your daily job, would you perform that job unarmed? I wouldn't. Maybe some very brave mental health professionals would, for a time, until some of them are killed as well, as indiscriminately as the police, which is inevitable.
What then? Stop pulling people over altogether, because it's not worth risking anybody's life further? Just let people speed and drive drunk, or drive with an unsafe vehicle?
When I get this far in discussions with people, it eventually comes down to "well dangerous people shouldn't have guns." It's a nice thought, naive in my opinion, but regardless, how do we deal with the reality of right now until those ideals manifest in reality? The reality is that dangerous people make regular traffic stops too dangerous for normal people to behave in any other way that to exercise extreme caution.
That’s an interesting clarification as I’ve never heard this take before, especially from the press who’s supposed to speak for the left. They seem pretty happy with just plain: let’s defund the police, full stop.
For my account, I’m in favor of arresting and charging everyone acting criminally lawlessly, whether wearing a Viking helmet, a MAGA hat, or a BLM shirt.
I want the public to be free from the oppression caused by lawless rioting.
I think a lot of people weren't thinking things through, and a lot of the "defund the police" stuff was hyperbole.
Also, a violent insurrection literally storming and occupying the seat of the U.S. government, with the goal of changing the incoming government, is very different from what happened this summer.
What happened this summer included a large number of violent riots, but they targeted mainly state and local governments and private property, and without the goal of regime change.
Both are very bad, but open insurrection against the sitting U.S. government is far worse.
"Defund the police" doesn't mean what you think it means.
I was glad the police, in this case, showed the restraint to not engage in violence due to an unruly crowd who seemed to pose no threat to their lives. They showed how it could be done, although due to planning failures, they were BADLY under-staffed, and it got perilously close to the VP and other leaders. Deadly force was only employed as a last resort.
And I fully support snitching on violent criminals.
There are many consistent positions a large number of people hold. Trying to make this an "us versus them" by proclaiming in your comment that the entirety of "red vs blue" are only out for their own interests is only feeding into a narrative of complete polarization where there is actually a ton of common ground.
Unfortunately, it seems all too often we are sorted into red or blue containers if we don’t choose a side ourselves.
> And I fully support snitching on violent criminals
And when the criminals have all been removed, the police will give back their power? Or will they create more? They don’t need your help to arrest anyone, they do need your help to not question their methods.
No serious person was saying we should abolish the police, that is just another lie from the former conservative media (former, because there is nothing recognizably conservative about trumpism). There are legitimate questions about the use of police funding for militarization, and those questions have been raised by people all over the political spectrum. There are also serious problems with the differences in how the police handle calls, patrol work, and arrests in black neighborhoods and with black suspects versus white neighborhoods. Since the 90s the alarm has been sounded about the infiltration of police forces across the country by white nationalists and neonazis. Those concerns can be addressed by well-planned police reform, which is what people have actually been calling for.
As for 20th century Europe, we are already there when armed terrorists invade the Capitol in an attempt to, as they themselves said, overthrow the government.
Wait, are we already rewriting history to eliminate the idea that, for months last summer, many people actually did want to abolish the police?
Granted, a lot of that got walked back later, but it did happen. I live close enough to the CHOP that you can't really make me believe there wasn't an huge, loud, violent movement that unambiguously wanted to get rid of cops, period.
As far as serious people (true Scotsmen) go, I guess you're defining them as rational, learned experts. But I would urge you to at least pay attention to what crazed maniacs think too, since it turns out they can do some damage if you ignore them long enough.
Lots of people literally were wanting to abolish the police. The expression meant something different to almost everybody who said it. A city unanimously voted to do it[1]
> No serious person was saying we should abolish the police
I don't think any serious person is saying that "no serious person was saying we should abolish the police."
Abolitionism has been a strong movement, close to the core of American values of liberty, since the beginning of professional police and the Charleston Watch, before the civil war.
I am a serious person. And I do not believe that the institution of the police is the best way for a nation whose laws are based on the commonlaw tradition to establish justice or promote safety. Especially in 2020, when there are cameras everywhere and the capacity to report emergencies at lightspeed, I think that continuing to fund and empower this particular experiment is irresponsible.
I guess a statement like that can always be true depending on how you define serious person. But millions of people were and are arguing for the strongest possible interpretation of “abolish the police”.
I have to admit I find it pretty disheartening that mainstream liberals are for the most part just as unwilling to take a critical look at the most extreme, “all cops are bad”, toppling statues of Abraham Lincoln and burning down police stations subset of the left or even acknowledge that it exists, as the mainstream republicans have been of condemning the trumpism/q-anon alt right.
CHAZ and and the Minneapolis Autonomous Zone indicate it was far more serious then your post indicates.
On Tuesday night, a cop killed a man in Modesto - it was the 4th person killed by the same cop [1]. As you say, their are serious questions to ask about the police force and militarization. However, the racist/right wing thing is far too reductionary and fails to capture lack of proper training, lack of proper post-shooting responses, etc.
> Since the 90s the alarm has been sounded about the infiltration of police forces across the country by white nationalists and neonazis.
IIRC, there have been big scandals about that in Germany recently. The neonazis have been infiltrating the military there, too, to the point where they had to disband an entire special forces unit, because it was too far gone to be cleaned up.
Honestly, the liberal fixation on gun control seems a really short sighted to me, given that kind of infiltration and the general right-leaning nature of law enforcement and the military [1]. It seems far more likely to me that liberals (and minorities) would someday need to rise up against an oppressive government than conservatives would be, even though conservatives like to fantasize about that kind of thing more.
[1] Proven very clearly by the events in Kenosha: police shot an unarmed black man in the back, but didn't even stop an armed white kid who just shot three people.
There is a recurring theme in thin arguments where it is argued that "the same people" argue two different, apparently contrasting things (without evidence.)
The reality is that there are some groupings of people with contradictory beliefs, but more realistically, each individual has a belief of each issue somewhere on a spectrum. Polarization has further grouped issues together, and attributed each stance as one side or the other, but this is not a useful way to explore issues or try to find the right balance or compromise for individual issues.
You might be left-wing and also support a demilitarization of law enforcement, especially when you look at uneven responses to protests[0], but political affiliation is not nearly as consistent as that just based on race alone[1], despite the greater risk of lethal force being applied when you have black skin[2].
And if you are right-wing and support overrunning the Capitol and disrupting the election process, you believe what was done was right and a fight against a corrupt and oppressive government. But wherever you fall on the political spectrum, if you believe that the individuals broke the law by forcefully entering the Capitol, you may find it dutiful to respond to requests from the FBI to aide in identifying those individuals (particularly if you believe this behavior attacks an important component of elected representative democracy.)
What keeps surprising me, though, is the failure to see President Donald Trump as an oppressor. He labels roughly half of his own citizens as enemies, discredits alternative sources of information (basically anyone that disagrees with him); accepting that behavior is a dangerous way to choose your political leaders. You should strive to unite the citizens, and your government should not be the strongest, loudest voice you listen to, because you need checks and balances against government controlled information.
> The finding of elevated risk for Black victims in the Mental Health Crisis group suggests two worrisome features of police killings: First, training protocols focused solely on mental health may need to be redesigned to incorporate issues of greater perceptions of threat among Black civilians. Second, race may be more salient than other factors in the decision to use lethal force on a suspect across circumstances. This is particularly worrisome given the additional details of flight and threat in killings with less substantial bases for reasonableness. In other words, race appears to distinguish these killings even after taking into account the additional factors that might justify an officer’s use of lethal force. Police killings, then, are neither race-neutral nor linked to specific features of the incident.
> I find it deeply troubling that the same crowd who was calling for the abolition of the police a few months ago is now earnestly encouraging informing on their own friends
Uhhh, is that actually happening?
I think I have my finger pretty firmly on the pulse of one center of today's abolitionist movement, in Portland (where I was in the streets getting gassed many times this summer), and I don't know of anybody who holds the contradictory viewpoint you're describing.
I don't think most abolitionists care enough about the Capitol in the first place to get enraged about this.
This is very good. Not more policing, but better policing. Turning a blind eye to this or pardoning certain crimes but not others is just as much an injustice as over-policing.
And someone needs to have a deep inquiry into what happened with calling in reinforcements.
Of all the pictures and videos from inside the Capitol, has anyone seen any trespassers/protestors/rioters/insurrectionists carrying weapons? I caught some of it live and have been looking since and haven't seen any.
The killed police officer was attacked with a fire extinguisher, so things other than guns can be used as weapons.
Many photos show body armor, riot shields, and staffs.
Photos show Members of Congress escorted to safety in CBRN hoods (protection against chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear air pollution).
The C-SPAN live feed was cut off for the safety of Congress & the staff at the Capitol. You can watch the moment on YouTube, plus the subsequent audio only broadcast.
What's really interesting in the Capitol attack is how the terrorists ended up simply surveilling themselves, posting their videos and pictures onto their own social media with their own identifying information attached. You don't need a police state when the enemy is this stupid.
That tells me that they didn't think what they were doing was something to hide. Definitely stupid, but also probably not an attempted coup if that's the case. That is, I don't think the protestors themselves were attempting a coup.
They didn't think they had anything to hide because police organizations and state AGs helped incite the event. This is a typical characteristic of right-wing, white militants. They do not see their actions as vigilantism because they earnestly believe their actions carry the weight of law. Veterans and police officers were among the insurrectionists in the Capitol.
Since when is a shut-in an act of terrorism? As far as I'm aware these protesters at the Capitol didn't kill or attempt to kill anyone. Yes, they damaged government property. Many will face prosecution for this.
Supporters of BLM have committed far worse acts in recent years but they are not labelled as terrorists. The only people that died at this event were the protestors - one at least was unarmed and murdered by a police officer. The whole thing is on video.
Is the talking point in the US that disgruntled Americans are terrorists?! Really? Right, wrong, crazy ... however you see them. Kinda scary calling citizens terrorists, especially on a political basis.
Protestors invading government buildings is quite common in the world, but calling citizens terrorists is usually something you see in non-democratic regimes.
Seems awfully disingenuous to call this "disgruntled Americans". Surely, out of all the possible traits to point out here, being "disgruntled" isn't the defining factor.
So let's not mince words and false pretenses here. Here is a fair definition of terrorism:
"the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims"
Now, let's go through the list. Was there violence involved? Yes. Was there intimidation. Yes. Was this against civilians and politically motivated.. well yes.
Then it begs the question, is this wilful ignorance, or is there some malice involved. I suppose that is for you to know. But I find it annoying that it's so prevalent. Whichever it is.
The talking point is that the violent extremists who broke into the Capitol chanting “kill [Republican Vice President] Mike Pence”, wearing body armor, armed with guns, pipe bombs, and zip ties for taking hostages are terrorists.
Readit News
They are also presently discussing their next day-out for rednecks in the form of another insurrection and coup attempt on the 17th of January. Let's hope that this time some people will take notice because while everybody seems to be happy that this effort failed from the perspective of the perps it looks like a major victory: they took the bloody capitol with such ease that 10 minutes more planning would have had them hold house or senate members or even the VP or the speaker hostage. Or worse.
This isn't over yet.
This isn't a new phenomenon either. This has been documented [0] time and time again [1].
[0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-i...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/27/white-suprem...
ref: https://media.defense.gov/2021/Jan/08/2002562063/-1/-1/1/PLA...
[0]https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidd...
verifiable voting
I think literally anyone on this site could invent a more reliable and common-sense approach to voting.
This is all just fallout from a fallible system that has little trust.
Dead Comment
They killed hundreds of millions of people. You could be raped of tortured at any time.
It is not white supremacist. It is anyone with power.
Right now in the US, the antifa movement is as violent or more violent than anyone else. Certainly the Guardian is not an unbiased source.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-01-07/dc-riots-c...
Except that... then what? That isn't how a coup works. You can't just take hostages and then make demands about who gets to be the President. It has no effect. Official actions taken under duress are invalid. As soon as you leave the building nobody is going to honor anything you demanded.
It's easy to take a building. Just show up with greater numbers than there are cops in the area. But a building is not the government. Physical possession of the Senate floor isn't what grants the power to do anything. It's purely symbolic.
The fact is that law enforcement operates primarily through deterrence. You can install some bulletproof glass and things like that, but the main thing preventing murders and such is that if you do it then you go to jail for a long time after.
This type of performative hyperbole coming from the left is going to make this whole situation worse. What those yahoo's did was bad enough, there's zero reason to throw gasoline on the fire.
Deleted Comment
The losing side, given this unorthodox election, wanted some validation of results, as well as to legally challenge the way they were done (PA's changes).
The response was one of derision and essentially shutting out the right from discourse. No effort was made a conciliation. This had the predictable effect of galvanizing people that there was indeed fraud.
If you think that these people had no reason to be angry, you aren't paying attention. If you can understand the frustrations and lead up to the BLM movement, but don't even want to pay lip service to this, you are either a horrible person or stupid. Take your pick: evil, ignorant, or both?
Validation of the result? Beyond all the official counts and recounts? I’m confused.
Also your last paragraph was completely uncalled for.
Then the losing side didn't accept the results from the courts, and that's where it became a ridiculous circus. Also, the demands were ridiculously out of proportion. In the end, because they couldn't get their way, they tried to overthrow the legal result of the election and threatened members of Congress with serious harm.
> "No effort was made a conciliation."
They never tried. They demanded a total surrender of democracy to their demands. That is completely unacceptable. You can't compromise with something like that.
The reason these people were angry is simple: they were lied to and manipulated by media and politicians manipulating them to do their dirty work. The lived in an ecosystem of lies that kept telling them they should be angry, so they were. The lies they believed have been refuted time and time again, but they did not tolerate reason.
> "evil, ignorant, or both?"
Considering how eager they were to hurt people, they definitely check the evil box. It's hard to believe they honestly believed the lies, but it appears that some of them definitely did. But they must have been unbelievably gullible to take it this far.
I really, really hope they will finally learn that their leaders and media have constantly fed them lies; lies that they keep repeating to each other, and I hope they stop listening to them.
But there is no way to compromise with their attitude. You can't say: alright, let's have some lies and some truth. Let's have some freedom and some oppression. Some democracy and some autocracy. A movement that is so eager to hurt people our of sheer hatred should not set the political direction of a country.
This was the Beer Hall Putsch. It's good it failed, but it needs to have consequences. The US can't allow this to happen again.
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
If you can stomach it, I ask everyone to watch the full lead up to the shot. It is an absolute failure of policing. Start at 37:20 on https://banned.video/watch?id=5ff6857e00bac0328da8e888 and yes it's NSFL (shot at 39:10).
Given the importance of the building and the people inside, it absolutely needs to be protected.
Is it sad that we need to protect things that are important to us? Yes. Should we do it anyway? Yes.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/ap-fact-check-trum...
Zero resistance from the Police and only arrested the people who still refused to leave hours later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_United_States_Capitol_sho...
In the months and years to come, we must try to not forget that the government exists solely for the benefit of its constituents, not the other way around.
The ruled class, red and blue, does not want freedom from oppression, they want to be the oppressors.
It means things like “maybe we don’t need armed people to give tickets to drivers with a busted headlight” and “if we put more funds into mental health crisis teams we won’t have to send as many cops to violent incidents”.
There are full-on police abolitionists, but they’re far fewer in number.
My question is, why call it "defund the police"? The core of the idea is that, in many cases we can change our response from involving police officers to involving some other group who will hopefully be able to do a better job. The fact that this can be accomplished by reallocating funds from the police department, to avoid needing to levy taxes to raise revenue, seems like almost the least important part of the plan. Even then, "defund the police" is only the first half of "defund the police and use the additional funding to create another group that picks up some of the police's responsibilities".
My feeling is that many people view police with antipathy, so they like the slogan and concept of "defund the police" because it feels like a retaliation against the police. I strongly suspect that other ideas, some of which may be much more beneficial than changing the response, will be ignored if they can't be phrased as a tactical strike in the culture war.
Here's one list of proposals [0] for police reform, many of which seem very promising for how little cultural sway they have (delegalize police unions, abolish QI, decriminalize victimless offenses, etc.) I wonder if they have so little sway because they can't be phrased in a sufficiently incendiary manner.
(And by the way, just because there's antipathy towards the police doesn't mean the police are directly at fault. For instance, if police are made to enforce unpopular legislation like the war on drugs, that will obviously make people dislike them but the root problem is somewhat upstream)
[0]: https://medium.com/@yudkowsky/a-comprehensive-reboot-of-law-...
Now, many of the same champions of this cause are taking on the role of the police themselves. Across Reddit, Twitter, and elsewhere, people are creating open source documents with the names of anyone they believe was at the riot.
Most troubling of all, I am seeing many people openly advocating the police should have shot more protesters or brutalized them in some manner.
This seems highly contrary to the goals of the movement.
There are endless videos of normal cops being executed by unhinged drivers who were pulled over for things like "a busted headlight." You don't know who you're dealing with, how close to the edge some people are, or if they are dangerous felons, when you pull them over. If those situations were a very real possibility in your daily job, would you perform that job unarmed? I wouldn't. Maybe some very brave mental health professionals would, for a time, until some of them are killed as well, as indiscriminately as the police, which is inevitable.
What then? Stop pulling people over altogether, because it's not worth risking anybody's life further? Just let people speed and drive drunk, or drive with an unsafe vehicle?
When I get this far in discussions with people, it eventually comes down to "well dangerous people shouldn't have guns." It's a nice thought, naive in my opinion, but regardless, how do we deal with the reality of right now until those ideals manifest in reality? The reality is that dangerous people make regular traffic stops too dangerous for normal people to behave in any other way that to exercise extreme caution.
For my account, I’m in favor of arresting and charging everyone acting criminally lawlessly, whether wearing a Viking helmet, a MAGA hat, or a BLM shirt.
I want the public to be free from the oppression caused by lawless rioting.
Also, a violent insurrection literally storming and occupying the seat of the U.S. government, with the goal of changing the incoming government, is very different from what happened this summer.
What happened this summer included a large number of violent riots, but they targeted mainly state and local governments and private property, and without the goal of regime change.
Both are very bad, but open insurrection against the sitting U.S. government is far worse.
I was glad the police, in this case, showed the restraint to not engage in violence due to an unruly crowd who seemed to pose no threat to their lives. They showed how it could be done, although due to planning failures, they were BADLY under-staffed, and it got perilously close to the VP and other leaders. Deadly force was only employed as a last resort.
And I fully support snitching on violent criminals.
There are many consistent positions a large number of people hold. Trying to make this an "us versus them" by proclaiming in your comment that the entirety of "red vs blue" are only out for their own interests is only feeding into a narrative of complete polarization where there is actually a ton of common ground.
> And I fully support snitching on violent criminals
And when the criminals have all been removed, the police will give back their power? Or will they create more? They don’t need your help to arrest anyone, they do need your help to not question their methods.
As for 20th century Europe, we are already there when armed terrorists invade the Capitol in an attempt to, as they themselves said, overthrow the government.
"Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police" by Mariame Kaba. New York Times, 2020-06-12, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
Granted, a lot of that got walked back later, but it did happen. I live close enough to the CHOP that you can't really make me believe there wasn't an huge, loud, violent movement that unambiguously wanted to get rid of cops, period.
As far as serious people (true Scotsmen) go, I guess you're defining them as rational, learned experts. But I would urge you to at least pay attention to what crazed maniacs think too, since it turns out they can do some damage if you ignore them long enough.
[1] https://nypost.com/2020/06/26/minneapolis-city-council-appro...
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I don't think any serious person is saying that "no serious person was saying we should abolish the police."
Abolitionism has been a strong movement, close to the core of American values of liberty, since the beginning of professional police and the Charleston Watch, before the civil war.
I am a serious person. And I do not believe that the institution of the police is the best way for a nation whose laws are based on the commonlaw tradition to establish justice or promote safety. Especially in 2020, when there are cameras everywhere and the capacity to report emergencies at lightspeed, I think that continuing to fund and empower this particular experiment is irresponsible.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
I have to admit I find it pretty disheartening that mainstream liberals are for the most part just as unwilling to take a critical look at the most extreme, “all cops are bad”, toppling statues of Abraham Lincoln and burning down police stations subset of the left or even acknowledge that it exists, as the mainstream republicans have been of condemning the trumpism/q-anon alt right.
On Tuesday night, a cop killed a man in Modesto - it was the 4th person killed by the same cop [1]. As you say, their are serious questions to ask about the police force and militarization. However, the racist/right wing thing is far too reductionary and fails to capture lack of proper training, lack of proper post-shooting responses, etc.
1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/ActualPublicFreakouts/comments/krng...
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IIRC, there have been big scandals about that in Germany recently. The neonazis have been infiltrating the military there, too, to the point where they had to disband an entire special forces unit, because it was too far gone to be cleaned up.
Honestly, the liberal fixation on gun control seems a really short sighted to me, given that kind of infiltration and the general right-leaning nature of law enforcement and the military [1]. It seems far more likely to me that liberals (and minorities) would someday need to rise up against an oppressive government than conservatives would be, even though conservatives like to fantasize about that kind of thing more.
[1] Proven very clearly by the events in Kenosha: police shot an unarmed black man in the back, but didn't even stop an armed white kid who just shot three people.
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The reality is that there are some groupings of people with contradictory beliefs, but more realistically, each individual has a belief of each issue somewhere on a spectrum. Polarization has further grouped issues together, and attributed each stance as one side or the other, but this is not a useful way to explore issues or try to find the right balance or compromise for individual issues.
You might be left-wing and also support a demilitarization of law enforcement, especially when you look at uneven responses to protests[0], but political affiliation is not nearly as consistent as that just based on race alone[1], despite the greater risk of lethal force being applied when you have black skin[2].
And if you are right-wing and support overrunning the Capitol and disrupting the election process, you believe what was done was right and a fight against a corrupt and oppressive government. But wherever you fall on the political spectrum, if you believe that the individuals broke the law by forcefully entering the Capitol, you may find it dutiful to respond to requests from the FBI to aide in identifying those individuals (particularly if you believe this behavior attacks an important component of elected representative democracy.)
What keeps surprising me, though, is the failure to see President Donald Trump as an oppressor. He labels roughly half of his own citizens as enemies, discredits alternative sources of information (basically anyone that disagrees with him); accepting that behavior is a dangerous way to choose your political leaders. You should strive to unite the citizens, and your government should not be the strongest, loudest voice you listen to, because you need checks and balances against government controlled information.
[0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-respo...
[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-two-party-syste...
[2] https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...
> The finding of elevated risk for Black victims in the Mental Health Crisis group suggests two worrisome features of police killings: First, training protocols focused solely on mental health may need to be redesigned to incorporate issues of greater perceptions of threat among Black civilians. Second, race may be more salient than other factors in the decision to use lethal force on a suspect across circumstances. This is particularly worrisome given the additional details of flight and threat in killings with less substantial bases for reasonableness. In other words, race appears to distinguish these killings even after taking into account the additional factors that might justify an officer’s use of lethal force. Police killings, then, are neither race-neutral nor linked to specific features of the incident.
Uhhh, is that actually happening?
I think I have my finger pretty firmly on the pulse of one center of today's abolitionist movement, in Portland (where I was in the streets getting gassed many times this summer), and I don't know of anybody who holds the contradictory viewpoint you're describing.
I don't think most abolitionists care enough about the Capitol in the first place to get enraged about this.
And someone needs to have a deep inquiry into what happened with calling in reinforcements.
Pictures or video would be appreciated.
Early live video showed people who looked like tourists. Things escalated dramatically.
Zip cuff guy appears to have a gun on his hip in addition to the body armor & zip ties for taking hostages. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/zip-cuffs-capitol-riots/
We’re now learning of pipe bombs. https://www.businessinsider.com/pipe-bomb-reportedly-found-a...
The killed police officer was attacked with a fire extinguisher, so things other than guns can be used as weapons.
Many photos show body armor, riot shields, and staffs.
Photos show Members of Congress escorted to safety in CBRN hoods (protection against chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear air pollution).
The C-SPAN live feed was cut off for the safety of Congress & the staff at the Capitol. You can watch the moment on YouTube, plus the subsequent audio only broadcast.
What do you think? Is that helpful?
That's honestly surprising, given how heavily armed protests have typically been this year, as well as the mass media description of the event
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One was a guy who had two 9mm handguns. No mention of what led to the arrest, but it seems to be a stop and frisk type of encounter.
The other is the guy who allegedly had a wagon of molotov's, and was also carrying some type of firearm.
Neither seem to be incidents of the people being in the act of using the weapons. Although if the guy had actual molotovs, yeah that's not good.
I won't link because it contains very graphic videos of the death of one of the participant.
This would be an uprising; it's being called a "coup" because uprising sounds sympathetic.
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Supporters of BLM have committed far worse acts in recent years but they are not labelled as terrorists. The only people that died at this event were the protestors - one at least was unarmed and murdered by a police officer. The whole thing is on video.
Protestors invading government buildings is quite common in the world, but calling citizens terrorists is usually something you see in non-democratic regimes.
So let's not mince words and false pretenses here. Here is a fair definition of terrorism:
"the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims"
Now, let's go through the list. Was there violence involved? Yes. Was there intimidation. Yes. Was this against civilians and politically motivated.. well yes.
Then it begs the question, is this wilful ignorance, or is there some malice involved. I suppose that is for you to know. But I find it annoying that it's so prevalent. Whichever it is.
Historically, most terrorists, most places in the world, are citizens of the countries they're doing the terrorism in.
> especially on a political basis
Terrorism is essentially always politically motivated.
> but calling citizens terrorists is usually something you see in non-democratic regimes
Eh? No it isn't. Here's a list for Germany, for instance; most are domestic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Germany#List_of_s...
The talking point is that the violent extremists who broke into the Capitol chanting “kill [Republican Vice President] Mike Pence”, wearing body armor, armed with guns, pipe bombs, and zip ties for taking hostages are terrorists.
Do you disagree?
Regardless I'd agree that the Jan. 6 protestors weren't trying to incite terror so much as stop a process they've been convinced was flawed.
Hopefully with a change of government the US political culture can mellow and maybe even reconcile a bit.