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> They "can" drone your home right now if they wanted to. It would be hard to imagine the Government getting away with bombing downtown San Francisco without a

by pm90 6y ago

> They "can" drone your home right now if they wanted to. It would be hard to imagine the Government getting away with bombing downtown San Francisco without any consequences. Please make better arguments. You seem to be making deliberate bad faith arguments and nobody benefits from engaging in that kind of discourse.

daenz 6y ago
>It would be hard to imagine the Government getting away with bombing downtown San Francisco without any consequences. I didn't say "downtown San Francisco", I said "your home." How would you prove that blew up your home? If you can't prove it, then they got away with it. My point is that when we open up the definition of "can" in this headline to mean "things the government can do and get away with", then it becomes meaningless if it's not bounded by the legality of those things. There are a boundless number of things, including assassinations, framings, etc etc, that the government "can" do and get away with. So the only definition of "can" worth discussing, since the headline is intentionally vague about what "can" means, is whether or not it is legal to do the things described.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> It would be hard to imagine the Government getting away with bombing downtown San Francisco without any consequences. No one ever faced any consequences for the MOVE bombing, and it wasn't even a secret that the (local) government did it.
- staybailey 6y ago
  Wikipedia disagrees. Example: "In 1996, a federal jury ordered the city to pay a $1.5 million civil suit judgment to survivor Ramona Africa and relatives of two people killed in the bombing." The police commissioner was also forced to resign.
selectodude 6y ago
If the US Federal Government decided to bomb San Francisco, I'm not sure who exactly would be able to render the consequences. Parent is right, the law is abstract. Violence is absolute. If the largest dispenser of violence in human history decides to bomb San Francisco, they're going to do it, and it will be legal.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  > If the US Federal Government decided to bomb San Francisco, I'm not sure who exactly would be able to render the consequences. true, but only vacuously so. the "US Federal Government" is not some monolithic entity with a single will. it is made up of many organizations, factions, and individuals with their own motivations. if a military official ordered the bombing of san francisco, their subordinates may simply disobey them. if the orders were actually carried out, there would likely be other parts of the government that would find it politically expedient to hold those responsible to account. they may or may not be able to direct the use of force to do so. the government can only take extreme actions when some level of internal consensus (or at least apathy) exists, as in the case of the MOVE bombing.

by pm90 6y ago

daenz 6y ago

>It would be hard to imagine the Government getting away with bombing downtown San Francisco without any consequences. I didn't say "downtown San Francisco", I said "your home." How would you prove that blew up your home? If you can't prove it, then they got away with it. My point is that when we open up the definition of "can" in this headline to mean "things the government can do and get away with", then it becomes meaningless if it's not bounded by the legality of those things. There are a boundless number of things, including assassinations, framings, etc etc, that the government "can" do and get away with. So the only definition of "can" worth discussing, since the headline is intentionally vague about what "can" means, is whether or not it is legal to do the things described.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> It would be hard to imagine the Government getting away with bombing downtown San Francisco without any consequences. No one ever faced any consequences for the MOVE bombing, and it wasn't even a secret that the (local) government did it.

staybailey 6y ago
Wikipedia disagrees. Example: "In 1996, a federal jury ordered the city to pay a $1.5 million civil suit judgment to survivor Ramona Africa and relatives of two people killed in the bombing." The police commissioner was also forced to resign.

selectodude 6y ago

If the US Federal Government decided to bomb San Francisco, I'm not sure who exactly would be able to render the consequences. Parent is right, the law is abstract. Violence is absolute. If the largest dispenser of violence in human history decides to bomb San Francisco, they're going to do it, and it will be legal.

leetcrew 6y ago
> If the US Federal Government decided to bomb San Francisco, I'm not sure who exactly would be able to render the consequences. true, but only vacuously so. the "US Federal Government" is not some monolithic entity with a single will. it is made up of many organizations, factions, and individuals with their own motivations. if a military official ordered the bombing of san francisco, their subordinates may simply disobey them. if the orders were actually carried out, there would likely be other parts of the government that would find it politically expedient to hold those responsible to account. they may or may not be able to direct the use of force to do so. the government can only take extreme actions when some level of internal consensus (or at least apathy) exists, as in the case of the MOVE bombing.