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How is this different than the very large and often violent protests that have been taking place around the country in major cities, often in front of legislati
by yters 6y ago
How is this different than the very large and often violent protests that have been taking place around the country in major cities, often in front of legislative areas, yet law enforcement has by and large allowed the property damage and violence to proceed without intervention, precisrly because they do not want to escalate tensions? None of it is good, but we should be consistent in requesting law enforcement to draw down every such violent mob, not just the partisan favorite.
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoIn what cities was there no intervention? There was sure plenty of intervention in Portland, even against journalists.
- Karunamon 6y agoIf I recall correctly, protestors were allowed to take over multiple city blocks for weeks.
- yters 6y agoRight, if invading the nation's capital building for a few hours is considered insurrection, then much more so is taking over the part of Portland around the mayor's office, along with property destruction and violence towards other citizens. If we want to get technical, the latter is most definitely the sort of insurrection that would allow lawful military intervention by the president.
- solveit 6y agoThe problem is that law enforcement is incompetent. They are provocative against the peaceful and ineffective against the violent. Pretty much the worst of both worlds.
- InitialLastName 6y agoI think there's an argument to be made that the response at the Capitol was what you want from a police force. The Capitol Police have a dual role as bodyguards (for legislators, their staff, other employees of the legislative branch, and the journalists and media covering them) and as security guards (for the buildings of the Capitol complex). Given that as far as I can tell none of the people who were there to do the business of operating the US government were injured, and that almost all were successfully evacuated, it seems they did that first (and more important) job excessively well. The second job is more difficult to do effectively (with the potential that some of the protesters were armed, any armed response could have escalated into an actual battle), and was almost certainly compromised by the absence of the personnel needed to evacuate and secure the legitimate occupants of the complex (I don't see any numbers at a quick glance, but almost certainly thousands of people on what was a normal workday until 2:30PM). Not to mention the inexplicable absence of last summer's no-badge secret police in guarding this protest, and an unwillingness of the executive branch to provide requested national guard allocations to support the Capitol Police.
- tsimionescu 6y agoI did not say that the police should have quashed the protest or attacked it violently. That does not mean that they should have ever allowed protesters to attack the Capitol building while Congress was in session. It's also important that the BLM protests were not about wanting to overturn the results of the election and install their preferred candidates. The cause that is at least proclaimed by a protest movement matters, it is not just a detail when considering a valid response to it. And even so, any police officers who fought BLM protesters to keep them from attacking democratic institutions, especially those in session, were fully justified.
- yters 6y agoNeither did I. In both cases the police should have shutdown the protests once things reached a certain point, regardless of cause.