5 ms·

They're (correctly) scared because they've seen how many of them would support the insurrection.

by frostburg 6y ago

babesh 6y ago
I am far more scared of you and what you would support.
- stolen_biscuit 6y ago
  Perhaps you are not in the population of people that would be put in harms way if the people who stormed the capitol were successful?
  - smsm42 6y ago
    Successful in what? Stealing Pelosi's podium? Yes, she'd have to order a new one. And a new laptop. And probably fix some windows That's terrible, but what "population of people" do you mean here, beyond folks that need to clean up that shit (and who have my wholehearted compassion, it must have sucked)?
    - DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
      > Successful in what Successful in killing/hold hostage those elected officials they deemed against their cause. This could have ended so much worse than it did. For example, what do you think would've happened if AOC or one of the other congresswomen maligned by Trump ended up in front of these maniacs? Do you think they would have stopped at stealing podiums/laptops?
      - ganoushoreilly 6y ago
        What would have happened if any of the riots this past year escalated to violence because of heavy handed actions of the "left". In fact, we know what happened, death and destruction. Why is this not viewed in the same way? It's a complete attack on our country and government, but was somehow sanctioned?
        stolen_biscuit 6y ago
        Because people rioting over centuries of racial abuse and systematic racially motivated murder at the hands of policeman is not the same thing as storming your nations capitol because you don't like the results of a free and fair election
        ganoushoreilly 6y ago
        Oh so lets scream ACAB, remove our police, allow crime to grow and that will fix things? How many of the protests / riots were started in response to a police shooting and then months later it is clearer that the use of force was justified? I was 100% onboard with reformation of policing, increasing training, and the likes. When rioters attacked small business, used strong arm tactics to establish autonomous zones in us Cities, burned down police stations, attacked innocent bystanders.. etc.. you lost my empathy. I'm 100% for equality, I'm 100% for people loving whome ever they want. You have my support. But when the demonization of anyone that doesn't 100% toe the line becomes standard you lose me and a large portion of America. Both sides are going crazy and until both sides acknowledge that, it's only going to get worse. Media and big tech taking these actions will escalate not de-escalate.
        h_anna_h 6y ago
        > because you don't like the results of a free and fair election This is what you think but they do not. They believed that they were protecting the integrity of the elections.
        vel0city 6y ago
        While I don't doubt many leftists were violent in those BLM protests, many of them were not leftists. Many were anarchists, which its hard to be both at the same time. Also, some who were actually charged by the federal DoJ were members of right-wing groups trying to ignite the race war. These aren't conspiracy theories, these are looking at the actual people charged with committing violence during these protests. https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-race-and-ethnicity-suburbs-health-racial-injustice-7edf9027af1878283f3818d96c54f748 https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-race-and-ethnicity... https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/self-described-member-boogaloo-bois-charged-riot https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/self-described-member-boo... http://stmedia.startribune.com/documents/Hunter_complaint_affidavit.pdf http://stmedia.startribune.com/documents/Hunter_complaint_af...
rayiner 6y ago
Is this new information? Something like 1/4 of all Americans support their state seceding from the union. It’s not a new sentiment.
- frostburg 6y ago
  It's not the same thing (a lot less oppression of others involved in that) and critically it's not the same grouping of people; it's like how Congress has extremely low approval rates but people often support their specific incumbent.
smsm42 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25828247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25828247 Let's say there were people who support violently overthrowing US government (I personally don't think there were many at Capitol on Jan 6, but I am willing to entertain your point and even go much further than that). In fact, we know such people existed, long before today, but let's say there are more of them. How that changes anything? There always were hundreds of millions of people who would like nothing better than US government to fall. There were many governments actually falling, including as a result of violent - or non-violent - revolutions. Most of us who are out of elementary school probably could remember several examples they witnessed (hopefully not in person, but at least via the news). Somehow it didn't cause people to say "well, if that could happen, probably free speech is stupid, we just need to let our betters on Facebook/Twitter rule us now, people are clearly too stupid to handle free speech". To be clear, I am not claiming those violent people are right or not supporting them. I am just surprised that existence of such people - which shouldn't be any news for anyone - suddenly makes somebody to give up on such core ideals as free speech, and not as a result of some civilization-shattering catastrophic event with millions of deaths but as a result of a TV picture.
- frostburg 6y ago
  Please consider how immersed in the QAnon belief system the whole thing is. The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy (broadly against their own interests) on the impetus of completely baseless hogwash. Society apparently has little defense against this sort of viral, distributed cult and people are scrambling. I'm pretty sure that ad-hoc ostracism effected by large social media companies isn't the best approach, but the cost of not doing anything is terrible.
  - smsm42 6y ago
    > The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy You mean, like set up an autonomous zone in a center of the city and kick the police out? Burn down a federal court? Destroy the police station? Take over capitol building and occupy it for several weeks? Attack an elected official's family at their own home because you don't like their policies? Yeah, that happened, but not sure how immersed in QAnon belief system (whatever it is) that was. All I know the democracy survived all that.
bilbo0s 6y ago
I think they're scared because people like the ones who stormed the capitol, would happily kill any of them without a second thought. The attackers were completely under the influence of their propaganda. The depressing thing is that while you may share some beliefs with that side of the political spectrum, these are not the kind of people who will be reasonable when they come for 'nonbelievers' in the night. That shifts the terrain considerably as far as the security situation is concerned. Even if I agree with some of the tenets of their politics. Frankly that goes for the extremists on the other side of the political spectrum as well. These extremists have just shown tendencies that are way too dangerous.
- emphatizer2000 6y ago
  "would happily kill any of them without a second thought" Bullshit
  - girvo 6y ago
    They killed a police officer, and savagely beat others. What makes you think they wouldn’t extend that to others?
    - emphatizer2000 6y ago
      May I ask where you get your information from? I am genuinely curious. I googled it, and while the exact circumstances don't seem to be clear yet, it doesn't sound like murder to me. It sounds as if most likely the officer was hurt in a brawl between rioters and police (being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher). While that is still awful, murder requires murderous intent and planning (afaik). Therefore, it seems really interesting what sources gave you the impression it was murder. On the other hand I remember a police officer being shot during BLM riots, while he tried to protect a business. So by your logic, is it reasonable to assume that BLM activists would murder their opponents without second thought? Did people throw bricks during BLM protests? That seems roughly the equivalent to throwing fire extinguishers, accepting that somebody could be severely hurt or even die.

They're (correctly) scared because they've seen how many of them would support the insurrection.

babesh 6y ago

I am far more scared of you and what you would support.

stolen_biscuit 6y ago
Perhaps you are not in the population of people that would be put in harms way if the people who stormed the capitol were successful?
- smsm42 6y ago
  Successful in what? Stealing Pelosi's podium? Yes, she'd have to order a new one. And a new laptop. And probably fix some windows That's terrible, but what "population of people" do you mean here, beyond folks that need to clean up that shit (and who have my wholehearted compassion, it must have sucked)?
  - DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
    > Successful in what Successful in killing/hold hostage those elected officials they deemed against their cause. This could have ended so much worse than it did. For example, what do you think would've happened if AOC or one of the other congresswomen maligned by Trump ended up in front of these maniacs? Do you think they would have stopped at stealing podiums/laptops?
    - ganoushoreilly 6y ago
      What would have happened if any of the riots this past year escalated to violence because of heavy handed actions of the "left". In fact, we know what happened, death and destruction. Why is this not viewed in the same way? It's a complete attack on our country and government, but was somehow sanctioned?
      - stolen_biscuit 6y ago
        Because people rioting over centuries of racial abuse and systematic racially motivated murder at the hands of policeman is not the same thing as storming your nations capitol because you don't like the results of a free and fair election
        ganoushoreilly 6y ago
        Oh so lets scream ACAB, remove our police, allow crime to grow and that will fix things? How many of the protests / riots were started in response to a police shooting and then months later it is clearer that the use of force was justified? I was 100% onboard with reformation of policing, increasing training, and the likes. When rioters attacked small business, used strong arm tactics to establish autonomous zones in us Cities, burned down police stations, attacked innocent bystanders.. etc.. you lost my empathy. I'm 100% for equality, I'm 100% for people loving whome ever they want. You have my support. But when the demonization of anyone that doesn't 100% toe the line becomes standard you lose me and a large portion of America. Both sides are going crazy and until both sides acknowledge that, it's only going to get worse. Media and big tech taking these actions will escalate not de-escalate.
        h_anna_h 6y ago
        > because you don't like the results of a free and fair election This is what you think but they do not. They believed that they were protecting the integrity of the elections.
      - vel0city 6y ago
        While I don't doubt many leftists were violent in those BLM protests, many of them were not leftists. Many were anarchists, which its hard to be both at the same time. Also, some who were actually charged by the federal DoJ were members of right-wing groups trying to ignite the race war. These aren't conspiracy theories, these are looking at the actual people charged with committing violence during these protests. https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-race-and-ethnicity-suburbs-health-racial-injustice-7edf9027af1878283f3818d96c54f748 https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-race-and-ethnicity... https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/self-described-member-boogaloo-bois-charged-riot https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/self-described-member-boo... http://stmedia.startribune.com/documents/Hunter_complaint_affidavit.pdf http://stmedia.startribune.com/documents/Hunter_complaint_af...

rayiner 6y ago

Is this new information? Something like 1/4 of all Americans support their state seceding from the union. It’s not a new sentiment.

frostburg 6y ago
It's not the same thing (a lot less oppression of others involved in that) and critically it's not the same grouping of people; it's like how Congress has extremely low approval rates but people often support their specific incumbent.

smsm42 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25828247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25828247 Let's say there were people who support violently overthrowing US government (I personally don't think there were many at Capitol on Jan 6, but I am willing to entertain your point and even go much further than that). In fact, we know such people existed, long before today, but let's say there are more of them. How that changes anything? There always were hundreds of millions of people who would like nothing better than US government to fall. There were many governments actually falling, including as a result of violent - or non-violent - revolutions. Most of us who are out of elementary school probably could remember several examples they witnessed (hopefully not in person, but at least via the news). Somehow it didn't cause people to say "well, if that could happen, probably free speech is stupid, we just need to let our betters on Facebook/Twitter rule us now, people are clearly too stupid to handle free speech". To be clear, I am not claiming those violent people are right or not supporting them. I am just surprised that existence of such people - which shouldn't be any news for anyone - suddenly makes somebody to give up on such core ideals as free speech, and not as a result of some civilization-shattering catastrophic event with millions of deaths but as a result of a TV picture.

frostburg 6y ago
Please consider how immersed in the QAnon belief system the whole thing is. The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy (broadly against their own interests) on the impetus of completely baseless hogwash. Society apparently has little defense against this sort of viral, distributed cult and people are scrambling. I'm pretty sure that ad-hoc ostracism effected by large social media companies isn't the best approach, but the cost of not doing anything is terrible.
- smsm42 6y ago
  > The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy You mean, like set up an autonomous zone in a center of the city and kick the police out? Burn down a federal court? Destroy the police station? Take over capitol building and occupy it for several weeks? Attack an elected official's family at their own home because you don't like their policies? Yeah, that happened, but not sure how immersed in QAnon belief system (whatever it is) that was. All I know the democracy survived all that.

bilbo0s 6y ago

I think they're scared because people like the ones who stormed the capitol, would happily kill any of them without a second thought. The attackers were completely under the influence of their propaganda. The depressing thing is that while you may share some beliefs with that side of the political spectrum, these are not the kind of people who will be reasonable when they come for 'nonbelievers' in the night. That shifts the terrain considerably as far as the security situation is concerned. Even if I agree with some of the tenets of their politics. Frankly that goes for the extremists on the other side of the political spectrum as well. These extremists have just shown tendencies that are way too dangerous.

emphatizer2000 6y ago
"would happily kill any of them without a second thought" Bullshit
- girvo 6y ago
  They killed a police officer, and savagely beat others. What makes you think they wouldn’t extend that to others?
  - emphatizer2000 6y ago
    May I ask where you get your information from? I am genuinely curious. I googled it, and while the exact circumstances don't seem to be clear yet, it doesn't sound like murder to me. It sounds as if most likely the officer was hurt in a brawl between rioters and police (being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher). While that is still awful, murder requires murderous intent and planning (afaik). Therefore, it seems really interesting what sources gave you the impression it was murder. On the other hand I remember a police officer being shot during BLM riots, while he tried to protect a business. So by your logic, is it reasonable to assume that BLM activists would murder their opponents without second thought? Did people throw bricks during BLM protests? That seems roughly the equivalent to throwing fire extinguishers, accepting that somebody could be severely hurt or even die.