7 ms·

This is a tough issue for a government. We do have crazies out there and we do need to investigate potential dangerous groups and individuals and reel them in b

by oblib 5y ago

This is a tough issue for a government. We do have crazies out there and we do need to investigate potential dangerous groups and individuals and reel them in before they do something crazy. On my FB feed I have seen friends and friends of friends call for armed revolt many times over the past few years. Most all of them are blowing steam and many are in their 60s or older and couldn't run a block in gym shorts, and much less if they were carrying any kind of real military gear, but they like to think they can. We all grew up with "Rambo" movies. But some of those who's comments I've seen I don't know at all. The ordeal at our Capital proves there's a problem that needs to be monitored. Most of those who went there were not armed or dangerous, but there were enough kooks to cause some real damage and lives were lost. And last year we had the guy who blew himself and his motorhome up on a Downtown street. If we had another "Timothy McVeigh" event people would be howling, and if we had several they'd be freaking out and demanding something be done. We all have good reason to be wary of "Big Brother" type surveillance but we also have to acknowledge that we have a problem with people getting crazy and shooting into crowds and blowing things up. There's not always a good solution to a shitty situation.

TheBlight 5y ago
FWIW, the protestors at the capitol didn't kill anyone.
- throwaway99x99 5y ago
  Why was this downvoted? It's completely factual. Officer Sicknick passed away from natural causes (the narrative that his head was bashed in with a fire extinguisher evaporated a couple of days ago[0]). Two of the protesters had heart attacks and one apparently had a meth overdose. The only person who was killed was shot by police. If you have evidence to the contrary, please cite it. 0. https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/20/update-capitol-police-officer-sicknick-died-natura/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/20/update-capito...
  - seriousquestion 5y ago
    Most people may not have heard, or don't want to hear, that the narrative collapsed.
- slaymaker1907 5y ago
  This is a dumb argument because they were at least trying to IMPLEMENT A COUP. It seems pretty clear to me that they would have assaulted and killed representatives if they would have gotten the chance which they very nearly did. Also, don't call them "protestors". The nicest term I can think of for them would be rebels since they were in open rebellion to the United States. Some people at the capital that day were protestors, but the people who stormed the capital went far beyond protest.
  - TheBlight 5y ago
    Funny "coup" where none of the plotters were armed.
    - guerrilla 5y ago
      Does incompetence and failure bear on intent? I don't think that usually flies in court.
      - TheBlight 5y ago
        Is it remotely plausible to believe a group of unarmed protestors were seriously attempting to gain control over the most powerful superpower the world has ever seen with their barehands? This narrative strains credulity, counselor.
        guerrilla 5y ago
        That does seem to be the intent they announced.
        unishark 5y ago
        It's plausible that it's what some people were personally thinking (or a better word might be "LARPing"). But for the reasons you point out, it's not realistic to suggest that the loftiness of the goal implies the danger was historically-serious, or requiring some kind of revolutionary increase of law enforcement (beyond handling protests at the capital more wisely next time).
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  As far as I know, the only person that actually killed anyone was the Secret Service agent that shot Ashley Babbit.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  They probably would have if they got their hands on people and they also beat several cops which could have potentially killed them. They were definitely out to hurt people and take over Congress.
  - concordDance 5y ago
    > They probably would have if they got their hands on people You cannot know this. You should be suspicious of thoughts that say your Outgroup is worse than what you have concrete evidence for. Confirmation bias is a hell of a thing.
- getlawgdon 5y ago
  Person you're replying to didn't say that the protesters killed anyone directly.They said "lives were lost." But it is obviously highly probable that those death occurred due to their activities.
frabbit 5y ago
The ordeal at our Capital proves there's a problem that needs to be monitored. They were monitored. To the extent that the lead of the Proud Boys was actually supplying intel to the feds and the Status Coup youtube channel (which I think was taken off line for some Kafkaesque reason) was recording various pro-Trump people in public calling for such actions. More monitoring is not needed. Monitoring did nothing to stop the 9-11 Saudi allies from carrying out their mission. The only thing monitoring does is to make people fear to express their thoughts online in case they get into trouble.
015a 5y ago
It doesn't need to be monitored. It needs to be deescalated. The left wants to believe its blameless, but there's a massive portion of America that, per their believe foundation, disagrees with the policies they are putting in place. We live in a Democracy; the only "right" way forward is the one we all agree with, and we can't agree on anything right now. I don't know how to deescalate it, but its beginning to feel like the most sensible solution is transferring significantly more resources and power to the States (which is precisely how our country was founded). Many states do, internally, have division, but broadly speaking California would be happier to run itself more independently of Donald Trump, as much as Mississippi would be happier to run itself more independently of Joe Biden. It doesn't feel like this is optional; some amount of fractionalization will happen, possibly in four years, possibly in fifty, but it is inevitable. The choice in front of us is to either, ease ourselves into it using the democratic framework we have in place by significantly reducing the power of the executive branch and transferring more tax-originating resources from the federal to state & country levels, or; some form of civil war. And, I beg you, don't form this idea of "civil war" in your mind to resemble the first one; it won't. For all the ugliness of our first Civil War, our second will be far uglier. One possibility may take the form of a second Trump-like presidency destroying the Federal faith of left-leaning states, causing the west coast to secede. Another; domestic terrorism, cyber warfare, untraceable and unstoppable flash attacks on critical infrastructure such as electricity and water, splinter military groups. As left-leaning as I may be, we can't come out of the Trump presidency and Biden election thinking all of this is over. We can't ban Parler from AWS then wash our hands clean and say its a job well done. This rage is real, its everywhere, and there are four hundred million guns owned by civilians in America [1]. Gun control? A fairy tale. Suppression of dissenting speech? Someone didn't read 1984, or the Constitution. The only solution is to fractionalize; if people feel anger at the President, the solution isn't to install a new President, it's to make the position of the President one that isn't worthy of Anger. The scariest part about our future as a country lies in the reality that this will never happen. We are driving full speed toward a civil war, or worse, and the immutable system we've built won't allow us to do what is necessary to avoid it. [1] https://wamu.org/story/20/09/18/how-many-people-in-the-u-s-own-guns/ https://wamu.org/story/20/09/18/how-many-people-in-the-u-s-o...
- rocqua 5y ago
colllectorof 5y ago
>The ordeal at our Capital proves there's a problem that needs to be monitored. Unlike, say, nightly riots in Portland, that require neither monitoring nor federal response of any kind? It would be one thing if posts like the one above honestly argued for some necessary level of general surveillance in good faith. It's entirely different story, however, when they sneakily imply a certain set of hyper-partisan assumptions. If you can't demonstrate to me that surveillance of social media is politically neutral and aims at preventing harm, rather than suppressing speech through harassment, I'd rather have no surveillance of that kind at all. Edit: It's bizarre that despite all these "concerns" about social media there is no investigation (that I know of) into the origins of the whole QAnon degeneracy.
betwixthewires 5y ago
Out of curiosity. Why do you think that people disliking and even hating their government is necessarily a bad thing? Or is it only expressing that feeling that you have a problem with?
- oblib 5y ago
  I think it's obviously a bad thing when they express their hate by murdering random and innocent victims. When and wherever that line is crossed it is a bad thing. There are no exceptions to that.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    Alright, so to take the most obvious example, and one that might not be adjacent to the one we are talking about but is still useful, the rebellion of the 13 colonies in the late 1700s included people being killed. Not just military. Regular people died. Was that rebellion wrong? Also bear in mind that nobody was killed by anyone at the capital except for a participant, by a police officer. Also, you didn't answer either of my questions.
    - oblib 5y ago
      "Also, you didn't answer either of my questions." I didn't answer your questions because they are bullshit questions. !. "Out of curiosity. Why do you think that people disliking and even hating their government is necessarily a bad thing? I didn't even come close to saying or implying that. 2. "Or is it only expressing that feeling that you have a problem with?" I didn't even come close to saying or implying that either.

by oblib 5y ago

TheBlight 5y ago

FWIW, the protestors at the capitol didn't kill anyone.

throwaway99x99 5y ago
Why was this downvoted? It's completely factual. Officer Sicknick passed away from natural causes (the narrative that his head was bashed in with a fire extinguisher evaporated a couple of days ago[0]). Two of the protesters had heart attacks and one apparently had a meth overdose. The only person who was killed was shot by police. If you have evidence to the contrary, please cite it. 0. https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/20/update-capitol-police-officer-sicknick-died-natura/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/20/update-capito...
- seriousquestion 5y ago
  Most people may not have heard, or don't want to hear, that the narrative collapsed.
slaymaker1907 5y ago
This is a dumb argument because they were at least trying to IMPLEMENT A COUP. It seems pretty clear to me that they would have assaulted and killed representatives if they would have gotten the chance which they very nearly did. Also, don't call them "protestors". The nicest term I can think of for them would be rebels since they were in open rebellion to the United States. Some people at the capital that day were protestors, but the people who stormed the capital went far beyond protest.
- TheBlight 5y ago
  Funny "coup" where none of the plotters were armed.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    Does incompetence and failure bear on intent? I don't think that usually flies in court.
    - TheBlight 5y ago
      Is it remotely plausible to believe a group of unarmed protestors were seriously attempting to gain control over the most powerful superpower the world has ever seen with their barehands? This narrative strains credulity, counselor.
      - guerrilla 5y ago
        That does seem to be the intent they announced.
      - unishark 5y ago
        It's plausible that it's what some people were personally thinking (or a better word might be "LARPing"). But for the reasons you point out, it's not realistic to suggest that the loftiness of the goal implies the danger was historically-serious, or requiring some kind of revolutionary increase of law enforcement (beyond handling protests at the capital more wisely next time).
rubyist5eva 5y ago
As far as I know, the only person that actually killed anyone was the Secret Service agent that shot Ashley Babbit.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
They probably would have if they got their hands on people and they also beat several cops which could have potentially killed them. They were definitely out to hurt people and take over Congress.
- concordDance 5y ago
  > They probably would have if they got their hands on people You cannot know this. You should be suspicious of thoughts that say your Outgroup is worse than what you have concrete evidence for. Confirmation bias is a hell of a thing.
getlawgdon 5y ago
Person you're replying to didn't say that the protesters killed anyone directly.They said "lives were lost." But it is obviously highly probable that those death occurred due to their activities.

frabbit 5y ago

The ordeal at our Capital proves there's a problem that needs to be monitored. They were monitored. To the extent that the lead of the Proud Boys was actually supplying intel to the feds and the Status Coup youtube channel (which I think was taken off line for some Kafkaesque reason) was recording various pro-Trump people in public calling for such actions. More monitoring is not needed. Monitoring did nothing to stop the 9-11 Saudi allies from carrying out their mission. The only thing monitoring does is to make people fear to express their thoughts online in case they get into trouble.

015a 5y ago

It doesn't need to be monitored. It needs to be deescalated. The left wants to believe its blameless, but there's a massive portion of America that, per their believe foundation, disagrees with the policies they are putting in place. We live in a Democracy; the only "right" way forward is the one we all agree with, and we can't agree on anything right now. I don't know how to deescalate it, but its beginning to feel like the most sensible solution is transferring significantly more resources and power to the States (which is precisely how our country was founded). Many states do, internally, have division, but broadly speaking California would be happier to run itself more independently of Donald Trump, as much as Mississippi would be happier to run itself more independently of Joe Biden. It doesn't feel like this is optional; some amount of fractionalization will happen, possibly in four years, possibly in fifty, but it is inevitable. The choice in front of us is to either, ease ourselves into it using the democratic framework we have in place by significantly reducing the power of the executive branch and transferring more tax-originating resources from the federal to state & country levels, or; some form of civil war. And, I beg you, don't form this idea of "civil war" in your mind to resemble the first one; it won't. For all the ugliness of our first Civil War, our second will be far uglier. One possibility may take the form of a second Trump-like presidency destroying the Federal faith of left-leaning states, causing the west coast to secede. Another; domestic terrorism, cyber warfare, untraceable and unstoppable flash attacks on critical infrastructure such as electricity and water, splinter military groups. As left-leaning as I may be, we can't come out of the Trump presidency and Biden election thinking all of this is over. We can't ban Parler from AWS then wash our hands clean and say its a job well done. This rage is real, its everywhere, and there are four hundred million guns owned by civilians in America [1]. Gun control? A fairy tale. Suppression of dissenting speech? Someone didn't read 1984, or the Constitution. The only solution is to fractionalize; if people feel anger at the President, the solution isn't to install a new President, it's to make the position of the President one that isn't worthy of Anger. The scariest part about our future as a country lies in the reality that this will never happen. We are driving full speed toward a civil war, or worse, and the immutable system we've built won't allow us to do what is necessary to avoid it. [1] https://wamu.org/story/20/09/18/how-many-people-in-the-u-s-own-guns/ https://wamu.org/story/20/09/18/how-many-people-in-the-u-s-o...

rocqua 5y ago

colllectorof 5y ago

>The ordeal at our Capital proves there's a problem that needs to be monitored. Unlike, say, nightly riots in Portland, that require neither monitoring nor federal response of any kind? It would be one thing if posts like the one above honestly argued for some necessary level of general surveillance in good faith. It's entirely different story, however, when they sneakily imply a certain set of hyper-partisan assumptions. If you can't demonstrate to me that surveillance of social media is politically neutral and aims at preventing harm, rather than suppressing speech through harassment, I'd rather have no surveillance of that kind at all. Edit: It's bizarre that despite all these "concerns" about social media there is no investigation (that I know of) into the origins of the whole QAnon degeneracy.

betwixthewires 5y ago

Out of curiosity. Why do you think that people disliking and even hating their government is necessarily a bad thing? Or is it only expressing that feeling that you have a problem with?

oblib 5y ago
I think it's obviously a bad thing when they express their hate by murdering random and innocent victims. When and wherever that line is crossed it is a bad thing. There are no exceptions to that.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  Alright, so to take the most obvious example, and one that might not be adjacent to the one we are talking about but is still useful, the rebellion of the 13 colonies in the late 1700s included people being killed. Not just military. Regular people died. Was that rebellion wrong? Also bear in mind that nobody was killed by anyone at the capital except for a participant, by a police officer. Also, you didn't answer either of my questions.
  - oblib 5y ago
    "Also, you didn't answer either of my questions." I didn't answer your questions because they are bullshit questions. !. "Out of curiosity. Why do you think that people disliking and even hating their government is necessarily a bad thing? I didn't even come close to saying or implying that. 2. "Or is it only expressing that feeling that you have a problem with?" I didn't even come close to saying or implying that either.