While I completely agree in principle, these threads get very very heated so I can kinda see why HN/dang/our reptilian overlords are trying to keep them from becoming a majority of the site (which they easily could be, absent the flagging of these stories).
Also, I totally understand pruning back discussion that is political, and way off the topic of the actual post/story. People should reasonably be able to read and discuss a non-political story without big political discussion springing up.
Yeah, I don't know where you draw the line. Like, I personally have often gotten a lot of value from HN political threads, but they have been getting worse and worse since about 2016 (I wonder what happened then?) so I can see why other people might just be sick of dealing with the noise.
Current ICE/Homeland Security actions are unambiguously illegal.
The problem is that without an independent congress the US system is able to descend into authoritarianism. The court has (reasonably) decided that on many broad issues regarding presidential actions and abuse of authority only congress (via impeachment and removal) is able to constrain the president.
The current congressional majority has, for now, decided to allow the president to do almost anything he wants, regardless of the law and constitution.
> Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
> That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.
Many people have been pointing at Waco for years. Even Janet Reno later admitted regretting that episode, and yet you do not hear the left in the US saying at all that this was a problem - in fact it is stereotypical far right recruitment material.
This is why it is clear the problem with ICE is not their mode of enforcement, which is far less egregious than the Waco situation, but the fact they are remotely effective.
From "a problem" to "rallying cry" is a pretty neat goalpost move.
Leftists have long warned that expansions of government power (in general) and police militarization (specifically) are most likely to be eventually used against leftists.
Modern leftists are definitionally promoting expansion of government power - it is a core consequence of their beliefs.
The late Murray Bookchin was the exception that proves the rule, and he was hardly popular or widely known, and made some astonishingly prescient interviews before he died about the direction it was all headed in.
Obvious examples: health care, education, social benefits provision, public transit, arms control. All involve expansions of the state bureaucracy and decision making power.
This is tangential to whether those things are good/bad in and of themselves.
The reason Bookchin was interesting, and why he was isolated even from Sanders, was he accurately saw any hierarchy as oppressive, whether class, capitalistic, cooperative, or even a temporarily well meaning state bureaucracy. It also says something that such a person didn’t manage to create a sustainable movement.
The classic right wing policy which confused everyone was “the negative income tax” that Milton Friedman was so keen on, yet it is UBI by another name. Aside from advantages compared to a minimum wage the important point is by being universal you remove the scope for bureaucratic decision making, so they went to enormous lengths to ensure it never happened.
> Obvious examples: health care, education, social benefits provision, public transit, arms control. All involve expansions of the state bureaucracy and decision making power.
So what you have established is that the left and right both want to expand government power, but the left wants to use it to improve the general welfare while the right wants to use it to crush their fellow citizens. Thank you for the clarification.
I generally lean left, and favor a large welfare state, reasonable regulation, etc. and I find your statement unfair.
People can reasonably disagree on these things.
In particular, the role of the federal government (vs the states) is important. Many of the benefit programs have no real need to be national, other than the ability of the federal government to borrow an unlimited amount of money. And many regulations are only federal because that was seen as easier and faster than gaining support in each state for them. Forcing a nation wide policy on an issue that could easily be dealt with by each state because you know you can't get the support is not very democratic.
I'm not sure why the down votes, I'm not being glib.
Go read the work of historians who study this. The transitions in Russia, Hungary, etc are well documented. There is a pretty solid consensus understanding of the dynamics, the typical playbook, etc.
Slamming people into the ground, firing tear gas canisters into their faces, or killing them are not valid remedies for the state to take even if obstruction is happening. (even if they're being like really annoying with whistles and stuff!)
edit: even if they referred to the ICE agent as "fatty fat fat fat" meanly
As a matter of fact, arrest is the proper remedy for obstruction, which is at least a misdemeanor and sometimes a felony, and it may include those first two things, or even the third if they violently resist. And despite widely spread misinformation online, ICE has the legal authority to arrest anyone, even citizens, if they see them doing this.
There’s really no other way law enforcement could work, I don’t know what people are imagining. You don’t get to surround or block LEO from conducting business and just say “neener neener” and there’s nothing they can do. If you escalate to physical violence then you’re simply gambling with your life and there’s no other way it could be in the world we life in, except in maybe a very low crime society.
It’s one thing if you accept all this and do it anyway, but people keep acting shocked by what happens. “why did you have real bullets?”.
What if LEOs have a clear pattern of acting outside of the Constitution and lying about the circumstances around “obstruction”? Can you see a point at which it no longer makes sense to comply? I believe the founding fathers have much to say on this subject.
I think, having been arrested and had other encounters with police, I am going to be the most docile lamb in the world and talk to my lawyer later. I haven’t seen anything that’s not very typical cop behavior.
If you think revolution is the answer I don’t agree, but surely you see that risking your life is table stakes.
I think your position is reasonable in reasonable times, but variables can and do change and our responses must change with them if we hope to adapt and survive. But this is all academic at this point, even if warning signs are popping up everywhere.
"Blocking traffic" is at this point a tired trope. Any sort of disruptive action is described as "blocking traffic", which is somehow framed as a form of violence. (My favorite version is when people argue that it is a form of unlawful detention akin to kidnapping.)
This would be more accurately framed as "parking illegally", which is the sort of thing for which you occasionally get a ticket placed under your windshield wiper, not the sort of thing for which armed, masked agents violently arrest you.
Purposely moving your car in front of law enforcement officers' cars to prevent them from arresting a suspect is in fact obstruction.
This is not "violence", but you will be arrested if you do this. If you resist arrest, you will be forcefully arrested/apprehended.
If you then attempt potentially life-threatening physical harm to the officer you will likely be met with deadly force.
There are two different things at play, and it's important to be clear about them:
- Legal protest. Standing out of the way, yelling, singing, signs, etc. 100% protected, only subject to reasonable crowd control (by the local LEA), eg to move people off the roadway.
- Civil disobedience. Intentional non-violent violations of the law. Intended to slow/disrupt government activity. You are breaking the law to make a point, and should be willing to accept the consequences. The violations are almost always minor, with at most a week or two in jail and a fine. Law enforcement has a legal obligation to apply proportionally in the enforcement, if they are non-violent then little or no force is acceptable in detaining or citing the protestors.
>If you resist arrest, you will be forcefully arrested/apprehended. If you then attempt potentially life-threatening physical harm to the officer you will likely be met with deadly force.
Translation: you'll be summarily executed if the officer vaguely feels "threatened"
You can call it whatever you like, it's going to happen, and you know it will. You have the choice to not throw your life away by fucking with ICE and trying to aggravate and harass them on purpose, and to not become a clickbait internet video of someone getting shot for being stupid.
All of this conveniently ignores the question of whether the ICE agent's act was legal or ethical, and is bordering on victim blaming. And the record, I am against the women's behavior. I just think the ICE agent's response was totally disproportionate, and that we shouldn't be killing people for such activities. I'm also against stealing, but that doesn't mean I'm going to cheer if a shoplifter gets summarily executed by a cop, or think "the shoplifter has the choice not to throw their life away by not screwing with the cops" is an acceptable excuse for the cop's behavior.
Most of those are shorts clips that do not show the context of the situation. These sorts of clips are what is causing people to believe the actions of federal agents are not justified when they actually are. When the initial clip of Renee Good came out people thought that the she did not drive into the agent but now that other angles have come out it is clear that she did hit the federal agent. It is always important to find the whole clip and not just propaganda clips
I'm not understanding your point either, so here's how I'm interpreting what you're saying, in good faith: "she was in the way, so it was worth shooting her. fullstop".
So I'm struggling to understand why you seem to be okay with shooting someone for being in the way. So please explain to me why you think "obstruction" was worth shooting her.
She wasn't shot for obstructing federal agents. The series of events are as follows:
1. She obstructed federal agents
2. She resisted arrest/detainment
3. She accelerated into a federal agent
4. She was shot
I don't think that she deserved death. It's unfortunate that you are misrepresenting my comments. I believe that she made a series of bad decisions and was solely responsible for what occurred. I understand that we are living in emotional times but arguing in bad faith does not improve the situation. We should maybe stop this discussion as it doesn't seem that we are getting anywhere. I hope that you have a good day
My mom's dad was shot and killed by police. Absolutely nobody in my family knows anything about it, but the default is "he was a bad person and deserved it" or, "he probably did something wrong." The coroner's report shows his death as a suicide, despite police shooting and killing him. This was a time before cameraphones and before I was even born, so it's impossible for me, let alone anyone else to know what happened.
A lot of how you approach this discussion reminds me of the side of my family that defaults to thinking that the police did nothing wrong, or that their actions were justified or within policy, even without knowing the full facts (or, any; it's willful ignorance out the wazoo), plus a handful of assumptions. And, just -- a person died and that's all you can muster? Callousness and an air of benevolence?
So can you. Your past experience was terrible, but that's no reason to ignore or misrepresent what others are saying.
What GP and I are both seeing in the Renee video is assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer. Lethal force is a valid response. That doesn't mean she deserves it, but that she was doing something stupid without realizing just how stupid it was. Most of these protestors are the same, they're new to this and being tricked by anti-ICE activists into thinking it's completely safe without getting all the information.
It has been well established that ICE agents are intentionally stepping in front of slow moving cars to justify a claim of self defense.
They also intentionally bump into people and then claim they are being assaulted. Their superiors have made it clear that will face no consequences for this, and they have aggressive quotas to meet.
In what world do you think it's acceptable to knee someone in the face repeatedly when they're on the ground and not resisting? You clearly didn't watch the videos at all.
Saw the video that you are referring to and it looks like the person is in fact resisting. Also I would not call that good law enforcement and don't agree with the officer doing that
Resisting? Where? Can you point to me in the 44 second clip where he is resisting? Because when the ICE agents move out of the way he's sitting there, completely still. He's so still that they lift him up entirely, with zero resistance or movement. What the fuck do you think he should do in order to not be resisting arrest, given that he's already completely still? You can see between the officers legs the only movement he's doing is when he's being kneed in the face.
It seemed like he was resisting to me because the agents were struggling to get him in handcuffs. Without a full video it is difficult to tell for sure though. The video is missing a lot of context. What happened before that video clip would make all the difference in determining whether or not he was resisting and how much force was necessary. Again I don't condone the agent kneeing the man in the head
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