US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2602

On September 03 2020 10:13 Danglars wrote:
Portland had a little bit of a solution for its rioters. The prior course of action was sort of a catch and release policy. Rioters that were caught doing illegal acts were arrested, and soon released without bail. Many of the same people were arrested again and again only to be released and not charged with a crime.

The first proposal from Oregon governor Kate Brown was for regional law enforcement to go to Portland to help keep this peace. This was refused, because the Portland AG's office was refusing to prosecute people that broke the law. As one sheriff said, "Increasing law enforcement resources in Portland will not solve the nightly violence and, now, murder. The only way to make Portland safe again is to support a policy that holds offenders accountable for their destruction and violence." The relevant DA had been dropping charges associated with rioting.

So Kate Brown and others were powerless to do something that Ted Wheeler and the local DA's office would not do. Then, US Marshals started cross-deputizing the state police. That means that they are able to arrest rioters or violent protesters with federal crimes, and that goes under the head of the US Attorney's Office. Those guys are pretty gung-ho for prosecuting these offenses. It's probably not the last chapter in the saga of fireworks, lasers, and shields, but I think it's going to start bringing down the organized violence.

Source

See also: Partial thread of the usual far-left suspects mug shots+ Show Spoiler +

On September 04 2020 00:43 Danglars wrote:

Particularly for the charge that there’s no such thing as Antifa and black bloc riots, or these are right wing false flag types, or they’re just peaceful protesters that got caught up in the chaos.

And they’re not just mug shots, the thread includes many of weapons, and particulars of the charges.

Since you never responded to my post, other than to dismiss it based on the last spoilered comment, put in some effort if you want me to do the same.

On September 04 2020 04:40 Mohdoo wrote:





Perhaps this is an indication that our relationship could use some communication guidance with a marriage therapist. When you posted what was structured as an informative post, but felt very slanted and dishonest, it was unclear to me that you felt felt like people disputed the existence of bad actors among the population of protesters. It seemed like nothing more than you being another victim of Ngo's misleading "evidence".

Let me take many steps back:

1. Whenever we seek to lessen the freedom of an individual, we need to examine the cost, benefit and ethics of what is happening. We don't throw old people in volcanoes despite the fact that it would be great for the economy.

2. In this instance, we are faced with a choice, whether we lessen the freedom of protesters or not. Portland has many protesters, the vast majority of which are peaceful. For me, with me and my friend's direct experience, this point is not in contention. There is no reason to continue this conversation if you are unwilling to accept the idea that the vast majority of all people participating in these Portland protests are non-violent. You've had 3 different Portland residents tell you the media is wildly misrepresenting what is happening in Portland. A large crowd of people can chant angry things, but that does not mean all those people are throwing rocks at cops.

3. When you have 8000 people protesting, and lets say 100 of them are violent, my arithmetic tells me 1.25% of a group of people are behaving poorly. We will never determine the exact number, so I am just using this as a placeholder because 100 people could easily cause the damage we are seeing. Honestly it would take a lot less.

4. It doesn't take much for someone to label a whole group a bunch of dicks. Cops have clearly been pushed to their breaking point and are just directly chasing and beating people who are not being violent. I have millions of videos I could link you showing in certain terms that someone can be 100% non-violent and still get tackled and beaten by a cop.

5. How bad should a group be before (4) becomes justified? If 5% of a group are bad actors, does it become appropriate for 30% of a group to be victims of retaliatory violence by police? This is essentially the same argument used in drone strikes. How many kids is it ok to kill so long as you kill a terrorist general?

6. How does the value of property compare to the cost of unjustly committing (1)? If someone destroys $1M of public property, is violence against that person ethical? In my eyes, when I look at these protests so far, not a single thing done in Portland justifies violence against a protester. Arrest them, but don't beat them. There is simply no reason for a cop to be punching someone on a ground.

https://gfycat.com/malesimplisticarabianhorse-police-officer-protestor-violence

In this link, you can see a large number of cops watch another cop punch a guy on the ground. To me, this shows at the very least every cop watching is a bad apple. In my eyes, this violence is not justified. The anti fascist arrests you linked do not justify punching a protester on the ground.

7. With all this in mind, when DOES it become justified to crack down on a protest? What percentage of a group needs to be bad until violence and a lessening of rights becomes justified? I am asking what % of a protest needs to be violent before the video I linked becomes ethical.

8. If you were to estimate, what % of the protesters in Portland do you think are violent? It sounds like you think it is a rather large percent. You should keep in mind that even 100 people would be a very small percent, so you could see tons of videos of people committing violence, which is easy on the internet. Keep in mind it is very easy to accidentally think a situation is way worse from seeing multiple videos.

9. Committing crimes does not mean it is thereby ethical to harm the person committing crimes. If someone throws a Molotov cocktail at a Gucci store, a cop is not justified in punching that person. In order for a police officer to live ethically, they must commit the absolute bare minimum level of violence in order to prevent harm coming to humans. The entire building could burn down and it would still mean not a single punch is justified. So long as the vast majority of protesters are behaving ethically, police violence against protesters is unethical. Arrest the violent people (and don't harm them before doing so when possible), but the non-violent protesters should never have tear gas, batons or any other form of violence used against them, no matter what.

10. Cops are currently massively lessening the rights of individuals and committing wide scale violence against non-violent protesters. This is not justified. The cost:benefit:ethics indicates the current response to protests by Portland police, feds etc is not ethical. It is ethical to arrest someone throwing hammers at cops. It is not ethical to arrest the person sitting next to him and it is not ethical to beat his friend. There is no guilt by association for protesters. Especially when lots of protesters make an effort to put out fires caused by bad actors. There are protesters actively working against the bad actors. In order for the current behavior of cops to be ethical, a drastically larger % of Portland protesters would need to be violent.

I think before you say police activity is ethical against the population of Portland protesters, you need to clearly define what % of that group needs to be violent bad actors before police-inflicted violence becomes ethical. What is that % for you?

On September 04 2020 06:19 Trainrunnef wrote:



I would add that careful consideration should be given to that number because roles can easily be reversed to use it against the cops that are abusing their authority.

On September 04 2020 04:40 Mohdoo wrote:





Perhaps this is an indication that our relationship could use some communication guidance with a marriage therapist. When you posted what was structured as an informative post, but felt very slanted and dishonest, it was unclear to me that you felt felt like people disputed the existence of bad actors among the population of protesters. It seemed like nothing more than you being another victim of Ngo's misleading "evidence".

Let me take many steps back:

1. Whenever we seek to lessen the freedom of an individual, we need to examine the cost, benefit and ethics of what is happening. We don't throw old people in volcanoes despite the fact that it would be great for the economy.

2. In this instance, we are faced with a choice, whether we lessen the freedom of protesters or not. Portland has many protesters, the vast majority of which are peaceful. For me, with me and my friend's direct experience, this point is not in contention. There is no reason to continue this conversation if you are unwilling to accept the idea that the vast majority of all people participating in these Portland protests are non-violent. You've had 3 different Portland residents tell you the media is wildly misrepresenting what is happening in Portland. A large crowd of people can chant angry things, but that does not mean all those people are throwing rocks at cops.

3. When you have 8000 people protesting, and lets say 100 of them are violent, my arithmetic tells me 1.25% of a group of people are behaving poorly. We will never determine the exact number, so I am just using this as a placeholder because 100 people could easily cause the damage we are seeing. Honestly it would take a lot less.

4. It doesn't take much for someone to label a whole group a bunch of dicks. Cops have clearly been pushed to their breaking point and are just directly chasing and beating people who are not being violent. I have millions of videos I could link you showing in certain terms that someone can be 100% non-violent and still get tackled and beaten by a cop.

5. How bad should a group be before (4) becomes justified? If 5% of a group are bad actors, does it become appropriate for 30% of a group to be victims of retaliatory violence by police? This is essentially the same argument used in drone strikes. How many kids is it ok to kill so long as you kill a terrorist general?

6. How does the value of property compare to the cost of unjustly committing (1)? If someone destroys $1M of public property, is violence against that person ethical? In my eyes, when I look at these protests so far, not a single thing done in Portland justifies violence against a protester. Arrest them, but don't beat them. There is simply no reason for a cop to be punching someone on a ground.

https://gfycat.com/malesimplisticarabianhorse-police-officer-protestor-violence

In this link, you can see a large number of cops watch another cop punch a guy on the ground. To me, this shows at the very least every cop watching is a bad apple. In my eyes, this violence is not justified. The anti fascist arrests you linked do not justify punching a protester on the ground.

7. With all this in mind, when DOES it become justified to crack down on a protest? What percentage of a group needs to be bad until violence and a lessening of rights becomes justified? I am asking what % of a protest needs to be violent before the video I linked becomes ethical.

8. If you were to estimate, what % of the protesters in Portland do you think are violent? It sounds like you think it is a rather large percent. You should keep in mind that even 100 people would be a very small percent, so you could see tons of videos of people committing violence, which is easy on the internet. Keep in mind it is very easy to accidentally think a situation is way worse from seeing multiple videos.

9. Committing crimes does not mean it is thereby ethical to harm the person committing crimes. If someone throws a Molotov cocktail at a Gucci store, a cop is not justified in punching that person. In order for a police officer to live ethically, they must commit the absolute bare minimum level of violence in order to prevent harm coming to humans. The entire building could burn down and it would still mean not a single punch is justified. So long as the vast majority of protesters are behaving ethically, police violence against protesters is unethical. Arrest the violent people (and don't harm them before doing so when possible), but the non-violent protesters should never have tear gas, batons or any other form of violence used against them, no matter what.

10. Cops are currently massively lessening the rights of individuals and committing wide scale violence against non-violent protesters. This is not justified. The cost:benefit:ethics indicates the current response to protests by Portland police, feds etc is not ethical. It is ethical to arrest someone throwing hammers at cops. It is not ethical to arrest the person sitting next to him and it is not ethical to beat his friend. There is no guilt by association for protesters. Especially when lots of protesters make an effort to put out fires caused by bad actors. There are protesters actively working against the bad actors. In order for the current behavior of cops to be ethical, a drastically larger % of Portland protesters would need to be violent.

I think before you say police activity is ethical against the population of Portland protesters, you need to clearly define what % of that group needs to be violent bad actors before police-inflicted violence becomes ethical. What is that % for you?

On September 04 2020 07:14 Wombat_NornIron wrote:
A well structured post Mohdoo, I may take lessons from you in clarity.

Danglars I’m not quibbling whether there is left wing violence occurring, nor that footage showing it. Where I have doubts is how big a proportion of wider protests that Antifa and the likes encompass, or how widespread their behaviour is.

A guy like Andy Ngo massively, massively inflates this proportion and scale, which is my particular issue with ‘journalists’ of this ilk. He got caught red-handed outright not reporting on a right wing group openly talking about being violent at a protest, individuals who subsequently were violent and were arrested.

Now perhaps you’re unaware of stuff like this, it’s not the behaviour of a journalist of any kind.

Across the ideological spectrum incidentally, we have this new generation of ‘independent journalists’ who flout basic journalistic practice left right and centre and aren’t accountable to any kind of editorial oversight.

The established media are absolute bastions of integrity by comparison, although only by comparison.

Call me a cantankerous old soul but I’m extremely skeptical of anyone who does the ‘this is what the media aren’t telling you’ and posturing to be some singular light of truth in the darkness.

On September 04 2020 07:57 Wombat_NornIron wrote:
Tear gas used judiciously and not as the first port of call can be effective. Rubber bullets no, low risk sure but they can kill people, why they’re not used here any more by and large.

Unless it’s with overwhelming force of a heinous kind you can’t just crush these kind of protests. Sit behind a shield wall and protect properties and contain.

Even China which most here will agree is considerably more totalitarian than the States hasn’t been able to crack the protests in Hong Kong.

There’s not really a Goldilocks zone between exerting force and not that works for defusing these things, it’s more two extremes of a passivity/aggressive scale. Either crush or ruthlessly with overwhelming and morally repugnant force, or passively sit and take it and contain the situation.

On September 04 2020 07:50 Danglars wrote:

I do not use his pronouncements on the size and scale of the violence. He may have his own motives in making them out to be worse. I take only his videos of what happened, and publicization of videos taken by others, as well as public records of arrests and charges and photographed evidence.

Take for instance, pipe bomb components.

I already responded to you regarding the decline of journalism more broadly, which makes these independent voices with video cameras necessary in the first place. Some would rather ignore it entirely until forced to write an article because of independent journalism. One AP reporter and a mom from Reason magazine? What a travesty. Shall we say, I'm grateful to those who show up, regardless of their proclivity to transition to slanted opinion journalism, because it's a heck of a lot better than ignoring stories that are inconvenient to the paper's internal biases?

On September 04 2020 08:20 Wombat_NornIron wrote:

Who is ignoring it entirely? There’s plenty of stuff out there showing this, even the far left posters in this thread don’t deny these things are occurring at all.

I’ve seen plenty of it even on the mainstream news bulletins over here across the Atlantic.

If you want your media coverage to focus particularly on the violence and the Antifa boogeyman then sure your Ngo’s of them world provide that ‘valuable service’ but it’s one facet of a protest movement that is largely peaceful and of an issue that is still completely unresolved. How much airtime does the violence need vs those other things too? Perhaps the balance is too lenient, I don’t know I’m not a native and exposed to native media as much.

This applies across the ideological spectrum too, despite my particular political beliefs I didn’t rush to judge the Rittenhouse shootings (and my posting here attests to that) because some of the stuff I saw on leftbook etc also seemed fishy to me in how footage was framed and the chronology that was established.

Guys like Andy Ngo aren’t chasing stories, they have a narrative already and they seek some video clips out as proof of that. Be it Islamic ‘no-go zones’ in London that turned out to be bollocks, Antifa being some existential threat to the nation or conveniently turning a blind eye to right wing thugs, I mean they aren’t journalists they’re complete ideologues.

The footage obtained is useful if it’s cross-referenced with other accounts, properly ordered etc etc.

So yes some of that information will be true, absolutely. It’s going straight out on to Twitter and left there. If something is incorrect good luck getting these people to do proper retractions.

Sure the traditional fourth estate has its flaws, absolutely. It also adheres to some basic levels of practice that are absent in these alternatives. We’re kind of in a baby out with the bath water kind of situation with sources of information, but that’s really my own personal position.

On September 04 2020 08:17 Danglars wrote:

The erected barricades and fencing was almost treated as a taunt, when you look back at that phase. They were taken down, the doors were sometimes breached, and fireworks were shot inside.

Tell me, are you aware of the effects of a decently sized mortar firework when it explodes close to the skin? Do you know what green lasers do to the human eye? Or the setting of fires inside a building under active attempts to prevent orderly exit? Some officers are very intimately acquainted with these things, and were removed to hospitals.

The contrast in the way these are talked about ("Oh just sit behind a shield wall and contain") is just ludicrous. Did you think the feds and contractors were putting up styrofoam this whole time?

I don't think you have a leg to stand on when you allege shield wall/contain is an actual strategy, when sitting passively inside is subject to tearing down barricades, breaking windows, firing firecrackers inside ... and moving outside are accompanied by bricks and flammables. Are you really thinking through this?

On September 04 2020 08:30 Danglars wrote:

I'm talking about the lack of reporters on the ground and news reports focusing on the period that the protest is peaceful. I was forced to go to the two reporters I've already cited on the ground because most outlets didn't send their own reporters there to report from the ground. Yes, it's because of the dearth of reporters there doing their jobs on day 40 of the daily protest-later-riot that some of the figures are made necessary. If you have actual counterexamples, actual observe and write about it reporters, I'm all ears. Your speculation and judgement just appears ignorant.

On September 04 2020 06:31 Mohdoo wrote:


I'd like to avoid getting too far from the response I felt I owed Danglars, but with regards to % of cops being unsavory: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

In one account, the president told senior advisers that he didn’t understand why the U.S. government placed such value on finding soldiers missing in action because they had performed poorly and gotten caught and deserved what they got, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

Trump believed people who served in the Vietnam War must be “losers” because they hadn’t gotten out of it, according to a person familiar with the comments. Trump also complained bitterly to then-Chief of Staff John F. Kelly that he didn’t understand why Kelly and others in the military treated McCain, who had been imprisoned and tortured during the Vietnam War, with such reverence. “Isn’t he kind of a loser?” Trump asked, according to the person familiar with Trump’s comments.

As far as John McCain is concerned, I was never a fan. I will admit that openly. I disagreed with him on the endless wars. I disagreed with him with respect to the vets and the taking care of the VA. I wanted to do it a much different way and I think it’s proven to be a much more successful way when you look at the success we’ve had with the VA and with our vets, with choice and accountability and all the things I’ve got. So I disagreed with John McCain, but I still respected him. And I had to approve his funeral as president. We lowered the flags. I had to approve that, nobody else, I had to approve it. When you think – just thinking back, I had to approve either Air Force One or a military plane to go to Arizona to pick up his casket. And I approved it immediately. I had to approve the funeral because he had a first class triple-A funeral. It lasted for nine days, by the way. I had to approve it. All of that had to be approved by the president. I approved it without hesitation, without complaint. And I felt he deserved it. I disagreed with him. He was a tough guy. But I felt he deserved it. For somebody to say the things that they say I said, it’s a total lie, it’s fake news, it’s a disgrace. And frankly, it’s a disgrace to your profession. Now, with all of that being said, you’ll speak to Keith Kellogg, you’ll speak to other people because many people knew. Let me just go into, if I might, into the trip to Europe and to France. I was ready to go to the ceremony. I had two of them, one the following day, it was pouring and I went to that. But the helicopter could not fly. The reason it couldn’t fly – because it was raining about as hard as I’ve ever seen. And on top of that it was very, very foggy. And the helicopter was unable to fly. It was a fairly long helicopter flight, but it was a very long drive. In order for me to go we would have had to leave immediately and go through very busy area of, I guess, Paris, but a very, very heavily traveled area, big city. I think it was Paris. And the Secret Service told me, ‘You can’t do it. I said I have to do it I want to be there, they said you can’t do it. We’ll give you confirmation of this. They said for you to do that, make that trip, not by helicopter flying over everything, we have to work with the police, we have to work with everything. And I think you’ll find on record in the police force in the areas that we’re talking about areas of Paris that we’re talking about, I think you’ll find on record requests. And we actually have Secret Service that I’m going to ask to give you details. They said, ‘You can’t do it.’ It was two and a half hours, two hours of driving. It’s a long drive. They said, ‘You can’t do it.’ So I said, ‘I want to do it.’ They said, ‘You can’t.’ There was no way I would have been able to do it. And they would never have been able to get the police and everybody else in line to have a president, go through a very crowded, very congested area. So I went and I called home, I spoke to my wife, I said, ‘I hate this, I came here to go to that ceremony.’ And for the one that was the following day, which I did go to. I said, ‘I feel terrible,’ and that was the end of it. Now all of a sudden somebody makes up this horrible story that I didn’t want to go, and then they make up an even worse story, an even worse story, calling certain names to our fallen heroes. It’s a disgrace that a magazine is able to write it. And anybody that – if they really exist, if people really exist that would have said that, they’re low lifes and they’re liars. And I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more. So, I just think it’s a horrible, horrible thing. It made a great evening into frankly a very sad evening when I see a statement like that. No animal, nobody, what animal would say such a thing? And especially since I’ve done more I think than almost anybody to help our military. To get the budgets of our military, to get the pay raises. So I just think it’s a horrible thing that they’re allowed to write that. And we can refute it. We have other people that will refute it. And one I would like you to speak to is General Keith Kellogg because he knows exactly the story. But you can also speak to the Secret Service, they wouldn’t let me go no matter what happened because of security because of safety. So I want to thank you for being here. There’s nothing much more that I can say. All they are trying to do is influence a presidential election where we’ve gone very high in the polls in the last short period of time, where we’re doing very well, where we’re going to win and they’re going crazy. The magazine in question is a Never Trumper magazine, probably doing badly, I know nothing about it, I don’t read it, I just heard about it now, about this story, but it’s a total Never Trumper magazine, and other people that are trying to influence the outcome of a presidential election. And you know what, people are too smart for it and somebody has to make a stand. This fake press is a disgrace. Thank you very much.

On September 05 2020 00:40 GreenHorizons wrote:
He's probably said worse but I'm so sick of "journalists" not meeting the bare minimum bar on these anonymous gossip sources.

But it is also incumbent on the sources, on the people that are talking to Goldberg, on the people that are talking to other outlets — the president’s denying it explicitly, so it’s put up or shut up time