US 2024 Presidential Election

[Seanchaidh]

That is correct, and we agree that he was wrong to shoot, but up until the point where she tried to drive away, everything was proceeding in exactly the way you would expect them to when someone tries to blockade the police.

At some point, one of you two is going to break and admit that they should not have been doing what they were doing.

Unlikely.

I'd like you to consider the concept of a weighing scale, one of those that compares two different things or sets of things-- such as how the symbolic scales of justice are usually represented.

And now think about how, in the analogy of that two-sided scale, various considerations can have different weights.

Considerations like "this might be a bit dangerous considering the low professionalism of US law enforcement agencies" or "the American gestapo should be opposed and hindered in its operation".

Whatever progress you imagine you're making with the former is unlikely ever to outweigh the latter.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Matt Taibbi is one of the few really good reporters working. He wrote a book that details how ICE operates.

I asked for evidence you provided nothing. I'm not going to buy a book to prove you wrong. If you want to prove your position find me articles to read that have specific cases and statistics or fuck off with your bullshit equivocations.

 

[tstorm823]

Unlikely.

I'd like you to consider the concept of a weighing scale, one of those that compares two different things or sets of things-- such as how the symbolic scales of justice are usually represented.

And now think about how, in the analogy of that two-sided scale, various considerations can have different weights.

Considerations like "this might be a bit dangerous considering the low professionalism of US law enforcement agencies" or "the American gestapo should be opposed and hindered in its operation".

Whatever progress you imagine you're making with the former is unlikely ever to outweigh the latter.

Putting those two things on opposite sides of the scale is really, really, quite, very dumb. I mean, believing the latter is a serious consideration is already incredibly dumb, but even if we take the concept of "American gestapo" as absolute fact, parking in the road and going "you can't touch us, we're US citizens" isn't sensible.

There really is no perspective on ICE that makes what they did make sense.

If ICE is law enforcement doing their jobs well, opposing them doesn't make sense in the first place (except maybe to you, but nobody cares).

If ICE is law enforcement but they are unprofessional and dangerous, confronting them in the streets doesn't make sense as the method to oppose them.

If ICE is the American gestapo, and you have no recourse in a government that is using secret police to oppress and terrorize the people, and with few other options you intend to confront them in the streets to hinder their operations, confronting them unarmed and taunting them about how they can't touch you doesn't make sense.

I understand the idea of wanting to support people taking action on the side you agree with, but looking specifically at the tactics they chose, there is no making it make sense.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Putting those two things on opposite sides of the scale is really, really, quite, very dumb. I mean, believing the latter is a serious consideration is already incredibly dumb, but even if we take the concept of "American gestapo" as absolute fact, parking in the road and going "you can't touch us, we're US citizens" isn't sensible.

I don't think anyone needed a reminder of your predilection for bootlicking.

 

[tippy2k2]

Always juuuuuust enough Democrats to give Republicans everything they want without a fight

Strange how that keeps happening...

 

[Agema]

So if a cop in your town was being particularly violent and thuggish, what you would do (and believe would be healthy for your Democracy) is to pursue direct confrontation with them in the streets?

That obviously isn't a valid comparison.

Nothing that is happening is particularly different than what you would expect from good-faith execution of the nation's laws as passed.

Very little that the Trump administration does signals "good faith".

Do you know what really says "good faith"? An administration that behaves honourably: doesn't lie, bullshit, threaten, bully; doesn't demean its opponents (all the way down to pettily, dishonestly doctoring photos of people it arrests), run corrupt get-rich schemes off the back of holding power, say the only thing that matters is strength.

Just so we're clear here, before events were even reasonably investigated, the Trump administration aggressively, publicly declared the ICE officer justified in killing the victim which it also characterised as a "domestic terrorist". Then it took control of the case and decided no action would be taken against the officer. If I can remind you, you suggested the ICE agent has committed manslaughter. So it seems to me by your own reasoning, the administration has likely not acted in "good faith". And this is merely the tip of a legal iceberg in the administration's attitude to execution of the nation's laws. For instance, whilst it might be technically legal, it does not send a message of "good faith execution of the nation's laws" to pardon ~1500 protesters who sacked the Capitol, many of whom assaulted police officers. It's certainly a stark contrast to the implicit message that Renee Good deserved the death penalty. Plus, there are all Trump's brushes with the law.

So here's the problem. If you want to deploy arguments like "good faith execution of the nation's laws" then the administration's lack of good faith becomes a major issue. Even worse, as a routine defender, excuser or ignorer or the administration's sins, the stain sticks to you as well: such claims might lead one to question your probity.

 

[tstorm823]

Just so we're clear here, before events were even reasonably investigated, the Trump administration aggressively, publicly declared the ICE officer justified in killing the victim which it also characterised as a "domestic terrorist". Then it took control of the case and decided no action would be taken against the officer. If I can remind you, you suggested the ICE agent has committed manslaughter. So it seems to me by your own reasoning, the administration has likely not acted in "good faith".

But ICE seems to be. If you judge all of the millions of people working for the federal government based solely on your opinions on Donald Trump, you would be reaching bad conclusions all the time even if you have an accurate perspective of Donald Trump.

The whole administration, outside of Trump, spends basically all their time keeping Trump within the legal lines. Trump says he wants something, and they find the legal methods to do it, sometimes with very obscure laws, and sometimes they just have to say no. Then judges rule on things, and they go through the whole legal process arguing it. You can guarantee that before invoking the Alien Enemies Act, Donald Trump said something like "can't we just send these guys away?", and someone told him they can't deport those with temporary protected status until 60 (i think) days after they revoke it, and then he was like "what if we just send them somewhere else", and then a whole team of people scrambled for a way to make that pass all the legal tests. You can rest assured that there are many things that couldn't be justified, think nuking hurricanes or just declining to certify the election, where people just tell him no.

I'm not here to tell you that Trump is personally pursuing good faith execution of the law, but there are millions beneath him who do that as their profession. If you look at this scenario as though ICE are doing the what they are supposed to, it all is very simple. Minneapolis has highly lenient policies on illegal immigrants, and they found themselves in the news based on migrants committing enormous levels of fraud, so ICE increased their enforcement in that area. That's really simple. The two women deliberately obstructed law enforcement, and were ordered out of the car to arrest them. None of this requires you to assume anything out of the ordinary.

When you start getting into explanations like "Trump sent his gestapo to terrorize the blue city", you quickly require thousands of people to be shameless Trump goons, and you've fallen into untenable conspiracy theories.

 

[Silvanus]

That is correct, and we agree that he was wrong to shoot, but up until the point where she tried to drive away, everything was proceeding in exactly the way you would expect them to when someone tries to blockade the police.

What relevance on earth does this have? "The cops didn't do anything wrong before the shooting", that's what you're going with?

Well no, it's... it's the shooting we have a problem with.

 

[Agema]

But ICE seems to be.

The German armed forces were just doing their job in World War Two as well. However, I can't help but feel that the wider political situation under which they did their job matters a lot.

The whole administration, outside of Trump, spends basically all their time keeping Trump within the legal lines.

Their primary job is to do what Trump wants. They push the law as far as they can, they obey the law only as far as they would risk too much public opprobrium by breaking it, and Trump has of course also rigged courts (all the way to SCOTUS) to reduce legal friction. Trump routinely attacks judges who rule against him from his bully pulpit.

It's amazing what turns out to be legal. It's legal for prosecutors to not pursue a manslaughter case for political reasons. It's legal to sue a media corporation in a private capacity whilst also implicitly threatening their business interests from the presidency. It's legal for a president to break decades of precedent of DoJ quasi-independence and tell everyone the DoJ serves him. It's legal for a president to pardon 1500 extremists who he whipped up into a riot to help overturn an election. But are these wise, or fair, or just?

Pretty much every brutal dictator murders, oppresses and imprisons his own people legally. "Legal" is not always the right thing to appeal to.

 

[tstorm823]

The German armed forces were just doing their job in World War Two as well. However, I can't help but feel that the wider political situation under which they did their job matters a lot.

Pretty much every brutal dictator murders, oppresses and imprisons his own people legally. "Legal" is not always the right thing to appeal to.

You get to circular logic this way very quickly.

Why does someone think ICE is gestapo? Cause they do the bidding of their fascist dictator.
Why does someone thing Trump is a fascist dictator? Cause he has his own gestapo.

If you already think everything is awful, regardless of legal standards or precedent, then it logically follows that everything supporting those things is equally awful, and you have driven yourself into a logical trap that you won't get out of for years when you can finally look back and think "what was I so upset about?" Seriously, there's nothing Trump has done that Lyndon Johnson didn't do worse. You can judge it, you can laugh at corruption, but you can't think that explains the entire nation's behavior.

 

[Hades]

You get to circular logic this way very quickly.

Why does someone think ICE is gestapo? Cause they do the bidding of their fascist dictator.
Why does someone thing Trump is a fascist dictator? Cause he has his own gestapo.

If you already think everything is awful, regardless of legal standards or precedent, then it logically follows that everything supporting those things is equally awful, and you have driven yourself into a logical trap that you won't get out of for years when you can finally look back and think "what was I so upset about?" Seriously, there's nothing Trump has done that Lyndon Johnson didn't do worse. You can judge it, you can laugh at corruption, but you can't think that explains the entire nation's behavior.

Wouldn't ICE's own conduct break this alleged cycle though? Because rather than saying Trump the answer to ''why are ICE the gestapo?'' can be answered with:

Because they're an unaccountable government agency hunting minorities and who's conduct can be characterized by abuse of power and open cruelty, with the end result including a protester shot in the head and even children being kidna...um I mean arrested with little oversight about what happens afterwards.

And one can of course say the ICE people behaving like animals are just bad apples. But abilities to judge their conduct beyond their ties to Trump do indeed exist. Jan 6 ''veterans'' apparently being among their member also makes their loyalty to the state dubious at best. At that point it does legitimately become hard to assume those members are loyal to the state over the great leader.

 

[tstorm823]

Wouldn't ICE's own conduct break this alleged cycle though?

If you were capable of judging it fairly and objectively...

 

[Bedinsis]

If you were capable of judging it fairly and objectively...

Is anyone?

 

[Hades]

If you were capable of judging it fairly and objectively...

Given what's happening in a certain state I'm not sure ICe would benefit from being judged fairly and objectively. In fact that's their whole problem right now. Their conduct pretty objectively being terrible is certainly why I judge them.

 

[Trunkage]

The very most that this could be is manslaughter, everyone is saying it's murder doesn't know what the word means (so many people don't understand what words mean today). I don't find it an appropriate action to take on his part but you also shouldn't drive at anyone either. This is another of the very many things where people won't use a single iota of nuance, there is no way it is 100% his fault, perhaps 70/30, perhaps 40/60, depending on your point of view, but the way every incident like this is discussed is a complete failure human discussion.

Some states do not have the term manslaughter. They class it as a lesser homocide. Minnesota does. Its a mess because federally there is no consistency

No body drove at anyone. Good had ample opportunity to run Ross over if she wanted to. She did not. She waited until Ross was beside the vehicle before moving

I have also seen what you personally do with nuance. For example, Good could have waited another second before moving. You would just blame Good for everyrhing becuase thats what you do. Its also moot point, as Ross should respond.... but not with a gun. Thats the problem. Its a massive overreaction to a minor problem. You cannot physically do naunce so no one does naunce with you

You get what you give. If you want naunce, show any form of ability to show naunce. Until such time, I will be only giving nuance to those who deserve a response

Nobody puts themselves in the shoes of law enforcement is the problem. Just a basic traffic stop can turn into a life or death situation in less than a second, that's why you keep your hands in view, don't quickly reach for something and all that. You're expecting the other human being to not be on edge in such even mundane situations let alone even higher pressure situations? Being a basic cop isn't an easy job in the least. You all will talk about mental health and all that for others but not say law enforcement officers that have more trauma and stress than pretty much anyone else.

See, the problem is that I did. YOU were the one stating that a car can be a weapon. Ross stood in front of loaded gun TWICE. No wonder he's scared. He put himself into danger

If I was Ross, I would have acted like the other officers. Stand away from the vehicle. Let her have a chance of passing by

The journalism I was referring to Matt did over 10 years ago so what's the issue?

Unfortately, Taibbi have been following the money. He gets paid to propogandize and ignore journalistic integrity

 

[Trunkage]

Given what's happening in a certain state I'm not sure ICe would benefit from being judged fairly and objectively. In fact that's their whole problem right now. Their conduct pretty objectively being terrible is certainly why I judge them.

ICE has never been judged fairly or objectively. They literally break the constitution and nothing happens. If this was any other organisation, people would be calling for it to be disbanded

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

From the "What if we could judicially blame the victim?" department:

DOJ sought to probe Renee Good for criminal liability, even after her death: Sources

A judge refused an FBI warrant that proposed investigating dead Minnesota mom for suspected assault on an officer.

www.ms.now

The only thing they consider to be criminal is not bending the knee to them.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

"The worst of the worst", preschooler category:

US immigration agents detain two-year-old Minnesota girl: ‘depravity beyond words’

DHS detain a toddler and her father on Thursday and fly them to Texas before returning child on judge’s order

www.theguardian.com

Just look at her. She's probably already in MS-13.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

(Other people here also know its insane, unreasonable behavior, they just support it anyway, cause they like it when their zealots become martyrs but have just barely enough sense not to express that opinion.)

For a Catholic I'm not sure you have a leg to stand on by calling people who get martyred "deranged" when they get attacked for their ideals and beliefs.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

"The worst of the worst", preschooler category:

US immigration agents detain two-year-old Minnesota girl: ‘depravity beyond words’

DHS detain a toddler and her father on Thursday and fly them to Texas before returning child on judge’s order

www.theguardian.com

Just look at her. She's probably already in MS-13.