US 2024 Presidential Election

[Silvanus]

Empathy is not declaring the innocence of the people you want to be innocent, it's understanding them even when they are guilty.

Let's take the guy you found as an example, the one who I agree was deported without due process. We don't know too much about him, but we can build an idea of him off of what we do. We know that he came to the US after his parents were already settled here, we know he didn't submit all the immigration forms, we know that in the US he still gravitated to people from Venezuela. The image in your mind of someone coming to the US seems to be starving people with dirt on their face desperate for help, but in this instance, the facts paint a picture of someone who didn't actually care to be here in the first place. And that's fine, that's not a judgment, it's not his fault the government of Venezuela sucks, it's not his fault his dad picked fights with the government, none of it is his fault, so why is it all his problem? That is a totally relatable thought process: "it's not my fault, why is it my problem?" Everyone has thought that, usually when true, but it's easy enough to fall into that trap even when you are at fault. I didn't fill out that form cause they told me I didn't have to, I didn't go with those guys they kidnapped me, I only plead guilty cause they told me to... none of it is my fault, so why do I have to deal with all this? I think anyone can empathize with that thought process while also knowing it's wrong.

What you're doing here isn't empathy, but rather crafting a presumptuous thought process and applying it to others. You've crafted one that is somewhat sympathetic. But that's not empathy; it's based squarely in your own assumptions.

Let's look back at this shooting and try to understand the people, starting with the woman. She thinks ICE is effectively Nazis doing the equivalent of rounding up the Jews. She thinks that getting in their way is saving people's lives. And then those same people pull guns on her. The expectation when you point a gun at someone is that they will do what you tell them to, that's how robbing at gunpoint works, but it only works on the principle that the person with the gun wants the other outcome: the robber wants your money, not to shoot you, and the police want you to get out of the car, not to shoot you. That doesn't work if you think the people with the gun want to kill you. I suspect in her mind, she saw ICE the way all of you do, as thugs on a power trip who joined ICE to hurt and kill people, but she figured they can only get away with it against non-white people, so she was going to take advantage of her privilege as a white citizen to get in their way, cause they can't touch her. When they pulled guns, she didn't react like the police were arresting her, she reacted like murderers were surrounding her and she tried to run as fast as she could. There are right-wing opinion pieces about how she put her life and the lives of others at risk just to avoid arrest and defend criminals, and I think those are all full of crap cause they aren't trying to understand her. Of course her actions don't make sense if you project the thoughts of a Republican onto her, but that's not what she was thinking.

Well, you've made a little progress here: certainly more than Vance and Trump, insisting she must be a domestic terrorist.

Now for the shooter, who was filming her in the moment, I can guarantee you exactly what he was thinking (minus some expletives, of course): "holy crap, look at these psychos". In his mind, he is the lawful authority (cause he was), and you can make of that what you will, but his expectation is that he is supposed to be telling people what to do when they are disorderly. Now there are people actively following ICE around, blocking roads, blaring whistles, setting off car alarms everywhere they go. ICE approaches these women who have blocked the road in front of them deliberately, who are spewing profanities at them. In his mind, he is part of the cops doing their jobs, and people reacting this way have completely lost it. This woman doesn't look to him like a peaceful protester displaying civil disobedience against a fascist authority, she looks like she's having a full-on psychotic breakdown. Just like the woman, his actions don't make sense if you see this as "cops try to arrest normal person". Step aside, let her go, arrest her later is an easy solution when you casually process the scenario as a law enforcement interaction where the suspect flees. But that's not what the moment was, from his perspective, complete psychos were following and harassing them, and then one of them saw him in front of her car, put it in drive, and hit the gas hard enough to spin out.

Her response was flight, his was fight, both were reacting to the blind instinct of fear for ones life in the face of someone who seemed willing to kill them with the means to do so. That doesn't make it a justified shooting, at minimum he should be out of that job, at maximum I could call this something like voluntary manslaughter, there's a strong possibility he gets off on justified self-defense, but given the information we have, I would not advocate for that. But the suggestion that this is what he wanted, that he joined ICE with the desire to shoot people, is ultimately contributing to the problem. Propagating this idea actively makes the world worse, and you all should knock it off.

All of this still rests on assumption. Because there are multiple possible motivations: it could be blind fear for survival, or it could be the rage of someone who's on a power trip. We have to consider which is likelier, not just stump for whichever lets the killer off the hook most.

So how credible is the risk? I see no credible risk to him of more than a bruise; the car was scarcely moving, he was already at its corner. I've literally been in riskier situations in supermarket car parks. So if he saw a danger (which I concede is possible) and panicked so badly he killed someone, we have to wonder how utterly dogshit his training and discipline are.

Then we add to this, that he carries on firing even when well out of the way, through the driver's side window. None of this is looking good. If this were anyone else whose actions had led to a death-- not an ICE agent-- they'd be arrested regardless of whatever sympathetic motives we could potentially imagine.

 

[tstorm823]

If this were anyone else whose actions had led to a death-- not an ICE agent-- they'd be arrested regardless of whatever sympathetic motives we could potentially imagine.

If this were anyone else, nobody would be speculating that he took that job explicitly hoping this would be the outcome.

 

[Agema]

Now for the shooter, who was filming her in the moment, I can guarantee you exactly what he was thinking

That you believe you know exactly what a man you don't know was thinking is a pretty good sign your opinion is untrustworthy. You're not really trying to understand the man, you're just trying to fabricate an explanation that suits you.

But the other thing I would point out is that even if that were what he was thinking, it's a damning indictment of the quality of ICE personnel. Any respectable professional in that line of work should have some awareness of what real people - the people they need to interact with for their job - are like. An officer who thinks a person who doesn't just robotically obey them is a person having "a full-on psychotic breakdown" isn't fit to do the job.

 

[Hades]

Now for the shooter, who was filming her in the moment, I can guarantee you exactly what he was thinking (minus some expletives, of course): "holy crap, look at these psychos". In his mind, he is the lawful authority (cause he was), and you can make of that what you will, but his expectation is that he is supposed to be telling people what to do when they are disorderly. Now there are people actively following ICE around, blocking roads, blaring whistles, setting off car alarms everywhere they go. ICE approaches these women who have blocked the road in front of them deliberately, who are spewing profanities at them. In his mind, he is part of the cops doing their jobs, and people reacting this way have completely lost it. This woman doesn't look to him like a peaceful protester displaying civil disobedience against a fascist authority, she looks like she's having a full-on psychotic breakdown. Just like the woman, his actions don't make sense if you see this as "cops try to arrest normal person". Step aside, let her go, arrest her later is an easy solution when you casually process the scenario as a law enforcement interaction where the suspect flees. But that's not what the moment was, from his perspective, complete psychos were following and harassing them, and then one of them saw him in front of her car, put it in drive, and hit the gas hard enough to spin out.

Would ICE perhaps not want to wonder exactly why they receive this reaction from the public? Perhaps it could suggests their conduct is usually so disruptive or needlessly cruel that it invites these kinds of reactions from the public? Maybe it suggests they're too deeply intertwined with an administration that the majority of the country sees as having not a shred of moral legitimacy, or maybe it suggests ICE needs a severe shift in PR strategies.

It also reflects a certain lack of self awareness if they were to deem others as ''psychos''. Regardless of whether you agree with it or not, wanting to protect brown people from an agency with a questionable reputation suggests good intentions. Maybe misguided but not malicious. And perhaps their idea the brown people need protecting from ICE is misguided, but who's fault is that? Might ICE's own behavior not be the cause of people assuming they have bad intentions for those they arrest?

Even if we (wrongly) assume ICE is some honorable legitimate force of good doing important work to the best of their abilities, then the fact that so many Americans simply don't believe it shows that ICE's current PR strategies are not working, and letting off ICE agents murdering citizens in cold blood is only making that worse.

The argument of ''lawful'' authority wouldn't be a really helpful one. Firstly because the Trump administration almost proudly defines itself as lawless, but also because ''lawful'' and ''moral'' aren't always the same thing. Those cops in Iran murdering protesters are ALSO the lawful authorities of the land but no one is expected to regard them any better for it.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

ICE detains and deports literally hundreds of thousands of people each year, the overwhelming majority without violent altercation, and an incident like this is vanishingly rare. If someone takes that job under the delusion that they'll have ample opportunity to maim and kill people, that is not based in reality, that is fantasy land. In specific, it is your fantasy land, since yours are the people spreading the idea that ICE exists to maim and kill people.

ICE in 2025 and ICE in previous years is very obviously not the same ICE, with very different tactics and goals, different recruiting and different training methods. ICE under the current administration is a lot more violent and has significantly increased the amount of violent altercations, and the amount of people who have died in ICE custody. These incidents are "rare" if you're counting all ICE operations since the creation of ICE, but they're significantly more common under the current administration, and you willfully conflating the two is intentionally misleading and dishonest. The people ICE is currently recruiting would be deemed unqualified to be law enforcement personnel under any past administration, and yes many of them are untrained violent thugs.

 

[Agema]

ICE in 2025 and ICE in previous years is very obviously not the same ICE, with very different tactics and goals, different recruiting and different training methods. ICE under the current administration is a lot more violent and has significantly increased the amount of violent altercations, and the amount of people who have died in ICE custody. These incidents are "rare" if you're counting all ICE operations since the creation of ICE, but they're significantly more common under the current administration, and you willfully conflating the two is intentionally misleading and dishonest. The people ICE is currently recruiting would be deemed unqualified to be law enforcement personnel under any past administration, and yes many of them are untrained violent thugs.

And indeed, that alone is disturbing, because plenty of evidence suggests ICE was operating with insufficient scrutiny and accountability even before the Trump administration filled it full of anyone.

But if there's one thing you can guarantee about authoritarians, they're not calling for the authorities to be scrutinised and held accountable. Well, not their authorities, anyway: for instance, it's amazing how zealous they were about exposing child abuse amongst the elites right up and until their orange daddy was heavily implicated.

 

[Trunkage]

Also about the man...like...these cunts are supposed to be trained. This isn't some random dude on the street, this is supposedly a trained officer of the law.

If having a car mildly accelerating at you activates your "pull your gun out and let it fly" instinct, you should not be an authority figure (I guess maybe a mall cop who doesn't get a gun is fine).

Trained to do what specifically?

As I see it, I'm pretty sure that this is exactly what ICE is trained for. If you're talking about something else, I'm pretty sure you're talking about other countries

 

[tippy2k2]

Trained to do what specifically?

As I see it, I'm pretty sure that this is exactly what ICE is trained for. If you're talking about something else, I'm pretty sure you're talking about other countries

Well yes but I'm responding to the people arguing that the ICE guy panicked or was scared. If that's all it takes to get you to lose your shit and start unloading your gun on someone, you shouldn't be anywhere near a gun.

(I do understand this is a feature, not a bug for ICE but some people pretend ICE isn't anything more than Trump's personal Gestapo)

 

[Trunkage]

If this were anyone else, nobody would be speculating that he took that job explicitly hoping this would be the outcome.

Just to be clear, if you are talking about anyone with state power to commit violence, this is true. There is always a portion of the population that wants to kill 'the other.' The best way to do that is to join an institution that has state-sanctioned power to violence. The best way to counter this is to have accountability ingrained in the institution

Of course, most other jobs would not have the speculation for the simple fact that they are not allowed to do violence

 

[BrawlMan]

That ICE agent is nothing more than a punk ass cowardly biatch hired by even bigger punk ass cowardly bitches.

 

[Trunkage]

Well yes but I'm responding to the people arguing that the ICE guy panicked or was scared. If that's all it takes to get you to lose your shit and start unloading your gun on someone, you shouldn't be anywhere near a gun.

I totally agree

Also, that training does not exist in the US

 

[Silvanus]

If this were anyone else, nobody would be speculating that he took that job explicitly hoping this would be the outcome.

OK. And what am I supposed to do with this little irrelevance?

 

[meiam]

It was a judgment call, sure. But, let’s flip it and say it was a civilian in front of the car instead of ICE. Ironically if there wasn’t ice on the road when she initially accelerated, her wheel was turned towards the person and could have caused more bodily harm under normal traction. The officer reacted how he was trained. Had he not reacted and a civilian was seriously injured or killed, guaranteed he’d be held accountable for not reacting.

Spoiler

Under the US constitution, law enforcement "can only use deadly force if the person poses a serious danger to them or other people, or the person has committed a violent crime", said Chris Slobogin, director of the criminal justice programme at Vanderbilt University Law School.
But the US Supreme Court has historically granted broad leniency to officers making in-the-moment decisions without the benefit of hindsight.
A DHS policy memo from 2023 states that federal officers "may use deadly force only when necessary" when they have "a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury" to themself or another person.

What is ICE and what powers do its agents have to use force? - BBC News

The immigration agency is under scrutiny following the fatal shooting of Minneapolis woman Renee Nicole Good.

www.bbc.com

She also wasn’t just dropping her kid off, if anyone still believes that.

If it was a civilian, that civilian would have purposefully put themselves in front of her car in the middle of the road, so that would be on them. And again, nothing would have happened to the civilian, because nothing happened to the ICE agents. You can't say that his was a dangerous situation when we know it wasn't. Like, say if your version of event was correct, and the ice agent had been grievously injured by her car, none of this would be happening. You're essentially saying that in an alternate reality the agent did the right thing by killing her, so the agent was correct to kill her in the current where there's no reason.

This is not a snap second judgement questions, car don't go 0 to 60 in 0.1 seconds, that's just not how this work. Now its possible that this agent is so stupid he cannot understand that and he really thought he was in grievous danger, but then, what would killing the driver would do? Car aren't an extension of people, killing her doesn't magically stop the car. Now I'll grant you, SCOTUS would almost certainly let him get away with it, if it ever get to that, but considering the current SCOTUS literally made bribery legal and says the president is above the law, that doesn't carry any weight.

 

[thebobmaster]

If it was a civilian, that civilian would have purposefully put themselves in front of her car in the middle of the road, so that would be on them. And again, nothing would have happened to the civilian, because nothing happened to the ICE agents. You can't say that his was a dangerous situation when we know it wasn't. Like, say if your version of event was correct, and the ice agent had been grievously injured by her car, none of this would be happening. You're essentially saying that in an alternate reality the agent did the right thing by killing her, so the agent was correct to kill her in the current where there's no reason.

This is not a snap second judgement questions, car don't go 0 to 60 in 0.1 seconds, that's just not how this work. Now its possible that this agent is so stupid he cannot understand that and he really thought he was in grievous danger, but then, what would killing the driver would do? Car aren't an extension of people, killing her doesn't magically stop the car. Now I'll grant you, SCOTUS would almost certainly let him get away with it, if it ever get to that, but considering the current SCOTUS literally made bribery legal and says the president is above the law, that doesn't carry any weight.

You forget, Megyn Kelly proved that all the footage that has been posted by people was very carefully edited by the left wing conspiracy that's out to make ICE agents and heroes like them look bad.

 

[tstorm823]

That you believe you know exactly what a man you don't know was thinking is a pretty good sign your opinion is untrustworthy. You're not really trying to understand the man, you're just trying to fabricate an explanation that suits you.

But the other thing I would point out is that even if that were what he was thinking, it's a damning indictment of the quality of ICE personnel. Any respectable professional in that line of work should have some awareness of what real people - the people they need to interact with for their job - are like. An officer who thinks a person who doesn't just robotically obey them is a person having "a full-on psychotic breakdown" isn't fit to do the job.

I believe I know what the man is thinking because it doesn't require an exercise in empathy from me, I'm thinking the same thing watching these videos. Those people are completely psychotic, they have entirely lost their minds. That is not the people ICE needs to interact with for their job, there is no need for psychos to harass them. Look at the video I put in post 6674: ICE agents patiently walking people to the vehicle, the people calmly following them and getting into said vehicle, and then a crowd of complete psychos screaming profanities and blowing whistles that have absolutely no need to be there.

And "doesn't just robotically obey them" is an insane characterization of someone who went hunting in the streets for ICE agents and blockade the road in front of them.

And indeed, that alone is disturbing, because plenty of evidence suggests ICE was operating with insufficient scrutiny and accountability even before the Trump administration filled it full of anyone.

You really think there is any organization on earth facing more scrutiny than ICE?

 

[tstorm823]

OK. And what am I supposed to do with this little irrelevance?

You criticize me for not condemning people outside of these forums enough, but can't figure out what to do about the people in here whose posts you read and react to daily.

 

[meiam]

Federal Reserve Chair Powell says DOJ has subpoenaed central bank, threatens criminal indictment

The Federal Reserve chair said the central bank has been threatened with a criminal indictment over his testimony about building renovations.

apnews.com

What a godamn kangaroo country the US has become.

 

[tstorm823]

Would ICE perhaps not want to wonder exactly why they receive this reaction from the public? Perhaps it could suggests their conduct is usually so disruptive or needlessly cruel that it invites these kinds of reactions from the public? Maybe it suggests they're too deeply intertwined with an administration that the majority of the country sees as having not a shred of moral legitimacy, or maybe it suggests ICE needs a severe shift in PR strategies.

It also reflects a certain lack of self awareness if they were to deem others as ''psychos''. Regardless of whether you agree with it or not, wanting to protect brown people from an agency with a questionable reputation suggests good intentions. Maybe misguided but not malicious. And perhaps their idea the brown people need protecting from ICE is misguided, but who's fault is that? Might ICE's own behavior not be the cause of people assuming they have bad intentions for those they arrest?

Even if we (wrongly) assume ICE is some honorable legitimate force of good doing important work to the best of their abilities, then the fact that so many Americans simply don't believe it shows that ICE's current PR strategies are not working, and letting off ICE agents murdering citizens in cold blood is only making that worse.

The argument of ''lawful'' authority wouldn't be a really helpful one. Firstly because the Trump administration almost proudly defines itself as lawless, but also because ''lawful'' and ''moral'' aren't always the same thing. Those cops in Iran murdering protesters are ALSO the lawful authorities of the land but no one is expected to regard them any better for it.

There is something here you don't know that you have no way of knowing so I can't blame you: the overwhelming majority of America thinks these people are psychos. Even the ones who agree with them generally think they are psychos. Barricading the road and taunting law enforcement is psychotic. It's not just ICE thinking that, it's not just Republicans thinking that, it's everyone in the country capable of existing outside of the internet. Their PR is not perfect, but even if it were, it would just make some percentage of people slightly more comfortable in the general position that they already hold that anyone obstructing them with vehicles is a psycho. Maybe that's a normal day in France, but here that behavior is reserved for complete lunatics.

 

[Bedinsis]

There is something here you don't know that you have no way of knowing so I can't blame you: the overwhelming majority of America thinks these people are psychos. Even the ones who agree with them generally think they are psychos. Barricading the road and taunting law enforcement is psychotic. It's not just ICE thinking that, it's not just Republicans thinking that, it's everyone in the country capable of existing outside of the internet. Their PR is not perfect, but even if it were, it would just make some percentage of people slightly more comfortable in the general position that they already hold that anyone obstructing them with vehicles is a psycho. Maybe that's a normal day in France, but here that behavior is reserved for complete lunatics.

Source?

 

[Agema]

Those people are completely psychotic, they have entirely lost their minds.

Really? You think it is psychotic for people in a community to protest and express their disagreement with the authorities?

So then here's a famous outbreak of mass psychosis from history. And who can forget this famous lunatic and domestic terrorist, who was apparently so devoid of sanity that she simply refused to sit in the right seat or obey when told not to? Meanwhile there's this march, which to listen to you was more like a rational march of American heroes defending American values that got a bit too exuberant, and then there are also for instance these guys which I don't imagine you're arguing all Americans think are insane.

And... have you actually watched videos about how your president behaves? I can only assume not.

You really think there is any organization on earth facing more scrutiny than ICE?

You're mistaking public attention for scrutiny. Scrutiny really means thorough and effective policies and procedures to ensure the rights things are done and infractions investigation with appropriate action taken. Most scrutiny in an organisation is internal - organisations reviewing their own staff and processes and taking appropriate action. Then there are also forms of external scrutiny, up to and including the law.

So there are plenty of article suggesting ICE might be low on oversight - in breach of their own policies, potentially deleting policies just because they know they can't meet them. The attitude of the executive branch, who control not just ICE but also all most other agencies responsible for investigating them, could not give me less confidence both for instituting quality control within the organisation and ensuring proper external oversight. Bearing in mind dubious deportations where they appear to have deliberately ignored judicial requests. Or declaring ICE agents innocent of wrongdoing without the evidence being properly examined by appropriate experts, which suggests they have no interest in a neutral investigation... whilst having the power to determine the outcome. In general, they appear to have little respect for law, decorum, procedure, oversight anywhere at all: the Trump administration is nakedly authoritarian.