Cont: Rioters storm and occupy the US Capitol - part 2

[quadraginta]

He's not completely wrong.

They may have truly believed they were taking action against a threat to their democracy

Given how vocal they've been about having Trump as a dictator for life, I think what they've been concerned about is their own privilege (imagined or real), fading away.

I think that if you were to pause, perhaps, and reflect a bit on that part of my post which you chose not to include in your quote of it, you might come to the realization that we are generally in agreement on this point.

 

[quadraginta]

Even if this were true, which is not a given, so what?

If I believed that you were a paedophile and shot you dead, according to your argument I would be doing the wrong thing for a good reason, and therefore shooting you dead would be in part commendable.

So, should I shoot you?

Part of him, mebbe. Just not the part that was commendable.

 

[quadraginta]

I have to disagree. History is full of people doing evil things in the full conviction they were doing the right thing. I give you the Nazis and an example. They were convinced they were saving the world from an evil Jewish conspiracy.

I have to wonder how many of them were actually convinced of this, and how many knew better and just found it a convenient fiction to take advantage of.

 

[Belz...]

I think that if you were to pause, perhaps, and reflect a bit on that part of my post which you chose not to include in your quote of it, you might come to the realization that we are generally in agreement on this point.

I think you may have missed my point. The reason why I kept that part of your post is because I disagreed with that part. I don't think they are concerned about democracy at all.

 

[bruto]

That's fair. But as someone who also finds that going off on an abstract tangent is met as if it was covering a veiled agenda, I sympathize a bit. I get stuck in that quagmire pretty often.

I get your point too but I think even as an abstraction there's a shortfall. If you take the abstract part alone, you're kind of left with the idea that it's more admirable to act than to consider. I think that the only instances where that abstraction might hold are complex ones in which the abstract part is neither so sudden nor so impulsive, even if we decide to glorify it afterwards as if it had been.

 

[JoeMorgue]

If you only go off on an abstract tangent in one direction then it is a veiled agenda.

Like I said if you only want to pitch a hissy fit about civil discourse when a Nazi gets punched or suddenly develop a "Free Speech" fetish when someone tells a racist to shutup, you're defending racism and Nazis, not civil discourse and Free Speech.

The usual suspects will continue to pretend to not get it.

 

[quadraginta]

I think you may have missed my point.

No. I didn't.

The reason why I kept that part of your post is because I disagreed with that part. I don't think they are concerned about democracy at all.

I expect that most of them are concerned about what they envision as democracy. That their vision may not include anything resembling a universal franchise, even among adults, is not particularly unusual. In fact, from an historical perspective it is more the norm than the exception.

By way of example, my grandmother had graduated from Boston University and was working as an English teacher before the 19th Amendment was ratified. Her right to vote, to participate in democracy, would have depended on which state she was living in.

State election law shenanigans that prevented blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and ... yes ... women persisted into the 1960s (and later), and the residents of the states where this occurred generally saw nothing wrong with it. Yet they certainly saw themselves as defenders of democracy. In all probability that was among of the reasons they had no problem with such laws.

I disagree with such sentiments, vehemently. But it would be foolish and even dangerous to deny their existence.

Better that we learn from history, as the saying goes.

Just this week our Supreme Court has shown that they are less worried about the the rights of citizens to vote than they are the rights of states to control the process of voting, which can only lead down a path toward a less ... shall we say ... widely shared democracy.

And that decision is being applauded by many who believe, however erroneously, that they are defending democracy.

 

[arthwollipot]

Exactly, in their own minds the Nazis were heroically saving the world from the Jewish threat. They showed the courage of their convictions in messing up their own war effort to exterminate more Jews.

Say what you like about Hitler, but... he did kill Hitler.

 

[Thermal]

If you only go off on an abstract tangent in one direction then it is a veiled agenda.

I get that it totally can be, depending on the one-way nature of a given poster, no argument. But freeze peach is solidly a political concept. When else is political speech actively tried to be silenced? Does anyone punch Senator Sanders for his Dem Soc views? The only time it comes up in a practical sense is with the ******* Nazis.

Yet it does come up non-politically. Someone talks about faith in a god, and some will try to shut him down. The same people who defend speech will defend the faithful type. If someone dares defend philosophy, we will also resist shutting them down. It's far more even across the board than you give it credit for. Some of us say "put it all out there", and push back when anyone tries to shut down the unpolular. As well it should be.

Like I said if you only want to pitch a hissy fit about civil discourse when a Nazi gets punched or suddenly develop a "Free Speech" fetish when someone tells a racist to shutup, you're defending racism and Nazis, not civil discourse and Free Speech.

The usual suspects will continue to pretend to not get it.

Again, if that is the only time they object, it's fair to narrow your eyes. If it is not, and they stand up every time but no other times present themselves, you can't fairly accuse them of bias. There aren't many other major, daily issues of speech suppression on the table.

For instance: if someone condemns the 2020 street protests, but supports far right soapboxing, you'd be right to assume a bias. If they support the speech of both, as many of us demonstrably do, there's no biased apologies going down. Goose and gander.

 

[dudalb]

Say what you like about Hitler, but... he did kill Hitler.

Best thing he ever did.

 

[dudalb]

I have to wonder how many of them were actually convinced of this, and how many knew better and just found it a convenient fiction to take advantage of.

There were opportunists, of course,( Albert Speer comes to mind) but no doubt the leaders of Nazi Germany firmly beleived in the crap they were pushing. Himmler is a textbook example of a fanatic.
Otherwise why did they carry out the Holocaust, something which meant no sense whatsoever, and in fact as a major resource drain on Nazi Germany. It took up, for example, a huge amount of rail traffic at a time when the Wehrmacht despertly needed supplies on the Eastern Front.

 

[TokenMac]

Say what you like about Hitler, but... he did kill Hitler.

But he also killed the guy who killed Hitler.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Couple of Seattle police to be fired for participating in the Jan 6th insurrection.

NPR: Two Seattle police officers trespassed at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, oversight office finds

Three of the 6 who went have been cleared and the evidence against one isn't clear.

 

[gnome]

But he also killed the guy who killed Hitler.

But then he got that guy too.

I think we're going to need a converging sum here.

 

[Belz...]

I expect that most of them are concerned about what they envision as democracy.

That's my point, Quad! I completely disagree with that. I think they have essentially given up on democracy.

 

[Aridas]

That's my point, Quad! I completely disagree with that. I think they have essentially given up on democracy.

To poke at that sentiment in a different way... Authoritarians have been gravitating to the Republican Party since their "Law and Order" counter campaign to the Civil Rights movement. At present, authoritarians hold a *very* significant amount of power in the Republican Party. There's fundamental differences in values involved, especially after the many decades of "the government IS the problem" propaganda.

 

[Warp12]

That's my point, Quad! I completely disagree with that. I think they have essentially given up on democracy.

That is your opinion. But it is hardly a compelling case, imo.

 

[gnome]

To poke at that sentiment in a different way... Authoritarians have been gravitating to the Republican Party since their "Law and Order" counter campaign to the Civil Rights movement. At present, authoritarians hold a *very* significant amount of power in the Republican Party. There's fundamental differences in values involved, especially after the many decades of "the government IS the problem" propaganda.

I think what authoritarians right now are after is for the states to be all about "law and order" and the federal government to keep their hands off. Except when they don't want them to.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I think what authoritarians right now are after is for the states to be all about "law and order" and the federal government to keep their hands off. Except when they don't want them to.

Because it gives them a chance to bog the discussion down in post-fact equivocation, their new favorite hobby.

You want the government to force schools to teach 2+2=4, they want the government to force schools to teach 2+2=The Jews Did it, both of us are the same, we both want the government to force our views on people.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This could have gone in one of 3 threads about Dump's role in the insurrection but this one seemed the most appropriate.

A discussion came up in one of the Dump threads about how he was going to get burned because suing the social media platforms he has been blocked from would likely lead to him having to give a deposition. I thought, well, he's been deposed before and he managed to not say much. But John Dean begs to differ.

HuffPo via Yahoo News: John Dean Reveals The Massive Legal 'Trap' Trump Accidentally Set For Himself

Former cable TV host and sportscaster Keith Olbermann tweeted a reminder that even a frivolous lawsuit such as this one could lead to a days-long deposition:

This is the dumbest thing Trump has ever done. It’s wonderful.

I remind you from personal experience that when you sue somebody you have to give a multi-day deposition on anything relevant to the topic…in this case, like your role inspiring the 1/6 Coup

[Dean responded:]This should be a nationally televised deposition…. Please schedule it next week. Don’t move to dismiss, which would be the normal move. Make him deal with the trap he created for himself. He will lose on the merits!