My favorite of these guys was West Virginia state legislator Derrick Evans:
>The video shows a crowd surging through a Capitol door, past security, while an alarm repeatedly blares. As Evans enters an area called National Statuary Hall he celebrates and states his own name: “We’re in! We’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”
I have to say my new favorite is the senior citizen who brought styrofoam and gasoline and is looking at ten years, maximum.
When I was far too young to be told this, in modern terms, my father, who had won multiple free trips to Asia from the US gubmint explained the recipe for homemade napalm.
Imagine the maximum sentence for someone who wanted to napalm the US Capitol for reasons other than white rage.
I don’t think these people had or have any interest in being anonymous. They are standing up for what they believe in. A public display is an important part of this all, it’s part of their statement as Americans in America.
They don't seem to think what they did was wrong - but they also didn't seem to understand it was serious.
There is a youtube video of a young woman expressing her utter shock and dismay at being maced as she literally tried to storm congress and disrupt the national democratic process. It is amazing to watch, just for how weirdly naive and entitled she is while right up saying they were trying for a revolution. What the hell did you think was going to happen?
I have no interest in defending this woman. However, it appears that onions are a home remedy for being tear gassed or experiencing other chemical irritants.
And they think this because of the Q conspiracy, which describes an enforcement agency inside the regular one under secret control by agents against the "Deep State."
Yup. Here's an interesting article listing a bunch of things that assorted groups have used for this [1].
It's not clear that you should bring such a mitigation with you, though, as that might help make the case that what you were doing that got you gassed was premeditated, which can up the seriousness of what you might be charged with and the potential penalties.
To be fair, rioters and protestors (left and right) have stormed several state legislatures, federal builds, and razed many buildings this past year, with a lot of the country saying it was justified.
People are more shocked about the *reason* they stormed the Capitol than the violence. If women in pink hats stormed the Capitol during the Kavanaugh confirmation vote (well they did, but not in enough numbers to overwhelm security), the parties would be having polar opposite reactions. GOP saying it was a coup and democrats saying it was justified outrage.
These people don't realize they were pawns in Trump's bad faith attempt to steal the election. They believe they are doing the right thing. *That doesn't justify their actions, but it explains their actions.*
Counterproductive regardless. Peaceful non-destructive protests have achieved a lot more social change in modern history than violent and/or destructive methods.
Are you familiar with the capitol bombing, Bill Ayers, weather underground, and Obama launching his political career from Ayer’s house?
Ayers being famous for admitting he doesn’t regret setting the bomb. Instead of being labeled a terrorist, he was made a professor and launched a lot of the social justice movement in education.
So... to say counterproductive isn’t taking into account history and possibility. Ayers and Obama didn’t suffer from association to each other or this domestic terrorism.
Now, obviously, Trump Supporters (notice I didn’t say GOP) will find this to all have been counterproductive, agreed there in this specific case. My point about Ayers is that this is all a matter of who writes the history.
I don't think you're refuting me by bringing up a domestic terrorist that accomplished no positive social change through their violent acts.
It's a far stretch to even imply the highly limited interactions between Ayers and Obama were in some way responsible for his rise to the presidency or that Ayers in any way influenced Obama to regard violence as the correct path for social change.
In fact, considering the ridiculous guilt-by-association he was subject to, it's more accurate to say Obama became president despite that limited connection, not because of it.
In short, the overblown Ayers-Obama link doesn't contradict my statement regarding peaceful protest.
I wasn’t trying to refute your point. Only offering a recent historical perspective where an actual terrorist organization was considered as... not that. Where the perspective is set by who is in charge.
>It's a far stretch to even imply the highly limited interactions between Ayers and Obama were in some way responsible for his rise to the presidency
I also didn’t imply that at all.
Perhaps you are just too used to arguing with people on the internet?
> don’t think these people had or have any interest in being anonymous. They are standing up for what they believe in
There are many people who stand up for what they belive in. What is clear, to me at least, is a group of people that belive they are protected from their actions because of what they are or what the belive in
They think of themselves as patriots, as John Wilkes Booth did:
> He had spent so much time among like-minded people who hated Lincoln, and he had read so many accounts denouncing Lincoln as a tyrant bent on destroying the Constitution and "personal liberty" that he expected to be hailed as a hero.
> Instead he was stunned to learn that he was being hunted down like a beast, while Lincoln was held up throughout much of the nation as a martyred saint.
> Source for this: The bibliography in my biography of Lincoln.
> “This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.”
The 14th amendment is one of the ones passed in the aftermath of the Civil War. Section 3 of the 14th amendment states:
> No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Derrick Evans was a member of a State legislature when he participated in what Congressional leadership has labeled as an insurrection. So the 14th amendment prohibits him from being a state legislator or holding any other state or federal office ever again, unless Congress decides otherwise. This constitutionally-imposed restriction is separate from any statutory restriction that could be imposed through criminal prosecution, and removed by a presidential pardon.
> No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."
> Anarchists, Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings in any of our Cities or States, will be prosecuted under our recently re-enacted Statues & Monuments Act. MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it! @DHSgov
..I doubt that a Presidential Pardon is in the cards. But maybe I'm missing something. I thought those "Qanon" folks were really obsessed with following everything Trump tweets?
> Anarchists, Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings in any of our Cities or States, will be prosecuted under our recently re-enacted Statues & Monuments Act. MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it! @DHSgov
That tweet is from July 2020, and was aimed at BLM protestors. To say the least, the president has never demonstrated any special concern for philosophical consistency.
The one that's really wanted is this guy.[1] This is someone in the Senate chamber with zip-ties. This is not the retired USAF officer who was arrested with zip-ties.[2] The person in [1] is thinner, in good shape, and wearing completely different tactical gear, along with a Punisher logo on an American flag.
Posting a link to some personal information about some person in the news is a stretch to call doxxing in the first place.
(I think it's reasonable to look at that Twitter thread as activist journalism)
Doxxing would be if you posted a picture to imgur and then posted a link to that picture along with personal information about a person depicted, or if you posted personal information about a user here or so (that wasn't already clearly public).
They setup gallows, had zip tie restraints and talked both on social media and in-person about executing government officials. Maps of the underground tunnels were also shared according to NPR. It really looks like a legitimate attempt at a coup.
The lives of congress men and women were undoubtedly at risk. I think this directly contributed to Twitter and many other tech companies clamping down on the mediums of communication for radical Trump supporters.
Tech platforms fear revenge from congress for enabling what took place, and it suddenly became a no-brainer business decision to ban Trump from social media.
I think these platforms also saw the potential for things to get orders of magnitude worse, very quickly, as we approach innauguration. Hints of it are already there in the less dominant and more permissive platforms. Maybe they figure it's better to err on the side of caution for 2 weeks and then reassess the situation.
From the Cold War to the War on Terror: the harms from authoritarian "solutions" are often greater than the threats they are ostensibly designed to combat.
It looks like your account has been using the site primarily for political and ideological battle. That's the line at which we ban accounts (see [1] for more explanation), regardless of which politics or ideology they're battling for. We have to, because it destroys what HN is supposed to exist for, which is curious conversation, not smiting enemies.
Yeah why downvote this? Ppl buying minimal amounts of marijuana (and other selectively enforced misdemeanors) are doing real time while members of a violent mob walk free. And not only are they all on camera, but there may even be SIGINT collection devices that have their phone ID info.
I don’t usually engage in politics on HN, but I think this goes beyond politics. How are we not supposed to be angry, after watching ppl be gassed and shot with rubber bullets, about how the Capitol Police responded 6 Jan? This is much bigger than politics.
Words have power [1]. The power to help and the power to harm. And in the age of social media, that power is magnified more than ever before [2]. So while the intent of the comment may have been to improve our shared world, that doesn't give a warrant to do more harm. We all need to chip in to ensure our words are precise and devoid of language that might upset, frighten, or harm others in our community.
And one more thing- which I'm sure doesn't apply to you- the idea that past harm justifies new harm is the same beliefs that justified the rise of a certain dictator in a certain central european power behaved in the 1930s/40s.
Let's work together make this community one that everyone wants to participate in!
If you believe a word is causing harm and are asking people not to use it, you should at least articulate the kind of harm you're talking about, who is being harmed, and maybe suggest some alternative wording.
Explaining exactly how something like t*rr*r causes people harm is a form of victim blaming. It isn't the requirement of harmed peoples to explain how they are harmed, it is our responsibility to listen, believe, and change our harmful behavior.
Is it really so hard to just use a different word? Or is your conservative view on language more important than people's wellbeing?
That said, an alternative word suggested by experts is "anti-social political action."
"And one more thing- which I'm sure doesn't apply to you- the idea that past harm justifies new harm is the same beliefs that justified the rise of a certain dictator in a certain central european power behaved in the 1930s/40s."
Those words are too vague. People were led to believe that the core of their government was being defrauded. Were they harmed? Did some of them go on to harm?
(I didn't see your flagged comment. Currently mine is at -3.)
Every one of these insurrectionists was carrying a smartphone. The FBI knows the identity of everyone in the area; it’s just a question of determining which ones illegally entered the Capitol grounds.
I wonder what are they going to do with the info about that Antifa protest that was going on when they get it... Not much, if experience is anything to go by.
Not a lawyer, but if he literally instructed the crowd to "march into the capitol chambers" then it seems like there might be a case, but if he just said something like "march to the capitol" it doesn't sound like enough to prove responsibility. Similarly "fight" could be claimed as a metaphor (e.g. college fight songs) rather than a literal incitement to violence. Etc..
He said "March to the capital". He didn't instruct them to invade.
But he did -
Spend two months riling them with his grievance fantasies
Call all patriots to gather for a rally
Spend 70 minutes telling them their votes had been stolen and they needed to FIGHT!
Tell them to march to the capitol.
It's a very fine line, and the outcome very predictable, even if he didn't explicitly tell them to invade it.
But he also filled them with grievances and told them they had to fight.
His words stop just short of directly ordering what happened, but you'd have to be an idiot not to see it coming. His tweets during the event also made it clear he was perfectly happy with what was going on.
It was an hour long talk with falsehoods and telling people to go to Congress and act with the people there. The demo plans were known in the community and his lawyers and family chimed in.
Intent and collusion is clear. There were words used to supposedly disarm all the other vitriol, which is for a court to decide.
I spent an afternoon downloading stuff from right wing sites before it could be deleted and uploading it to the FBI. I hope it helps. Amusing that being so anti-mask makes it so easy for the FBI to identify the bad actors.
If you want to downvote rather than discuss I'm happy to burn karma for this.
Matt can you please stop using HN for political battle? You've been a fabulous contributor and we love you. But this stuff is not what the site is for, and I'm dismayed to see you're doing it repeatedly these days. I get that present events are activating, but it doesn't change the purpose of HN, and I'm working overtime trying to prevent it burning to the ground—which is all too likely along the current path.
I want justice. Protect the weak, help those who are in trouble, prevent violence against the innocent.
That means helping government agencies do their job, when I can. It also means ensuring that the people who we ask to protect us actually DO protect us.
Having different sets of principles for different groups of people is what one calls partisanship; and partisanship is a very critical problem in the US right now.
With whataboutism, everything is OK then, as you can always find something worse to confirm your bias.
Besides, I find it disingenious to equate lies about election fraud without evidence leading to riot and assault on core democratic process, and people fighting/defending the right not to be assaulted and killed by armed police.
But that argument is besides the point of this issue.
You are confused; I didn't give Trumpistas a pass, I accused the other side of having double standards. Ergo, not whataboutism.
You are well within your right BTW to find the comparison disingenious. I find it too. However, I'm not interested in giving one group of people power to do whatever they want without legal repercussions and enforce it on another group of people. Should the law not be equal to all?
Not really contradictory. I trust the Feds and the intelligence community a hell of a lot more with protecting a country from sedition than your average local cop who dropped out of middle school so he can bully people of colour with a baton
Funny how critics of #defundthepolice willing ignore that it has always meant #reappropriatefundsfromthepolicetosocialservicesbetterabletohandlenonviolentissues
You're right. And yet, weirdly, it's the people who flew the Thin Blue Line flag who beat a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher. (If this reads like snark, I don't mean it that way; I'm interested in what you think about that observation.)
The demands have been made abundantly clear: they want demilitarization, and other health-focused services to take over in areas where police response is overkill and inappropriate. That's literally it. This isn't hard to find.
That very same essay literally means the other hashtag so I'm confused:
"By abolishing policing and prisons, not only can we eliminate white supremacist establishments, but we can create space for budgets to be reinvested directly into communities to address mental health needs, homelessness and houselessness, access to education, and job creation as well as community-based methods of accountability. This is a future that centers the needs of the people, a future that will make us safer, healthier, and truly free."
Colin Kapaernic is probably the best known activist against police brutality towards black people in the USA.
He defines it as abolishing the police.
I have come across many activists who want to abolish the police.
I would assume that most vaguely left leaning people wouldn’t support that as a policy, but it is certainly not a ‘fringe’ definition from the point of view of the activist community with whom it is most associated.
There is absolutely nothing disingenuous about recognizing that mainstream activists do mean to abolish the police.
We have to accept that both definitions are in use.
What is disingenuous, is to dismiss or deny the idea that anyone other than opponents of it think it means abolish the police.
That is essentially a motte-and-bailey tactic, and all it does is stop honest discussion.
Yes, by abolishing policing, you can reappropriate those funds for other projects. This is literally what he's saying. It is literally reappropriating the funds.
There is evidence against the police on the scene not securing the members of congress? I've only seen people spreading uninformed, BS conclusions based on out-of-context videos. Conclusions that were largely later debunked.
It's also funny how the 'thin blue line' people ended up killing more police officers than all of the BLM protests put together and tried to crush one alive in a door. Very 'funny'.
> funny how all the #resistance and #defundthepolice folks are actively working with the feds and law enforcement and cheering them on
I don't know why it's funny that those groups don't conform to the right-wing propaganda about their goals.
The defund/dismantle/abolish movement thinks, broadly, that law enforcement gets too big of a slice of local finding with too broad of a remit, and that there are structural and institutional defects in present local law enforcement, such that funding and functions should be shifted to other organizations, and (and the dismantle/abolish end of the spectrum) existing local monolithic paramilitary law enforcement agencies should be disbanded entirely with all of the lot responsibilities reallocated to other new and existing entities with different structures.
They don't oppose the law enforcement function, nor do they, IME, generally oppose cooperation with existing law enforcement entities, within bounds of care around dangerous institutional biases one may play into with danger to oneself and other innocents while so doing.
Similarly, #resist isn’t anti-government it's specifically anti-Trumpist-extremism. Cooperating with law enforcement rolling up Trump coup participants is pretty much the most on-brand #resist thing ever.
I think people are upvoting this because they approve of the maximum penalty to anyone caught trespassing (or worse) in the Capitol building. This isn't really relevant to Hacker News though. There is nothing interesting about the FBI investigating the most conspicuous federal crime in the past 5 years.
>The video shows a crowd surging through a Capitol door, past security, while an alarm repeatedly blares. As Evans enters an area called National Statuary Hall he celebrates and states his own name: “We’re in! We’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”
https://wvmetronews.com/2021/01/09/derrick-evans-resigns-w-v...