# 7 Jan 2021 and beyond - the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [January 8, 2021, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020 "2021-01-08T10:28:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 248

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**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2024, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4951 "2024-01-07T19:50:20Z")

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Police killing suspects is not something that I’ll ever celebrate. I wish Ashli Babbit stayed home that day and was still alive. But she didn’t. She joined a violent mob, she threatened police, and she stuck her face in a breach that was highly likely to receive incoming fire. The bullet arrived and she got what she got.

Capitol Police would have been justified in shooting anybody and everybody on the other side of that breaking door. I wish nobody died that day, but the fact that they were able to disperse a mob of hundreds while only shooting one person is an amazing display of professionalism and courage.

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**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2024, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4952 "2024-01-07T20:48:51Z")

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Indeed. Can you imagine how frightening it had to be for the people fending off that horrible angry mob. I’m very proud of the police in this situation.

I do hope the lawsuit that has been filed by her husband is quickly tossed out.

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**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2024, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4953 "2024-01-07T23:23:56Z")

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> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> I wish nobody died that day, but the fact that they were able to disperse a mob of hundreds while only shooting one person is an amazing display of professionalism and courage.

Indeed. A great deal of restraint must have been involved.

Also, I suspect, indicates that the mob, despite the way they themselves were behaving, weren’t prepared for or expecting to be shot at. Whether they genuinely expected to be hailed as heros, or whether they thought only black people get shot at for breaking into buildings while threatening their residents, or whether they had just given up thinking at all, I have no idea.

Whatever it was, her husband still seems to be thinking it.

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**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4954 "2024-01-08T03:58:35Z")

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Correction to my post, I just read that it’s her father who filed suit, not her husband. I don’t know why I thought it was the hubby.

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**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4955 "2024-01-08T10:41:47Z")

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The “fedsurrection” crowd are coming hard on social media at the moment, desperately trying to rewrite history. I find that asking them why Trump praised the participants if it was all staged makes them go quiet for a while.

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**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4956 "2024-01-08T15:11:07Z")

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“If they were entrapped, and Donald Trump… by dint of his being head of the executive branch… was the ultimate head of the FBI, doesn’t that mean they were entrapped by Donald Trump?”

“If the crowd was Antifa, why are you upset they were entrapped?”

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**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4957 "2024-01-08T15:24:44Z")

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It was Shrodinger’s Insurrection:

You can’t tell if they were loyal MAGAts or FBI Antifa plants until you open the box.

And they will never open the box.

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**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4958 "2024-01-08T19:54:49Z")

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They (the crowd) were entrapped. **They were the diversion** , the excuse/reasoning for the imposition of Martial law, seizing ballot boxes and machines, the submission of fake elector lists, and throwing the election to the House. When Jack Smith nails Trump in DC; I fervently hope he then goes after the unindicted co-conspirators. People like Meadows and Eastman, and the house and senate members cooperating in the plot. They were the real Deep State. Trump the Idiot doesn’t/didn’t have the brain power or organizational ability to plan the take-over. His stooges did. They should be in prison for life.

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**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4959 "2024-01-08T23:46:33Z")

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Wrong thread. nm

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**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2024, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4960 "2024-01-09T00:05:20Z")

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> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> The “fedsurrection” crowd are coming hard on social media at the moment, desperately trying to rewrite history. I find that asking them why Trump praised the participants if it was all staged makes them go quiet for a while.

Here in Little Rock, we have a local “hero” named David O. Dodd who was hanged by the Union army as a Confederate spy in 1864. Every January, the Sons of Confederate Veterans hold a ceremony at Mount Holly Cemetery where Dod is buried. The Sons simultaneously revere him as a hero of the Confederacy while claiming he was an innocent victim of the vindictive Union commander. Since many of the Sons and other participants came to the museum I worked at, the site where Dodd was taken after his conviction, I had a few occasions to ask them how he could at once be innocent and a hero of the Confederacy at the same time but I never received a satisfactory answer. It didn’t reall matter because the truth doesn’t really matter to these people.

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**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2024, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4961 "2024-01-09T13:29:14Z")

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I don’t understand your confusion. If my enemy trumps up charges against somebody on my side and executes him, that man was both innocent of the charges and also a martyr to my cause.

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**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2024, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4962 "2024-01-09T15:00:03Z")

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> [@tofor](#):
>
> If my enemy trumps up charges against somebody on my side and executes him, that man was both innocent of the charges and also a martyr to my cause.

Martyr, **not** hero.

See three definitions of martyr (as a noun):

> **[Definition of MARTYR](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/martyr)**
>
> a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion; a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle; victim; especially : a great or...

Only the third definition applies here where it’s a synonym for “victim” but there is nothing heroic about it, because the person who was killed did not die for their beliefs or in furtherance of the cause. They died out of a _false_ belief that they were part of the cause.

Honoring someone as a victim is different than calling them a hero.

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**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2024, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4963 "2024-01-09T15:40:07Z")

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Maybe I’m misreading Odesio, but it’s not my understanding that the folks in question are denying his devotion to the cause, just the specifics of the spying charge.

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**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2024, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4964 "2024-01-09T16:22:34Z")

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The person in question is David O. Dodd.

> **[David O. Dodd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_O._Dodd)**
>
> David Owen Dodd (November 10, 1846 – January 8, 1864), also known as David O. Dodd, was an Arkansas youth executed for spying in the American Civil War.
> In December 1863 Dodd carried some letters to business associates of his father in Union-held Little Rock, Arkansas. While traveling to rejoin his family at Camden, Arkansas, he mistakenly re-entered Federally-held territory. Discovering that he did not have a pass, U.S. soldiers questioned him and found that he was carrying a notebook with t...

I remember even watching a story about him on _Mysteries at the Museum_. His [diaries](https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan/31/civil-war-diaries-given-to-museum/) are at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in Little Rock.

Now it’s true that in this particular case there is a reason he is celebrated as a hero. He was found by Union soldiers with a notebook that had Union army info written in Morse code. He refused to reveal where he got it from and was hung. The legend is that he got the message from a girl, Mary Dodge, who lived in a house where Union soldiers were quartered. She was a supporter of the South and supposedly she tricked him into carrying it for her. He refused to give it up to protect her.

Seems to me like if all of what he’s celebrated for is true, then he was guilty, not innocent.

I think that people who are trying to paint the modern day insurrectionists as heroes are playing the same game.

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**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4965 "2024-01-11T14:03:01Z")

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Authorities found another one of the 1/6 Freedom Fighters/Tourists.

> **[Montana fire chief who had refused vaccine mandate in Washington state...](https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riot-fire-chief-4effc02782b4d7c34bc252f98fc7cb39?user_email=c670f76b9ea3e4a287eac163aa636c2982b094e37632506fec6dbc1d27c6da2a&utm_medium=Morning_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_campaign=Morning%20Wire%20Official_11%20Jan_2024&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers)**
>
> A Montana fire chief who lost a previous job over a coronavirus vaccine mandate has been charged with spraying a chemical irritant on police officers during the riot at the U.S.

> FBI agents confirmed his identity by talking to firefighters who had worked with him in in Issaquah, Washington and identified him from video and photos taken on Jan. 6. They also provided his cellphone number, which was traced to the restricted area of the Capitol that day.
> 
> Investigators also found text messages he sent from that number to someone else convicted in the riot, saying “It was a great day!! It got spicy but I love the taste of Freedom.”

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**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4966 "2024-01-11T14:03:59Z")

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How does it taste now, buddy?

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**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4967 "2024-01-11T14:11:37Z")

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Was he wearing a mask that day?

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**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4968 "2024-01-11T14:32:02Z")

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“Hostages.” That’s the current name. Get with the times! /s

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**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4969 "2024-01-11T14:48:09Z")

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> [@Love\_Rhombus](#):
>
> “Hostages.” That’s the current name.

Well, yes, he’s a hostage now that he’s been arrested.

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**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-jan-2021-and-beyond-the-aftermath-of-the-storming-of-the-capitol/930020/4970 "2024-01-11T22:06:20Z")

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Wait a minute, I thought it was “Political Prisoners”.

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