At the risk of opening up a debate over semantics, I see the post-election meltdown of MAGAbots more as a form of extreme anger, which in some cases is raw hatred but in other cases is not motivated by hate but a desire to restore balance to what they view as a world in a state of disorder.
They viewed their behavior not as a crime, but a patriotic, moral deed that had to be carried out. Night after night, as they went deeper down into their social media rabbit hole, they consumed nightmarish bedtime story after nightmarish bedtime story. They were fed lies about what was happening to their culture and to people like themselves.
I’m not up for defending the rioters, but this is not true. MOST people around the country are not recovered from financial hardship. While these numbers are from after covid hit (Oct 2020 survey), these numbers were the same or worse even before that. The stimulus and unemployment benefits have seemed to have helped some for the moment.
63% of people are living paycheck to paycheck. 8 out of 10 people could not cover a $500 expense. According to the article, the financial squeeze is not about personal choices but about the rising cost of living along with stagnant wages.
I think all of this has political ramifications. Stagnant wages, the rising cost of living, the lack of a social safety net, and the lack of affordable healthcare are all things that the government could do something about, but they don’t. People who are suffering under these conditions have reason to be aggrieved. Of course, they don’t have reason to do illegal things like storm the Capitol, but they do have reasons to be frustrated.
But the people who stormed the Capitol were not storming to make America a better place, they wanted their own people to have a better place and the hell with the more than other half that wants to make it a better place. They were fighting for minority rule. For might makes right and to hell with democracy and letting voting decide how we run the place.
Yes they are frustrated. But out of their frustration they decided to follow a tyrant that just makes promises without following through. Where the hell was his great health care plan after four years?
? You seem to be saying that a legal principle doesn’t exist unless it takes the form of a specific law. IANAL but I don’t think that’s how it works.
Nobody has claimed that there are never any exceptions made in law to the general legal principle that ignorance of the law doesn’t excuse illegal behavior. But just because there are occasional exceptions doesn’t mean that the principle isn’t valid in general.
Yes, it is a legal principle. So? Does that mean "I didnt know it was illegal " will be gaveled out of court, in the case os some obscure and little known law? It isnt law.
Not necessarily, and nobody has claimed it necessarily will. So?
It’s baffling why you’re being so combative about this issue, on which nobody is supporting the straw position that you’re attacking.
Recall that when I brought up the existence of this legal principle back in post #1181, it was merely as an analogy to my proposed ethical principle that “ignorance of the (readily available) facts is no excuse for stupid behavior”. To forestall more of your indignant irrelevant contradictions, allow me to point out right away that that proposed ethical principle isn’t law either, nor am I proposing that it should be so considered.
I question what percentage of the people who flew to the capital with the intent of protesting(/rioting(/insurrection)) are currently unable to scrounge $500 in the case of an emergency.
To be sure that this is not survivor bias talking, was everyone that you were familiar with when you were young now doing well, or just those you are currently familiar with now that you are doing well?
I know plenty of people in their 40’s and 50’s that are not doing well financially.
I can get a round trip flight to DC for under $150. For Jon Stewart’s Rally back in 2010, I drove out there with 3 other friends, cost us a tank of gas and some road snacks.
But, according to:
And quite a number are business owners, but struggling business owners, owing back taxes or liens to creditors.
Interesting thing about owning a business is that you can put yourself quite deeply in the hole, and yet still be able to get another extension of credit to dig yourself deeper. Someone could be $100,000 in debt, and yet still be able to fly themselves out to Washington to participate in an insurrection.
the referenced bankruptcy rate of the group could be why they love and revere a guy who declared bankruptcy multiple times, and is suspected of fraud. one of us, one of us.
I’m not sure that you’re interpreting that decision correctly.
Generally speaking, prosecutors have to establish criminal intent or intent to break the law. Whether you knew that certain behavior was deemed illegal, however, is not necessary to prove. What’s necessary to prove is that you intended to do the act, and the act was illegal according to a constitutionally valid rule or law.
Because they have access to liquidity, which is something that, say, the single mom with three kids and three jobs probably doesn’t have. I suppose there are different kinds of poverty.
I think it’s totally plausible that there is a percentage among the rioters who had some sort of searing, life-changing event that sent them over the edge and into QAnon land. I’m not saying that these people don’t have problems. My beef with these fuckers is, it’s as clear as day that they think they’re the only fucking people on the face of the earth with problems and they see themselves as the ‘victims.’
Even if they are bankrupt, I would be willing to wager that these rowdy white boys and girls have had opportunities and a leg up that many others have not. The most likely explanation for their misery is that they probably made decisions that caused it, but unlike blacks, Latinos, and white liberal art snowflakes they like to make fun of and wag their fingers at whenever they fall on hard times, they believe they’re entitled to privilege and immunity from failure, and they don’t want to do the hard work of looking in the fucking mirror.
