Because I read a bunch of news reports and then posted, I didn’t have the articles I read still open. I typically Google Seattle protest and click news, it’seems in there, if I run across it again I will link to it.
Seattle’s protest yesterday was organized by a group called youth liberation front. They’ve also been active in Portland protests. If black goal is to reform police, then these are probably not the people to be joining in protests.
They believe in abolishing police, anti-capitalism, and that they should not be peaceful, they think it requires violence.
Note: my tablet swapped blm with black in the phrase that has the word goal
…can you provide a cite for this? Specifically that the protest was only organized by the Youth Liberation Front, that they believe in abolishing the police (I’ve done a cursory search and this doesn’t appear to be a stated goal), and that they believe protest require violence?
I hope someone is keeping track of which city has the most umbrellas and leaf blowers.
Well, that she was injured is irrefutable; this was not a “moderate” injury. Perhaps she did stand there like a deer in the headlights for ten seconds. Perhaps the handheld laser was more than 150-mw. Perhaps Saturn was in Ares rising. In any event, it is you who is ignoring your own citation. The final line in the Live Science article:
Pass it on: Lasers damage the eye by heating up the retina, and can cause permanent damage.
(bolding in the article)
I am done with you.
If my suspicions are correct, no one is keeping a tally, because there is nothing to tally up. That is, there was an isolated incident or two, but this is not happening in any great number.
I suppose you could look at it that way. Or, as I tend to do, there was that incident I mentioned, but there was no need to make sure multiple “black-baggings” were stopped, because they were never happening in the first place. Again, something happened once, but this is not evidence that America has become a police state, not by a long shot.
…I would suggest that you should look at it this way.
You do realise that the Customs and Border Patrol have been conducting secret, violent arrests of immigrants for years? Did you think it started in Portland? This was standard operating procedure for the CBP. They just didn’t expect to get called out for it.
Strawman. America is indeed on the road to authoritarianism, but it isn’t there yet and I never claimed that they were a “police state.” Its like all the people who say we “overreacted” to Covid-19 with Lockdowns because when we did Lockdown the case numbers went down, so why did we have to Lockdown again? The protests did their job.
Making the rounds on Facebook. In summary, Mr. Nystrom is a POC who translates for the court system. He was confronted by a bunch of camo-dressed thugs (ICE?) outside the courthouse and only the fortunate arrival of a DA prevented a very bad outcome.
I think the principle of never assuming there are incidents beyond what can be reported and verified is good for most things.
However when the federal government has spend decades making accountability and oversight through proper channels impossible it starts to make sense to assume the worst.
The only way for info of random people being abducted by the feds for no reason to even be reported is for someone around to have a camera and not themselves be intimidated into stopping or abducted. Of course we never see the entire picture. Of course we have no idea if these are isolated incidents or widespread. The way federal law enforcement is designed we are supposed to never know what they are doing. There’s a reason government agencies need oversight. This is what happens when you don’t have that. Civilians will always assume the worst from unaccountable overlords and unless there is an actual effort on the part of the feds to allow for real oversight, they should.
Ah, so it’s okay if you don’t commit a crime too many times. Interesting defense.
“Your honor, yes, my client did point a gun at a passerby and relieve him of his wallet, but it was only the one time. He promises not to do it again.”
We could call it the Calvera defense.
Once I rob a bank in Texas; your government get after me with a whole army… whole army! One little bank. Is clear the meaning: in Texas, only Texans can rob banks.
This is far from a strawman. Now, I should have said “becoming” or “moving towards” a police state, but this belief is real, as you yourself exemplify. I don’t believe we are moving in that direction. Buy maybe you have evidence that this is the case, such as stats showing an increase in whatever type of activity would show that. You decide what that actvity is, and present the evidence. I read your link about the CPB, and of course these actions are atrocious. But America has done this kind of thing before, and I have no doubt we will do it again in the future. But I want to see a trend showing that it is continually getting worse.
Then they are a bunch of assholes too.
I am not defending the vandals breaking windows. I am just saying that it is not appropriate to blame or punish the peaceful protesters for their actions.
It seems as though you are trying to build a narrative that there is some sort of organized effort to commit vandalism and violence against “wrong think”, and I am saying that you are going to have to bring better evidence than a third hand report by someone who apparently does not even have the name that you originally reported.
If you happen to be in a vandalist mood, and you start walking down the street busting out people’s side view mirrors, when you get to your buddy’s car and skip him, it would be wrong to say that you were vandalizing cars because they did not belong to your friend. But, that is exactly the assertion you are trying to make by relaying what you remember of what some random guy on the news said.
Oh, please. I never said it was okay. You cannot seriously believe I implied that in any shape or form, can you?
I do wonder how they would react if you started playing the “Star Spangled Banner.” Would LEO have to put down their blackjacks and stand at attention?
“Vanishingly small” is used all the time around here to excuse misdeeds by one’s own allies.
Just as with the “kids in cages” thing where the cruelty was the point. Here the randomness is the point. They don’t want people thinking: “If I go and peacefully protest and don’t commit vandalism or any other crime, I won’t be arrested so I’ll go protest.”. They want people thinking: “They’re just grabbing folks at random even if they’re not breaking the law so I won’t go.” They know these arrests are bullshit. That’s why they’re releasing everybody, but the deterrent against protesting still works because you never know that they might not shift to not letting folks go.
I am not sure your reason to choose hostility.
My very first line of the post that you objected to was that lasers can cause severe eye injury. That has never been in contention. To accuse me of ignoring a line in my citation that 100% agrees with what I have said is more than a bit odd on your part. It suggests that either you didn’t comprehend what I said, or that you are not understanding what it is that you said.
I cited academic articles, you held onto your uncommon interpretation of a common turn of phrase in a news report.
What has been in contention is whether lasers are a significantly greater danger than thrown rocks, which you were advocating that they continue to do.
And no, I do not believe that lasers pose a greater threat to LEO than rocks, and I have not seen you make the case that they do.
But, if your desire is to ignore evidence in favor of your predisposed beliefs, if you can’t even read the words that I wrote and see that you are arguing against a position that I never held, then I do not have anything further to offer you.
…“shoulda, coulda”, yet you didn’t. I never said the US was a police state. You put those words into my mouth. A strawman.
I’ll trust the experts over the opinions of a random internet poster.
Already done.
My cite wasn’t intended to “show a trend that it will continually get worse.” My cite was to show that “America has done this kind of thing before”, it appears you agree with me that America has done this kind of thing before, so I’ll take this as a concession that yes, the CPB “black bagging” protestors at the start of latest round of protests was standard procedure for them and that protesting against the tactic stopped it dead in its tracks.