The woman who died was definitely no innocent bystander. She was part of the mob, and when she was shot, she was trying to enter a restricted part of the building as part of a mob. This video shows the shooting; there’s no blood or anything, but you see her attempting to climb the window and then fall back after the shot. The shot is at about 45 seconds.
I think it’s terrible that she’s dead, and looking at that video, I’m not sure that there was any need for the cops to shoot her. But she wasn’t just a peaceful protestor or an unfortunate victim of a stray bullet.
She was a military veteran from San Diego, and if her Twitter feed is any indication, she was deep into Trumpist conspiracy theories. She was sharing a whole lot of posts by nutjob lawyer Lin Wood over the past few weeks. Here’s a video post she made in late 2018, which shows her ranting about Kamala and Democrats and all sorts of stupid shit, all while driving a car.
She was part of the mob that was inciting a riot. She knew the doors were blocked and that there were people on the other side pointing guns at her. She did a stupid thing and paid the price. Sorry she died but she caused her own death. The police held back until they were within threatening distance of the congressmen, it was their job to protect the elected officials from being harmed or kidnapped.
That works! Just one suggestion: “Insurrectionist,” to me, carries a whiff of romantic revolution— the kind of thing Fielding Mellish joined to impress his ex-girlfriend. I’d prefer a word that more directly evokes how Republicans harm actual people, not abstract institutions.
I confess that I got carried away in my emotions yesterday – it is in one sense sad that someone ended up dead from yesterday’s assault on the Capitol.
But let’s be clear: that was an invasion of our domain, plain and simple. I treat those rioters really no differently than I would treat, say, an invading army from another country. They were trying to impose their own worldview on the rest of us without giving a damn what we thought. They attempted to strip our basic rights to be represented away from us. In a democratic republic, there is no worse form of theft, no greater crime.
Not fair at all. I’m a confirmed misanthrope and happy to admit it. People lie, cheat and steal. People would rather destroy than create. People suck.
The difference between the misanthrope and these hate fueled corruptions of decency, free thought and civic responsibility is simple: The true misanthrope is content to quietly let people wallow in their own failures and moral cancers without assuming that own own perspectives and actions could possibly be of any value or interest to anyone else. These insurrectionists chose to use violence and fear to impose their deranged need for relevance on the rest of us. The true misanthrope says “Yeah, you suck. It’s OK though because I suck too.”
While the Capital Riot was a horrible event, stating this country is over or we don’t have any laws now is just plain stupid. This country has survived far worse than a bunch of white supremacist snowflakes temporarily disrupting Congress for a few hours. Arrest, charge, and try those fuckers and the fuckers who egged them on and move on with running this country.
All this shit that we pay for has failed us once again at the time we need it the most. I’m going to say it, law enforcement stood down just like the military did on 9/11.
Individual officers were left to hang waiting for backup that didn’t arrive until hours later. We know what they can do, they knew about this plan to raid the capitol. we know what SOP should have been.BLM vs MAGA response
I know this photo has been seen many times, but its important. There is no way to go back to normal after this. The photo shows what they could have done. We all see what they did.
It’s a bit head snapping to read about how fatal force was used against the encroaching mob and how those who used that force are all on the side of the mob.
To the first. Clearly such force was justified just as such force would be justified if a mob was closing in on the president and refused commands to halt.
To the second. Whether the cause was explicit sympathies with the cause of the terrorists or implicit bias, it is clear that police leadership respond to BLM as scary dangerous and White Power Trump coup wannabes as not dangerous. And some rank and file too. AND some rank and file were placed undermanned and under armed in the way of a mob, some of whom were presumed armed, definitely wearing body armor, and those rank and file cops did their best putting their lives in harm’s way.
The “rule of law” has not been perfect for 200+ years, it isn’t perfect now, and there will always be exceptions for white people that black people do not get. But that doesn’t end the rule of law and saying it does is just stupid, over-wrought, drama queen histeronics. Go away now and let the grownups talk.
