I think that the events of the past week prove that I was right about the points that I expressed in this thread, the main one being that mainstream media should never amplify dangerous ideas.
The idea that good ideas and good speech will inevitably out-compete toxic ones is a very dangerously naive assumption that we were taught in civics class, along with a lot of other American values propaganda. It’s wrong. Wednesday proved it.
OTOH, if troops had been used against the traitors that stormed the capitol, intead of the police holding the doors open and giving directions, that might have been good karmic justice.
Not really germane to the thread, but I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of the police – they absolutely made mistakes but I didn’t see them collectively holding their hands and singing with them. They were overrun and scared; their mistake was trusting that white Trump supporters were not as dangerous as they have imagined Black Lives Matter and Antifa to be. In reality, as they’ve shown again and again, they are much more dangerous.
My point is, the idea that Trump’s insurrectionists are entitled to a platform in the name of “objectivity” or “fairness and balance in reporting” or “free speech” is just a big crock of shit…as we’ve seen this week (and should have seen much, much earlier).
WSJ published a piece (editorial page) friday from Tom Cotton where he bemoans the lack of military intervention against the insurrectionist trump followers.
There is literally a video of a cop holding a woman’s hand and helping her down the stairs.
Okay, but I’m just saying that without seeing the video and knowing the context, I can’t judge. Most of what I’ve seen has been cops stunned and perhaps having some Stockholm syndrome.
They absolutely misjudged the situation. I’m sure there are pro-Trump cops in the Capitol Police just like there are in departments all over the country, but I think we gotta be careful about conspiracy theories - and not saying you’re spreading or believing in conspiracy theories, either.