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I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
I mean, presumably ICE is detaining or arresting her because she's in the way and being annoying; if she's driving away (again, presumably because she decided it was no longer worth it), this removes the annoyance and the obstruction, so it seems extra odd to make it into a life or death situation when essentially the situation is about to resolve itself to almost everyone's satisfaction shortly.
This also doesn't fit your example. Standing behind your car has a clear and temporary purpose: holding the cart for someone. It's not for the purpose of obstructing the car, the car is just inconvenienced as a side effect. A better example would be the escalation into a bar fight. At some point, one person gets super close into the face of someone else. Human nature is to push the person away and out of their 'personal space'. The shove is interpreted as violence, and a punch is (or worse) is thrown. The fight starts. Any number of variants are possible. Now, responsibility for this series of events is rarely clear-cut. I would say that sticking your face a few inches away from someone else's is basically asking to get pushed away, even if the shove is the first physical thing to happen and technically bad to do. This is not a perfect analogy by any means, but the point is that it's usually understood that deliberately constraining the options of someone else brings on some responsibility to go with it. Law enforcement, presumably being trained for situations as it is literally a big part of their job, is not perfectly immune from blame simply due to their law enforcement role, and in fact it might be reasonable to expect higher standards.
Now sure, you can say that once law enforcement pulls the trigger on something, they are justified in following through, but surely not all crimes are worth equal effort in enforcing? Cops and prosecutors themselves don't even believe that as a matter of regular, daily work. There's a sliding scale of seriousness for crimes, and this one kind of seems like it's near the bottom. I'm sympathetic to arguments about avoiding accidentally incentivizing criminals to regularly escape, but obstruction seems like the worst possible crime for that worry to apply, right?
EverythingIsFine
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4d ago
Obviously it didn't make it into the Constitution as exactly such, but in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Or in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments:
No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
These... didn't come to mind first? Very, very unfortunate. Right to life is not a gotcha, it's an obvious recognition that death is something uniquely serious - definitionally, something with zero remedy or reversal (spirituality aside) that robs a human of all future potential and agency. Obviously a lot of commentators have disagreed historically about whether property rights are (or ought to be) intrinsic to humans or not, and to define what a person is, but generally speaking no debate exists over a right to life in the broad sense. I'm a bit surprised I have to explain this?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
The protestor's cause of the week is more important than the driver getting to where they want to go.
I think this phrase does a lot of the work here to create the irony/inconsistency. Your phrasing about an issue of the week invokes a dismissive attitude; would you feel the same if it's like, an MLK-importance event? While the ICE debate is subjective in its worthiness, some causes are more important than the driver getting to where they want to go.
I should say that MLK here deserves credit because a lot of their stuff was specifically calibrated to strike some kind of balance between inherent non-violence and visibility (partly stemming from inconvenience), and their cause was an excellent society-level one. Furthermore, the protests were designed to specifically appeal to the general moderate public. It's not at all clear to me that modern ICE protestors really know what they are doing nor if they are accurately assessing the scale and relative importance of their cause. In fact I have big doubts. However, the more excitable of them do seem to genuinely believe that 'stopping ICE' is a societal-wide values thing and a battle for the soul of America. Ergo, more flashy and obnoxious actions are justified.
Conversely, Scenario 2 hinges on an implied valuation of "rule of law" with which the worthiness of it determines how justified escalation is. Big importance? Bigger escalations. The law already recognizes this spectrum, if unevenly.
Now, even a protestor is to some extent engaging in a game of chicken with the cops: arrest me if you dare, but if you do (or are violent doing it) you'll look silly or mean and lose the PR war. It's important to realize that that's a feature, not a bug, of the game. I'd actually go farther and say that morally a protestor has good reason to oppose stupid fellow protestors who might lose them PR for various reasons (mostly misjudging the balance of importance). That modern leftist protestors in the last decade or so often seem to recently misjudge these situations does not in my eyes discredit the entire ethos and justification of protest - it just means the protestors are stupid.
So yeah, although I'm sure institutional trust in protestors or cops plays a role, I tend to view it through a "values" lens and with that lens there's nothing incoherent going on. Conservatives highly value rule of law and respect for authority even if unearned, and liberals highly value not being mean to immigrants and uphold annoying protest as a core American value.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
In this case the vehicle was "in motion" more generally (reversing first) and so I feel like more latitude is wise to extend.
Generally in life I've observed that cars have a pretty strong "bubble effect" when you're driving, where psychologically you feel separated from the world. Ever tried even something simple like staring at someone through the window? They get abnormally bothered, because mentally they aren't fully "in public" in that moment until the wall is broken. Until then you feel somewhat inviolate. Assessing the situation ought to take that at least partially into account. I mean, look how resistant people are even in normal, fully and obviously justified, clearly signaled stops to getting out of the car!
In some sense it feels wrong to take that into account because it's at least somewhat psychological, but that doesn't really make it less real an effect.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
Okay, I'm glad you clarified, but there's a wide gulf between "tried as accessories" (requires knowledge of a crime and actual aid) and moral culpability (subjective opinion) so you shouldn't treat them as interchangeable. And regularly handing out misdemeanors for protest somewhat undermines the actual right of protest. I mean, personally I agree that this type of 'protest' is largely counterproductive, but sometimes we need to tolerate anti-social or anti-civic behavior for the sake of upholding the sanctity of civic rights generally. Would we be better off as a society if misdemeanors are handed out left and right just because ICE gets annoyed? Feels like no.
I don't want to do the leftist moral victim-blame card of saying "oh ICE/Trump deserved it because they escalated first"; blaming protestors feels like basically the opposite side of the same coin, yeah?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
Sorry for angering the ToaKraken! <3
We do, however, require that police don't randomly go arresting people. We do, however, require that police have better reasons for asking for license and registration than just randomly coming across someone in the street. The law regulates, and public order and fairness demand, that police pursue their trade with at least some degree of narrowness to avoid excessively harming or inconveniencing otherwise law-abiding people. This is a tradeoff, and one that should swing more decisively on behalf of the average citizen and their right to life in these circumstances. I thought this was somewhat self-explanatory. Obviously I'm not saying that police can never enforce anything for fear of bad things happening.
What makes this type of scenario more urgent to address is how swiftly the pendulum swings. The very fact that some people are radically changing their views based on a difficult-to-judge assessment of 1-2 feet in one direction or the other is a warning sign that this situation might need better guardrails. We obviously cannot prevent all difficult borderline scenarios, but to me it seems that fairness and justice is not being best served by current laws and policies.
I recognize that some people on here take the view that if a cop arrests you, you must comply. I whole-heartedly agree! Some people then go one to say that it follows that somehow it doesn't matter if or in what manner or how often cops arrest people. I very strongly disagree. Conservatism and its emphasis on individual choices does not necessarily mandate that "systemic" issues be ignored as context in all cases. Clearly some liberals believe that severe systemic issues mandate ignoring individual choices, and I equally despise that viewpoint. Reasonable people may disagree on the balance and weighting of factors, but to claim that no balance exists at all is madness no matter which direction you are on. That's especially true with the issues of policing!
So yeah, in this case, no backsliding into sovcit stuff implied. I'm just saying that there's a minimal gain from an officer standing in front of cars as a matter of course compared to the potential for escalatory behavior, that feels similar to entrapment.
(edited for additional clarity adding a paragraph before seeing reply, sorry, bad habit)
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
...people pretty obviously have a right to not be shot by police unless they've in some sense 'deserved it' or some other interest is served to ameliorate a certain rate of accidents. A "right to life" ring a bell? Tradeoffs exist when it comes to public policy. I much dislike the constant agitation by people all over politics at pretending these tradeoffs don't even exist in the first place because of XYZ iron law or moral stance. In this case, it feels completely beside the point to view police actions as inherently self-justifying. And to be clear, I'm advocating for policy change, not necessarily a specific outcome in this specific case.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
Another part spiritual, part psychological reason for opposing gambling is that it effectively teaches people that it's possible to get "something" for "nothing". There are many people who think that freebies - especially anonymous systemic-feeling ones - are spiritual poison to the psyche. It undermines motivation, the internal valuation of hard work, decreases charity/service/selflessness, and of course, it is addictive (at least for some subset of people if not all).
EverythingIsFine
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4d ago
Enthusiastic seconding for his columns, they are quite fun. Think ToaKrakoa's law posts but on finance and with extra humor and the occasional super-excellent simplification of a complex financial engineering instrument.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
Human lives were historically filled with a great deal more famine, disease, and death than they are at present, but solemn intonations about how the weight of your personal burdens have permanently impacted your ability to lead a tolerable existence were comparatively rare. Thus we can infer that the concept of Trauma, as well as the practice of the telling of the traumatic narrative, are the results of historical and social processes -- created, not eternal.
Not so clear-cut, and a major weak link. First of all we really, really don't have a very good sense of what most people think and feel for very much of history, due to large disparities in literacy and record-keeping and record preservation. Although historians like to pretend otherwise, we still end up adding in at least a bit of presentism and tend to extrapolate current understandings of 'eternal' human nature backwards in time. Second of all, I'm not convinced of how good your portrayal of "permanently impacted your ability to lead a tolerable existence" is for these purposes. I like the phrase, but "tolerable" is a notoriously wiggly word. Latent as well is a false assumption that historical humans had no method of permanent-trauma therapy at all. It may well be that modern ways to deal with "Trauma" are worse, or the contextual experience of modern life creates more Trauma naturally. As such I think I'd like a slightly more elucidated definition of what you're considering Trauma?
Otherwise I quite like your post. I tend to agree that broadly speaking there is a class of people who increasingly utilize traumatic moments or memories in their self-definitions and life stories in prominent ways. I also personally think this is a poor mental model and one that generally leads to unhappiness. At the same time, it's worth noting that there's a bit of a neurobiological element lurking around too. It's literally true that repeatedly recalled memories are continuously modified upon recall and moreover that those memories also tend to gain strength as well. The degree to which this is true for more general 'thought patterns' is to my understanding not at all established, so scientifically-rooted approaches to 'therapy' are likewise still in a somewhat infant and crude state (self-evidenced by outright contradictions between various types of cognitive-thought therapy that science finds itself imperfectly situated to assess, if such is even possible)
EverythingIsFine
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4d ago
I think framing it purely as 'X right exists [and trumps everything]' and leaving it at that is not a helpful framing, because especially when talking about law enforcement various "rights" come into conflict with each other all the time.
EverythingIsFine
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4d ago
We need to talk about entrapment. Why is entrapment illegal? Simply put, it's because justice usually requires that we judge people on actions they take in and of themselves. NAL, but Wikipedia cites the following from Sorrells v. United States as a definition:
the conception and planning of an offense by an officer or agent, and the procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer or state agent
It's worth noting that entrapment's definition and how it bears on the legal system varies substantially state by state (is it a complete or partial defense against liability? what's the standard of proof? etc) but the concept seems pretty fair, and that goes equally for both general moral fairness viewpoints and practicality-based ones.
IF an officer deliberately steps in front of and blocks a vehicle, especially an already moving one, I view it as legal as well as moral entrapment (with the caveat for of course violent offenders who if they escape might hurt badly or kill someone, that sort of thing which already exists as a caveat in similar situations). I'd welcome laws that make this point more explicit, and feel like they might be needed (thus making it more clear that choosing to stand in front of a car is a choice with legal consequences to be aware of, not just something happening semi-naturally). While the officer isn't exactly participating in a new crime, they do enable it pretty straightforwardly. The car is always in some sense a deadly weapon, but it isn't treated as one until the officer, by their position, converts it into one (and on a hair-trigger too). I'm not completely sure it fits neatly within the definition above, but the spirit of the idea seems applicable? Especially if we're now allowing split-second evaluations with no take-backs, it seems wise and fair to prohibit police from standing immediately in front of vehicles as a course of deliberate habit.
EverythingIsFine
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4d ago
Surely you don't seriously believe that protestors should be tried as accessories simply for being obnoxious and increasing background stress? If you don't, please don't say it, because it doesn't do favors to the discourse here whether or not it's specifically prohibited. If you do, you need to do better than simply toss out something inflammatory like that. Making the action of 'raising tension' a crime is bananas.
EverythingIsFine
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9d ago
Counterpoint: pizza exists.
Also disagree, because it's very very hard to separate things out from, you know, the Christian morality that preaches kind of the exact same thing. Where traditionally at least, many personality traits have opposites and one of them is straight up better or superior. Humility instead of pride, gratitude instead of envy, charity instead of greed, industriousness instead of sloth, kindness instead of cruelty, equality instead of inequality, meekness instead of being overbearing, peacemaking instead of violent dissension, being longsuffering instead of quick to anger, etc. Again traditionally, it's not common to see people preach that there's a such thing as being "too humble" or anything like that. The attributes are almost purely positive.
Interestingly to me at least, I really don't think "fairness" belongs here in that Christian virtue list, and to a lesser extent equality is strictly about emphasizing that we are equal in the eyes of God and goes not much further. Although Jesus clearly was all for voluntary charity and equality, as a policy prescription he doesn't offer too much, and it certainly doesn't appear in the Beatitudes or anything like that. Fairness as a concept does not really feature! In fact, the opposite; Christians have good doctrinal reasons to not be too concerned with fairness since it's explicitly proposed that things will be made right in the afterlife, a feature that partially contributed to its adoption in Medieval Europe by many states (it's very handy for those in power when these principles are individually sought but not systemically proposed).
At any rate I disagree with learned helplessness on behalf of the oppressed being necessarily a feature of wokeness, even if they coincide sometimes in practice. MLK is the classic canonical example of an "approved" method of peaceful yet notably strident and forceful resistance on behalf of the oppressed. In that sense "Slave Morality" seems purely pejorative or dismissive rather than truly descriptive.
EverythingIsFine
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28d ago
I mean I get what you’re saying, in that maybe it would have made more sense to do it case by case rather than a blanket pronouncement, but there’s really not much time (in fact it’s the 12-20th so they were ongoing) so there’s not a very fair way to handle it in nearly any direction, and I think you are weighting things wrong. Feels callous. It’s not like everyone will be getting A’s - almost definitely just whatever grade they have had through the other x-1 weeks of class (they aren’t even missing class, so they’ve mostly already learned what they set out to learn, and it’s strange you jumped to an “everyone will pass” conclusion). All in all I fail to see anything even slightly resembling “unseriousness”. Wrong battle, dude.
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30d ago
Parsing US Space Command comments carefully, you get the sense that both China and the US have some slightly different advantages in the space realm, it's not universally one side with all the cards. Both have antisat capabilities of at least two varieties. I feel like their attitude right now is medium confident but slightly nervous. And it's worth noting that China is potentially only 3-4 years away from pulling closer to SpaceX, which would jive with potential timelines in terms of lift capacity backstops.
EverythingIsFine
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30d ago
Maybe I should have elaborated on this point. Frankly, for all the attention on MAD, I don't think this is the 21st century model. Rather, there's a series of escalations that appear reasonable on the surface: someone uses a "tactical" nuke, then someone nukes a single semi-military target, then the other retaliates with two civilian-target nukes, then three in response... and then people regain their sanity and meet for talks, because it's obvious to everyone that this cannot continue. Like, for example, let's say LA - and LA alone - is nuked. Obviously a calamitous event the world has never seen before. But even then... would the President really pull the trigger on a full MAD response on all of China in response to a single lost city? MAD says yes, you need to, but human behavior says no. We're too hardwired for proportionality for full-MAD to really work. That's my mental model at least for the most likely 'worst-case' scenario, but it's possible I'm a little too optimistic.
EverythingIsFine
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30d ago
There's a significant chance that it works. I give it 2 in 5, personally, though reasonable people disagree. However, that's missing the point a little bit. Our estimation is not the relevant probability of interest! The relevant probability is what Xi Jingping believes the probability to be, and that is going to be filtered through the presentations from his own military wing - loyalists, actually, since he performed a purge just a few years ago.
The other shoe, of course, is whether the US would stomach a defeat. We aren't used to it. It's unclear how the President (whoever it is at the time) or the populace would react. The assumption is that we'd do a second Pearl Harbor, but other people think we're too soft for that now or wouldn't have a "miracle" that the carriers escape to rely on.
EverythingIsFine
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30d ago
I realize netizens are obviously non-representative, but it's equally true that generalized Chinese patriotism is on the rise, relatively speaking. That was part of the deliberate plan after all! Put your heads down for a decade or two and work single-mindedly to grow economically and scientifically, and only after you deserve respect do you demand it. Whether that patriotism is generalized enough to produce a genuine "war fever" that happens in a wide range of societies is an open question. It's clear the Great Firewall and censorship generally has been somewhat effective in establishing norms and contours to national conversations on some of the issues, ironically that is somewhat a counterbalance. But you also have the increasing popularity of war films, increasing participation in various boycotts after international incidents they don't like, and other sort of second-order effects, so I wouldn't be quite so quick to immediately say that Chinese people don't care about geopolitics at all and will never care.
EverythingIsFine
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30d ago
It pretty clearly is? Slow Grinder + America Capitulates, or Sneak Attack + America shrugs were listed pretty obviously in the set of possible outcomes. And combat in the South China Sea doesn't necessarily favor the US and its allies - although clearly we have tons of assets right there, China is also pretty nearby and with Taiwan they have more room to maneuver and the Philippines in particular has to pay greater attention to their northeast. But mostly, China has a decent number of semi-hardened airstrips built on the dredged islands there (in direct contravention of their promises to leave the area demilitarized, I might add). Still, the point about containment is a decent one - for us, perhaps, but not for Japan and Korea, and we still have plenty of assets there too.
Part of the whole reason to explore these scenarios is to get a broader, big-picture view of why the US should or should not defend Taiwan. It's not just about the near-term, it's about the medium and long-term. There is in fact a domino theory of sorts in some foreign policy circles, which is that if we decline to defend Taiwan, on top of the Ukraine thing, on top of the NATO wishy-washiness, suddenly there's really good reason to believe that the US cannot be trusted to honor mutual defense pacts (this is true even if we've taken pains to avoid anything even approaching a formal pact with Taiwan - perception matters). On top of that, an argument is made that taking Taiwan is a line where it's clear that China now has full, superpower impunity to do what it wants. On that note, I'd be interested in your thoughts as to whether or not the international community, such that it is, would be able to levy significant sanctions on China for a Taiwan move, or if such would even be wise.
In terms of ideology, that's not the threat. It's more about political-economic power. Right now China can't pull the kind of things we can do, like just randomly threaten Venezuela. They don't have the room or the respect. If they take Taiwan, it's a different ball game, no matter which way they take it. China can now use gunboat diplomacy in the following decade, in addition to economic coercion. And de-dollarization might also accelerate. The stakes are real.
And then on top of all that, there's just general sadness that a decently-functioning democracy, where people govern themselves, is taken over for nothing but pride and ego reasons by a non-democratic one.
Did you know that the Navy can blow their entire anti-ship missile arsenal in just a few hours? China has the advantage of time, including in naval engagements at missile range. Edit: There's a legitimately interesting strategy where they accept a large amount of losses on purpose if they manage to get the engagement in a favorable spot. The missile ranges in question don't necessarily favor the US, and camping outside missile range is possible generally, but not if you want to intervene in an actual invasion. They also have built up a fairly sizable oil reserve.
Broadly historically speaking? The Opium Wars left a century+ long impact on the national pysche. Even farther back, the Mongolian invasion was a huge deal. One they ended up (partially) whitewashing into a "Yuan Dynasty" as if it were just a normal thing. More recently? Online Chinese hypernationalist netizens have reacted very harshly to a wide range of perceived insults abroad. Sometimes encouraged by the government, but lately they have had to be restrained in some cases. There are a ton of media examples from the last 10 years.
Edit: and yes, as magicmushrooms said, humiliation implies national weakness which implies governmental weakness, and would indeed threaten the CCP's claim to legitimacy, crazy as it might sound to us here. That's partly why the "how" matters, because some resolutions can be "spun" better than others. Outright military defeat? Yikes. Collapse of the government is just as likely and scary as a vow of revenge, Versailles style.
For some of the people confused about why Minneapolis is such a big deal still, it's not a scissor event, it's a mask off moment and puzzling how some people aren't just reasonably disagreeing, but out of their fucking minds. I don't want to be accused of moving goalposts, so for the purposes of sane (hopefully) discussion, this thread is only intended to make the primary point that Trump, Noem, Vance, are portraying this with what can only be called outright propaganda, fabrications, alternate reality, whatever you want to call it, probably lies. I know that's a word that scares some people here, so I'm using it as a synonym for deceit in this post. Let me repeat that. I'm talking about the Trump administration's official response, and not just that it's inaccurate, but that people echoing it is callous and polarizing in the extreme (the second point). I do apologize by the way for yet another Minneapolis thread.
Sometimes someone else simply says it better. I'm vibing strongly with this video which feels worthy of appearing here. So here's (most of) his words (transcript and own parentheticals, no real edits):
(Showing a NYT overview video, voiceover, picking up around 2:30) The moment the agent fires, he is standing here to the left of the SUV and the wheels are pointing to the right, away from the agent. This appears to conflict with allegations that the SUV was ramming or about to ram the officer. President Trump and others said the federal agent was hit by the SUV, often pointing to another video filmed from a different angle. And it's true that at this moment in this grainy low-resolution footage, it does look like the agent is being struck by the SUV. But when we synchronize it with the first clip, we can see the agent is not being run over. In fact, his feet are positioned away from the SUV. The SUV crashes into a white car parked down the road. A bystander runs toward the collision. The federal agents on scene do not appear to rush to provide emergency medical care. Eventually, the agent who shot the motorist approaches the vehicle. Seconds later, he turns back around and tells his colleagues to call 911. (original video audio:) "Shame. You shot someone. You shot someone." Agents block several bystanders who attempt to provide medical care, including one who identifies himself as a physician. "I'll go check a pulse! -No! -I'm a physician. -I don't care." At the same time, several agents, including the agent who opened fire, get in their vehicles and drive off, apparently altering the active crime scene. (End clip) Okay, I think that video makes it so clear that what happened was not the normal course of business for what this officer should have been doing.
This is so obviously a murder. This is so obviously the person with the guns acting outside of the realm of what they are supposed to be doing. And it's very frustrating to me to see people deny like the basic reality I'm seeing with my eyes from multiple angles, from multiple sources. I don't know how to say it clear. So, I want to go through I and and when I say people, I'm really not just talking about random fucking people on Twitter or bots.
There was two things that happened after this action. First, Kristi Noem comes out and says this was an act. This, this right here again. Watch it again and listen with the sound. This woman, mother of three, kids stuffed animal in the car, just dropped her kid off at school, six-year-old, has stickers on the back of her car. This woman is committing an act of domestic terrorism, (shows video) first waving the car by with her hand, then saying, "I'm pulling out." Then screamed at by masked men with guns... Then clearly fleeing. The idea that she 'broke bad' and is attempting to run over and kill the officers is insane. She is clearly trying to flee. Then he kills her. There, there is no I can't imagine not seeing this different way. I think this is a fucking pure Rorschach test. I don't I don't understand people taking this a different way.
So she calls it domestic terrorism. Then Trump said she "violently, willfully, and viciously" ran over the ICE officer. There is no way you could watch that video and say that what she was doing was violently, willfully, and literally trying to kill this ICE officer. An insane thing to say. He even said, "It's hard to believe he [the ICE officer] is alive, but [he's] now recovering in the hospital." I want you to juxtapose that quote from Trump over the actual footage of this officer casually strolling away from the murder. (Shows clip) There, I, there is no way you cannot see this is a lie! There's no way. This is like, this is demonic.
So then this woman comes out and says, (direct quote) "Our officer followed his training and did exactly what he was taught to do." And I looked into this. There is absolutely no way that is true. ICE officers are trained to never approach a vehicle from the front, which this guy did (video shows documents at 6:52). Now, there's a lot of brand new rookie ICE officers who are getting thrown in with almost no training. But this guy, it turns out, was from since 2016, so he's a veteran. He would know never to approach a vehicle from the front, 90° angle. They're also instructed not to shoot at a moving vehicle. Firing at a vehicle will not make it stop moving in your direction. So even all things aside, it's not even smart. It doesn't stop it. Okay. The best thing to do is get out of the way. By the way, once she's shot and killed, the vehicle rolls to the right far away, proving again that it was not even moving in the officer's direction.
(I think this point has been lost in the noise, but it bears repeating: shooting at someone in a car does in now way guarantee that the car will stop, in fact the opposite is obviously true! We even see it here as the vehicle continues accelerating only to crash uncontrolled! So, the ICE officer is not in any way following his proper training here. That's simply a lie.)
Then she said, (direct quote) "You know, people need to stop using their vehicles as weapons. This domestic act of terrorism to use your vehicle to try to kill law enforcement officers is going to stop. And I'm asking the Department of Justice to prosecute it as domestic terrorism because it's clear that it's being coordinated. People are being trained and told how to use their vehicles to impede law." This is fucking insane. The idea that she was a domestic terrorist trained to use her vehicle and not a scared mother of three is fucking crazy, bro. This is her fucking glove box. (Video shows stuffed animals spilling out) It's fucking crazy.
So, you look at the shots. The first shot, you can look at his feet, dude. You can see him right here. He's able to get out of the way of this car, which is the number one priority. Deadly force may not be used solely to prevent the escape if you think the subject is just escaping. You can't use deadly force. Running from the cops is not reason enough to use deadly force. You can only use it if no other reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle, which he already did. He can and did move out of the path of the vehicle. The first shot, he's already out of the way, but by the third shot, it is fucking crazy. That is a kill shot into a fuckin mother's car. The shots one and two could only be justified if no safe avenue of retreat existed. Shot three, the deadly force is only justified while the threat is ongoing. So even if you somehow thought shot one and two were fuckin there, shot three, he's out of immediate danger. There's no fucking way to justify it. There's just no way.
And this all this reporting I'm doing right here, not only the New York Times, this comes from the Washington Post. This is from a fucking magazine, or a paper that is owned by Jeff Bezos who has donated millions of dollars to Trump. What I'm saying is I don't it's not even about your fucking politics. Anyone with eyes can see that this guy crossed the line. This officer needs to face punishment. This guy, (shows a tweet) Marine Corps veteran, "If you are the guys with guns, you are responsible for the situation. Doubly so if you outnumber the person"; there has to be a higher standard for the people in masks with guns that have been trained than the mom in the car.
(Yet again a point deserving emphasis, especially here. If "both-sides-ism" is a sin, I'm probably among the worst offenders on this forum. Almost nothing in this conversation requires you to think Good was doing was right, or if she did it the right way, or was a nice person, or had accurate political views, you can think the protestors are scum of the earth, but that shouldn't have a serious bearing on the standards we have for federal officers with the power to kill at the drop of a hat. Good probably made mistakes. Ross definitely made mistakes. But Ross' mistakes are inherently more serious. We can have a conversation, a separate one, about what kinds of protest are good or bad or criminal or super-criminal and all that, but we're talking about life and death here. Frankly I don't think it matters very much at least with respect to what you think the officer, Ross, should be facing in terms of punishment.)
And I talk about this a lot. I try to get points across to people that have different values than me. Okay? I understand people are often talking past each other. Some people value certain things differently. Okay? But if you are somebody who feels like you have a fuckin 'don't tread on me' bumper sticker. I don't see how you've suddenly gone from this to supporting a mass militia of the government killing people. I don't get it. People like this. (Shows tweet). This guy's saying if I is doing a raid in my neighborhood, leaving the safe of my own home is -- she was a mile from home – "Even if I had to leave for work or something, I would drive in the opposite direction". The idea that, your argument is that people should feel like they have to cower in the safety of their homes if there's ever a federal agent in their neighborhood is fucking crazy.
I don't understand how this is an argument. This guy-- I'm trying to find sources that will get people to understand, even if you're not ideologically aligned with me. This guy right here, Greg Nunziata (shows a tweet). Greg Nunziata was the general counsel and domestic policy adviser to fuckin Marco Rubio. He is a he's a Senate Republican policy committee. He's executive director for the side. He is Republican as it gets. Bro, this guy is saying, "I've watched the videos" and "the reflexive defense of it is grotesque". I don't understand where people are getting looking at his footage and coming up with his entirely insane conclusions that this guy should just walk off scot-free, that he should shoot three rounds into a mom's car. It's crazy. The fucking Libertarian Party of Louisiana is saying that the police state, fucking 4chan is calling this shit out. I don't get it. Like where is, just who are the people defending this?
And then I got fuckin' the vice president of the country I live in going on fuckin' news and saying (direct video quote) "the precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That's a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He's saying that this officer has absolute immunity. What the fuck are you talking about? The reason we have these rules is because they apply to the officers. When you have the monopoly on violence, which the state does, they are the ones that are allowed to have guns to physically arrest you and in some cases kill you. You have to have rules and accountability, or it is just it's a fuckin' thug owned by someone in power. It's there has to be rules and accountability. Of course, there does. And especially in the past like year and a half, ICE has gone from being already like I think a problematic organization, but the masking is new. So now we have a rise of masked officers, which by the way has led to a lot of fake ICE doing robberies.
The idea that there's just no accountability, you can't they can wear plain clothes or have a mask and they can kill people and then the vice president will say they have absolute immunity is not a reasonable path for for America. I don't care what politics are on. You have to agree that that is not that is not the right direction to go. And as I'm saying this, as I'm making these fuckin slides a few hours ago and feeling like shit during this time, two more people get shot in Portland. The FBI tweets this out and then deletes it (tweet saying CBP agents shot 2, "please follow this thread for updates"). How is this normal? It's like I don't know. I I I just find it so frustrating that people they can't even... Listen, even if we disagree on immigration, the idea that this there can't be any ICE officer who went too far. There's not one fuckin guy who didn't follow the training that this guy can't suffer some consequences for killing a woman. That's the bare minimum.
(Here I should pause and ask: are there prominent administration members who think that he should be punished, but just in some other way than criminal charges? I'm not aware of any, and that's crazy. I hope I'm wrong, but isn't that a fair characterization of their position, that zero consequences are appropriate? Take a step back and ask yourself if that seems appropriate. My answer is: hell no.)
Trump had a interview that came out today that kind of like pulls this back into perspective for me. They did a wide-ranging interview with the NYT today, three-hour long interview, and they asked him, "Are there any limits on your global powers?" He said, "Yeah, there's one thing, my own morality, my own mind." (direct quote) That is not the country of the United States. That is not what the Constitution says. That's not what anything says. There's no president for a president saying the only thing that I decide is my own morality in my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me. This has to change.
So 2026 is an important year. And that's why I'm bringing this up. Trump has said if we don't win the midterms, referring to Republicans, he'll get impeached. That's what he said. Now I don't know whether impeachment will go anywhere, but it'll mean he has less power. He'll be a lame duck.
And he has floated this. He said it as a joke, but he often starts things as jokes. Canceling 2026 election (video direct quote) "We have to even run against these people. Now, I won't say cancel the election. They should cancel the election because the fake news will say he wants the elections canceled. 'He's a dictator.' They always call me a dictator." I just want to repeat that sentence. "...These people. Now, I won't say cancel the election. They should cancel the election because the fake news will say..." I won't say cancel the election because then the fake news will say he wants to cancel the election, he's a dictator. Why would that be fake? If you said it and then they reported on it, why would that be fake?!
...So I'm I'm just bringing this up. This is this is like the la this midterm I do feel at this direction is like one of the last peaceful ways to make change. I that's what I honestly feel. I know it sounds alarmist, but it's what I honestly feel. And so I, I'm encouraging that. And I also want to say I'm I'm a person listen if you disagree on disagree with me on fuckin tariffs or you disagree with me on there's a lot of things you can disagree with me on. And I am often willing to find common ground or intellectually listen to what you're saying and try to figure it out.
But this, this tweet from Paul Graham kind of stuck with me (shows tweet, which he paraphrases). This situation I feel like has been a a real Rorschach test of character. I can't imagine if you've watched the videos coming away with the idea that he should suffer no consequences, that what he did was okay. That that is how an officer of the law should behave. I don't understand. I don't understand that. I, I, that's not a bridge I can cross. And if you do think that way, I sincerely urge you to reconsider. It's not going to lead to a good direction in this country. That's all I got to say. That's, that's, that's all I got to say.
I think some of you here, effectively serving the role of ICE apologists, don't seem to get why this is a big deal for some of us. Hopefully this illustrates the why. You have the President saying, just outright saying, that he doesn't have any restrictions on his use of global power whatsoever. You have the Vice President saying that any federal cop who shoots someone is immune to consequences. You have both of them and Noem attempting to decieve people in broad daylight by accusing Good of domestic terrorism and intentionality, something that is plainly clear to almost literally everyone with eyes to be false. That has an impact! And I will echo those words. I'm a "the system works" kind of guy. This is not working. I've complained about dishonesty from official sources before - most recently this came up when talking about the BLS head being baselessly accused of fraud - but this is another level.
To use a conservative comparison, this is a major "fake news" mask-off moment for liberals and probably moderates too (like me). For whatever naive noises liberals often make about how virtuous and awesome the press is, most of us know that at the end of the day there's some spin expected and at the very least, some selection bias (a la "the media rarely lies" Scott post). It's yet another thing when the administration itself makes such a habit of lying and using deceit. That's what it is, folks. The administration thinks that the ICE agent deserves zero consequences and that just doesn't fit at all with the video we can plainly look at.
All this to say I am horrified at some of the upvote-downvote patterns in the threads this last week and I'm not lying, it hurt my faith in humanity a bit, and the Motte specifically. Are people really so wrapped up in the culture war that they have lost empathy for a dead mother has a child who's six years old and an orphan because she's on the 'other side'? That the officer did nothing wrong? Quibbling over "domestic terrorism" definitions as if that's in any way the way you'd describe it? She blocked half a road for likely five minutes in her local neighborhood because ICE was hanging out around schools to nab immigrant parents as their kids get out. She said stuff like "I'm not mad at you" and "I'm pulling out", and those are not the words attempting to murder a federal agent. For fuck's sake, someone (possibly Ross) called her a "fucking bitch" not two seconds after she was shot, which cuts the other way. Again: none of this requires you to think Good's wife, for example (!), or nearby protestors, or Good, are virtuous, only to think that the cop did at least something wrong. Something is wrong, and it's the attitude here.
I thought about calling a few people out but I'm not going to, but if this reads like an accusation, it basically is. Just needed to get that off my chest. Consider me officially flipped. Everything is no longer fine; the system is breaking; its replacement would only be worse; beware of helping it along.
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