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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18635 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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A woman in Minneapolis has been killed in an altercation with ICE. I don’t really trust any of the narratives being spun up. Here are two three angles:

Angle 1

Angle 2 [Twitter] [youtube]

Angle 3 (Emerged as I was writing this)

This is actually a fairly discussed type of shooting. Law enforcement confronts a person in a vehicle, the LEO positions himself in front of the vehicle, the person in the vehicle drives forward, and the cop shoots the person. Generally, courts have found that this is a legitimate shoot. The idea being that a car can be as deadly a weapon as anything.

Those who are less inclined to give deference to law enforcement argue that fleeing the police shouldn’t be a death sentence, and that usually in these situations the LEO has put himself in front of the vehicle.

I have a long history of discussing shooters in self-defense situations [1] [2] [3] and also one of being anti-LEO. However, I’m softer on the anti-LEO front in the sense that within the paradigm in which we exist, most people think the state should enforce laws, and that the state enforcing laws = violence.

The slippery slope for me: “Fleeing police shouldn’t be a death sentence”

“Resisting arrest shouldn’t be a death sentence”

“If you just resist hard enough, you should be able to get away with it”

People really try to divorce the violence from state action, but the state doesn’t exist without it.

I watched the videos at various angles and it doesn't seem as clear cut ,hard to make heads or tails here

This is pure "scissor statement" video, isn't it? It seems clear that the driver isn't trying to hit the cop, since she's steering away from him and away from the direction he's moving in, but even with three angles to look at it's not clear to me whether she hits him anyway (I think not, but I won't be surprised if badge cameras prove me wrong) or whether she would have hit him had he not already been dodging to one side (I think so, but again awaiting further evidence).

I think what makes up my mind is that I don't think the situation was clear to the officer either, not if he's having to make this decision so fast that his detractors are having to replay the clips in slow motion. In hindsight he could have done better, but we want to be able to hire even average cops, for a job where they'll frequently be surrounded by people who hate them and try to kill them, and that's not going to be possible unless we take seriously the sorts of "mens rea"/"reasonable person" requirements we should have to prosecute what might be a natural attempt at self-defense.

Back in the day, Saturday Night Live recognized that this was a funny joke:

"I think a good gift for the president would be a chocolate revolver. And since he's so busy, you'd probably have to run up to him and hand it to him."

It wasn't because they were a bastion of right-wing television, or because they thought Clinton had given murderous orders to his secret service agents, it was because they recognized that it would be ridiculous to do something that looks so threatening, even something actually innocent, without anticipating the likely consequences.

This is pure "scissor statement" video, isn't it?

No, this happens literally every single time a cop or state thug (note, I am not thinking of America when I write this. I have been lead to believe I have to spell things out very painfully on the Motte. To be more precise I'm thinking of the USSR "police" gunning down the public, like in Death of Stalin) kills someone. There is always a substantial group that will justify it, hell or high water. People will always see what they want to see. And it's on predictable lines that are in no way connected to whatever reality a story or video has. The contents of the video mean nothing. It would have to be the most perfect black and white public broad daylight execution you could imagine, complete with Nazi tattoos and maybe some casual rape, before the usual state violence apologist contingent would begin to think critically about the officers. Even then, I'm not sure. There's nothing special about this.

I don't know what posses people to be like this, but it's a thing.

But, the key (and obvious) point is that people who graffiti "kill ICE" on college campuses will pretend that it's obvious that the agent woke up today with the intent to kill, and refuse to see any other point of view.

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