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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
twothree 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.
You guys have all gotten so into the weeds about the mechanics of the individual shooting that you’re missing the big Fort Sumpter style moves that are going on right now:
•There’s something like 3000 federal law enforcement offers deployed in Minneapolis right now
•Mainstream media, Reddit, and various politicians have incited multiple assassination attempts on these officers
•Relatively photogenic citizen non-felon in gunned down in ambiguous situation, there is now a bloody shirt to waive
•Mayor and Governor are now calling for the removal of all federal agents from Minneapolis
•Governor Walz is now threatening to use the Minnesota National Guard to remove federal agents from the city, setting the stage for conflicting guard federalizations and call up orders
•You will have an armed unit of the state/federal military apparatus actually having to pick a side in a legally ambiguous situation
•You will have armed state/municipal police facing off against armed federal agents with the national guard caught somewhere in the middle
This is not good. No matter who’s fault it is, this is not good.
Don't forget about the Mark Kelly video from a few months ago reminding soldiers that they should think hard about what orders they follow because they need to personally decide if they're legal or not.
I didn't follow that one too closely but it seemed like what he said is just...true, isn't it? Was the issue the implication?
If Trump had responded that the FBI should arrest any senators guilty of sedition that would also have been true.
Sure? I’d think it was weird but not much more.
The problem is the implication. We can play dumb and act like either are just innocent reminders of facts that are usually irrelevant because the preconditions for them (illegal orders or seditious senators) doesn't happen often, but what really matters is that the timing and the choice of messengers carries with it a neon flashing sign implying those preconditions have happened.
So hypothetically, if I think the President is giving illegal orders to the military, or might, it’s out of bounds to say that to soldiers?
The closest I can get to agreeing is seeing it as an escalation and playing with fire. Something like “a soldier’s duty to disobey illegal orders is extremely serious and can have extremely serious consequences don’t fuck around with it as part of your political posturing.” Is that accurate?
I think you would have an obligation to state with some precision what orders you think are illegal, or would be illegal, rather than trying to create a cloud of FUD.
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If you think so, you point to which orders you mean. Also, it's probably not up to a partisan politician to point it out, but to military instructors to explain it.
Pretty much. The military relies on obedience from soldiers except in the case of grossly illegal orders. "Don't execute illegal orders" is not for complicated matters that requires judges and courtrooms to parse, let alone those thorny enough that they often end up at the Supreme Court level, it's for obvious "I order you to set these unarmed civilians on fire" stuff. If those senators had any examples of those they should have been able to point them out. Otherwise, they're just messing up the chain of command by encouraging grunts to apply discretion to stuff that's way, way, way above their station to decide.
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