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I'm starting a new top-level regarding trigger happy Iceman meets wine mom in Minneapolis because, rather than debating the videos, I'd like to focus more on a compare and contrast to get a true culture war angle. People have made an analogy to the woman who died on Jan 6th but I don't think it lands strongly enough. Permit me to cut closer to the bone, friends.
The only fatality on Jan 6th was an unarmed woman being shot by a federal agent[1] because she was opposing what she considered an illegitimate government action. Liberals tearlessly argued this is what happens when you Fuck Around while conservatives argued she was righteously Resisting (TM).
Today the players are the same but the jerseys are flipped. Liberals cry with so, so many tears of empathy for the dead woman in the car while conservatives argue they were obstructing a legitimate state function and put the officer in danger and this is what happens when you Fuck Around.
In broad strokes it's clear neither side cares about democracy or rule of law per se. Conservative faith in rule of law evaporates when it says no to Trump and liberal empathy for the scrappy civil disobedients dries up when it's a Chud. Both sides are happy with mob violence when it's their side doing it and cry tyranny whenever they Find Out.
I think I broadly agree.
"Ashli Babbit and Renee Good both FAFO" is a coherent and consistent view. "Ashli Babbit and Renee Good both died unnecessarily because of law enforcement/state ineptitude" is also a coherent and consistent view. (The latter does not preclude acknowledging that both women, at the very least, made poor choices and could have and should have avoided the situation, which at this point I definitely think is hard to dispute.)
If you think one was an innocent martyr and the other got what she deserved, I would really like to hear the arguments for that.
The left's argument, as I understand it, can be summarised/paraphrased as follows:
"1. The belief that humans outside Our Tribe matter, just as much as those within, is Good.
"2. The belief that members of Our Tribe matter more than outsiders, thus weighing one of Us being robbed by an outsider worse than a myriad outsiders being tortured to death, is Evil.
"3. Renee Good, in opposing mass deportations, was advancing the cause of universal benevolence; therefore her actions were Good.
"4. Ashli Babbit, in attempting to forcibly overturn Mr Biden's election on behalf of Mr Trump, was advancing the cause of tribal chauvinism; therefore her actions were Evil.
"5. Actions done in the service of Good ought to receive more latitude than the same actions done in service of Evil."
I am less sure of the right-wing counterpart, but I suspect it would involve switching the alignment labels in 1-4, and possibly renaming the causes they were advancing.
Yes, exactly. People can argue that they are different because one was Good fighting Evil, and the other was Evil fighting Good. But then you're arguing the politics surrounding the events, not whether there was actually a difference in how the state responded to someone acting against it.
From what I have read and heard, "Because what the J6ers were doing is bad" is the overt, explicit justification among the left for the way they have been treated. It really is just political for them, and not based in any respect for principles.
Indeed. I think both sides are equally unprincipled.
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