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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.
While it may feel good to play enlightened centrist and do some both sides’ing, there is a major area where Babbitt differed from Good: Babbitt posed no imminent threat to the officer who shot.
Breaking, entering, and looting is something progressives smugly defended as “that’s what insurance is for,” so merely breaking and entering can’t be too bad. No climber is illegal; walls and windows are but oppressive social constructs.
That being said, I’ve long been more than happy to chalk Babbitt up to “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” The Wikipedia article summary of the event:
This is “’what is he going to do, shoot me?’ — Woman who was shot” territory and where Babbitt was more similar to Good and her wife, in feeling herself too much and overestimating her plot armor. Hardly would it be the first time Babbitt had acted impulsively:
Some bros can’t even get a text back while others have women ramming SUVs over them.
In any case, conservatives were somewhat ambivalent about Babbitt at the time, whereas progressives are far more unified in lining up behind Good and getting others to do the same. For example, the Minnesota Timberwolves held a moment of silence for Good. There was Soyjak-pointing at the moment of silence from online spaces such as /r/nba, then as well when individuals like Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr and Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers voiced their support.
“Stephen and Glenn are good at advising other men how to knock a ball into a hoop. That does not make them wise” — Olenna Tyrell, probably. And even then, until this week, many online NBA followers would have been quite vocal in doubting the coaching ability of Rivers.
Progressives have much greater asabiyyah than conservatives. The latter is much more willing to shrug and accept when a member of their “side” eats a negative consequence. Conservatives will even police their own side for progressive-coded things like alleged racism, sexism, or homophobia; whereas progressive self-policing generally takes the form of purity-spirals when other progressives are being insufficiently progressive. Hence quips over the years like conservatives are but progressives driving the speed limit, conservatives are happy to lose gracefully, conservatives are the Generals to the progressives’ Globetrotters.
Progressives will happily stan those on the Right Side of History and/or those with sufficient Who? Whom? credentials in maintaining and expanding Outposts. Normie conservatives will do things like forgive their son’s black killer but denounce those who do some Noticing over the occurrence, as Austin Metcalf’s father did when Karmelo Anthony sent his son to the shadow realm.
In and of itself, Good’s death has drawn comparisons to Kirk’s death and Floyd’s death (“George Foid” and “I can’t steer”). There are ample re-edits of an originally progressive-coded rendition of Kirk’s shooting but with Good taking a bullet through her neck instead of Kirk.
The Babbitt and Good equivalences are at least far less farcical compared to attempted equivalences from recent previous events. Babbitt and Good are practically theyre-the-same-picture.jpg compared to Charlie Kirk vs. George Floyd, Shiloh Hendrix vs. Karmelo Anthony.
On the Kirk and Floyd comparisons, one has a law-abiding man on one end who took a bullet through the neck in quite gruesome fashion. On the other end is a career criminal who experienced a drug overdose or an unintentional homicide.
Shiloh called a child a “nigger” when the child was indeed likely behaving like a Child Who Annoys You. On the other end is Karmelo Anthony who stabbed a high school football player, leading to his death.
That Kirk and Floyd—and Shiloh and Anthony—are/were often equated, is quite something.
The other major confounder for Babbitt is she had just passed other officers who provided no resistance at all, thereby giving her a contextual clue that her presence was authorized. It is similar to if the other ICE officer, not her wife, was yelling at Good to "floor it".
That would be reasonable if she had just opened a door and got shot walking through but my understanding is that she was climbing through a window that her fellow protesters just broke. There's no ambiguity there about whether that was an authorized entrance.
Not really relevant as to her threat level to officers because she has just been next to a bunch of them and they suffered no harm and calmly let her do her thing.
In the Babbitt situation, the concern wasn't what she would do to the officer. The concern was what she and the other people who would likely follow her would do to the lawmakers they were getting close to.
That would be a good point, if that door / window / whatever was all that stood between the protestors and the lawmakers, but I was under the impression Congress was safely evacuated at that stage?
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You have to draw the line somewhere at some point, even if it's already Piccadilly, Watford Gap service station or the Reform Club.
With regards to enforcement, yes. When evaluating the likelihood of imminent threat of death or great bodily harm slow breaches of weak barriers that your fellow officers are giving her free access to while perceiving no threat....
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