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PaperclipPerfector  19hr ago (text post)   4128 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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Trump has given a "red line" to Iran about killing protestors, but we still aren't seeing US involvement as deaths move into the thousands, reportedly. If the regime follows through with its claims, it will be executing many if not most of the thousands it has arrested.

I have an essay on my view that the US/West/Israel should clearly intervene in the Transnational Thursday thread, but the Culture War dynamics strike me as interesting in that it's not really Culture War Classic material. Traditionally, the Left has been soft on Iran and the Right has been hawkish. Iran has tried to kill Trump and Trump officials, as revenge for the Soleimani assassination.

There's a strong anti-interventionist Right and Left. During the 12-Day War, Trump went from tweeting about regime change, to abruptly demanding cessation of hostilities, which Israel and Iran complied with. (I think had the war continued the regime would already have fallen, given how easily Israel was bombing them.) This is something that's already kicked off, unlike the Maduro rendition. My understanding is that action got more popular in the polls having succeeded, though it's an open question what Venezuela's fate will be.

The Right strongly criticized Obama for declaring a red line in Syria, and then backing off. In hindsight, I think it would have been correct to have intervened against Assad. Here, I think there's a clear cost-benefit analysis case, whether you care about the plight of the Iranian people or the amoral realist power dynamics for America First Global Superpower Edition.

Even if Trump does nothing and the Ayatollah crushes the riots, then what? Irans currency is still getting annihilated, their water situation is not unfucked, their "allies" are both faraway and incapable, their neighbourhood actively hostile. The Regimes only friend that can offer a real lifeline is MAYBE India, and thats a huge gamble to count on India. The alternative is to surrender wholly to China, which if China does will simply add another failed overseas shithole to Chinas collection of worthless foreign investments.

There's a lot of ruin in a nation. They can muddle along.

"Here's how Imam Mahdi can still reappear."

How would attacking Iran benefit America?

Throwing missiles around isn't going to do anything significant. How many missiles has Russia dumped on Ukraine, how many thousands of drones and missiles have they fired off? They've largely broken the Ukrainian electrical grid yet Ukraine remains in the struggle after years and years of bombing and a large-scale ground invasion.

The Saudis bombed Yemen. The US bombed Yemen. The bombing did very little.

How many bombs did the Allies drop on Germany, they flattened whole cities with firestorms comparable to nuclear strikes! This did not break the will of Nazi Germany, they fought on till ground troops conquered the country. The US flattened North Korea, they literally razed the entire country such that people were living in holes in the ground because the buildings had been destroyed. The war ended in a draw and from then on North Korea devoted massive resources into armaments and bunkerization and has taken a very hostile stance to America, as one might expect. Bombing Vietnam caused considerable casualties for Vietnam but it did not achieve the political goal, Saigon was lost. The Russians bombed the hell out of Chechnya but needed a ground invasion to secure it.

Bombing has military relevance but the political effect is very weak, often counterproductive. If you want a political effect, you need to have ground troops for an invasion and this invasion needs to be in progress or very likely to succeed to pressure leaders into surrendering. Alternately, you can aim for a military effect in that bombing can swing the tide of a relatively evenly fought civil war as in Syria or Libya. Only the bombing of Serbia worked out per the 'air campaign only' concept. Iran is a lot bigger than Serbia and a lot further away from NATO airbases. Air campaigns only work in special cases, not generally.

The prior Israeli and American bombing of Iran did nothing, there was no significant military or political effect. The bombing of Fordow had no effect since Iran does not want nuclear weapons. The Israelis have been saying the Iranians are 6-18 months away from nuclear weapons for the last 30 years. The Israelis are lying. If the Iranians wanted nuclear weapons, they'd simply acquire them like other countries that want them. Pakistan didn't stay months away from nukes for decades, they just acquired them. Same with North Korea. Iran probably wants to be a latent nuclear state like South Korea or Japan, they'll only change this stance if threatened with imminent disaster.

Bombing Iran more aggressively is the surest path to them nuclearizing.

There are also a myriad of other costs of bombing Iran. Oil prices will rise and economic uncertainty will increase. The cost in munitions will reduce US strength in more important theaters like Asia. It will further worsen US diplomatic standing. Russia and China will support Iran to inflict costs on the US, they won't be alone like Serbia was. The Iranians will fight on since a ground invasion is totally impractical and a ground invasion is the only thing that can actually deliver the goal of regime change, unless there is a civil war.

If you think the regime might be collapsing and is totally unsustainable then why bomb, why should the US not just do nothing and save a lot of effort, risk and blood? If you're right then doing nothing is the most logical choice, if you're wrong (and the semi-annual major Iran riots are another nothingburger) and the US bombs, then it probably won't work?

Trump shouldn't make these rash proclamations, he should take some notes from Xi about doing nothing, developing internally and biding his time. This recent Venezuela campaign seems to be incoherent. Maduro is gone, some people are dead but the whole socialist structure is still there. Maduro is a clown, not some evil wizard holding the whole country under his thrall. Trump could've just unsanctioned Venezuelan oil if he wanted to buy it, would have probably been much cheaper than moving all these troops around. He thinks he owns Venezuela, people are making memes about conquistadors but conquistadors fought ground campaigns and actually conquered territory, putting it under their complete political control. That comes first, then comes resource extraction. Montezuma's vice-emperor didn't take over the Aztecs!

How would attacking Iran benefit America?

Overthrowing a regime that's seeking a nuclear weapon would be good for America and the world, especially when they're heavily involved in projecting their power in the rest of the Middle East which, one way or another, becomes our problem. Taking them off the table as an adversary simplifies the Middle East a bit, chokes off some friendlies for Russia, and frees more of our resources up for worrying about China.

The steelman for bombing working is that if you take out the C&C or communication nodes of the enemy and perhaps hit a few troop concentrations they will scatter, loose coordination, and then fall to pieces before the troops that are already on the ground (the protestors). Coordination is extremely important and if you deny that to the enemy they might collapse quickly.

FWIW I tend to think the US should stay out.

Why do you think in any way it's a good idea to directly compare mass protests and regime change in Iran to Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

Those are not analogous scenarios. You've essentially provided a Gish Gallop of incredibly wrong military analysis.

It's actually something of a prevalent myth that strategic bombing in WWII didn't have a major impact on the outcome of the war, but that's also not an analogous situation.

I love that you leave out "China" when discussing the Korean War.

The prior Israeli and American bombing of Iran did nothing, there was no significant military or political effect.

I don't know what evidence I could possibly provide here to change your mind, given all the available evidence you've presumably had the chance to encounter.

Bombing Iran more aggressively is the surest path to them nuclearizing.

Seriously? I thought they didn't want weapons? What are they waiting for?

Russia and China will support Iran to inflict costs on the US

Where were they last June?

If you think the regime might be collapsing and is totally unsustainable then why bomb, why should the US not just do nothing and save a lot of effort, risk and blood?

Ensuring victory of the opposition and reducing the chance of protracted conflict and bloodshed.

This recent Venezuela campaign seems to be totally incoherent.

Imagine if you will how you would feel if Venezuela had been undergoing mass, violent protests?

At least when people bring up Libya they're conceding that air power in support of on-the-ground opposition can be quite effective at regime change.

By all accounts the protests are smaller than in past years (way back in 2009 the opposition could draw out half a million people at a single march!) but much more violent. No real prospect of overthrowing the regime and I can't really think of an explanation for the way the protesters are acting except to conclude that they're being intentionally lured by Mossad to be slaughtered in order to bait Trump into doing their dirty work.

This seems to be Israel's preferred strategy under Trump: pick a fight you can't win alone, get people killed and then hope that Trump will stumble onto the escalation ladder and win the fight for you. Unlike some of their other decisions this one is at least rational since their domination of the American political system is unlikely to last much longer and they could well be faced with an indifferent if not hostile administration by 2029.

No real prospect of overthrowing the regime

Weird that the regime has taken the nationwide comms blackout to a new level and been gunning people down then.

I can't really think of an explanation for the way the protesters are acting except to conclude that they're being intentionally lured by Mossad

Ah yes, your inability to reason clearly about a fairly straightforward incentive structure is better explained by the Iranians being fooled by the crafty Jews.

The Iranians know the score. The regime has been in power for nearly 50 years. Nobody doesn't know the risks.

Ah yes, your inability to reason clearly about a fairly straightforward incentive structure is better explained by the Iranians being fooled by the crafty Jews.

You're being fairly uncharitable here. Mike Pompeo and the Jerusalem post have both made claims that the Mossad is involved in the protests, with Mike specifically wishing the Mossad agents marching alongside the protesters a happy new year and the Mossad explicitly sending a message in Farsi talking about how they were with the protesters and supporting them.

Weird that the regime has taken the nationwide comms blackout to a new level and been gunning people down then.

Not that weird, if they were actually on the verge of overthrowing the regime then they would be the ones seizing control of communications and gunning down the IRGC instead of the reverse.

I'm not an expert on Iran or military matters but from what I see on Twitter it doesn't look like the US is carrying out the expected movements of troops/hardware you'd expect to see before a military intervention. My weak prediction is that Trump does nothing, the protests are harshly suppressed and Trump claims "credit" along the lines of "If it weren't for my warnings there would have been a lot more bloodshed, let me tell you".

That being said, I'm not sure how long the Iranian regime can carry on in its current form. The grand masterplan of:

1/Economically immiserate yourself for 40+ years for the sake of picking a fight with Israel and the USA

2/Get militarily humiliated during the first direct conflict with these two nations

3/Seethe

4/Profit

Seems to have hit a very visible snag around the last step and I don't know how long the regime is even going to be able to recruit enough people to fill its security apparatus to the extent necessary to continue keeping a lid on public frustration while it's abundantly obvious that essentially none of their citizens benefit from the country being run like this.

Obviously the plan is to get a nuke and obviate the "get militarily humiliated" part.

it's not really Culture War Classic material.

What are you saying has changed? I’m having a hard time finding the Deomcratic Party line—I mostly get results from last summer—but Trump blustering is par for the course.

Look at George W. Plenty of tough talk, minimal actual intervention. There was no reward in the risk. It’s entirely possible that we’re in a similar scenario.

Both parties have interventionists and noninterventionists, hawks and doves. Both parties will sometimes flip based on negative polarization of the other party being in charge.

Plus, foreign policy is by default less likely to be a Culture War topic.

The major change is Trump as a person and MAGA in general have a strange, not always coherent, set of foreign policy instincts. Iran hawks wanted to pull out of JCPOA, kill Soleimani, bomb Iran's nuclear program, and foster regime change. Trump, bit by bit, seems to be going along with that agenda. I'm seeing indications we're taking a harder line on Russia, and we just did the Venezuela op. (Little Marco is getting stuff done.) But Trump also likes to shit on NATO more than seems ideal, and then there's the whole Greenland issue. Oh, and Trump has been soft on China it seems? I don't understand it.

If either Vance or Rubio becomes president, I think there will be a much more consistent foreign policy than Trump's vibe-based approach.

Tangentially related: something I recall hearing a lot from the anti-interventionist left/Ron Paul libertarian/paleocon spheres ca. 2008-2012 was the idea that sanctions and embargoes (on Iran and Cuba, at that time) are actually counterproductive to the stated goal of spreading democracy, because they provide an easy foreign scapegoat for dictators to pin their economic woes on, and the resulting “rally ‘round the flag” effect ironically gives the sanctioned regimes more domestic popular support than they would otherwise enjoy.

On the one hand, this seems like a pretty galaxy-brained take; surely, from the perspective of the man in the streets of Tehran or Havana, the more obvious conclusion is, “If our regime fell and we played ball with the Americans, they’d lift the sanctions and we wouldn’t be poor!”

But on the other, national pride is a hell of a drug, and I can definitely imagine the ordinary people of a sovereign nation—particularly one like Iran, with such a long history of being the premier regional power and a bulwark of refinement and culture—chafing at the prospect of bending the knee to foreign interlopers. Anecdatally, during the US/Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last summer, I remember seeing assimilated, secular Persian-Americans on social media furiously condemning the US and Israel, even to the point of supporting the Ayatollah, whose very name they seldom utter without a curse before and after (cf. the old saw about not realizing “damn Yankee” was two separate words). In many cases, they were the very same people who took to the streets tweets during the anti-regime protests of 2009 and 2022!

Does anyone have any hard data on how true this hypothesis is?

On the one hand, this seems like a pretty galaxy-brained take; surely, from the perspective of the man in the streets of Tehran or Havana, the more obvious conclusion is, “If our regime fell and we played ball with the Americans, they’d lift the sanctions and we wouldn’t be poor!”

Absolutely nobody is going to think this. They are going to look at what happened when the regimes in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan fell and they played ball with the Americans. Compared to what Libya turned into, the regime is going to look pretty great by comparison.

Except for Libya, none of your examples involve a regime being overthrown from within by forces wanting an end to the sanctions, or voluntarily submitting to American demands in order to end the sanctions. Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are all cases where the powers that be (well, were) pointedly refused to play ball, boldly stood up to American threats, and were invaded/couped in short order. If anything, they should serve as cautionary tales of what happens when you don’t play nice with America.

First of all, even if we just take Libya as the example it serves to make my point by itself. When you compare what Libya was before the fall of Gaddafi to the open-air slave markets that replaced him, I can't imagine that any reasonable person would want that for their country (or even any countries near them).

But the point I was trying to make was that the regimes in those countries did fall and get knocked out by American intervention (or assistance in the case of Syria), which is what is being proposed for Iran. In no case did the American intervention result in a positive change for the countries involved - and everyone else in the region can see exactly what happened.

National pride doesn't provide working electricity or keep you warm in the winter. The current protests in Iran seem to mostly be caused by the dire economic situation, which has only come about due to sanctions.

I also think a mistake you might be making is assuming that the primary aim of sanctions is to spread democracy in the first place, rather than as a means of weakening an enemy state so it's less able to harm you. A state that's poorer is one that's less able to buy weapons, pay soldiers, fund an air force etc.

No, sanctions are not responsible for decades of Islamic socialism driving the economy into the ground and hyperinflation via mismanagement. Don't take it from me, take it from Iran's president.

The dire economic situation is the underlying reality that triggers mass discontent, but there have been plenty of mass protests before for democratic reforms (not regime change).

I don't doubt that incompetence has a large role to play, but I think sanctions have to be somewhat responsible. I don't think you can claim for instance that their economy would be just as bad if they were as free to take part in global trade as Germany.

Sure, it's not nothing. They could sell oil to China at market prices instead of at a discount, for example.

But, as with Cuba, sanctions a supporting factor.

Also, lol, consider how shitty Germany's economy is without any US sanctions.

Germany is mismanaging its economy in its own unique way, but it's still doing a lot better than Iran.

Just about everyone is doing "a lot better" than Iran, since they have hyperinflation and water shortages.

The debated point was, "How much is that a result of US sanctions vs. mismanagement?"

I was pointing out Germany was a funny example to bring up since they have managed to royally fuck up their economy the last while with unforced errors.

IMO the allegation that Iran tried to kill Trump is frankly too absurd to take seriously. The Iranian agent conducted an interview with the FBI while in Iran? Like he is employed by Iran for a super secret mission, and voluntarily decides to confess guilt in an interview with the FBI, while still in Iran? And it’s a phone interview, so it could be literally anyone on the other side of the phone? Disregarding the absurdity of Iran ever trying to do this, never in a million years would they task a 50-year-old who spent a decade in prison with such a mission; that is like a television drama’s idea of how intelligence work plays out in real life. I think whoever is responsible for this bizarre event gave the game away with this:

he allegedly told the FBI of the IRGC's desire to kill an Iranian American activist and target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka with a mass shooting event. Shakeri also told investigators that the IRGC tasked him with surveilling two Jewish American citizens living in New York

Would Iran, with its half-million strong diaspora in America, able to call upon thousands of Shiite Muslim Americans to do their bidding, task a criminal for four of their highly sensitive operations, none of which have anything to do with each other? And we know all this from a phone call interview? Press X to doubt.

Would Iran, with its half-million strong diaspora in America, able to call upon thousands of Shiite Muslim Americans to do their bidding

Come on man. Think about it. They came to America. They are not regime fans.

I have some "lived experience" with Iran assassination plots and I can tell you it's real.

You're assuming he knew he was talking to the FBI when he gave up that information. You'd be surprised what people will say if they think you're in the know.

Iran has a documented history of using criminals, foreign and domestic, to conduct assassination operations because they have leverage and plausible deniability. (See how easy it was to get you to believe there's no way it could be Iran?)

Come on man. Think about it. They came to America. They are not regime fans.

For the most part I agree, but I think it's more about the circumstances of their departure, i.e. they are elites who fled Iran in the 70s in connection with the revolution. One can contrast them with Israeli-Americans who tend to be very pro-Israel.

Some % of Iranian Americans are likely Shiite extremist or Iranian extremists simply as a matter of statistics; it is not unheard of for extremists to be the children of those who left their country because of extremism. According to the official documents they were “voluntary telephonic interviews” and

SHAKERI's stated reason for participating in the interviews was to attempt to obtain a sentence reduction for another individual ("Individual-1"), who is serving a sentence in U.S. prison, by providing assistance to law enforcement on this individual's behalf.

But this really stretches the imagination, as Iran would brutally torture him to death for conducting such an interview, were he a real person.

Iran has a documented history of using criminals, foreign and domestic, to conduct assassination operations because they have leverage and plausible deniability

Plausible deniability would be paying someone who is not Iranian. Really this all sounds similar to the string of antisemitic arson attacks in Australia, where some mysterious overseas organization hired criminals to commit random acts of criminality against Jewish organizations, most of which never constituted a real threat, coincidentally as the Australian Jewish community pushed for tyrannical antisemitic hate speech laws:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8057j0mz5mo.amp

Australia's federal police have said they are investigating whether "overseas actors or individuals" are paying local criminals to carry out antisemitic crimes in the country.

There has been a spate of such incidents in recent months, the latest of which saw a childcare centre in Sydney set alight and sprayed with anti-Jewish graffiti. No-one was injured.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a snap cabinet meeting in response, where officials agreed to set up a national database to track antisemitic incidents. Thus far, the federal police taskforce, set up in December to investigate such incidents, received more than 166 reports of antisemitic crimes. Albanese said it appeared some of the crimes were "being perpetrated by people who don't have a particular issue, aren't motivated by an ideology, but are paid actors".

These “attacks” were designed specifically to cause no damage: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2025/3/10/mob-faked-attack-on-australian-synagogue-police

The caravan had been easily located, the AFP said, adding that the explosives were clearly visible and no detonator was present, suggesting there was never any intent to attack Jewish targets. “The caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit,” Krissy Barrett, AFP’s deputy commissioner for nation

This has also been blamed on Iran, because of course.

You're right that it "could be" the case that Iranian-Americans were willing to conduct terrorism on the Islamic regime's behalf. That rate is infinitesimal, empirically.

Presumably Shakeri thought the FBI wasn't going to publish the fact of the interview. I don't know the logic of why the FBI did what it did.

There's a well-documented history of Iran conducting operations against Jews worldwide over decades.

People love to mistake Iranian incompetence for "ah they didn't actually want to hurt anyone." "They couldn't be that irrational." Like the time they wanted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US in Washington DC. Or like the time they fired ballistic missiles at US forces in Iraq and didn't do much, so the explanation among nonsensical people was "clearly it was all for show." For their part, the Iranians believed the MSM lied about the casualties they had actually caused, because they knew their missiles hit the geocoords. (We did have troops in bunkers get TBIs from the impacts.)

I've personally got to witness Iranian efforts to kill Americans and Jews, so I know not to confuse their incompetence with malicious intent.

Here’s what you are missing that explains the reluctance to wade into the Iran thing, both by Trump and the security apparatus as a whole:

ISRAEL DID NOT ACTUALLY DO THAT WELL IN THE LAST SKIRMISH WITH IRAN

While it was happening you were soaked in a bunch of propagandized news articles about how Israel completely dismantled Fordow and blew up every single Iranian missile and bombed Iran back into the Stone Age and caused every single member of Hezbollah to drop dead simultaneously.

Meanwhile any successful Iranian strikes against Israel were not covered by the mainstream media at all and if they were the damage was downplayed. And there were quite a few: a major military airfield got destroyed, the Israeli equivalent of the pentagon suffered major damage from a direct hit, a large power plant was destroyed, Tel Aviv’s largest hospital was damaged from a direct hit, a major financial building was severely damaged, there were several hits on apartment blocks that probably caused mass casualties that were covered up. And all that was in the four days before the war ended, as the interceptors were running dry. THAT’s why Trump leaned on them to stop. It was becoming unsustainable without major US military action in support, or Israel chucking nukes.

Then over the next six months the truth started leaking out: The damage against Iran’s missile sites was less severe than anticipated, Hezbollah has maintained organizational cohesion and just replaced all the officers killed in the pager attack, the attack on Fordow was so successful that we actually need to do it again.

If the US starts major strikes against Iran, the leadership will start throwing everything they have at Israel in retaliation. Combine that with the fact that every single Iranian protest action of the last 20 years has turned out to be a giant nothing burger, and it’s just not necessarily worth it risking a giant fiasco in the Middle East over a shot at toppling the Iranian regime. That’s said I think there’s a good chance they end up going for it anyway.

Within hours of the strikes mainstream western press was quoting experts saying, basically “this would have delayed them by a few months at the most; the most valuable facilities are dispersed and too deep underground”, so I don’t think this is accurate.

You’re right, but everyone kind of ignored that.

Do you have any solid sources for all these claims? What makes them more reliable than everything in the MSM? How did you verify them?

His assesment of Iran's damage roughly matches what I was seeing on Twitter and Telegram groups as it was happening.

Counter anecdote: It's the exact opposite of what I was seeing on Twitter as it was happening.

about how Israel completely dismantled Fordow

Israel?

THAT’s why Trump leaned on them to stop. It was becoming unsustainable without major US military action in support of Israel chucking nukes.

What a wonderful alternative theory of events. We had to hold Israel back for their own good.

risking a giant fiasco in the Middle East over a shot at toppling the Iranian regime.

Some would argue the giant fiasco in the Middle East is not toppling the Islamic regime. Do you know how much easier Iraq would have been without Iranian interference? Syria? Yemen? Palestine? Lebanon?

the leadership will start throwing everything they have at Israel in retaliation

Israel knows and they seem fine with it. Solve the problem once and for all, you know? They've been advocating for more strikes before these protests kicked off.

If Israel did well last time around (which on balance it seems to me they did) wouldn't the smartest thing for the US to do be "nothing" and let the Israelis sort it? They almost certainly have better intel and assets, their strike apparatus seems adequate, and they likely have better understanding of Iranian culture and society, and they have much more skin in the game.

The main argument I can see cutting against this is that US action might be more palatable to Iranians than Israeli action.

Team work makes the dream work imo.

We have complimentary capabilities in intelligence and air power. My understanding is the rate of Israeli strikes was only possible due to direct logistics support by the US.

Seems like the US could provide e.g. airborne tanker support without really doing anything that would be considered "going to war with Iran" (although ofc material support is technically an act of war [ETA: or at least a cause for war] and all that)

What a wonderful alternative theory of events. We had to hold Israel back for their own good.

Ok what’s your explanation? Trump strong-armed Netanyahu into stopping because he just loves Iran so much?

Israel knows and they seem fine with it. Solve the problem once and for all, you know?

Gambling is always fun when your losses will be covered by someone else’s money.

Trump strong-armed Netanyahu into stopping because he just loves Iran so much?

Why would Trump have to strong arm Netanyahu into stopping if Israel was getting its shit shoved in?

Netanyahu was banking on pushing things to such a critical state that large scale US intervention and regime change would be required. Failing that, it would justify using nuclear weapons.

Doesn't that mean it failed and they should have used nukes?

As I see it, the crux of the matter is the Revolutionary Guard. Unless you can somehow displace them as the primary powerbrokers/guards/corrupt overseers of Iran and its economy, it's hard to imagine meaningful improvement that is worth the number of bodies that will pile up. The system only changes if the guys with guns want it to change.

I do think it changes in the next 10 years. The leaders of the revolution seems to be dying out and my gut says the next generation isn’t the same. I have no idea if the current protest can work but I don’t think the replacements will have the same zeal.

You are correct. The protestors know this. They know the IRGC will, almost certainly, have to be forcibly removed.

The IRGC was designed to be an ideologically aligned military arm of the Islamic regime, as the name makes clear. They are very much the system that protestors seek to overthrow.

If Trump sends in Delta force and they manage to successfully yoink the Ayatollah with minimal casualties, I will buy $15,000 worth of Raytheon and Northrop Grumman stock.

Toppling the regime may or may not play out in the U.S.'s favor, but supporting the protestors in some material way also seems like an obvious win. I'm not sure what other leverage Trump can gain over Iran that doesn't involve another 'kinetic' action.

And I'm also unsure what 'Carrot' can be offered to the current regime to somehow play nice after like 50 years of entrenching as America's biggest hater.

I do know that of the few friends I have who feel strongly about the situation (because they or their family is from Iran/Persia) they are pretty vehement that it'd be worth significant amounts of death to remove the existing regime.

Toppling the regime may or may not play out in the U.S.'s favor,

Can you please point out any regime-toppling exercises that played out in the U.S.'s favor from the past 70 years? I legitimately can't think of any.

It's hard to tell what played out in the favor of the US compared to a counterfactual baseline that doesn't exist, but Grenada, Panama, Haiti and Brazil don't really seem to have backfired.

Haiti was / is a success?

If Haiti is a success then Guatemala, Congo, Indonesia, Chile and Libya should be on your list too.

The intervention (where we prepared an invasion, showed the ruler of the country a videotape of paratroopers en route, and then he decided to step down) seems to have played out in the US' favor in the sense of accomplishing our objectives at low cost.

I suppose it's fair to question whether or not the benefits from that were worth the cost, but OP didn't ask if regime-toppling exercises had solved all of the problems of the countries we toppled, just whether they had played out in the US' favor.

Probably some of those other ones should be on my list...

they are pretty vehement that it'd be worth significant amounts of death to remove the existing regime

But notably not their death. If they actually thought this way---from a revealed preferences angle---they'd be out guerilla-ing.

I'm not so certain that's true.

At least in a couple cases it would also be irresponsible for them to break up their extant lives in the U.S. to go over and maybe die for a regime change.

In one case, though, the guy is single and otherwise not attached to much and owns a decent number of guns.

At least in a couple cases it would also be irresponsible for them to break up their extant lives in the U.S. to go over and maybe die for a regime change.

Just like it's irresponsible for the parents in the US military to disrupt their child's development to go on deployment.

Maybe they’re being more efficient by getting high-earning jobs in America, then sending that money to fund guerillas?

Effective insurrectionists.

slow clap

If they did that, would it actually help the protestors? Ayatollah Khamenei is 86 years old, so presumably not as sharp or energetic as he once was. He stays in power by inertia, and probably also because there's a certain amount of hardline islamists in Iran who like having a theocracy. It's very possible that taking him out would just end up replacing him with a younger, sharper ayatollah. Possibly his son.

Definitely a worrisome failure mode there.

I just like the idea of demonstrating the impotence of an authoritarian in such an embarrassing manner.

What I also find amusing is that if you yoink the current leader without killing him, suddenly their 'replacement' has a dilemma. They can either try to seize power for themselves and supplant their predecessor... at which point the U.S. can force a legitimacy crisis by returning the previous one, or the new leader can insist he's just a placeholder until the return of the captive leader... while admitting his own inability to effect that return.

I feel like this sort of thing happened semi-commonly in Medieval Europe when King got captured and held for ransom.

Seems completely unprecedented in the modern era though.

You are correct that it's not about taking out one person.

Iran is generally ruled by committees of senior officials and advisors, with the Supreme Leader ultimately signing off. It gives him the ability to blame whoever advocated for a course of action if things go poorly. The Supreme Leader has ultimate authority, but is shielded from any direct accountability. Classic "good Tsar, bad Boyars" government design.

Basically the entire reason for the Iranian president is to be the fall guy for economic policies failing. You can vote him out.

What would matter is taking on the security agencies, such that they stop performing effectively at killing protestors and begin switching sides. Just the very act of intervention would probably have a large impact on people's views on the ultimate outcome. Gotta get a preference cascade started.

Not that I'd advocate for it, but Delta probably wants another try at a major Iran op, just out of unit pride.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw

Incidentally that would be why I DON'T expect Trump to pull something audacious and highly risky, since he's presumably sensitive to how a failure would crack his popularity and image. He has been VERY blessed in the success of his deployment of U.S. forces into dangerous situations. Hasn't had to reckon with a version of the Benghazi or Black Hawk Down situations, let alone the Iran Hostage Crisis. Biden even did him the favor of a hasty Afghanistan withdrawal in the interim.

I'm still in awe of the Venezuela gambit, he must have been assured there was such a disparity in capability (or they had SO MANY insiders to help out) that it would be virtually impossible to truly fail.

I'm not exactly sure what sort of material support for the protestors is most likely to help them succeed, but I do like that this tangibly reduces the likelihood of a real boots-on-ground invasion, from my perspective.

I'm still in awe of the Venezuela gambit, he must have been assured there was such a disparity in capability

They literally didn't turn on their air defences. It's not impressive from a military angle at all.

Long-range air defenses are not very effective against low-flying aircraft* (unless essentially colocated with the target, in which case they don't perform better and may perform worse than other cheaper systems) – you can see this in Ukraine, where Russian and Ukrainian aircraft have been able to operate despite the presence of air defenses much superior to those of Venezuela. Being able to get in, yoink a leader defended by small arms and MANPADS (as Maduro was) and fly off without (allegedly) loss of life or destruction of equipment is impressive. Frankly, just coordinating a joint-services time-on-target operation is difficult enough without any sort of resistance at all.

*you might be wondering "what's the point of long range missiles then?" and the answer is that is if all you are doing is forcing the enemy to do risky nap-of-the-earth operations where they will be susceptible to small-arms fire and have worse performance then your long-ranged missiles have paid for themselves already.

Did all of Maduro's security forget to take their guns off 'safe' as well?

Sorry what? I don't follow. If it wasn't clear, I was implying that the "disparity" was assured because the other side did not engage in a defense.

the likelihood of a real boots-on-ground invasion

Now do Greenland, lol [cries].

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15452323/Donald-Trump-orders-army-chiefs-plan-invade-Greenland-President.html

If Americans actually cared about Iranians they would stop trying to turn Iran into Syria. Relieve the sanctions, stop trying to steal the oil and work for peace. Another fiasco regime change war that will flood Europe with migrants and that will wreck Iran is the worst possible outcome.

In hindsight, I think it would have been correct to have intervened against Assad.

In hindsight the policy of arming jihadists while trying to sanction every aspect of the Syrian economy ended in a genocide of Syria's christian population and Europe getting flooded by migrants. If anything the west should prop up stable regimes in the middle east. Wasting another trillion trying to occupy a country in the middle east so they can get DEI would be a disastrous policy.

The recent fiasco in Yemen failed because bombing doesn't win wars. The newly installed jihadist in Syria barely controls the country. The Iraq war was a complete fiasco as well as Afghanistan. How many failures does it take before the neocons stop?

Do you routinely hear people complain about the Iranian diaspora?

Something to that, I reckon.

Who's saying anything about an occupation?

I swear to god so many people have brainworms that any potential foreign intervention must be directly compared to the interventions in Iraq or Afghanistan. There are other ways to do things than occupying and nation building. (Also, Iraq is doing ok these days.)

I swear to god so many people have brainworms that any potential foreign intervention must be directly compared to the interventions in Iraq or Afghanistan. There are other ways to do things than occupying and nation building.

It's not just Iraq and Afghanistan, it's also Syria and Libya (that I remember off the top of my head). Also I'd be more ok with your idea if anyone was punished for these blunders, and gave the current batch of pro-intervention people something to think about.

Those are better comparisons for sure.

Syria is a case of a LACK of Western intervention, however. Assad got a ton of support from Russia and Iran, which is why he really started losing when both of those countries had to focus on more immediate problems.

Libya is pretty different from Iran in a host of ways. For one, Gaddafi wasn't a major thorn in our side at the time. The Islamic regime is an ongoing threat that could be removed.

In my essay, I talk about the risk of separatism. You can't have a perfect future guaranteed. The most successful military intervention the US ever did, according to most anyway, was WWII. Which ended up leading to the Cold War with the USSR as our primary enemy, and then the rise of China. Whoops.

In my view, this case seems fairly straightforward once you consider the possible outcomes relative to baseline. The Islamic regime is really bad for Iran and the world.

Syria is a case of a LACK of Western intervention, however. Assad got a ton of support from Russia and Iran, which is why he really started losing when both of those countries had to focus on more immediate problems.

The leading alternatives to Assad were Al Qaeda and ISIS. It seems patently obvious that the Western-backed forces were objectively worse in nearly every way compared to Assad unless you're a Salafist, an Erdogan fan or an Israel-prioritizer (as in, elevating the narrow interests of Israel above all other considerations).

Assad is a major ally of Iran and Russia, traditional enemies of the US.

So far the Al Qaeda guy seems better than Assad.

Iran and Russia are only enemies of the American regime, Al Qaeda is an enemy of the American people.

The Al Qaeda guy is currently having ethnic and religious minorities thrown off of buildings, is that better than Assad?

Oh, I think Iran and Russia are just as much enemies of the American people as Al Qaeda is.

Regardless, can we do the math on how many people was Assad killing? I think it was more.

There's no great option here.

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Do you routinely hear people complain about the Iranian diaspora?

There were two Iranian families in my hometown growing up (smallish town of about 30k people) thet had fled after the Shah was overthrown. One of the families had even converted to Mormonism and was a member of my congregation. The one in my my congregation was a wonderful family and I never heard any complaints about them (they had a son with some mental health issues but even that didn't really cause any problems). I had fewer interactions with the other, but the father of the other family was a school psychiatrist/counsellor at my high school and seemed like a decent guy.

But if someone pretty rabidly anti mass migration like me doesn't have any particular beef with Persians I think that's a pretty good sign of the character of the ones we have here in the US, at least the ones who came here in the 70's.

IMO he shouldn't intervene. Unlike Venezuela, Iran is a middle east shithole and intervening in the middle east has never worked well because there is no history of democracy and widespread support of theocracy. I'm sympathetic to the protestors but I wouldn't help them.

Iran is a middle east shithole

It really wasn't until the mullahs derailed South Korea-level economic growth.

Turkey is not a shithole, and that's the closest approximation to Iran on a number of levels (though they are not oil rich).

There is in fact a history of democracy and constitutional monarchy. The lack of widespread support for theocracy after nearly 50 years is why we're having this conversation.

history of democracy

How well did that work out for them?

Operation Ajax

Eh, Mossadegh was not actually that great at democracy since he violated the law to seize power and dismiss parliament.

One could also argue the US/West owe Iran a debt since we helped get them into this mess. (Which we did by basically facilitating Khomeini's return and believing his lies about running a democracy.)

Great or not it was the result of their democratic process. What came after was less so.

I would argue the best way to repay the debt would be to stay out of it now.

Traditionally, the Left has been soft on Iran and the Right has been hawkish.

I don't think the pro-establishment left has been particularly soft on Iran - although I agree at the margin the pro-establishment right has been more hawkish recently (see for example the Obama era nuclear deal).

There's a strong anti-interventionist Right and Left

I agree here - I think "pro-establishment = hawkish, anti-establishment = dovish" is a better model than "left = dovish, right = hawkish". Trump personally is an exception because he is close to both Israel and Saudi Arabia in a way which the anti-establishment right would disapprove of in anyone else.

There is also a model where the US factional politics of Iran is just the US factional politics of Israel. The pro-establishment left and right are pro-Israel and thus anti-Iran, the anti-establishment left is anti-Israel and thus pro-Iran, and the anti-establishment right is divided on Iran in ways which primarily reflect their attitudes to Israel and Jews.

Eh, I think very few members of the Establishment Left have been anything other than pretty soft of Iran.

For example, I think many of the hawkish criticisms of Obama and the JCPOA ("they wanted to give Iran nukes") are unfair (I supported it), but then there's Ben Rhodes...

The national security-focused Dems are usually pretty sane overall imo. The types who will say it's great Maduro is out of power, for example.

We have to balance how much we hate Iran with the risk that China or Russia push back against us going after their preferred Middle Eastern country. And it is better for the Iranians if they have their own Revolution, not just an American putting a new Dictator in place for them.

With that in mind, I fully believe the Iranians can have a revolution if they don't starve first. The only thing the Americans should do is try to get the protestors food and water on a humanitarian mission. Given how hostile Iran is, doing even this without attacking Iran would be a feat in itself. But it seems like the moral option if we want to help out.

We've already proven just six months ago that Russia and China ain't doin shit here.

They are having their own revolution. Problem is, the regime has all the guns. Nowhere do I advocate we put anyone on the throne. I'm saying we tip the scales against the regime.

People really love to jump to the aftermath complications, as if what's being advocated is an occupation and nation building.

Bombing and regime change aren't the same thing. They could have bombed Iran into a parking lot but it would have done nothing to change who was in power unless they were able to actually occupy Tehran and take control of government. That's a tall order considering the size and remoteness of the country and Tehran's location within it. Not that it couldn't be done, or even be done easily, it just wouldn't be same quick in and out operation and would almost certainly involve taking significant casualties.

There's an ongoing mass uprising.

You can do regime change without boots on the ground if you're providing air support for a mass uprising.

There are protests, not a mass uprising in the sense that there is a rival faction ready to take power. The situation in 2011 was markedly better than the current situation in Iran, as large parts of the country were already under rebel control, and foreign countries, the US included, had already recognized a different government. That's the only instance I can think of where we did "regime change by bombing only", and I haven't heard too many people describe that campaign as something we should try to replicate.

You can't really have "a rival faction" when the police state kills those off immediately in the normal course of business.

But also a mass uprising is a mass uprising, and you're just making up something about a "rival faction." These are the first protests where regime change, not reform, is the explicit goal. Millions of Iranians are risking their lives to take out the regime. They might succeed on their own. They'll almost certainly succeed with some shock and awe backing them up.

You can't really have "a rival faction" when the police state kills those off immediately in the normal course of business.

Yes, that's what the police state is for.

Eventually the regime is just going to machine gun the protestors and get on with life. There are plenty of Iranians who support the regime, after all.

A pet theory of mine is actually that the last 50-70 (?) or so of history is qualitatively different than previous eras because leaders are too easy to kill or remove. It used to be that movements would generate Washingtons and Jeffersons and Lafayettes and such who built up their reputation and fame and could lead after winning, or at least strike a deal. But in the modern era, assassinations and executions are relatively more common, and emigrating relatively easier, such that countries suffer "leadership drain" during civil conflict and make civil wars worse than in previous eras. Also, compromise is more difficult because leaders have less political capital at their command. At least, so the thinking goes.

We did that in Libya. The result was an unmitigated disaster.

Anyone have a good postmortem on how this one ended up so fucked?

Reuters:

  • 2011—Revolt and civil war: An uprising against Muammar Gaddafi's four-decade rule rapidly spreads, becoming an armed revolt aided by NATO airstrikes. Gaddafi is ousted in August and killed in October by rebels.

  • 2012—Missed opportunities: A rebel council holds elections for an interim General National Congress which creates a transitional government. True power lies with local armed groups. Islamist militants gain ground and attack the US consulate in Benghazi, killing the ambassador.

  • 2013—Growing divisions: Armed groups are ever more powerful, besieging government buildings. The Congress is increasingly divided and trust ebbs as it seeks to extend its term and delay elections.

  • 2014—East–West schism: The Congress rejects the results of an election to a new parliament—the House of Representatives (HoR)—and sets up a government backed by armed groups in the west. The newly elected parliament moves from Tripoli to the east in support of a rival government backed by Khalifa Haftar, a former general who has brought together several armed factions as the Libyan National Army. Libya is now split between warring administrations in east and west.

  • 2015—Islamists on the march: Islamist groups take advantage of the chaos and Islamic State seizes Sirte, Gaddafi's home city in central Libya, in February. In December, the rival parliamentary bodies sign the Libyan Political Agreement to set up a new transition. The agreement confirms the HoR as Libya's parliament but gives members of the General National Congress a new role as an advisory second chamber—the High State Council (HSC).

  • 2016—Islamic State driven back: The HoR rejects the new government as it takes office in Tripoli, entrenching Libya's east–west divide. Western armed factions eventually take Sirte from Islamic State as Haftar fights militants in Derna and Benghazi and seizes the oil crescent region of central Libya.

  • 2019—Haftar attacks Tripoli: After two more years of on-off fighting across Libya, Haftar drives his LNA through the south, bringing most remaining oil fields under his control. In April, Haftar launches a surprise offensive against Tripoli, taking Sirte en route. He is backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia. Western Libyan armed groups come together to support the Tripoli government with help from Turkey, their alliance bolstered by a deal on maritime borders that angers Egypt and Greece.

  • 2020—Ceasefire: Turkey openly offers military support to Tripoli and Haftar's offensive collapses. As his forces pull back, evidence of atrocities is found in the town of Tarhuna. The sides agree a ceasefire and the UN launches a new peacemaking effort aimed at holding national elections the following year.

  • 2021—A failed election: Eastern and western factions accept a new Government of National Unity (GNU) and Presidency Council, meant to oversee elections in December. But the HoR in the east and the HSC in the west cannot agree on a new constitution or rules for the vote and the election falls apart at the last minute.

  • 2022—Standoff: Both parliamentary bodies now say the unity government has lost its legitimacy but the prime minister, Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, refuses to quit. The HoR in eastern Libya again appoints a rival administration, but it fails to enter Tripoli. The Nawasi, a major Tripoli militia, is driven from the capital.

United Nations:

More than 14 years after the 2011 revolution and the fall of the former regime, Libya remains mired in an unstable transition marked by recurring violence, fragmented and divided institutions and the entrenchment of powerful armed groups. Its current governing and legislative institutions have continued to operate well past their mandated terms. The lack of an agreed upon constitution and the failure to hold national elections in December 2021, competing interpretations of political agreements, transitional road maps and provisional legal instruments are being used to entrench positions within the prevailing stalemate.

In the aftermath of the failure to hold national elections in December 2021, the political landscape of Libya has been defined by a prolonged stalemate and two distinct centres of power: the Government of National Unity in the west and the Libyan National Army in the east and south. In the west, in the absence of strong institutions, hybrid armed groups often act as de facto providers of security. Competition among these groups over territory, resources, control of illicit activities and institutional influence has fuelled recurring violence that often affects the civilian population. In May 2025, the killing of a major armed group leader triggered some of the deadliest clashes in Tripoli since 2011. With no unity of vision among Libyan political and institutional leaders on a national security architecture and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, the various armed groups have limited incentives to pursue alternate paths.

In the east, over time, administrative structures that parallel those in the west have consolidated, including a military structure, executive bodies and economic institutions, presenting a challenge to efforts to unify national institutions. In the south, the situation remains characterized by divisions along tribal lines and complex security dynamics, including the presence of foreign fighters and mercenaries and the cross-border movements and activities of criminal networks, including illicit trafficking. Southern Libya, while rich in natural resources, remains politically and economically marginalized. The Amazigh, Tebu and Tuareg communities, which are the country’s three recognized non-Arab Indigenous groups, are not adequately represented in State institutions.

What if there are no guarantees and Iran is not like Libya for a multitude of reasons?

If you want America to commit to yet another military intervention in the middle east, I think you should provide something pretty close to a guarantee. The last several interventions were all disasters, and further, demonstrated that the elites in charge of managing the interventions could not actually be held accountable in any meaningful way for their disastrous management and decision-making. This has been a serious problem, and until I see some evidence that it has actually been corrected, my vote is no, hell no, are you insane?

If you want America to commit to yet another military intervention in the middle east, I think you should provide something pretty close to a guarantee.

Why? Surely it can be justified on the grounds that almost any replacement is going to be better for the US + allies than the current one.

This is famously what they thought about Syria, which is now controlled by Al Qaeda. I've yet to hear how any serious explanation for how Al Qaeda running Syria is better for America or Americans than Assad

Well, we can be very positive Al Qaeda won't be running things in Iran.

They presently have a Shia theocracy running things. That's a major reason they're a problem.

The opposition, in contrast, wants secular democracy.

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Why? Surely it can be justified on the grounds that almost any replacement is going to be better for the US + allies than the current one.

The problem with claiming that things can't get worse is all the previous claims that things couldn't get worse, combined with the numerous, extremely horrifying examples of how they did, in fact, get worse.

We've already done a recent intervention in the Middle East that went pretty well.

Namely, we bombed Iran's nuclear program (and supported Israel bombing other targets). There were decades of handwringing about Iran's weapons program and the downsides of intervention and it turned out most of that was needless concern.

Here's another one: Heard much about ISIS lately? Probably not, because we blew the fuck out of them.

That's the great thing here: Bombing is low risk, and things are already so bad for the Iranian people it would be hard for them to get worse.

Even a humanitarian disaster would be something chosen by the Iranians, and we take an enemy of Western Civilization out.

Knowing what we know now, we could have done the invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan and then simply left. We don't have to do "you break it you buy it" if our concern is removing enemies, and not nation building. (Noting that taking out Saddam wasn't a great idea for the general geopolitical reason that he didn't have a nuclear weapons program, and Iran did, and he was their primary enemy.)

Iran is in a far better position to succeed as a country if the regime is removed than any recent example I can think of.

Here's another one: Heard much about ISIS lately? Probably not, because we blew the fuck out of them.

ISIS shot and killed numerous people in the city I live in while I was out having dinner with my partner - I actually got to see the police cars leaving to go deal with the active shooters, so I have in fact heard a lot about them recently.

Do you live in the Middle East?

Because that was the geographic context of the response. They don't control territory anymore, but they still do attacks worldwide.

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And now for something completely different.

Ever feel like democracy's got you down? Ever read enough of Plato's Republic (or listened to people who claim they have ready Plato's Republic) to realize that Democracy always leads to a Tyranny? Afraid that you might be in a Tyranny right now?

You may be entitled to... course correcting your constitution via the process the founders prepared for us! Seriously, the US has gone a freakishly long time since our last amendment. It seems like the process is broken somewhere. Maybe a lot of somewhere.

But when many people propose a constitutional amendment they run into the trap of trying to enshrine their political cause of the day into the constitution, which is never going to work. What we need are structural adjustments that do not favor either side but rather incentivize more deliberative, rational, non-polarized decision making. And what better way to do it than updating the Senate!.

The Senate was never meant to be Democratic. It was meant to be the mirror to the House of Lords in it's day, just not hereditary. It was meant to check, correct, and slow down the work of the more populist House. The Senate was meant to be filled with the wisest and best of each State who serve the public interest without being beholden to popular opinion.

Originally each U.S. senator was elected directly by the legislature of their home state. This changed because state elections started to become proxies for Senate elections, so we passed the 17th amendment and now they are elected separately (though with how common it is to vote all of one party on a ballot, the effect of this change is minimal.)

This turned the US Senate from the original deliberative body to a highly polarized mess that is just like the US House but less representative. It solved one problem, but failed us in many ways.

What if we returned to the spirit of the 17th, with some tweaks to prevent the State Senate elections from turning into proxies for the US Senate again?

DeCivitate (who was featured in ACX a while ago) has been proposing some Constitutional Amendments that try to address the more structural issues with the government, without falling into the trap of "What can I enshrine in the Constitution that makes my side win forever?"

For the Senate, he has proposed a few possibilities:

First, no matter what, let's reduce the number of US Senators down to qty 1 per State. 100 is too many to have a close group of people deliberating together.

Second, let's change the way Senators are selected. Let's require that a senator needs to be a member of their State Senate (defined as the least numerous branch of the state legislature thereof, being composed of at least ten members, and whose concurrence is necessary for any act of the state legislature to become law. so no gaming that!)

From there, we have a couple options:

  1. Use a FORTRAN algorithm that determines based on past votes who are the most moderate members of the State Senate and then allows the State Senate to pick from them. Plus: almost impossible to game. Minus: Requires putting a specific computer algorithm into the US Constitution, which might be a plus to some people but might also come with its own vulnerabilities.

  2. Have the Senate vote based on a Condorcet method plus a group veto power to help steer a more normal-looking nomination practice into a moderate candidate.

The articles for each algorithm are worth reading, as each shows a strong consideration for all the nuances for each method and a focus on understanding why we got to this point and avoiding the pitfalls that steered us towards where we are now.

The goal is to have Senators who are serious people who solve problems instead of clapping back on social media. The goal is to have a Senate comprised of people representative of the median of each State, opposed to partisans of the majority party in each state. I think people of both major parties plus people of the minor parties would prefer this to what we have going on now. So... Let's have a Constitutional Convention!

I quite like the constitutional convention idea. I think I've even endorsed it here before. And it's notable that the Constitution even allows it, because it feels like this is precisely the sort of situation where conventions are the reasonable thing, since partisan negotiations aren't working and problems are obvious.

Lowering numbers seems good, but I'm reluctant to part with the whole 6-year staggered approach which usually balances presidential elections with off-cycle ones and acts as a further brake on spur of the moment changes. Making them come from the state legislature again seems at first glance to be somewhat reasonable. I think one thing that's under-optimized in the system as it currently is, is personal integrity/judgement. Too much selection on issues alone, and not enough on someone we trust to think about the issues deeply and make a good decision.

Any proposed amendment will immediately draw commentary from clout-chasing partisan hacks. Any such hacks will draw countersignals from their opposite numbers. I don’t believe any level of rationalist intent can deter this.

I’m not convinced that scaling down the Senate actually helps, either. We already form subcommittees of 15-30 members. They’re fine at getting stuff to a vote; the perverse incentives come after.

Returning to some form of indirect election is more plausible. If you can’t win a direct election as a moderate, maybe you can win it by getting along with your entire legislature. But isn’t this just as vulnerable to partisanship? If the Speaker of the House elections are any benchmark, asking a bunch of partisans to give you a leader doesn’t get a moderate.

It’s the change to voting rules that does all the work. As I understand it, that doesn’t require an amendment. The Senate can just adopt a different voting schema. I think that’s much more plausible than trying to get national support for a permanent structural change.

But then, I’m rather biased towards Literally Anything But FPTP. So if this gets more states to do STV, approval, anything, I’m in.

We could certainly use more rational decision making in politics. We could certainly use less partisanship and more concern for the general welfare. I don't think your proposal gets us there.

First, we could look to the Federal Bureaucracy to see what happens to an arm of the government with stability against the forces of the whims of each election. Is the bureaucracy non-partisan? De jure yes, but de facto no. It has been basically captured and loyal to a specific party for decades. (And to the extent that's changed over the past year, it's only been by replacement with people loyal to the other party.) Does the bureaucracy make rational decisions? Lol, no.

Second, I don't think it helps to select for moderates. Smart people are more likely to have extreme beliefs and if, like me, you believe that our government is sliding backwards down a rut, what we need are "wild" ideas to get us out.

For what it's worth, I propose proportional representation using the "single transferrable vote" system. More diversity of beliefs and less toxic partisanship (like incentive to sabotage another party) in a multi-party system.

I think you will like his proposal for the House: https://decivitate.jamesjheaney.com/p/expand-the-house-you-cowards

The Senate is not the House. The House should be extreme Democracy in action. The Senate is the cooling rods. You need both or you get Tyranny.

There will not be a Constitutional convention, because the Constitution is dead.

The Constitution relied on common knowledge that obeying procedure was the best way available to generate and wield coherent power.

Manipulating procedural outcomes is, in fact, a superior method of generating and wielding coherent power, and we have created common knowledge that this is the case.

Because the Constitution relied on a form of common knowledge that no longer exists, not only is it dead, but the principles that generated it are dead. It is not just that the Constitution is no longer serving its intended function, but that the very idea that it could potentially serve that function is now understood to be ridiculous.

Or to put it another way, the Constitution required a particular set of beliefs to function. Those beliefs were fundamentally mistaken about core elements of human nature, the fact that they were mistaken has become common knowledge, and so now it is impossible for reasonable people to actually hold them.

I would like freedom of speech. There is no reasonable argument available that freedom of speech is a thing that can happen. The First Amendment has failed to provide meaningful protection for free speech in my lifetime, and the way it has failed to do so demonstrates that rewording the amendment would not help.

I would like my right to keep and bear arms to not be infringed. there is no reasonable argument available that rewording the second amendment would prevent the infringements that have been the norm my entire life.

The power to secure either my right to speech or my right to arms observably does not flow from the Constitution in any way other than the most trivial and incidental. I have watched presidential candidates publicly laugh at the idea that such protections could possibly exist. They were correct to do so, because such protections are a fiction.

You would be better off founding your political reforms off the divine right of kings. It would be a more fruitful soil than this appeal to the divinity of ink and paper.

:sadface:

Too true it hurts.

A few more months and this experiment will turn 250 years old. In terms of the age of nations, pretty young. Divine right of kinds definitely seems to have more longevity. I think the world has at least enjoyed some of the fruits of this experiment. Common law has had slightly more hold in this country than in others. Self defense is at least a legally defensible concept in the US, rather than an admission of guilt as it is in Europe.

What can be destroyed by the Truth should be... or perhaps there remains some room for mercy. Hope is not a sin.

In any case, knowing that peaches do not come from a can does not require one to love peaches less. Maybe a clearer understanding of where the good things the American Experiment generated actually come from will allow more us to produce more of them.

I think many of the good things came from hope and misunderstandings. I'm atheist and I realize exactly how many of our founding fathers were christian in their beliefs and behavior (approximately 100%). I don't know why it is necessary to believe in a Christian god to value human life, but it seems to be an objective truth of reality for most people.

I can't help but notice his proposal would, under current state legislature distribution, enshrine his preferred political party's dominance in the Senate. Even more than it already is! There are currently 30 states whose upper chambers (or only chamber, in Nebraska's case) are majority Republican. This has been true for the last ~decade if you go back through the data from the National Conference of State Legislatures. "I just happen to come up with a scheme where my preferred party has a 3/5 majority in perpetuity, but that's not why I chose it I swear!"

Not if you split up the states!

I say that only semi-jokingly. But I'd love for an incentive to exist that splits up states into smaller entities. America is just getting too large to govern effectively.

Well, for one, he does not prefer the Republicans to the Democrats and has not for a while now.

He is trying to make less polarized candidates, not candidates of a specific brand. Surely 30 Republican-leaning centrist and 20 Democrat-leaning centrist Senators would be better than what we have now?

Can you link me to his other writings? Because this is a quote from the article you linked:

Now, I am, by temperament, a hardcore partisan. I often respect principled adversaries on the other side, but moderates tend to strike me as slippery customers who can’t commit. I instinctively disdain them, especially those on my own “team.” I spent years daydreaming about Susan Collins being run out of my party, ideally on a rail, no matter how tactically stupid it would have been.

He goes on to say the Senate is meant to counter that temperament but this hardly looks like the writing of someone who does not prefer Republicans!

He is trying to make less polarized candidates, not candidates of a specific brand. Surely 30 Republican-leaning centrist and 20 Democrat-leaning centrist Senators would be better than what we have now?

I am not at all sure of that. I see little evidence that "moderates" in the Senate have done much to stand up to what I perceive to be Trump's abuses of power. Why would I want them to be more powerful, given that perception?

He calls Trump "Mr. Trump" and calls him the "de-facto president" because he believes Trump is illegitimate. On another post he writes, "When all is said and done, I’ll have spent 12 years in the political wilderness… " indicating he doesn't see himself aligned to the Republicans for 12 years now.

I appreciate the links. I think they convince me the author is a Never-Trump style Republican.

This is true, with the important caveat that the Republican party he supported 13+ years ago is gone and dead. He's not a Democrat, but it is unlikely the Republicans will ever field candidates he likes either.

Of course it isn't better than what we have now to people who prefer democrats. Why else would Gillitrut post what he did?

What we have every election under the current status quo is 45 hardcore Republicans, 45 hardcore Democrats, and 10 people who more often than not are anti-democrat but not necessarily pro-Republican (but vote for Republican causes more often than not.) Republicans have a major bias in the Senate anyways. Would it not be better for those Republicans to be moderate and willing to pass laws from a Democratic House?

Because another proposal he has would blow up the house to 1000+ people who are also more representative of the people at large and much less gerymandering.

This proposal runs into the immediate problem that the constitution says that the state’s representation in the senate is the only part not subject to amendment.

no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate

He goes to pretty significant lengths to come up with a scheme that manages the facts that they each currently have two and that there is a rotating six-year cycle of elections, ultimately for the purpose of being able to say that at one single moment, every State would have their number of Senators cut from two to one at the same time. Will this suffice for preserving "equal Suffrage"? As with many things Constitutional, it might just depend on how people feel about it.

I've only looked at his introductory post, so hopefully he addresses my point later, but the introductory post would seem to be the natural place to discuss why we don't have more amendment, and he does some discussion of that question, but with what I feel is only one of the multiple answers:

"...you need about 85%+ public support to ratify a constitutional amendment. It’s pointless because, if you could ever get that much public support for your divisive policy question, you’d no longer need a constitutional amendment, because you’d have won the argument and all the relevant laws already."

This is true for many object-level laws, but there are loads of exceptions. An Amendment allows you to credibly precommit to not change laws later, which makes it attractive for a number of tasks:

  1. Rules intended to protect human rights, where we fear our descendants might backslide enough to repeal a mere law but not enough to overturn an amendment.
  2. Rules intended to be compromises via universalizing principles, for which a law isn't enough to enforce the compromise. If I hate being unable to condemn some right-wing ideology and you hate being unable to condemn some left-wing ideology, I might hate the thought of losing my freedom to censors half the time more than I relish the thought of the same happening to you the other half of the time, and something like the First Amendment is a win for both of us, even if we couldn't get a coalition to protect either ideology alone. In a bad enough Culture War making such a principle into law may feel like it's just giving the other side a chance to get a 4+ year head start on attacking us again when they repeal the law first while they're in power, but an amendment might have more teeth.
  3. Rules which cover the biggest meta-level questions of how the mechanisms of government should work, the cases where the constitution already specifies a mechanism that can't be overridden by a mere law. The House Rules Committee can do a lot, but it can't reduce the requirements for overriding a Presidential veto (his proposal #1), or expand its size to 11,000 (his #4), etc.

And pretty much every one of his proposals falls into category 3 here, doesn't it? He's not suggesting a "Write the Roe v Wade penumbras into the umbra" amendment, or a "define personhood as starting with conception" amendment; all his stuff is procedural at a high enough level that you can't do it without an Amendment.

So ... why don't we do any of those Amendments, either, anymore? I'd say it's a combination of our increasing political polarization with the realization that, so long as we're trapped by Duverger's Law into a two-party system, every meta-level change is also a potential change in the equilbrium point of that system, a zero-sum game. Either more easily overridden vetos will mostly help the Democrats, in which case you're not going to get a supermajority because you can't persuade enough of the Republican-leaning half of the country to agree, or they will mostly help the Republicans, in which case you're not going to get a supermajority because you can't persuade enough of the Democratic-leaning half of the country to agree. Perhaps at some point we'll have enough people sick of both parties that that will be a voting block worth catering to? But until then this is all a sadly academic discussion.

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.

That was a big wall of text. But, the main thing I'm responding to is this:

This is so obviously a murder.

No. It was so obviously not a murder. And that is why Noem and Vance are right to do what they're doing and not do the normal professional thing. The normal professional thing is for the administration to refuse to comment and insist on letting the process take place. Then, in a few months, when the officer is acquitted, you get ANOTHER round of protests and more bad press as to how murders are being excused. An environment where people refuse to see the reality in front of them and insist on substituting their own headcanon is not one where an impartial process can help. Nobody's going to believe there is such a process, and nobody will believe the outcome of such a process. If the process were to happen in state courts and is investigated by state investigators, the cop gets railroaded. If it happens in Federal courts, he gets exonerated (rightly or wrongly). The possibility of one side merely making a mistake is utterly absent. The possibility of correcting the mistake, then, is also absent; this is all conflict.

Certainly, however, this explains why so many wanting to condemn the officer insist he was not hit by the SUV. He was, in fact, hit by the SUV, and that ruins so many useful claims, such as that she could not have been attempting to run him over, or that he could not have been in reasonable fear that he would be run over.

Yeah, something's wrong here. Something's wrong with the idea that a mother of three thinks she can obstruct a police operation and then when they go to arrest her for it, flee in a way that at the very least demonstrates reckless disregard towards the life of the police officer she hit, and nothing at all will happen to her. She was wrong. And something's wrong with the fact that so many people think she should have been right.

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

TBF it's been mask-off for a while, most people just don't pay attention. DHS comms is openly fash-posting, Trump openly rejects any limit on his powers and tries to rule by decree, political opposition is labeled domestic terrorism, etc...

The only group that hasn't been mask off is CBP/ICE, but they have double down on thuggery

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?

From the context Vance is referring to qualified immunity. He is not claiming that ICE is is immune to absolutely every law.

Other than that, when you are writing for an audience that you acknowledge disagrees with you I think you should try to keep your sides narrative out of your telling of events. Your telling of the events doesn't come across as an honest one and I think that undermines you and makes it way too easy to just nitpick and dismiss. E.g. describing her role in the shooting as "She blocked half a road for likely five minutes in her local neighborhood..." is obtuseness. "Running from the cops is not reason enough to use deadly force." is just you having an argument with yourself. Wow he called the woman who almost hit him with her car a "fucking bitch"? We have all seen the videos, you leaving out critical parts doesn't make us suddenly forget those parts happened! We know they happened, we know you left them out in your telling of events, and now you leave us the impression that you came to your conclusions based on not knowing basic things about the case.

Qualified immunity is a civil doctrine. The cop has neither absolute nor qualified immunity. He has what's called Supremacy Clause immunity from state prosecution.

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.

It's not "in this carefully analyzed footage, was he at severe risk of being injured?" that should be asked, it's whether or not he reasonably would have feared the SUV coming at him within the short period of time he had to react.

And he was close enough to the front and in a short enough period of time that I personally believe many reasonable people in that same scenario would be filled with a similar fear, even if in actuality it wouldn't have hit.

And to be clear here, I'm not defending the Trump admin at all! I think ICE takes the majority of the blame in this situation. He should not be standing so close to the front of a car as a general matter of policy, he should not be distracted trying to multitask filming on his phone, and most importantly the other agents should not have acted so aggressively, but Ross himself I think deserves to be in the clear from what I have seen at the present.

This was a preventable tragedy, but not because of a guy who freaked out and feared for his life as a car headed at his general direction. It was a preventable tragedy because ICE and the admin have bad and unprofessional policy that escalates situations, tenses people up, and creates panic. Having a bunch of masked men carrying guns rushing at you and reaching into your car suddenly is fucking terrifying to even imagine happening, and is inevitably going to be responded to with panic and fear even if they're "legally in the right" or whatever to arrest you.

Go watch some of the British policing shows (that I've been recently binging after a visit to the UK) and you'll see the difference between professional cops who try to defuse a situation, and the animalistic behavior we see on video here. I've rarely seen a time one of the Police Interceptors had to use force on and the main one was on some man who was really really drunk and would not get out of the car so he had to be pulled out. I'm sure it happens other times especially with violent criminals but they're overall so much calmer.

It's impossible to say whether Good would still be alive if ICE, instead of acting like terrifying goons and bumrushing her window screaming at her had instead walked up and had a deescalating conversation that pivots into a calm and professional yet authoritative "Ma'am I'm gonna have to ask you to step out of the vehicle please" tone and arrest her in a calmer manner but I can certainly say it would be less likely. They are agents of the state and should be held to high standards, not acting like barking dogs trying to show whose dick is bigger. Law enforcement is granted great power, and with great power comes great responsibility. We should expect professionalism as the baseline.

And yeah, random citizens aren't always going to be professional in the same way. It's unfortunate, but it's the responsibility we should expect from our law enforcement. And most cops do it just fine anyway, so there's no reason we can't expect it from ICE too.

Having a bunch of masked men carrying guns rushing at you and reaching into your car suddenly is fucking terrifying to even imagine happening

Ok, so:

  • It was one man, not "a bunch"
  • He didn't "rush" at her
  • "suddenly" is a lie"

You already know these things, I assume, having watched the videos? Or you didn't, and are constructing a convenient alternate scenario that didn't happen.

Either way: do you genuinely, actually believe she found this "fucking terrifying"?

As she smirks, smiles, sneers, and looks delighted, you think she was actually secretly fucking terrified?

This is an actual question. It has a yes/no answer. She was either fucking terrified, or she wasn't. The videos all indicate, to the best of our knowledge, that she obviously wasn't terrified; but you seem to be happy to assume, in spite of all evidence, that she was. Why?

Does it change anything that she wasnt?

There was a similar streak running through the height of MeToo and the craze over women allegedly being sexually abused or mistreated.

After that night, she was:

1 - Skittish, withdrawn, flighty, uncommunicative, outwardly depressed.

Clear signs of trauma. Tell-tale indicators of abuse.

2 - She was outgoing, social, active, and saw the guy several times afterwards, expressing excitement to her friends.

...Also clear signs of trauma! Also indicators of abuse! Just repressed. Textbook diagnosis.

Which - y'know - both can be true depending on the person. It's also completely convenient and unworkable.

I had a coworker who got held up at gunpoint while opening a store in the AM. By the time I came in, he had a large grin plastered to his face and was almost hysterically laughing. Superficially not what what one may expect, but still registered as obvious trauma to me because of how erratic and unhinged he was. I get that peoples' nerves can fray differently.

But that's not what I see with Good.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, I think we largely agree even if we don't conclude the same thing about reasonableness. My original point was that some people don't consider it a tragedy, they don't think the whole situation was anything other than the higher standard we expect, and in some cases don't even think that a higher standard even exists in the first place! That's what makes the Trump admin response so ghoulish, and parts of the discourse so concerning. I'm interpreting the statement "Ross and ICE did nothing wrong" broadly, and it's insane that people seem to be defending that statement when it's so plainly untrue. It's a statement that can exist and be evaluated independent of how you feel about Good specifically, although opinions on that might reasonabaly affect the degree of outrage about it.

A problem is that you need a lot of people to do British style policing. Blue states won’t share resources.

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.

Also, citizens should not have to cower in their homes if there's an immigration enforcement officer in their neighborhood.

Said citizens should also not have to fear using their right to free speech to express their opinions to federal officers, whom we are supporting with our tax dollars.

It's interesting that the Obama administration was able to deport many more people without this theater and now-routine violence.

Obama counted turning people away at the border as deportations to falsely inflate his numbers.

Most Obama deportations were turn arounds at the border.

Also, citizens should not have to cower in their homes if there's an immigration enforcement officer in their neighborhood.

They don't have to do that.

Said citizens should also not have to fear using their right to free speech to express their opinions to federal officers, whom we are supporting with our tax dollars.

They're allowed to do that too.

What they aren't allowed to do is obstruct ICE officers, then flee arrest in such a way that the ICE officer has reason to fear for their life (by, say, accelerating an SUV into them).

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.

So we're really doing "will nobody think of the children?" now? Okay, "dead mom of six year old orphan" would not be a dead mom if she stayed home like a normal person and didn't decide to play La Résistance.

So you really think that cowering in your home, as the cited person on twitter was saying, is a valid thing we should accept as a society? Anyways, you've made my point nicely for me. Victim blaming can be bad for a few reasons (it can also be abused, for sure) but possibly the biggest one is when excessive attention on the victim leads to ignoring the consequences for the perpetrator.

Most narrowly, the point of the post was this: Looking at the situation and believing the officer should face zero consequences is insane. There are people making noise about immunity or asserting that it's so clear-cut that we don't even need to charge the officer. That's a massive problem. I've looked at a lot of comments by now and if you want to think the shooting would hold up in court, that's fine I suppose. But virtually no one seems to be actually continuing that thought and saying that he should be charged anyways. We have rules. ICE has rules. That's the point of having rules, to use them! If Good had survived and Ross died then I would be saying that Good should be charged too.

More broadly, we're starting a slow society-wide slide into cheering for death. That's scary. That's bad. It's happening to some extent on both sides (e.g. Charlie Kirk). But only one of those sides is making a habit of claiming immunity, pardoning people left and right, and undermining the rules of law on some misguided quest for vengeance "because game theory". I mean for fuck's sake, I read an article recently that the pipe bomb guy who they caught might get off scot-free because Trump's J6 pardon, being so broad, probably applies to him too!

But virtually no one seems to be actually continuing that thought and saying that he should be charged anyways. We have rules. ICE has rules. That's the point of having rules, to use them! If Good had survived and Ross died then I would be saying that Good should be charged too.

Yeah but he's clearly enough on the right side of the rules that nobody with any real power on the Democrat side of the aisle wants to force this to a court case since they'd lose embarrassingly.

It's happening to some extent on both sides (e.g. Charlie Kirk).

Yeah, no. It's happening extremely heavily on one side -- the side that your obvious example is on.

Attempting to parley that into "akshually the other side is doing it worse!" needs receipts you don't have.

You don't have to cower in your home. You can just go about your life, neither interfering in ICE operations nor hiding from them.

So you really think that cowering in your home, as the cited person on twitter was saying, is a valid thing we should accept as a society?

What was your opinion of lockdowns?

Probably does us a disservice to get into it, but I begrudgingly accepted them for the first half a year or so as an emergency measure, and then opposed them after (emergencies can't be indefinite, nor did the facts suggest it should have been). I was the only one in my liberal family (I'm more of a moderate) to oppose the (massed, non-distanced) BLM protests on grounds of hypocrisy, so no issues there.

So you really think that cowering in your home, as the cited person on twitter was saying, is a valid thing we should accept as a society?

After the government and media messaging circa 2019-2021, I think that would be an unequivocal yes from the vast majority.

Point me to the law that says people who act in self defense must be tried in a court of law to prove their innocence.

The fact that the case generated extreme controversy ipso facto suggests that a trial is likely needed.

I disagree that that is how the law should work. For example, the Rittenhouse case should never have been brought to trial. Prosecutors generally do not bring cases to trial that they know they will lose. This case is likely one they would lose. Therefore, the incentive is against drawing this out in a court of law.

Honestly I feel like the calculus for Democrats is pretty good for drawing this out in the court of law. Keeps it in the media cycle longer and from the Rittenhouse thing the guy actually being cleared probably wouldn't actually change most people on the 'murder' side of the affair's opinions

That kind of makes a mockery of your commitment to due process, if we're just making decisions based on public opinion.

What? No. It's strictly a one-directional formulation. If super controversial -> then charge someone seems like a perfectly reasonable take to me. Nothing there violates due process. The whole issue about prosecutorial discretion (which to be fair isn't quite "due process") is a tricky one, and honestly probably the weakest part of our system (though possibly the "least bad" attempt at a solution), but that kind of "patch" seems super reasonable, yeah?

To add a personal flavor to this:

One of my police uncles was out on patrol one day with his partner. They responded to a robbery at a convenience store. When they tried to arrest the guy, the partner was shot and killed. My uncle was shot and seriously wounded - multiple surgeries in a hospital wounded. My uncle managed to shoot back and killed the guy.

Believe it or not, this was controversial in the local community! The black community decried it as racial discrimination. Surely he could have shot to wound, surely petty larceny wasn't worth the lives of two people, why did the police have to intervene? The gun was planted, it didn't even belong to the robber (no one argued the guy didn't shoot, just that the gun didn't belong to him, except it turns out it did!) There was even an article in the NYT I'm not going to link to for the tiniest bit of opsec remaining to me. But trust me, it was controversial.

Despite it very clearly being an act of self defense, should my uncle have had to stand trial for this? If the only metric is 'Was the action controversial?" then yes, he would have had to go through a trial and relive that day with his freedom and life on the line. That would have been an injustice.

If it's legally controversial, then sure. But the vast majority of people don't know much about the law at all, so their intuition about what is legally controversial is irrelevant. I don't consider show trials acceptable.

one of those sides is making a habit of claiming immunity, pardoning people left and right, and undermining the rules of law on some misguided quest for vengeance "because game theory". I mean for fuck's sake

I don't remember Biden evoking immunity, though?

The officer should face zero consequences. This is just politics. I am not insane. Thank you for your opinion.

How are you comparing this to Charlie Kirk? Charlie Kirk was talking at a college campus and was murdered in cold blood, a "bad shoot" by any definition. You've seen plenty of other comments giving a heck of a lot of reasons that this wasn't cold blooded murder. I'm not in many right wing spaces, but I have only seen one person actually celebrate her death online. Saying that the shoot was fine morally or legally or that they'd shoot in the same scenario is not celebrating. This is not a black-and-white scenario being presented.

Clear cut cases of self defense getting charged in court anyway is always intended as a chilling effect, because there's always a chance that the jury pulls an OJ Simpson and gives a terrible verdict, against all odds. Take a look at @stoatherd's post: what behavior are you trying to change, specifically?

Sorry, I guess that was unclear. I was referring to the whole conversations about some liberals being happy Kirk was dead, or even celebrating. So that example was more about "cheering for death" rather than "claiming immunity". A second, perhaps better example, was how many people seemed to be sad that Trump's assassination didn't work.

However there have been several comments here highly upvoted along the lines of 'that nasty protestor got what's coming to her and agitators are evil for putting her in that situation too' and 'the case is so clear-cut self-defense that we don't need the judicial process'. The behavior I'd like to see changed is less cheering on for one side and less 'revenge makes rules irrelevant'.

More broadly I'm seeing a worrying slide towards a pro-revenge society. You see it on reddit, instagram, tiktok, facebook, everywhere, and on non-political topics too. And I see intellectual apologists here saying with a straight face stuff like this comment.

So you really think that cowering in your home, as the cited person on twitter was saying, is a valid thing we should accept as a society?

I mean, it depends. I think people who don't belong in this country, who are here illegally, if they aren't going to do the honorable thing and leave of their own accord, should absolutely cower in their homes. Why do we want a world where criminals are free to parade themselves around our cities without fear of justice?

Some people deserve to be afraid of the consequences of their actions.

The whole point of the Constitution and our rule of law is that we must take great pains to limit collateral damage to innocents when pursuing the guilty. "Just trust me bro" is not a long-term viable route for justice, no matter how correct you might think Trump personally might be about stuff. The twitter guy said that innocents should cower in their homes. Those two things are not the same.

Everything is no longer fine; the system is breaking; its replacement would only be worse; beware of helping it along.

Agents of the federal government have killed moms, kids, dogs, dads, tampered with evidence, lied, entrapped, falsely accused and stolen for decades. Is this genuinely the last straw for you? Why this? Serious question.

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 think it's hard to explain this, and since I did half of it above I may as well keep going. I can summarize by quoting David Hines: "This is what you ordered, eat it." [I don't mean you, the poster, to be clear!]

To elaborate a bit: uncharitably, righties and libertarians aren't quite so happy to stop the wheels of the state grinding now that it's finally gotten around to grinding their political foes. More charitably, righties and libertarians understand that "the wheels of the state grinding Group A is fine, but they must stop immediately if they touch Group B" is just a recipe for perpetually being abused if you are Group A.

Note that I am not saying this is the correct response. But I don't think it's hard to understand the game theory of it.

Straw that broke the camel's back maybe?

I had a paragraph that didn't make it in for fear of diluting the point (probably needed a little more editing beyond that but oh well) about parallels with the Vietnam and Nixon era. You had for example Lt. William Calley, who had multiple eyewitnesses to a prominent role in shooting men, women, children, and babies in the My Lai massacre, and large portions of the public wanting him freed (a weird left-right coalition, actually). Which to me is insane, but reflects I think the chaos of the times. But near the end of all that, okay, we have Nixon flagrantly violating the law and lying about his actions and essentially impeached for it.

How did we respond? Did the Democrats say "okay, I guess it's open season on FBI weaponization"? No! We came together and we wrote up some reforms and rules to try and keep the machinations of the government a little more balanced, a little more just, a little better incentive-aligned to stay neutral when it should be neutral. Yet we see the opposite reaction now, to a similar brewing state of unrest. Trump has dismantled the exact same Nixon-era protections all across the board. And so yeah, the administration claiming outright and with a straight face that Good was a domestic terrorist and that Ross has "absolute immunity" is the exact opposite reaction as we want to happen, and conjures up the objectively terrible state of lies and deception and dirty business the military and the spy community was up to in that era. Even with post-Nixon reforms, we still had stuff like Iran-Contra, which should worry anybody; and guess what? Trump's approach to spending and use of the CIA right now mirrors the crux of the matter very closely.

So that's why I say, this is a sign that things are not hyperbolically but literally headed the wrong direction.

Even with post-Nixon reforms, we still had stuff like Iran-Contra, which should worry anybody;

Also Ruby Ridge, the MOVE bombing, Waco siege...

Trump has dismantled the exact same Nixon-era protections all across the board.

Which ones did you specifically have in mind? Why didn't they stop FBI abuses since Nixon?

I think FBI abuses are very difficult to entirely prevent. But the scale is far less. If you've read nearly anything on J Edgar Hoover for example, it will give you a sense of scale. Even at the "worst" of the Biden-era or Trump I-era stuff, they really don't compare at all.

Now some of the problems we've encountered under Trump involve revealed weaknesses in the reforms, but there are a few direct examples of undermining existing reform. A few examples. Here says:

"First, he fired 17 inspectors general, a job established in the Watergate era to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in government. He also fired the head of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency created by legislation in 1978 legislation to protect government whistle-blowers. Then he fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics, created around the same time to guard against financial conflicts of interest by top government officials."

...Take the protections of federal workers from political influence. In the early 1970s, a Nixon aide wrote a secret manual for implanting political loyalists in the federal work force and turning government workers and contracts into tools for Nixon’s re-election campaign. Once revealed, that secret plan became a trigger for the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, meant to further protect the government work force from politics and constrain presidential powers to hire and fire. In both of his terms, Mr. Trump and his aides have been aggressive at expanding his ability to replace more of the federal work force that he derides as the “deep state” aligned against him. Loyalty is a priority. An administration hiring plan issued in May said its goal is to find “only the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans.” One new essay question asks job applicants to identify one or two of Mr. Trump’s executive orders or priorities “that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”

One provision of the 1978 law established the Office of Special Counsel, which is charged with protecting federal workers from mistreatment, particularly retaliation against whistle-blowers. To assure independence from presidential control, the Special Counsel serves a mandated five-year term and can only be removed “for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” On Feb. 7, Mr. Trump fired the counsel, Hampton Dellinger, without explanation (although he had partly blamed whistle-blowers for his first impeachment).

...After Nixon, attorneys general sought to re-establish the integrity of the department, partly with “contact” rules to keep the White House from meddling in prosecutions. As Attorney General Griffin Bell said in a 1978 speech, “in our form of government there are things that are nonpartisan, and one is the law.” That does not appear to be the vision guiding the current Justice Department. In March, Attorney General Pam Bondi introduced Mr. Trump for an unusual, rally-style speech to Justice Department employees. “We all work for the greatest president in the history of our country,” she said. A month earlier, she had announced in a memo the department’s Weaponization Working Group, a task force established largely to examine investigations of Mr. Trump and his political allies. Her memo said the department would “provide quarterly reports to the White House regarding the progress of the review.” (Goes on to also give the example of a seemingly Trump-mandated investigation into former FBI director Comey, NY AG James, and Senator Schiff)

...The law established the Office of Government Ethics to handle newly mandated financial disclosure requirements for government officials and to detect and resolve conflicts of interest. To assure its independence from politics, office directors were appointed with the consent of the Senate to five-year terms, with the intention that they would bridge administrations. (Talks about Elon Musk concerns)... Days later, Mr. Trump fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics, David Huitema, who was just months into his term. No reason was given, nor does the law require one. He has been replaced by a succession of three part-time acting directors, all White House political appointees with other major administration jobs. When asked what safeguards were in place to handle conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts, a White House spokeswoman, Taylor Rogers, said the news “media’s continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible” and that “the president is and always has been motivated solely by what is best for the American people.” Meanwhile, the intermingling of Mr. Trump’s businesses and his presidency has accelerated. Last year, he helped start a family crypto business, World Liberty Financial, with the family of his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff. Once in office, his administration loosened crypto regulations and pulled back on investigations involving crypto businesses. (Goes on to give examples of CZ Zhao being pardoned only to turn around and help the same crypto business, and the timing of the family memecoin shortly before the election)

Even the right-wing AEI says:

Trump’s challenges to the Watergate reforms are broader, however, than those of previous presidents—he seeks to undo the Watergate framework entirely. Trump removed all IGs at a stroke. He ordered a spending freeze to examine unconstitutional or wasteful appropriations, and he is challenging the Impoundment Act in court. He has reduced agencies, such as USAID and the Education Department, to their bare minimum functions—effectively shuttering them as engines of social change. He is cutting the bureaucracy through buyouts, firings, and transfers. Civil servants who disagree are resigning.

Now the AEI takes the interesting position that destroying Watergate is good, actually, because it devolves responsibility back to Congress "as the Constitution demands", but this seems pretty naive to me. But it's notable that even Trump supporters appear to acknowledge outright that it's happening.

Possibly would have been worth a top-level with some more effort, because I think this is important context to the trend of "zero accountability".

Thank you for the substantive comment. A few thoughts:

Firstly, the excerpts that you listed (and the NYT article as a whole, if you're not reading it closely) gives the impression that the IGs are just disappearing into the void. But I don't think that's true – for instance, Trump fired Phyllis Fong and replaced her with John Walk; Michael Missal was replaced by Cheryl Mason, Thomas Bell was confirmed as the IG for HHS, and it looks like (although I didn't do an exhaustive search) the other IG slots are filled by acting IGs. So while the implication seems to be that Trump is slashing the nation's oversight, it seems that he is replacing personnel. Obviously whether that is good or bad is probably something people will fight over, but it's not the same as just deleting the IG apparatus.

Secondly, it's not clear to me how the whistleblower protection positions are supposed to safeguard from "bad shoots" by ICE, particularly since federal LEOs had quite a few controversial shoots under presidents following Nixon. (It's actually not clear to me they work very well if at all, but I might be overgeneralizing based on an incident I heard about in a personal context once where someone's attempts to reach out were brushed off.) Certainly the problem with the most recent ICE shooting wasn't that someone needed to blow the whistle on it.

Finally, I'm not sure I would characterize it as "naive" to follow the Constitution. It also seems like at least one appeals court (as per the Times) agrees with Trump that he has the legal ability to remove these IGs, at least in some cases, so it's likely not some weird of oddball theory. Instead it is (unless I am mistaken, but this is admittedly a somewhat-informed guess) being done under the theory that the chief executive can, as a matter of Constitutional law, appoint his own officers and Congress has limited ability to stop him from doing so.

I once made a comment about how Trump is taking in one hand the powers that have been slowly ceded to or accumulated by the President and with the other hand seizing the powers that had always been the President's but that had lain dormant for some time under the new arrangements. This seems like an example of that in action.

Hmm, that's an interesting take. For the IGs, I'm not sure if I want to go digging, but I was definitely getting the impression that there was still some substantial weakness going on including vacancies. "Acting" IGs are much less empowered and vacancies matter (reached 75% in October). Also, a few of the IGs were removed while investigating something politically sensitive. And courts literally did find that Trump broke the law in removing many, since giving a reason is required (the fact that the judge didn't reinstate them notwithstanding). In addition, all the offices have received significant budget cuts - doubly worrisome because allegedly the government was trying to eliminate waste and fraud, which sort of exposes the priorities.

More broadly Trump has also elevated people with notable pasts of lawbreaking and unethical behavior to higher posts. One that comes immediately to mind was now-Judge Bove, who multiple very, very reliable witnesses with impeccable credentials alleged had planned to deliberately lie to a judge and illegally evade their orders. You have Homan with the allegations of bribery, you have Noem even caught with 80k unreported donations as governor in a personal cut to herself, etc.

Something I didn't spend enough time on was Hatch act violations. They have become practically the norm. Originally the rules were pretty strict about splitting campaigning activity from official duties, but many Trump cabinet members have practically ignored them quite often, even during Trump I. And they continue, for example blaming Democrats for a government shutdown via multiple official channels.

A lot of liberals get up in arms about the special counsel position stuff. I'm a little torn. On the one hand, I thought the system was reasonable and so were the actions taken. Up to and including packing things up when Trump won re-election, to be clear, and also including the Clinton email stuff. On the other hand, they already changed the law on that once in 1999 because the prior system also had issues.

The overall effect however is a substantial chilling effect on doing stuff about unethical behavior, and removing safeguards to replace them with... nothing, really. That's why I called it naive. Congress is not stepping up to the plate, especially under Republican leadership. But we need fairness and clarity desperately. We only need it more, not less, when people distrust the system!

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.

For what it’s worth, I do agree with this very specific point.

Unrelatedly, in the interests of not making another Minneapolis thread for a potentially uninteresting side issue: What do we make of the fact that this guy has a Filipina wife? The demographic replacement is coming from inside the house.

I don't know how long they've been together so this might predate the current moment in dating, but showing conservative politics/any sort of a job like policing on a dating app is incredibly poisonous to your rate of matching.

Also having personally gotten out of the Dating App Mines a few years ago with a WMAF pairing, simply holding the following standards

  • Has a job/actual careerpath
  • Not obese
  • Doesn't immediately shut down at any sort of conservative politics
  • Non-trashy tattoos/obvious promiscuity
  • Some sort of family values/interest in having kids

Meant that my dating menu was like 85% Asian in a country that's like 10% Asian on the top level. That's gonna encourage guys of his profile to end up with Asian women.

Good for him. Reports are that she’s a US citizen.

Naturally, the side of Empathy, antiracism, antimisogyny, and free love has taken to sneering at her and calling her a mail-order bride.

Nor does the side who keeps wailing about Empathy for Renee being a mother give the slightest fuck about Jonathan being a father.

Hillary Clinton in the 2028 Democratic Primary debates: “White women have always been the primary victims of ICE.”

From the perspective of leftist middle-aged white women it’s like immigration policy anarchotyranny.

  • Anarchy: These stupid, toxic white men bring over their stupid age-gapped mail-order brides and make the world worse with their stupid, toxic children.

  • Tyranny: If you play games as a LARPing revolutionary on behalf of black and brown bodies you may win stupid prizes, when this were not supposed to happen.

have taken to sneering at her and calling her a mail-order bride.

Do you have some links for this one in particular? Any source will do.

With a cursory search one can find such links. For example, one of the first Reddit results:

Cause MPD sides with Ross and ICE? And ICE moved quickly to move Ross.

Btw, he went into hiding with his mail order Filipina bride. He had to have ICE, wearing masks, move stuff out of his house.

Trump admin is going to actively hide him and if he’s realistically in somewhere like Florida, they aren’t going to go and get him and obviously Florida LE isn’t going to send him back

A Xitter user with 43k followers explicitly describing Ross's wife as a mail-order bride. Heart-reacted 92k times, retweeted 15k times.

Richard Hanania mocking him for having an immigrant wife while thinking immigrants are a threat to America (refusing to parse the legal/illegal immigrant distinction, of course).

Richard Hanania asserting that Ross married a brown woman and then decided to devote his life to terrorising brown people (my God, do I loathe the term "people of colour", as if a Filipina has anything in common with a Somalian other than not being white).

Someone on Instagram comparing Ross's wife to the sexually exploited women she met while working as a missionary.

A Xitter user claiming that Ross married his Filipina wife specifically because the Philippines is the only country in the world which doesn't recognise divorce, thereby enslaving her.

Demand for white supremacists far outstrips the supply.

What do we make of the fact that this guy has a Filipina wife?

It's a clue that this whole thing about deporting immigrants who don't obey immigration laws is not about racism, as alleged, but rather about ensuring that immigrants obey immigration laws.

What do we make of the fact that this guy has a Filipina wife?

Asian Aryanism, clearly. He must be a fan of Safe Sleazy.

The definition of a scissor statement (or event) is that both sides are very confident in opposite interpretations. What you are quoting is falling on one side, and you are very confident in your interpretation. Thank you for representing that perspective. Let's start with your last paragraph.

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.

From my perspective, my political philosophy is very much not defined by empathy. I try to look at the system: motivations for behavior, what people on each side are thinking, what our society has decided is right to do (via tradition and via the law). I was raised to believe that Justice should be blind; the tragedy in Minnesota should be no more or no less tragic and no more or less justified if a middle-aged, childless man was driving and a mother of three was shooting. (In practice I admit that I do value mothers' lives above childless mens' lives.)

I also recognize that people are irrational in the moment and have their own interpretations of events. From the driver's perspective, she was fleeing an attempted kidnapping and probably didn't see the officer. Fleeing was irrational. From the officer's perspective the agents had initiated an arrest, the suspect was fleeing, and the car was coming at him (and he had been dragged by a car before). Shooting was irrational.

Lets start with where we agree:

  • I agree that it is a tragedy when people die.
  • Federal agents do not, or should not, have "absolute immunity," and giving the executive branch immunity is dangerous. I'm unsure, but AFAIK they have "qualified immunity". (I'm unsure because this might have changed with a recent Supreme Court ruling which expands immunity to the office of the President.)
  • I agree that the "domestic terrorism" accusations are hyperbole. The goal of these particular anti-ICE activists was to slow down and interfere with ICE operations, not to terrorize their political opposition (or ICE agents). (However, there is a population whose goal is to terrorize ICE agents, which is why ICE wears balaclavas now.)
  • I agree that law enforcement officers shouldn't approach vehicles from the front, and find it plausible that this is against policy.
  • I think this situation was likely due to bad driving habits rather than malicious intent. By chance, just this weekend I saw someone reverse out of a parking space, change gears, and turn the wheel while accelerating with wheels pointed at a pedestrian who was crossing past the parking spot. Classic bad driving.
  • Shooting at the driver is likely an ineffective way to get a car to stop.
  • People should not have to cower in their homes if federal agents are in the neighborhood. Law enforcement should minimize the
  • It is not good for law enforcement to wear masks. Law enforcement should be mostly transparent and accountable.
  • She was intentionally blocking the road to block ICE prior to the incident.
  • Two of the shots went through the drivers-side window.

However, there are some things that you/your video deemphasize which I think are very important.

  • From slow-motion video, the tires of the vehicle start spinning (on the icy road) when they are pointed straight, and the car is in front of the agent. Pressing the accelerator when someone is in front of your vehicle is at a minimum negligent, even if you are saved by manslaughter by the spinning of those wheels atop a patch of ice. [Footnote one]
  • From slow motion, we can see both feet of the ICE agent slipping backward on the icy road as the car pulls forward while his torso remains upright. This implies a force being applied to push him backward. Given that he had a cell phone in one hand and a gun in the other at this point, he was not pushing off the car's hood himself. The transcript (NYT?) phrases this as "it does look like the agent is being struck by the SUV" and "we can see the agent is not being run over." This is deceptive wording. While he was not "run over", we have it on video that he was actually struck by the SUV.
  • The video emphasizes shots through the window, but the first shot went through the windshield.

Also, I believe it is relevant to quash some of the hysteria about ICE intentionally killing protestors:

  • This activist had been impeding ICE vehicles for at least 3-5 minutes prior to the incident, as revealed by videos. Others alledge they had been doing so for more than half an hour.
  • Impeding a federal immigration enforcement operation is a felony. (It has to be a crime because we don't want organized crime to delay immigration enforcement agents while victims of human trafficking are moved elsewhere.)
  • We have on video that this activist was under law enforcement instructions to exit the car. This was an arrest in progress.
  • By attempting to execute a three-point turn, this activist was fleeing arrest.
  • Therefore, other activists will not meet this fate (arrest or shooting) if they find non-impeding or non-vehicular ways to protest.

The mirror to your focus on children and stuffed animals is the legalistic perspective, which shows we have an individual fleeing arrest in commission of a federal felony, who strikes one of the arresting officers with their car. At low speed and probably out of negligence, but legally that's an assault.

So I find that I probably have to agree to disagree with you about whether the officer was justified in the moment or should be charged with a crime.

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.

There is a strong incentives-based counterargument here. If activists find that they can use their vehicles to block ICE, and ICE officers cannot cross paths with those vehicles when they are in "drive" (or go behind them when in "reverse"), then activists will use their knowledge of these rules to more effectively impede ICE. If activists learn they can drive away instead of being arrested, they will flee arrest in their vehicles. If activists are legally permitted to accelerate vehicles toward ICE officers and ICE officers have a duty to get out of the way (and are not allowed to retaliate), then we are incentivizing activists who intentionally use their vehicles to scatter ICE agents. This seems like very dangerous behavior.

Finally, there are several things you emphasize which just don't matter:

  • The activist was a mother of three who had just dropped off her kid at school.
  • Stuffed animals in the car.
  • The officer swearing after the incident.
  • "she was a mile from home." (Additionally, I'm not sure this is true. Her car had Missouri plates.)
  • Another shooting in Portland. (It seems the Portland CBP shoot was against two gang members who used their vehicle to ram officers while fleeing arrest. The situtation is sufficiently different that it doesn't show evidence of generalization.)
  • The officer "casually strolling away" from the scene. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug, people can go into shock, and it is not uncommon for people to walk away from accidents only to discover broken bones later.
  • How many shots were taken, and that the third shot was a "kill shot". Once the decision to use deadly force was made, the number of shots does not matter, as long as they were within the time of a reasonable human's OODA loop.
  • Frankly, all of this discussion about whether the officer should be charged is unnecessary. I still trust a Grand Jury to make a good decision based on what is bound to be a lot more footage and careful thinking than is available to the press.

However, there is a population whose goal is to terrorize ICE agents, which is why ICE wears balaclavas now.

I am sure it is a reason, but also sure that it is not the only reason.

I assume that perhaps 1% of the population believe in their heart of hearts that it is good if cops are killed on general principle, and perhaps 5% believe the same about Trump's ICE. Luckily, most of these people are also cowards not willing to die or go to prison for their moral beliefs. I am sure that there is some story somewhere of an ICE agent being identified by violent anti-ICE activists and then tracked down and murdered while off duty, just like some criminals will id and kill the cop who arrested them, but if there was a general trend of catfishing and murdering ICE agents, I think we would have heard about it.

I think the bigger reason is that a third of the population despises Trump's ICE without actively plotting to murder them. To be fair, they are easy to despise: sent into states not selected for their high fraction of illegals, but for voting for Harris in 2024 (because Trump is vindictive af), arresting kids in schools, sometimes arresting foreign-looking citizens by mistake, etc pp. (A further third believes that ICE is doing the most important job in the country, and a further third is mostly meh, I guess.)

Some of the despisers might actually commit minor illegal acts towards identified ICE agents, like spitting in their coffee, but most will probably just treat you like if they had seen your blood group tattoo -- refuse to do business with you, shun you socially (and invite their friends to do likewise), perhaps offer your liberal parents their condolences on Facebook for having a child with such a career. Entirely legal.

With the number of protesters (legally) filming ICE on the job, virtually every ICE agent working in public would be identified in short order. And the SJ left can be just as petty and vindictive as Trump. With ML, programming a website 'iceassholescanner.example' which takes random snapshots of civilians and tells you if they have worked for ICE during Trump II is easily within the capabilities of the wokes.

The relatively high salary (considering the length of the training) is definitely meant as a compensation for 'a third of the country will shun you'. But if you operate masked, you can have your 100k$/year cake and eat it too, all for the low cost of matching some Daesh aesthetics.

I am sure that most ICE agents delude themselves into thinking that they are hiding their face to foil murderous Antifa terrorists who would otherwise try to murder them in their sleep, but realistically, most of the utility is in the woman you will be dating in five years not getting urged by her girlfriends to dump you for having been ICE.

**

This leaves the moral question which life choices should be made public and which life choices should be kept private (if the individual desires that). I will admit that I have a bit of trouble fitting my liberal sentiments into general principles here, so the following is more ad hoc than a long held deep belief system. E.g. frequenting a gay night club should be probably kept confidential (excepting sex partners, and possibly excepting extreme cases of hypocrisy), medical records (including abortions, births, gender surgery) should be kept private, as should be membership in less political religious organizations (e.g. the RCC). For more political organizations, e.g. the KKK (also religious in a way, I think), the John Brown Gun Club, the GOP, the Dems, the DSA, I think outing members is not immoral.

For professional careers, I tend to think that putting people on lists is generally morally permissible. So the person who shot one porn home video which got leaked to the internet is not on the list, but if someone wants to make a list of all porn models which have produced lesbian/fetish/interracial content, I don't think it violates their privacy. Or if someone wants to make a list of lawyers who have ever defended a cop or an accused rapist or worked for big oil for some reason. I guess this means that the anti-abortion radicals can have their lists of gynecologists.

Additionally, I strongly believe that people who employ violence, either particularly (accused criminals, people acting in self-defense) or professionally for the state (cops, soldiers) or third parties (security services) should be a matter of public record. Social disapproval is a useful tool to deter immoral violence, after all.

Let me go in reverse order because I think that orders it best in terms of most to least serious objections. But I should say first that I greatly appreciate your comment and how you laid it out.

I still trust a Grand Jury to make a good decision based on what is bound to be a lot more footage and careful thinking than is available to the press

Frankly, I don't. I don't trust them to present anything appropriate to a Grand Jury at all! Four other people IIRC have been killed by ICE just this year; none of them have been charged as of writing for anything. I don't think that's actually a huge gotcha, these things take time, but we've also seen some shocking incompetence out of Kash Patel's FBI when it comes to legal charging decisions so I think there's some grounds for it.

The other and worrisome point is that I'm getting the sense some people genuinely seem to believe that there shouldn't be any consequences at all - i.e. don't even bother to review it or charge him or anything. It's strongly implied when comments show up - like above this post a short ways - that essentially say "she deserved it" and then say nothing else.

The officer swearing after the incident.

This is important, because it's a hint to state of mind. It also wasn't just swearing. He (and I think after reflection it's almost certainly him) called her a "fucking bitch" immediately after. The vibe is "you deserved it", not "oh shit I almost died". Those two things to me don't actually have that much overlap.

Therefore, other activists will not meet this fate (arrest or shooting) if they find non-impeding or non-vehicular ways to protest.

Honestly I think the jury might still be out on this. There are some pretty callous videos circling around, including ICE agents pulling their guns out in situations where they really shouldn't. But even so, we have to think about incentives, you're right. What message does it send to ICE agents and cops that the administration thinks zero consequences are ever justified? That's the message being sent. That's terrible. We should be emphasizing higher standards, and under no stretch of the imagination were Ross' actions the highest standard.

Specific to this case, I should mention that Ross pulls his gun out almost immediately at the moment she comes to a stop and switches the gear to Drive and out of reverse. Immediately. I think that point is underemphasized. It strongly suggests that he's pulling the gun to avoid her leaving, not because he's in danger, because at the point of drawing the gun (not firing yet!) the car is just barely beginning to move forward.

I should mention that Ross pulls his gun out almost immediately at the moment she comes to a stop and switches the gear to Drive and out of reverse. Immediately. I think that point is underemphasized.

Ok, let's play this game:

  • If he already had his gun out, you'd say he wanted to shoot her
  • If he pulled his gun out on approach, you'd say he wanted to shoot her
  • If he pulled out his gun before she accelerated the 1.5-ton SUV towards him, you'd say he wanted to shoot her
  • If he pulled out his gun at the time he did, you'd say (as you do) he wanted to shoot her

So, when exactly is he allowed to react to the woman driving a 1.5-ton machine towards him? Half a second later? A second later?

There's obviously no point in time that won't make you go "ah! Of course! This PROVES he's a murderer!"

This is damning for your character, not his.

If he already had his gun out, that would be an unnecessary escalation unjustified by law enforcement policy. If he pulled out his gun on approach, ditto. Is there any reason to conclude otherwise? There's a reason cops during traffic stops do not pull their gun out on everyone, every time. I do not claim that he wanted to kill her anywhere. It's possible though. It's also not the point I was making in the OP. At any rate, there is, yes, clearly a point with sufficient evidence where pulling out a gun on someone driving at you is justified. Why would I think any different? Don't play slippery slope games unless you're actually alleging something.

hopefully-quick edit: I'm also not, and nowhere did, claim that we have indisputable proof that she was murdered. We had some evidence that cuts both ways. We have enough evidence in favor of "murder" that we should at least be discussing punishment. And more relevant to the original point, we have enough evidence that Ross did at least something wrong to be, again, at least discussing punishment.

I should add that my mental model of police is basically very, very rarely would they ever deliberately kill people. Somewhat common is killing people due to bad priors, however, partially due to the nature of the job but also partially due to flaws in ICE/law enforcement. I should reiterate that the standard is not "murder or not murder". It's "did he/they do something wrong" or "they were 100% innocent". The former is grounds for reasonable disagreement. The latter is what the OP discusses as being ridiculous and worrisome.

This is important, because it's a hint to state of mind. It also wasn't just swearing. He (and I think after reflection it's almost certainly him) called her a "fucking bitch" immediately after. The vibe is "you deserved it", not "oh shit I almost died".

The vibe is "oh shit I almost died because someone hit the accelerator while I was standing directly in front of their car". I have to say, I think you're demanding an impossibly high standard of behaviour from police officers. It's one thing to say that police officers should endeavour to remain courteous and professional to the best of their ability. It's quite another to say that an officer cursing in the middle of a stressful situation, literally seconds after he was very nearly seriously struck by a car, is proof that he's a vicious murderer. And as I pointed out elsewhere, it's entirely possible that Ross didn't even know that Good was dead at the time he spoke.

Additionally, I'm not sure this is true. Her car had Missouri plates.

Seems to be she'd lived in Minneapolis for a while (multiple months iirc) and hadn't changed plates. I can't complain about that, I delayed changing plates quite a while to not pay new state taxes.

I remember when Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with crossing state lines by the Reddit Department of Justice in 2020. I'm half tempted to go kick the hornets nest with a similar comment about Ms. Good.

I originally read Rittenhouses' "crossing state lines" to be about "crossing state lines with a firearm", which would have potentially put him in legal jeopardy. But many uses were also implying malicious intent. You're right that the same rhetoric could be used here: "she crossed state lines with a weapon to attack ICE!" would be a maximally uncharitable interpretation of her actions.

I agree, it's not a good argument. I would only do it to piss redditors off, which I can't stop myself from doing from time to time. Shameful.

There was a legal basis to them arguing Rittenhouse's crossing. It was just absurd how many times I read "he crossed state lines" in 2020.

This woman, mother of three,

This is special pleading.

Every time one of my clients wants to argue that the judge should let them out of pre-trial detention because they have kids (this is always most amusing from guys with many prior felonies), the immediate rebuttal is, "why weren't you thinking about your kids before you (allegedly) committed this crime?" I have had judges point-blank ask clients this, and I've yet to hear one with a good answer. This person didn't accidentally end up in the midst of an ICE enforcement action. So if her being a mother of three is supposed to be dispositive that her intentions were good, why didn't she think about that motherhood before entering the fray?

What happens to the kids when someone who's a single parent gets arrested and put in jail? I agree, they shouldn't be let off scot-free just because they have kids. But in the meantime, they haven't actually been convicted of anything yet, and it would take a while to arrange foster care or even find a friend to watch the kids. Can you arrange a faster/easier bail hearing for someone with young kids?

I remain confused as to what the Anti-ICE side thinks is a reasonable outcome in response to this event. MASSIVE emphasis on REASONABLE.

Lets say the Officer is 100% at fault. He goes down for manslaughter. What changes would ICE need to make to their policies and training to satisfy you that it wouldn't happen again?

"Can't shoot if they're in car" is a nonstarter for reasons I've stated.

"Make every effort to de-escalate right up until they physically touch you?"

"Deploy non-lethal weapons even if they have a deadly weapon?"

MAYBE something like "never ever stand in front of a vehicle with a civilian behind the wheel, even during an arrest."

Only one that would probably prevent these situations on the ICE side is "Do not attempt arrests when protestors are present."

On the flip side "do not physically obstruct LEOs engaged in their lawful duties" is a rule that would avoid this outcome like 99% of the time, from the protestor's side.

Protesting and screaming and chanting and otherwise being an annoyance isn't outlawed, and if you truly believe they're doing something unlawful then sure, take matters into your own hands.

So the two options for avoiding future incidents seem to be "ICE stops enforcing immigration law in blue areas" or "Protestors stay physically out of the way while ICE is conducting enforcement actions."

Only one of these strikes me as "reasonable."

What am I missing?

I'm also pretty convinced that there were a variety of outcomes that could have resulted, and did result in alternate timelines.

One where the officer is gravely injured or killed b/c he was standing a little further towards the center of the car, and/or she turned the wheel to the left and he was struck, run over, dragged, and/or crushed, but the lady survived.

Also one where they're both injured or dead b/c he DID get off a shot before being run over.

One where the officer is safe because he moved out of the way in time and didn't deploy his weapon so she survived too.

And our current one where he's alive and she's dead not BECAUSE he shot her but because he happened to be able to get out of the way.

Probably SEVERAL where the officer is mostly uninjured and the lady survives b/c he missed all his shots.

I don't see there being any way to predict which of these outcomes would result if you were viewing this situation approximately 3 seconds before she presses the accelerator. So I don't really think throwing blame around solves for a more moral way things could have unfolded.

But under almost every circumstance described, the law would still support the officer firing at least one shot, because that uncertainty of outcome is WHY fearing for his life would be 'reasonable'

ICE already has a set of policies (shown on camera in the video), which honestly seem to me to have no obvious flaw, and they weren't followed. That's what's reasonable overall. That's a major point that the video made, where rules that aren't followed effectively aren't rules. Ironically, this is the same argument put forward by anti-immigration folks! And to be clear, although I'm pro-immigration on the whole, I don't actually have a super big problem with enforcing existing immigration law (in fact, I've long said we should hire a shitton of judges so that we can do it, but do it the right way with due process, though smart compromises are also on the table).

And in alternate timelines of course I'm going to back Good being charged for various crimes. That's fine. Let the system work. What threatens the system itself is this idea of immunity. That's caustic in a very serious way. And it's increasingly being thrown around. Yes, the left deserves some blame, but it's the wrong direction for the country. Actions have consequences, and degrading the link is bad for everyone.

To be crystal clear, the point being made in the video, and that I endorse, is that "looking at the situation and believing the officer should face zero consequences is insane". I'm getting vibes from the administration, and implicitly supported by convenient silence in the comments here on the Motte, that "don't even bother charging him because he's so clearly innocent". That, to me, is the insanity. Yes, on some level I'm shocked people don't all see it as murder. But on the deeper more important level I'm shocked that people are shrugging and going "fuck around and find out". That's a bad, bad direction to go, as a worldview. Believing that you're untouchable is practically a human universal recipe for hubris and disaster.

A plethora of these people have gone through the Immigration court system and have simply disappeared into the wilderness after being told to vacate the country. Short of stationing ICE at every hearing and directly taking anybody who fails to secure further time in the country immediately to the border (and that still produces 'heartbreaking FASCISM photo of mean ICE wrestling deportee against their wishes') it's not going to be solved by simply upping the amount of judges if the people involved are inherently noncompliant.

You:

I myself probably would shy away from calling it outright "murder"

Also you:

on some level I'm shocked people don't all see it as murder.

Stop wasting everyone's time. Someone died. Do them the courtesy of saying what you fucking mean, instead of this transparent manipulative bullshit.

"On some level" means exactly what it says on the tin, dude. Again I'm begging you to re-read before replying and apply some critical thinking skills.

"On some level" means to some degree, to a certain extent, or from a particular perspective, acknowledging something is partially true or valid without being entirely so, often used to qualify agreement or understanding

I do my best to substantively reply to every major aspect of a comment when I choose to comment, even when it weakens the argument, because I feel that it's more transparent and honest; and yes it does annoy me when people don't do the same. Which is more than I can say for a lot of people who edit their comments to be maximally persuasive instead. I'm attempting to optimize for light, or failing that, honesty. You're out here slinging accusations of "transparent manipulative bullshit". I transparently said that the original transcript called it a murder, but nowhere did I myself say that, and I acknowledged that it was a little confusing. Then, I attempted to clarify. What more do you want from me? Isn't that exactly what we are supposed to do? Jesus Christ.

There are lots of things that could have been done differently. Many are not about what Jonathan Ross did but about not allowing situations like this to happen in the first place. Things like (and some of these will be unpalatable):

-Try not to run towards people and grab at their car door handles

-Try not to walk in front of vehicles

-Don't be scary – wear uniforms and ID

-Work to build trust in the community and communicate with residents like other police forces do

-Work in collaboration with local law enforcement and if they don't want to, take steps to understand why and what can be done differently

-Don't draw your gun unless you know what you are attempting to do with it

-Take anger management and body language training so you get less riled up by protesters

-Don't do generalised sweeps where you are at large in a neighbourhood, be more targeted

Work to build trust in the community and communicate with residents like other police forces do.

-Work in collaboration with local law enforcement and if they don't want to, take steps to understand why and what can be done differently.

How does one counter the literal government of the state suggesting that you are unwelcome?

Is arresting state officials who are making your job more dangerous on the table? Can you target those spreading the sort of claims that make civilians treat you like an enemy?

We do remember that people have literally set up armed ambushes for ICE, right? They're objectively at risk of being shot by random civilians.

My exact compromise suggestion was "let the Minnesota authorities carry out the arrests safely" so we don't get Feds in the neighborhoods.

Is there any particular reason this wasn't feasible? (Rhetorical, we know they would refuse).

And if their reason for refusal is "we don't want Federal Immigration law enforced" then what exactly can you then do in response? Federal Law overrides state law under our current Constitutional setup!

"Try not to walk in front of vehicles" doesn't work well if the protestors are willing to physically obstruct things with their vehicles.

If you really want to get further and further back to the core causes, I'd point out "Don't allow unchecked illegal immigration when you have the power to prevent it" solves this entirely but that was a decision made WELL above the pay grades of those involved in this altercation.

its my same issue with regard to the demands for "Due Process" for immigration detainees. "Process" wasn't followed when these folks were entering the country, which necessarily makes it harder to provide process when removing them. There's now millions of them running around the country, so a massively increased LEO presence is the only way to make any headway for removal.

And more to the point, all the "We're playing nice and friendly" approach was pretty much how things were during most of Obama and Biden's terms, and THEY WERE STILL DEMONIZED. The 'Border Patrol Agent wielding a whip" framing happened during Biden's term.

So I'm all for accountability for Gov't agencies... but that has to go both ways. If elites and state official don't want immigration law enforced, and they aren't using the standard governmental process to change the law, it is not very reasonable for them to act in ways that gets regular people involved in conflicts with Gov't agents. They should put some of their own skin in the game.

My exact compromise suggestion was "let the Minnesota authorities carry out the arrests safely" so we don't get Feds in the neighborhoods.

If Trump was giving ICE the same mission in every state, asking local PDs to assist them might be reasonable. Instead, he is sending ICE into cities which voted against him, and agricultural workers in rural areas are not deported at all.

What Trump is doing here is clearly selective enforcement, alike to pardoning Hernández while kidnapping Maduro. I do not feel that local PDs are obliged to help with enforcement action whose purpose it is clearly to annoy the local taxpayer.

What Trump is doing here is clearly selective enforcement

Yes- that's absolutely a valid and significant criticism of the program. There shouldn't be exceptions to these policies; both Red and Blue must give up their slaves because "giving up the slaves for the future good of the nation" was the stated goal of this campaign. And if they're so vital in that area- that both Red and Blue agree on the assertion they should be there (and clearly, they do, hence their current immunity)- maybe pass some legislation that legitimizes their presence. They have the House, but that doesn't stop Blue from introducing bills. Why don't they? Well...

And then we could even talk about the more boring logistical stuff, like "well, they aren't really driving up the housing prices as much out in the middle of nowhere", "it wouldn't have as much of an impact per capita in the immediate vicinity", "perhaps food prices were more important than the stated goal", or perhaps most importantly (and likely more fitting for the Trump admin), "isn't going to remind the sizeable minority of city-dwellers that did vote for this that showing up to vote is not pointless".

But that don't bleed, so it don't lead. And I'm unconvinced anything that sophisticated is on the forefront of the average protestor's mind, either; I believe being angry they can't have it their way and the resulting hysteria that they're feeding the neighborhood indentured servant to the functional equivalent of a wood chipper is the dominating impulse there.

And when the better options- say, options 1 through 81- rely on an educated and measured populace, I find it kind of hard to blame the Feds for choosing the 82nd.

They're not obliged but neither should that be a veto of federal enforcement. From what I gather, more deportations have actually occurred in states that are cooperating, but with no real drama. If the locals do not want to cooperate even to the extent of refusing to enforce blatant lawbreaking when directed at targets they deem acceptable (and how's that for your selective enforcement, by the way), they can't complain that the enforcement measures are harsher there.

its my same issue with regard to the demands for "Due Process" for immigration detainees. "Process" wasn't followed when these folks were entering the country, which necessarily makes it harder to provide process when removing them. There's now millions of them running around the country, so a massively increased LEO presence is the only way to make any headway for removal.

Irrelevant. In the purely political arena, maybe it's fine to see "rules for me but not for thee" but not in the legal arena. The Constitution is pretty darn clear about due process. You do not get a free pass to ignore the Constitution just because other people in prior years ignored (or twisted) federal law. Full stop.

If the other side can ignore the rules to let in countless millions of illegals, I'm sure as shit not going to support my side fucking around giving each individual one a full hearing/appeal/whatever before deporting them. That just amounts to giving up. I'll wipe my ass on the constitution and your personal moral opinion first, god knows neither one stopped the Dems from letting anyone in.

This is an extremely dangerous opinion and I thank God few people think this way because otherwise we really wouldn't have a country.

You seem to literally exactly think this way, and that's why we're at serious risk of not having a country.

"Sorry guys, the other side broke the rules to let in eleventy million zillion people, so now you're stuck with them forever and ever. I mean it's either that or break the rules yourselves, and that would clearly be unthinkable."

Keep it up champ, you're helping create those people you're so afraid of.

I'll concede that some of my suggestions are at a much higher pay grade than officers on the ground or within ICE. One point I disagree with in terms of reactions to this episode though is to put much of the blame on Jonathan Ross. I guess he might well be a bad guy but I think such episodes are pretty much inevitable and the result of poor leadership decisions as well as poor training.

The equal blame incident.

I'm libertarian. I'm pro immigration. I'm generally not a fan of the institution of policing and think it is run badly in many ways. I also think the average protestor belongs in a mental institution.

All of that to say I think this is generally a no one is at fault incident. Or at least one where everyone's culpability balances out in ways that they are all equally to blame.

Good went to a protest with the intent to use a deadly weapon (a car) to obstruct police officers in their duty. This is a risky thing to do. It endangers yourself and endangers others. Cars are not toys. They are about equal with guns in terms of killing people in the US each year Source. And the same holds true for police officers, where gun and car deaths in the line of duty are about equal Source.

I hate litigating specific incidents, because 99% of the time the main "this could have been prevented" turning points happen before the incident. I can think of at least two major ways Good could have prevented this (not going to the protest, or getting out of her vehicle to protest). I cannot think of any specific policy that police or ICE could have that would have prevented this. Officers are allowed to defend themselves from bodily harm or attacks on their person. Just like people in general are allowed to defend themselves from bodily harm or attacks on their person. The officer was not trying to create a situation, they were moving around the vehicle not trying to stay in front of it. If you are around police officers you should be aware that they have a heightened sense of "someone is going to attack me". Don't pretend like you are going to pull a gun on them, or pretend to charge them like you are going to beat them up. Don't nearly run into them with your vehicle. Unless you want to get shot. All of these things are also advice for how to treat a member of the public that might be carrying a firearm. People dying is a tragedy. But doing something dangerous towards someone carrying a gun and then getting shot is what I consider "accidental suicide". Its a tragedy if someone runs out into a street at a not-crosswalk and gets killed by a vehicle, no one is really at fault. Its an accidental suicide.

I've mostly been describing why Good is to blame. So why do I call it an equal blame incident? Well police and law enforcement still have some level of duty to exercise restraint in the use of deadly force. I do think the officer could have exercised that restraint here. I do not like that we have to treat police officers like wild animals or rabid dogs that might attack at the slightest provocation. Its not true for most officers, but its true for enough of them that I feel comfortable invoking the "accidental suicide".

To summarize, Good placed herself in a dangerous situation, and then did something that could be perceived as attacking an officer. The officer could have exercised restraint, but I would not expect that restraint of a private citizen.

Longevity and scissor statements

I have been surprised by the longevity of this incident in the news cycle. I mostly consider it a boring incident. As I said above I hate litigating specific incidents and asking could have been done in a split second of thinking for things to turn out differently. My rule of thumb is that something always went wrong long before someone had to make a split second life or death decision. In this case it doesn't seem like either side is strongly to blame. Good made more bad decisions leading up to the incident, but she died as a consequence which feels a little too heavy for her level of bad decision making. If the officer had died instead I'd say it was clearly Good's fault.

But I'm realizing now why I should not be as surprised by the longevity. You don't go to battle over a culture war incident if you feel like it is a losing ground. In an alternate world where Good had struck and killed a police officer with her vehicle I'd bet the story would be buried. Or at least no more talked about than the incident where 15 armed people tried to shoot and attack ICE agents (its still insane to me that this happened).

In all battles you only want to commit when you feel you can win. In the culture war winning means being morally right. Battles take two to tango though. So major controversies spring up when both sides feel like they are in the right. In this theoretical model the most battled over topics will always be scissor statements. The likelihood of "battles" is also helped along by however distorted the view of reality is by the partisans. If partisans had perfect perceptions of reality then only truly 50-50 incidents would spark up any controversy. But if they have something like a 5% bias for their side then incidents that are 45-55 would also spark up battles. The wider the gap in perception the more things become battles.

But I think reality can still partially penetrate partisan perceptions, so even when they have noticeable bias towards their own side they can notice a slightly losing argument. So they'll drop the topics where they feel that they are losing. Meaning that even if with partisan perceptions distorting reality a 50-50 incident is going to stick around much longer.

Cars are not toys. They are about equal with guns in terms of killing people in the US each year

Come on, this is a false equivalence. Try parking a truck into the parking lot of your local police department, then walk in while carrying a shotgun. Carefully observe which of these actions will cause more concern. Try to convince them that the real danger is your truck.

Cars kill a lot of people because they are ubiquitous. The majority of adult Americans are drivers, and drivers spend around an hour per day driving. The average American definitely does not spend half a hour every day shooting or even handling guns. There is a reason while there are few mafia movies where the cleaners rely on cars to kill their victims.

If she had pointed a gun at Ross, I would completely concede self-defense immediately. The main purpose of a gun is to kill or incapacitate soft targets, and given the low frequency of mountain lions in urban Minnesota, it is 100% reasonable to assume that she was in fact going to shoot Ross. Even if her gun was later found to be unloaded.

But cars (even bloody SUVs -- that is another CW angle) are rarely used in intentional or even depraved heart homicides, most car deaths are accidents, negligent manslaughter.

So Good driving in the general direction of Ross is a lot more ambiguous than her pointing a gun at him, because cars have plenty of uses besides killing federal agents. There was of course a chance that she was absolutely going to murder him. There was also a chance that she was going to drive over him because she had decided that ICE lives don't matter (depraved heart), or that she had not realized that he was standing in her path. There was also a chance that she was merely going to graze him either from a motivation of depraved heart or because she had misjudged the turn radius of her car. Possibly there was also a chance that she was going to miss him entirely.

Now, if she either intended to run him over or did not give a fuck about killing him, I will concede that he was entitled to self-defense in an unlikely attempt to stop her. (Though the risk of hitting bystanders would still need to be weighted against the probability of stopping her car.) Even then, it was not a good tactical move compared to getting out of the way, but that would not have been a legal issue.

For the injuries she actually inflicted on him, a headshot was clearly an overreaction, I think most people will agree that letting people grazed by cars shoot the driver is generally a bad idea.

These probabilities do matter if we evaluate a claim of self-defense. Basically, if you see a 6yo (-15) in Germany (-20) on Fasching (-20) point a gun-shaped object which looks like plastic (-15) at you, it is not reasonable to conclude that you are about to be shot by a live firearm and kill the kid. If you see a drug addict in Central Park point what looks like a firearm in your direction, that conclusion would be different.

In this case, a good prosecutor might make the case that you had someone who was distracted by filming with a mobile phone getting startled by a car which was suddenly moving towards him and then decided to compensate his lack of situational awareness through deadly force.

As I've said before I don't like litigating split second decision making. Most of your post is that.

The only real person with the ability to make decisions beforehand that could have prevented this is Good. She could have chosen to exit her vehicle at the protest or to turn off the engine. The other possibility that I just thought of is that ICE starts using armored vehicles and just starts ramming through obstructing vehicles. I don't want ICE to adopt that policy, do you?

She choose to use a vehicle to obstruct other vehicles and to drive in an area with pedestrians and people on foot. Her obstructing vehicles is part of the reason there were officers on foot in the first place. Unless she thought it would just be a perfect statement where she gets to obstruct a law she doesn't like and the result is that ICE just politely sits in their vehicles going no where and letting her obstruct them?

Your truck example is the false equivalence. Try using your truck to block the entrance to the police parking lot or your body to block the entrance of the front door. Those are equivalent.

Or line your truck up with the pedestrian exit to the police station and rev the engine like you are about to run them over. You will be treated like you are holding a shotgun. They will aim their guns at you and tell at you to get out. If you instead start moving the truck towards them they will unload as if you had lifted the shotgun into an aiming position.

In your example they get out of the truck. I suggested that was one of the things Good could have done to deescalate the situation. The equivalent would be leaving your shotgun in the trunk of your car. A weapon that you do not currently possess is of course far less threatening in the immediate situation.

If a policy relies on people making split second complex judgements then the policy sucks. I already put some fault on ice for being too willing to use deadly force. But that is because I hold agents of the government to a higher standard than I do individuals. And I think any individual would have been justified in using deadly force against a vehicle in this exact situation. In the US they'd also be legally in the clear, in Europe, which doesn't believe in self defense, probably not.

What policy changes would you suggest that could have prevented this? Being reasonable in the sense that any policy that amounts to "be ineffective anytime someone uses this tactic against you" is a non-starter.

I say this as someone that disagrees with the goals of ICE. But I do not see a policy that would have lead to a guaranteed better outcome here.

Come on, this is a false equivalence. Try parking a truck into the parking lot of your local police department, then walk in while carrying a shotgun. Carefully observe which of these actions will cause more concern. Try to convince them that the real danger is your truck.

Now, try driving the truck through the front of the building and see what the reaction is.

The SUV here is dangerous when it is being pointed at a human being; hell, if she'd had a rifle in her passenger seat when she did this, I'd still argue that the SUV is the greater threat.

Now, if she either intended to run him over or did not give a fuck about killing him, I will concede that he was entitled to self-defense in an unlikely attempt to stop her.

If he had a reasonable belief that she either intended to run him over or did not give a fuck about killing him, I will concede that he was entitled to self-defense in an unlikely attempt to stop her. Self-defense standards do not require someone to be a mind reader, nor do they require that the other person has an intent to kill. It is permissible to shoot someone who is high out of their mind, but pointing a gun at a crowd, even if he is unable to comprehend how dangerous the gun is at the moment. It is also reasonable to shoot someone who yells out in anger "I'm going to fucking kill you!" and reaches towards what appears to be a concealed weapon (even if they aren't actually armed, and were simply going to whip out their dick or some such nonsense).

For the injuries she actually inflicted on him, a headshot was clearly an overreaction, I think most people will agree that letting people grazed by cars shoot the driver is generally a bad idea.

Just for fun, go stand in front of a parked SUV - and take a look at what you could see of the "driver". You'll notice that it is basically only the head, especially on a smaller driver (like, say, a woman).

I have been surprised by the longevity of this incident in the news cycle. I mostly consider it a boring incident.

I think you're underestimating the impact of racism, sexism, tribalism, and profiling in the perception of this incident as compared to others.

Renee Good was a 37 year old white mother of three. I haven't looked into her background, but just judging from the car not being a complete heap I don't think she was impoverished, we can probably label her middle class. There's virtually no chance, with just that data, that she was out there engaged in a suicide terrorist mission. She might literally have to be the first middle aged white woman in all of American history to do something like that. I asked both ChatGPT and Grok, neither could bring me a single documented case of a white woman between the ages of 30-50 killing an on-duty police officer in the history of the United States. If we included "middle class," "mother of three," and "not visibly disordered" it would cut those odds even more. When I asked for 30-50 year old white female terrorists period (not just anti-cop), the closest I got was Shawna Forde who murdered two illegal immigrants as part of some cockamamie border militia thing, and maybe some left wing bank robbers from the 70s but those were getaway drivers. If anyone else can find me examples of 30-50 year old white women killing on-duty cops, let me know!

Liberals might decry racial profiling, but they believe in it, because it is obviously true. A male suspect is vastly more likely to be dangerous than a female, an old suspect less dangerous than a young one, a black suspect more dangerous than a white one. A middle aged white woman is just vastly unlikely to be a domestic terrorist engaged in an anti-cop suicide mission.

The white middle class might dislike what ICE is doing or we might not particularly care, but we pretty much assume that whatever happens it won't touch us. This is one of us getting shot. Not some immigrant getting sent to a foreign torture prison in Cuba or El Salvador, not some black kid in baggie pants getting killed, this is a middle aged woman who looks like my sister, my coworkers, my grad school classmates. I might roll my eyes when they lib out, that doesn't mean I'm comfortable with a world where they might get shot. A middle class liberal might decry his privilege, but he still believed in it, that as a middle class white person he was protected, that bad things wouldn't happen to him. This pierced that privilege. And that's hard to deal with.

The reason this is hanging around is because Renee Good doesn't fit the profile of the kind of person who gets killed by the cops. Turbolibs love to quote Wilholt's law: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." And they believed that, they believed they were in the group that the law protected but did not bind. Every accusation is an admission. White liberals believed that their privilege would protect them. It turns out it will not.

And that means you have to make a decision. Because when the gun turns against your tribe, the nature of war is that you don't get a choice of which tribe you are part of. If we decide that killing middle aged women for being turbolibs is ok, I can't decide that I'm not part of the tribe, my family and my friends decide that for me. I can only decide whether I'm ok with their deaths or not.

You are likely right that I'm underestimating the demographic impacts of the situation. I'm always looking at the actions of individuals. I did write a post a while back that I mostly ignore race as an information category.

I will say that there is some uniqueness in this ICE situation where people have been using vehicles to obstruct ICE. It's definitely not the first time people have tried to obstruct vehicles. But usually it's human bodies vs vehicles. Some exceptions I know of: during the Canadian COVID lockdown protests it was parked vehicles. During French farmer protests they took tractors into the city to block traffic.

There is some question remaining of how the white mom demographic responds to this incident. If they never use this tactic again then maybe it shows it was a poorly thought out tactic and once the danger is apparent they abandon it en masse.

I think they perceived it as "using your body to block others" and they didn't realize they were doing the equivalent of waving a gun around. Their privilege and lack of experience with dangerous situations could probably excuse them for not thinking through the consequences of their actions. I've said elsewhere that I doubt Good fully thought through the consequences of using a vehicle to obstruct law enforcement. Typically the result of someone carelessly endangering other is that they injure others. In this case Good was shot dead. In an alternate reality she ran over an ICE officer and the news story is being buried like the one where ~15 people tried to shoot at ICE officers in an organized attack.

And that means you have to make a decision. Because when the gun turns against your tribe, the nature of war is that you don't get a choice of which tribe you are part of. If we decide that killing middle aged women for being turbolibs is ok, I can't decide that I'm not part of the tribe, my family and my friends decide that for me. I can only decide whether I'm ok with their deaths or not.

I find it so difficult to see this perspective. Literally all anyone has to do to achieve complete safety is not deliberately antagonise and obstruct members of the police force or equivalent as they go about their duty. You see a bunch of agents, you give them five minutes and you don't get in the way.

Do they really think that ICE are on some spree killing of middle-aged white women now?

Non-violent resistance and civil disobedience are things, actually.

A few people might believe that their government is always morally right, axiomatically. Most believe otherwise.

A lot of people will concede that a government can become so evil that it is imperative to violently oppose it. I think that is a popular idea in America, in the abstract.

But what if government does evil, but not on a scale were you feel justified waging total war against it?

Then people often employ methods to hamper the goals of the government, especially the goals they find morally objectionable, without resorting to violence. Perhaps you just 'forget' to add the fuse in half of the bombs you build for the Nazi war machine. Perhaps you use your privileged status as a white person to help slaves escape to the northern US. Perhaps you give aid to civilians persecuted by a regime. Perhaps you just decide that you did not see a petty theft.

The specifics vary widely over axes such as personal risk, effectiveness, cause. Morality being subjective, some causes you will agree with and some you won't. I don't share the world view of anti-abortion activists, so I would view the attempt to sabotage an abortion clinic by welding their front door shut as property damage. However, I will vastly prefer an activist who employs such tactics to one who has decided to just blow up doctors instead. The former is an annoyance, but at the end of the day we are merely disagreeing about some details how civilization should work. With the latter, there can be no peace or common ground.

Nor is non-violent resistance necessarily ineffective. The underground railroad freed a lot more slaves than John Brown did (debatable indirect effects like the ACW aside).

Good was obviously believing that using her plot armor as a white US woman to hinder ICE was moral. (Like whenever a human does something, there were also signaling considerations involved, but to pretend every action is just caused by them is too cynical by half.) She was likely willing to deal with fines and the like for her cause, but probably did not expect to be shot.

I have criticized her rather harshly for her fatal decision, but on reflection I think I was wrong to characterize her as 'cosplaying #LaResistance'. Her beliefs are not my beliefs, I would have preferred for her to work and donate to some EA cause area (not that I am one to talk, there). But for all these differences, she was faced with something she considered morally wrong in her society and did not react by mashing the defect button as much and as fast as possible, e.g. planting IEDs against ICE.

TL;DR: 'She should just have stayed at home, and nobody would have shot her' only works if either you believe your government to be infallible or your own moral beliefs to be fundamentally true while every other belief is just a silly error.

The right to peacefully protest is a direct Constitutional right. A direct right. I think there's reasonable room to disagree about, and interesting discussion to be had, regarding the line between obstruction and protest. From that framing, obviously protesting/obstructing is risky, sure, but that's an official state-approved exercise of rights as much as free speech is or as much as the right to a jury trial. There's considerable meat to the argument that a right left unexercised is effectively a dead right.

Time, place, and manner restrictions, applied in a viewpoint-neutral manner, have been repeatedly held to be fully compliant with the First Amendment. The First Amendment doesn't give you the right to scream directly in someone's face, if that would be disorderly conduct in any other circumstance.

Do they really think that ICE are on some spree killing of middle-aged white women now?

At the least, if you have a middle-aged white woman in your life that you care about, please talk to them, make sure they know real people in grass world love them, and research de-radicalization strategies.

De-radicalization strategies? Do they exist? I'd like to try some on myself. This forum is great at radicalizing people and turning them doomer, but not so great at reversing the process...

For de-radicalization I suggest you try a diet high in vine fruits, including beverages made from them.

That'll keep those free radicals away.

If you know of some, unironically I would like them. I do have a brother that is thankfully living abroad right now, but who otherwise I'd be genuinely worried about them doing something very rash at an anti-Israel protest. He does know we love him at least.

Thankfully the middle-aged white women in my life are much more liberal than me but still reasonably sensible. It's the middle-aged men who spam me with 'did you see what Trump did today' and 'this would never have happened before Brexit'. (I'm in the UK).

EDIT: I realised that you meant 'middle-aged' as in 37 and now I feel old. I was talking 50-60.

You have an optimistic middle age! That at least seems like a good thing

Good went to a protest with the intent to use a deadly weapon (a car) to obstruct police officers in their duty.

I can't get on board with setting the scene as "intent to use a deadly weapon (a car)". I use a car all the time, without any intent to use it is as a deadly weapon or for it to have any function as such. Sure, it is probably reasonable that if I murder someone with a car, it can be classified as murder with a deadly weapon, just as a baseball bat also seems like a deadly weapon if I swing it at someone's head. But I can bring a car or a baseball bat to my kid's school, and I have a lot of doubt that Good brought her car to the scene in order to take advantage of the car's potential function as a deadly weapon (i.e., to harm or to threaten). Mostly, it seems like they wanted to use the car's large mass to impede the path of the ICE vehicle, and also that the car was their transportation.

Let's say someone hits somebody with a car at a school. Should the lede really be that "The driver brought a deadly weapon (their car) to an elementary school?"

Using a car as transportation is not something I'd say qualifies as intending to use a deadly weapon.

Using a car's physical mass, and the threat of that physical mass to intentionally obstruct others? That is definitely crossing into weaponization territory.

Also what happens when Good's obstruction is determined to be illegal? If she is on foot the authorities can use their bodies to arrest and restrain her. If she is in a vehicle they need her to cooperate and leave the vehicle. If she decides instead to flee in that vehicle she has now created a hazardous car chase scenario. Even if she had not nearly run someone over and no one had shot her, she still did the wrong thing by driving away.

I doubt she was thinking through any of these things, but thats exactly the problem she escalated the danger of the situation for others by adding her vehicle to it. The fact that she was ultimately the one to get killed feels a little harsh to me, but if anyone was going to die that day for what happened I'd have most preferred it to be Good.

Even if she had not nearly run someone over and no one had shot her, she still did the wrong thing by driving away.

If you can pass a law which says that the authorities can shoot someone for driving away, get it passed.

If you can't pass such a law, then you should let them drive away.

Pick one.

You are allowed to defend yourself and others in this country from threats of deadly harm with lethal force. A vehicle driving at someone is a deadly threat. This is already the law of the land.

What about just using a car's physical mass, and NOT the threat of it, to intentionally obstruct others? Moving your car back and forth to block someone else's car is just using the physical mass, not threatening.

Then turn off the engine.

And if someone gets in the way of that physical mass while you are moving it?

At that point you are probably weaponizing the car, yes. My complaint is describing her as initially having been at the scene with the intent of weaponizing her car.

She was actually kind of using it as a weapon though -- more of a defensive weapon, but still.

If after you dropped your kids off at the school parking lot, you parked in front of the entrance and didn't let anyone but your friends through, I think it would be fair to say that you were using the car as something like a weapon? Certainly it's a tool of physical force.

Even the ultimate defensive weapon could easily be used to commit the very commonly recognized crime of false imprisonment.

occurs when one person intentionally restrains another in a way that confines the individual within a bounded area without consent or legal authority.

Imagine impenetrable shield. It cannot hurt anyone. But it also cannot be bypassed. A person with this this shield could surround another person and prevent them from going where they want. This would be textbook false imprisonment.

And it seems exactly what she intended to do to ICE agents. Physically confine them to a bounded area without consent or legal authority.

it's a mask off moment

Yeah it's a mask off moment where the enemy admits that they are against all deportations no matter who, and would rather risk their lives than allow a single murderer or rapist to be deported.

This is too low effort / antagonistic.

I'll only do a 5-day ban. I know you are capable of quality contributions. Try to do more like that rather than your 14 other warnings or bans for bad stuff. (jesus how fucking lenient have we become with shitty posters). I'm gonna suggest a more lengthy ban next time, maybe a few months or permanently.

https://www.themotte.org/post/3442/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/398451?context=8#context

https://www.themotte.org/post/3359/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/382800?context=8#context

https://www.themotte.org/post/2254/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/348024?context=8#context

https://www.themotte.org/post/2015/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/331751?context=8#context

https://www.themotte.org/post/1913/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/326801?context=8#context

https://www.themotte.org/post/1860/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/323664?context=8#context

https://www.themotte.org/post/1860/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/323664?context=8#context

etc.

This is purely waging the culture war. If you have some information that Good was specifically trying to hamper the deportation of a specific murderer or rapist (who for some reason was not in prison), please share it with the class.

Also, can you back up the claim that she was consciously and willingly risking her life, that would be helpful.

Finally, your claim makes her actually sound impressive. Rare is the human willing to risk her life for the sake of a stranger, still rarer the one trying to help the lowest of the low. Keep talking like that, and the pope might canonize her.

Even people who agree with you that her cause is insane might be impressed at her level of dedication.

You fundamentally don't understand this issue. The shooter had a reasonable belief in his life being in danger from her action. I agree that she was probably trying to just escape after mild civil disobedience and likely wasn't committing to actual attempted murder, but the legal legitimacy is purely down to whether the shooter felt he was at risk. You've additionally conflated the 'officers are taught never to approach a vehicle from the front' idiom with 'it's okay to drive hazardously if one happens to be in front of the vehicle'.

It's a sad incident, but a tactic of constantly throwing mild inconveniences at the bear is going to occasionally lead to somebody being sideswiped. In fact it's somewhat amazing that ICE has yet to throw a properly, truly against-the-rules murder up considering they're fairly underskilled and being treated with incredible levels of hostility for trying to action the mandate of the people.

Looks like it's time for the left to dump maximally unkind, inflammatory breadtuber video transcripts at the culture war root level. I really wish that stupid Mein Kampf quote would not be reverberating through my head right now.

Well, surprise! It's a new day (week) so all the original stale points are back, and no, the OP didn't bother to adress any of them, just lots of moralizing, hand wringing, language optimized for heat. I'm losing all sympathy for the blue tribe in this battle. It's clearly important to them that they win the argument, since this event will be foundational to blues continuing to foment violent disobedience into perhaps civil war -- just go read the rhetoric on /r/minnesota and /r/minneapolis for some fun.

Still, sorry, your post is just shit dumped as facts, without any critical thought, maximally charitable to your side, maximally uncharitable to the outgroup.

I'm not going to address your whole gish gallop completely, as I find rehashing old points tiring, and you/the breadtuber seem to veer off into Trump, Venezuela, Noem, just throwing piles and piles of spaghetti at the wall.

This is so obviously a murder.

ETA. Of all the things to highlight from the video, you don't highlight this? The consensus of the Motte is that the case it's murder is extremely weak nonexistant.

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.

This person's truth/reality in this whole video is built on a foundation of lies. If it's murder, then we have to beg all the premises that follow. And you're in luck, as I'm pretty sure we have a very low percentage of bots here.

ICE officers are trained to never approach a vehicle from the front, which this guy did

He was moving around the car in a circle, taking video of the scene. Are you even interested at all in truth, did you read any of last week's discussion?? Did you watch the video?

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.

ETA: Is it? Maybe we agree after all

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.

This is the lowest of the low, pure pathetic emotional manipulation. But wait, did you know the ICE officer also has a teddy bear called Mr. Shnookums on his keychain? From his immigrant wife, you know (zoom in on Mr. Shnookums). That's Mr. fucking Shnookums, look, he's squished and dirty from the impact with her four ton SUV.

She blocked half a road for likely five minutes in her local neighborhood because ICE was hanging out around schools. 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.

I'm not mad at you, I'm grinning from ear to ear that I get to fuck with you for five minutes, right after my buddies fucked you for five minutes before that. And don't worry, we'll be back to fuck with you later too. Maybe you should just get some lunch big boy.

For fuck's sake, someone (possibly Ross) called her a "fucking bitch" not two seconds after she was shot, which cuts the other way.

Maybe Ross called her a fucking bitch two seconds after she hit him with her truck instead? Which way would that cut?

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.

AHA! Herein lies the crux. My side has lost this moral battle, but we need the win or otherwise the whole facade of us being the resistance against the evil empire will crumble. Something is wrong, something has to be wrong is echoing on repeat in their brains, leaving no room for any dialectical discussion, just arguments as soldiers on repeat. Not to worry though, fellow combatants, even if we lose this one small battle of words and wits, we can just shit up the culture war thread tomorrow with the next youtube video transcript from progressive soldier #342788

I don't think this comment deserves a response. If you'd like to make a real point, feel free to do so without unfounded personal attacks and mischaracterizations.

Report a post and move on if you think it breaks the rules. Do not respond in kind.

I'll give leniency in this situation because @theSinisterMushroom did the same shit.

Your punishment (or reward if you choose to view it that way) is that you are not to engage with @theSinisterMushroom in this subthread.

This will be mirrorred for @theSinisterMushroom.

Weaksauce.

Report a post and move on if you think it breaks the rules. Do not respond in kind.

I'll give leniency in this situation because @EverythingIsFine did the same shit.

Your punishment (or reward if you choose to view it that way) is that you are not to engage with @EverythingIsFinein this subthread.

This will be mirrorred for @EverythingIsFine.

He was moving around the car in a circle, taking video of the scene. Are you even interested at all in truth, did you read any of last week's discussion?? Did you watch the video?

I genuinely hate this argument since the whole point of the 'don't stand in front of the car' is to minimize risk to the operative not to somehow absolve people for trying to drive into them. I don't care if the entire ICE platoon was doing jumping jacks in front of her dashboard against policy, the second she starts driving into them she is clearly generating a threat.

Looks like it's time for the left to dump maximally unkind, inflammatory breadtuber video transcripts at the culture war root level

This is pretty annoying, I found some points the video made interesting, but I should never have to read something like:

"And then I got fuckin' the vice president of the country I live in going on fuckin' news and saying"

The benefit of text is it can be edited for brevity, and transcripts are almost always the opposite.

all the original stale points are back, and no, the OP didn't bother to adress any of them

I don't think I have the attention span for this, but I am very tempted to make a FAQ/"frequent arguments and their responses" for this topic. Maybe I can slop one together with chatGPT. It would be cool to have it all laid out.

I attempted to bold a few key parts to ameliorate the length, but yeah it could have used another editing pass. I have a preference for transcripts because I feel they are more honest and fully contextualized. It's entirely possible that that's striking the wrong balance, however.

Honestly, transcripts are annoying. They are not your words, and we can't speak directly to the person who said the words. I chose specifically not to address the transcript in my comments, and mostly just addressed your commentary.

It's good content transcript just too long

The Truth Social comment from Trump is terrible. Kristy Noem's statement, even if not totally accurate under opposition's scrutiny, seems pretty standard and defensible for a 2020s politician. JD Vance's statement on what actually happened is not true. Many things Vance said before and after that statement are true, but his claim that she tried to "ram this guy with her car" is not how I saw it.

What's happening right now is that ICE is losing to the dilemma action strategy that the left are experts at. It only takes one Renee Good incident to plummet public support and there are literally thousands of agitators behaving as bad, or worse than Renee Good everyday and many have been trained to behave this way by leftwing agitator groups.

It's a pretty brilliant tactic. Especially when you have a liberal society waiting to watch and react to one of the handful of incidents where an ICE agent eventually loses their patience and roughs up an agitator, or when an agent shoots one of the agitators because they felt danger in the moment. Youtubers can look at these videos after the fact and can say there was no danger or justification and they can call the agents murderers and fascists until the end of time, all while they cry about it.

I can go to my city's local ICE protest right now and say the most vile and antagonistic things imaginable (so long as its not a "threat") to these agents, and I can obstruct their movements and their ability to communicate with each other in all sorts of legally ambiguous ways, and I win no matter what. You either let me disrupt your duty, or you arrest me and I'll have millions of crowd funded dollars and attorneys ready and waiting. If you arrest me with force, Democrat politicians and left wing outlets will amplify it to a national incident and you're even more fucked. Pick your poison, Mr. ICE agent.

Not only is there is zero legal punishment for being an insufferable, society destroying cunt of a human, there is an incentive structure and tribal reward if you behave this way towards certain groups.

Not only is there is zero legal punishment for being an insufferable, society destroying cunt of a human, there is an incentive structure and tribal reward if you behave this way towards certain groups.

Honestly I agree. At least mostly - there's a reason legal standards are slightly different than moral standards. Part of what bothers me about the Good case particularly is that there's nothing stopping a delayed legal punishment. They have cell phone video, several officers' testimony, license plates, the wife even acknowledges they might talk again later, why not mail in a misdemeanor charge? Most protestors, traditionally, are willing to eat that, so it's some form of fair all around. I think felonies need to be treated with a little more care due to how they work and affect people, but protestors are regularly charged with felonies for assault during protests, are they not? Maybe I'm ignorant, but it seems to me that this idea that protestors are all getting away with horrible things feels like a false narrative.

What is seems quite true however is that the law enforcement apparatus appears incapable of self-regulation. Just like you said, zero-punishment paradigms are inherently dangerous, and I feel like ICE internally has no real brakes. They aren't regularly telling people to tone it down, demoting people who make mistakes, nope, it's all rah-rah us v. them.

Part of what bothers me about the Good case particularly is that there's nothing stopping a delayed legal punishment.

The part where she hit the officer with her SUV.

Edit: To clarify, it is reasonable for ICE to arrest her for being an obstacle to them carrying out their primary mission in the area. (And I'm not being cute with "being an obstacle" - she was literally using her vehicle as an obstacle). As part of that arrest, it is reasonable for them to demand that she get out of her vehicle. Her choice was to attempt to flee the situation, which still wasn't the reason she got shot. She got shot because part of her fleeing meant that she drove into an ICE agent, who now has reasonable cause to fear that she attempted to end his life.

People are regularly charged and very infrequently prosecuted. I have completely lost confidence in the ability of the judicial system to appropriately punish violence by left-wing agitators.

The correct response is to want better processes, not to cheer when "left-wing agitators" get killed.

It's possible to do both, though almost nobody, including myself, is "cheering." Declining to be emotionally devastated is not the same thing as cheering it, at all, and I feel this may be where the failure to model your interlocutors is occurring.

The first sentence of your analysis is a mischaracterization.

The moment the agent fires, he is standing here to the left of the SUV

The agent is hit in such a way that “to the left of the SUV” is a mischaracterization, as his torso makes contact with the left of the car. He is hit by the car. Thus he is not “to the left of the SUV”, but in its path. More to the point, the only consideration is what the officer reasonably believed would happen and the actual direction of the car’s tire at the moment of shot is immaterial, because self-defense is in the reasonable eyes of the reasonable beholder. Our officer had only one second to respond to the speedy change of tire direction. It’s one second between “absolutely going to hit me dead on” and the shot. And it is half a second between “still definitely going to hit me and run me over” and the shot. Because she changes the direction of the steering wheel that quickly. The average person’s raw reaction time is .25 seconds, and the time it takes to calculate whether a car is going to run you over while you hold a gun, a phone, and are surveying the driver’s car is more than .75 seconds or .25 seconds (depending on how badly you want to be hit by a vehicle).

I created an imgur album of three still images from the video above. The first image is before the officer realizes the car is coming, the second is right before impact, and the third is how far he was displaced by the car. The middle red dot shows the distance of the officer’s torso from the car from a static parked park to his left, and the right-most red dot shows his feet placement. https://imgur.com/a/cM5z4Xc

it's a mask off moment and puzzling how some people aren't just reasonably disagreeing, but out of their fucking minds

Ok, so normally whataboutism isn't really a legit argument, but your position (if I understand it) is basically "one side is outright lying". I agree, but disagree about the side, so I think it's relevant for me to list the various conflicting lies/deceit pushed by "your" side:

  • She wasn't an activist, and just got lost, tried to turn around
  • ICE told her to drive off; she was obeying
  • ICE gave her conflicting orders to get out and drive off, to force her to not comply with one of them
  • She got confused as to what they wanted
  • She and her wife were calm, polite, and non-confrontational ("I'm not mad at you")
  • ICE charged at her, screaming profanities
  • She didn't see the officer in front of her SUV
  • She panicked
  • She didn't know they were ICE
  • She wasn't blocking the road at all, actually
  • The officer walked in front of a moving vehicle
  • The officer stood in front of the static vehicle (deliberately, to justify deadly force)
  • The officer wasn't in the path of the vehicle at all
  • The car's wheels were pointing away from him when she started accelerating
  • The first shot went through the side window
  • They were pointing a gun at her before she started driving
  • They shot her for driving away from them
  • The officer's video is a deepfake

Your post is pretty long (mine too), so to narrow in: what's the most clear-cut, obvious, damnable lie from the pro-ICE side? Like, one (or a small handful) that I can just look at the video and go, "yeah, that's clearly false, and anyone watching this should know". I'm struggling because your examples seem to be more subjective stuff like "was this domestic terrorism". (I'm not trying to pick a deliberately weak one, sorry if that's not meant to be a load-bearing example)

A couple of other points:

First: You focus on how, at the moment of firing, he's no longer directly in the way. But this is less than 1 second from her accelerating at him, and him pulling out his gun -- at which point he absolutely was in the way of the 1.5-ton SUV that could've crushed him. He didn't have the benefit of dispassionately freeze-framing the videos from multiple angles in that 1 second. Nor could he see the wheels, or the future path of the car, or know how much traction it would have (it seems if there hadn't been ice under the tires, it would've surged forward sooner, directly over him). Expecting him to omnisciently evaluate evidence he doesn't have in that one second, just as he's suddenly been thrust into a potentially-fatal situation -- and then to superhumanly instantly switch between violence and nonviolence on her whim -- is absolutely ridiculous.

Second: The dominant pro-ICE position on the Motte (and elsewhere) doesn't seem to be "she was trying to murder him". No matter how many times I see it repeated, anti-ICE people still seem to ignore it. The more common position I see, and endorse, is something like:

  • She was trying to flee
  • She wasn't deliberately trying to murder him
  • However, she was aware he was in front of the SUV she was attempting to move forward
  • She probably figured she could turn out of the way without significantly injuring him -- either hoping to avoid him entirely, or (more likely) send him tumbling like a fascist buffoon. But if he were to die, that'd be great, and totally justified

... but her state of mind doesn't matter. She suddenly accelerated an SUV while he was standing in front of it. He doesn't have to read her mind to justify defending himself. Her death is a tragedy, and was entirely avoidable by not trying to move her SUV into the space another human being was standing in. The absolute refusal from anti-ICE people to recognise this does not seem reasonable.

Her death is a tragedy, but calling it "murder" is engaging in exactly the kind of deceit you claim your opponents are doing. I don't understand it.

Her panicking is not "deceit", nor is the point that she very well might not have seen or been aware of him (both of these directly contradict nearly everything we know about human attention and psychology), nor is the point that she wasn't fully "blocking" traffic (that we know of, this could well turn out to be wrong). We only see her wave cars by, we don't see her actually stop an ICE vehicle. And there's the point about the "third shot" which seems a valid point. Cars insofar as they are weapons, are inherently directional weapons. Unlike a sword or a gun or a person, cars only go forward and backward. So any threat is inherently focused on a small moment in time. Why? Contextually her intent does matter. If she's actually trying to kill officers, as the administration deceitfully suggested, then sure maybe a third shot is merited because otherwise she's going to turn around and come at them a second or third time. Such is not the case by any stretch of the imagination. And it's correct and just to be horrified that that's the messaging they decided to go with.

But if he were to die, that'd be great, and totally justified

This seems like pure, unadulterated projection of a caricature of the modal anti-ICE protestor, and is a second thing that has upset me, specifically around here. Do you truly believe that this is what a large chunk of lefties think?

I myself probably would shy away from calling it outright "murder", but I wouldn't blink if someone used that word; I essentially posted that statement as my own so I'll own that I guess. However, the more salient point here from the OP: "the reflexive defense of it is grotesque". I realize this is a cerebral forum. But I think nearly everyone claiming to not be affected by the emotionally charged aspects of the case are lying to themselves on some level. It shapes what things we pay attention to, what things we say or do not say. And I think it's genuinely distressing and worrisome that tribalism even here has progressed to the point where the first instinct of some is to bad-mouth protestors and throw the blame entirely at their feet for brainwashing some poor lady as if the Trump administration's plan were not essentially, as one Mottizen put it, "cruelty is the point". I realize that's reading between the lines a little bit to say that they believe the unspoken "and thus we shouldn't even bother to ask if Ross should be punished", but some of the responses here above and below seem to demonstrate the point quite nicely.

Her panicking is not "deceit"

You can see her on camera, extremely plainly, not panicking.

Given how ready you are to say this was "obviously murder", I think I'm allowed to infer that a person who is smirking, excited, and exhilarated is not, in fact, panicked; and that saying otherwise is lying.

she very well might not have seen or been aware of him

She locks eyes with him. But ok, I'm willing to concede she may have, in that short window of time, have glossed over his existence and not acted rationally. I look forward to you extending the same courtesy to the person whose body was about to be intersected by her SUV.

Or, as I suspect, are the rules: infinite psychological understanding for her, and none for your ideological enemies, who are obviously out to commit murder?

nor is the point that she wasn't fully "blocking" traffic

No one said "fully", and I can see you smuggling that word in. You are, of course, fully aware that she was not parked perpendicular to the road just cuz.

Do you know the easiest way to wave cars by? It's by not parking perpendicular to the road. Given that she did, in fact, do this, we both know that her intent was not to not block the road.

Why are we bothering with this nonsense? Do you think this is convincing?

Cars insofar as they are weapons, are inherently directional weapons

I don't understand this or the subsequent point. A weapon like an SUV can kill.

So, do you agree that the other 10-12 lies told by "your" side were, in fact, lies? It may seem unfair for me to list so many, but it's no less a gish-gallop than your OP. I'd genuinely like to know if you consider the other 10ish points to be true, or irrelevant, or genuinely lies on your side. Leaving them implicitly unaddressed seems dishonest.

This seems like pure, unadulterated projection of a caricature of the modal anti-ICE protestor, and is a second thing that has upset me, specifically around here. Do you truly believe that this is what a large chunk of lefties think?

Based on the reaction to Charlie Kirk, and her behaviour in the video: I believe with high probability it's what she would have thought. I may be wrong.

Where did you get "a large chunk of lefties"? I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth, seeing as you know full well I was talking about her specifically.

If you're upset by that, then calibrate yourself.

I myself probably would shy away from calling it outright "murder"

Oh. Ohh, I'm a fucking idiot, sorry. Because when you said this:

This is so obviously a murder.

... I took that as you calling it outright murder.

Now that I understand your words don't actually correlate to what you believe, and you're just fucking with me, I realise I've wasted too much time dealing with someone who doesn't actually care about what's true. Life and death and truth actually matter -- if you're not going to take this seriously, get out of the kitchen.

Facial expressions are not super strong indicators of panic, and the video is way too blurred to draw conclusions, I just rewatched it. She also could have simply misjudged the distance to the hood. At least personally I can attest I'm quite bad at knowing when my bumper will hit something, despite being a zero-accident driver for 15 years. But at any rate, the statement "You can see her on camera, extremely plainly, not panicking" is untrue, I don't know how else to say it.

Blocking strongly implies - to me - a complete block. She's in the way, but cars are passing. Therefore calling it blocking alone lacks significant context. I would never say "I-5 is blocked by a truck" unless I meant the whole road was closed. I would say "the truck is blocking a few lanes" because blocking is typically an all-or-nothing thing. So I think this one might be chalked up to differing personal connotations.

The point about cars being only directionally threatening to people was clear and I guess I can't help you if you claim not to understand it.

Okay, minutiae aside, let's talk about the meta-conversation and point.

People are free to sympathize with the cop. People are free to think the shoot was justified. My whole point is that thinking that "ICE did nothing wrong and does not even need investigation" is a higher bar than that. Please reread my intro/conclusion. On a meta level, the point is that the way the Trump administration portrayed the event is deceitful, and reactions along those same lines as their portrayal are callous and polarizing.

I was going to say that you avoided answering my question, but I can now see how you thought I might have misworded it. To be clear, this is a follow-up question, and no, it's not about Good, it's about what biases you may or may not have about leftie protestors, and I think it's highly relevant, because we're talking about the meta-reaction of people. So I'll ask again: do you truly believe that the portrayal I described ("if he were to die, that'd be great, and totally justified") is what a large chunk of lefties think? But sure, if you want, I'll ask it about Good too. How confident are you that that portrayal is accurate of Good? Where are you epistemically there?

I think you'd do yourself some favors re-reading my comments and waiting a few minutes before replying because you're mischaracterizing me. I'm attempting to engage in a way you don't seem to be, so I can't understand why you'd think I wasn't serious?

Some people are getting a bit heated by your words here, so good job keeping cool.

Blocking strongly implies - to me - a complete block. She's in the way, but cars are passing. Therefore calling it blocking alone lacks significant context. I would never say "I-5 is blocked by a truck" unless I meant the whole road was closed. I would say "the truck is blocking a few lanes" because blocking is typically an all-or-nothing thing. So I think this one might be chalked up to differing personal connotations.

Your definition would mean that the roads to the parade weren't blocked off since this guy was able to get past them.

Someone willing to use physical force to evade arrest - which she 100% did - is going to be a problem to arrest at any point when you try to arrest her.

Legally you need imminent threat to life to shoot someone. From a broader level though an ICE agent will die if people are constantly evading arrest in vehicles. On net shooting her saves future ICE lives. And legally she opened herself up to get shot.

Meanwhile, we have others saying, legally speaking, there is no way the ICE agent is on the hook for murder based on previous case law.

https://shipwreckedcrew.substack.com/p/minneapolis-is-not-even-a-close-call

The ICE officer walked away when he was filled to the brim with adrenaline. That doesn't mean he was un-injured and didn't need to convalesce at the hospital. We have him getting hit by the car un-ambiguously on two videos. And even if he wasn't hit by a car, he was in the clear, if he is being judged by the same standard other police have been judged by (see above link.)

Edit: I'm not happy Good was killed, but the agent has the benefit of the doubt until they are proven guilty in a court, and given the facts established it seems unlikely that the agent deserves to be found proven guilty. Ultimately, none of this would have happened if Good hadn't been using her vehicle to obstruct government officials enforcing the law, so I understand why the sentiment is to blame Good. But it is entirely possible for there to be no bad guys here and someone still wind up dead.

This is so obviously a murder.

Let me stop you right there.

I would, based on what I have seen so far, be inclined to convict Ross of manslaughter if I was on his jury (which I won't be, as a foreigner). I don't know the law well enough to say if the prosecution could sell me on murder 2, and there is always the possibility that the defense could convince me of their story, of course.

However, if you are saying that this is "obviously a murder", you are distorting the truth, almost as much as the bloody Trump administration.

I do not think that anyone will be able to prove that what went through Ross head was "finally that bitch made my day and gave me an excuse to cap her". It seems entirely possible that Ross was unaware that she was not aiming the car for him before he fired his shots and was under the impression that she was going to run him over with her SUV unless he stopped her.

In that case, even a manslaughter conviction would hinge on messy little details of the case. Would a reasonable officer in his situation (who was not previously physically harmed by cars, and not distracted by making his little movie on what was presumably his private mobile phone instead of relying on his body cam) have concluded the same thing? Did he forfeit his right to self-defense by recklessly placing himself in a situation where he would be forced to resort to lethal violence, possibly in violation of tactical rules how to behave around a suspect's vehicle?

If the car had been in neutral while Ross shot, I would agree that it looked like straightforward murder. But it was moving forward, and reasonable people could disagree over the interpretation of all of these messy little details -- many here did disagree with me, in fact.

I have seen nobody here claim Trump's version, e.g. that she was a domestic terrorist, presumably because she was trying to kill Ross (but weirdly incompetent at driving over a person just in front of her car). Sadly, this makes your version "obviously murder" the most outlandish claim I have seen argued here. (Though my the trophy for maximum disagreement still goes to "I would acquit ICE no matter what the facts were", but you could still get a tie if you were willing to unconditionally convict ICE regardless of the facts.)

Just curious; what do you think thé German police would have done in that precise situation? Resisting arrest and attempting to flee through a police cordon is suicide by cop.

presumably because she was trying to kill Ross

Sort of. As much as I hate the concept, it's just the "non-central fallacy". A terrorist is someone who uses violence for political ends, driving a car at someone is violent, and she did it at an anti-ICE protest, ergo: terrorist. Inaccurate and lame, especially since that a businessman like Trump probably has access to talented marketers that could come with a better term conveying the same message.

A terrorist is someone who uses violence for political ends

I disagree: never mind rioters, this would make every soldier or insurrectionist a "terrorist". The clue's in the name: the salient quality of terrorism is that it involves acts of extreme violence specifically intended to create fear in a wider populace. Breaking your way into the White House, killing everyone, then declaring yourself Emperor of America by right of conquest: definitely political, definitely violent, but not terrorism. Killing a thousand innocent randos across the country, then broadcasting a message in which you demand to be handed control of the country in exchange for the randomized killing to stop: terrorism.

Terrorism is a special kind of evil because it is an attempt by a weaker party to make up for its handicap by fighting maximally dirty, and we want to disincentivize that kind of thing even harder than regular political violence. I'd even go so far as to argue that terrorism needn't necessarily be political (the demands could be anything, really), though apolitical terrorism is certainly non-central.

The claim that Good was a "domestic terrorist" is actually plausible in principle. Had she 100% deliberately intended to run over an ICE officer with her car, and had her intent behind doing so been "this will scare other ICE agents out of doing their jobs for fear of the same thing happening to them", that would qualify as terrorism. I don't believe she was thinking anything like this, mind you. But it would be a perfectly conventional example of the class, car or no car.

That seems to expand the word terrorist beyond all usefulness.

X is on their way to a demonstration or political convention. X misses a red light and hits a pedestrian. Violence? Check. Political motive? Check. Ergo: terrorist.

Outside of Trump's mind, in what we might call the real world, not even every political motivated violence (which Good's behavior is almost certainly not -- she was politically motivated and reckless, but her obviously politically motivated actions were not reckless and her reckless actions were not politically motivated beyond reasonable doubt) is considered terrorism. Someone who throws a rock at cops in riot gear during a political demonstration (despicable as that is) is generally considered a rioter, not a terrorist.

Terrorism commonly involves serious, generally premeditated violence (most often murder, but arson or maimings would likewise qualify) for the purpose of causing general fear to further some policy. That sick fuck who throws rocks will generally hot hope to cause enough damage to cause widespread fear. If he decides to throw a hand grenade at the cops instead of a rock, then that could well be called terrorism.

In short, there is applying a strong spin to statements (see "the media very rarely lies") and whatever Trump is doing. The press might call the Moon "the brightest celestial body" (implied: visible at that time and place), but Trump will just go out and call what is obviously the Moon 'the Sun'. And then some will come along and try to argue that technically, he is not 100% wrong, after all, most of the light we get from the Moon is ultimately sunlight, and would it not make sense to expand the definition of 'the Sun' to also cover the reflected sunlight from other celestial bodies such as the Moon or Mars -- which would be almost invisible if the Sun went off, after all -- in a blatantly motivated argument.

That seems to expand the word terrorist beyond all usefulness.

Yeah, hence the "non-central fallacy". I never said I liked it or that I agree with it.

People will give so much grief to FCFromSSC for pointing out we have completely different values that will tear our country/ies apart, and then post stuff like this...

I'd also say that if you want to have a productive conversation, you should seperate the topics of this incident. Are we litigating the facts? Cool, let's not focus on a propaganda rag's coverge of a single video, let's pull up all the videos, including the one's from the officer's perspective. Let's pull up analogous examples that ended badly for the police officer involved, and compare how far the ICE guy was from meeting the exact same end.

Are we litigating morality? Okay, maybe you can do a compare and contrast with Ashley Babbit, like we did in the last thread? Maybe you can take another look at that video from the previous paragraph and explain whether you that officer was wrong for shooting? If yes, you could then go on to explain why LEO's should be expected to let themselves be killed, regardless of how recklessly a suspect was acting. If not, you could explain how the two situations are different, and what makes the difference SO OBVIOUS to warrant a massive wall of text of moral castigation.

Are we litigating whether politicians lie at worst, or stretch the definitions to the bounds of tolerance in order to score political points? Well, that one is easy, the answer is "yes". Have you been living under a rock?

In any case throwing all these topics in a blender and acting indignant that anyone might disagree is not going to be very productive.

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'?

I have lots of empathy for her. She's a victim of an evil political movement that lied to her about her country's law enforcement, and taught her to act in an extremely dangerous and reckless 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.

Yes, and the attitude here that is wrong is yours. The cop did not do anything wrong, or at the very least the argument that he didn't is perfectly defensible. Stop shouting people down for disagreeing.

I'm a "the system works" kind of guy. This is not working...

Consider me officially flipped. Everything is no longer fine; the system is breaking

I dunno, I never seen your "everything is fine" shtick as genuine, it always looked like a cudgel to beat populists with. Flipping now that it is your tribe that's upset with the authorities only serves to reinforce that impression.

Apologies for the length of the transcript muddying the points (chalk it up to my fear of destroying too much context), but I did put pretty specific disclaimers at the top and bottom about the topics I was most concerned about. I made exactly two main points and called them explicitly (I even said the words "primary point" and "second point"), so I'm confused why you seem to be so confused.

You seriously think the cop did nothing wrong? Nothing at all? None of the cops? For all liberals have made a big deal about power dynamics, they are real. To quote the relevant piece from the transcript, helpfully bolded for your reading pleasure: "there has to be a higher standard for the people in masks with guns that have been trained than the mom in the car".

Do you believe this, yes or no?

...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

Do you believe this, yes or no?

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.

Do you believe this is a reasonable thing for the VP to say?

And then, as I'm making my way down the thread, it's incredibly revealing that so far no one has engaged with this quote by Trump at all, which is a fucking insane thing to say:

"Are there any limits on your global powers?" He said, "Yeah, there's one thing, my own morality, my own mind."

That is a direct quote. That's not at all what the constitution or common sense say. He is literally saying that as far as he's concerned, there are ZERO checks on his global power. Of course this is somewhat distinct from domestic power, but do you see where I'm going with this? Trump and his administration are nakedly breaking rules over their knees and making it a game of pure unadulterated power dynamics, and that's a major threat to our democratic, and relatively stable, prosperous, peaceful, just way of life. Checks and balances and limiting power conflict to constrained arenas is a cornerstone of the game theory that underpins the country. Trump is messing with that. And this incident is perfect proof.

Okay, maybe you can do a compare and contrast with Ashley Babbit, like we did in the last thread?

I'm surprised we don't see any comparisons to the Malhuer standoff. That seems like a much clearer precedent.

It crossed my mind, but it's been so long ago I hardly remembered anything about it. Completely forgot anyone got shot there, for example.

This woman, mother of three

She actually is reported to have lost custody of the older two kids because she or the lesbian partner was putting cigarettes out on them. So, please amend this to specify "abusive, proven unfit mother".

Might be a fake claim slipped in there.

Link? Epistemic status of these claims seems like 'social media rumors', to me.

The fact that the living ex-husband has custody of the older two seems to be consistent, though it's hard to find a specific, news-like cite. I'm seeing numerous debunkings of the cigarette story, but from articles that are also saying she was just a mom dropping off her kid to daycare, so I'm tentatively rescinding that particular claim.

It would be fun if it were true in the same way everyone who was shot by Rittenhouse just happened to be a criminal in some way.

Just for the sake of argument: living with dad is not necessarily the same as court ordered legal custody or evidence of abuse and neglect.

Sometimes kids prefer living with the parent that's more checked out and permissive instead of the responsible one. It's annoyingly common.

Sometimes kids prefer living with the parent that's more checked out and permissive instead of the responsible one.

Seems like Mom in this case was the more checked out and permissive parent, it could well be Dad is the responsible one who makes sure they get to school, have their lunches packed, clean clothes, etc. while Mom is "but there's something more important in my socialist queer activist anti-fa group this week, you're old enough to look after yourself now".

Not saying this is so, but generally if the courts give primary custody to the father, it's indicative that there's something going on with the mother so she's incapable/not interested/flying high with the cuckoos in the clouds.

Yeah. Don't mind me, I'm projecting.

The White elite is slowly losing its power, since the demographics are not in its favor. The way I see this is that by using authoritarian tactics, the elite tries to keep its power even when becoming an even bigger minority. Since the democratic system guarantees the loss of power.

The GOP has always been a bit of a white club. Of course there are minorities in the GOP as well, but usually they are followers of the "white" culture (or British/founding father ideas, however you would describe it).

(Ofcourse with integration you can convert new comers to the dominant 'white' culture, but there is a limited quantity and speed to this process.)

These are just some of my two cents.

You've got your parties flipped.

The "white elite" are the ones trying to make a martyr out of Renee Good. They burned a huge amount of capital both political and physical to neutralize the populist movement in 2020, but somehow the populists returned even stronger than before and that is what this is all ultimately about.

ICE is enforcing the popular will in defiance of the preferences of white progressives and that is why Good and her partner were there trying to obstruct them.

The White elite is slowly losing its power, since the demographics are not in its favor. The way I see this is that by using authoritarian tactics, the elite tries to keep its power even when becoming an even bigger minority. Since the democratic system guarantees the loss of power.

Isn't this demographic pivot broadly due to the elite inviting large amounts of foreigners into the country in service of capital? It's not like some random pillaging horde of steppe people has come in without invitation.

I know it seems confusing, but you're actually not allowed to hit a police officer with your car. There's like, a ton of court cases about people hitting police officers with their cars and the people who did that didn't win any of them. Hope this helps.

Ah, so close, you could have said, "I know it seems confusing, but driving into someone is using deadly force..." and then your post would have been perfect. I do wonder if you would have gotten modd'ed for that comment; I won't speculate on that.

Do you think he's actually confused about the legality of hitting police officers with your car?

Are you genuinely trying to be helpful? Because you think he genuinely needed that to be explained to him?

No, you are not. You're being sarcastic in a condescending manner, which feels good and snarky and takes much less effort than actually rebutting an argument.

I would in fact wager you didn't even read the entire post. At most you skimmed it while composing your cutting response in your head.

Do you think he's actually confused about the legality of hitting police officers with your car?

There's a non-zero chance they believe protestors are a protected class with extreme leniency, that well could include a grey area around "you can hit cops if you don't intend to kill them," but I'm not familiar enough with op to be confident in that.

Wait, there are multiple people confused about what OP is confused about?

I'd have presumed the grey area here is a belief like "it's illegal to hit cops with your car, but the response to a crime that poses no threat of death or grievous injury is supposed to be an arrest, not a shooting" (correct!) combining with a belief like "it should have been immediately clear to the ICE officer that that suddenly-accelerating SUV posed no threat of death or grievous injury to anyone" (not "obviously" correct, unless there's some really good video that contradicts what I've seen from seemingly-good-enough videos).

This actually is a scissor statement out of mythology, isn't it? It's not just obviously true to some people and obviously false to others, but so obviously so that people can't even imagine what chain of reasoning might lead someone to take the contrary position.

Hopefully @EverythingIsFine will pop in to explain that I'm right ... or that someone else is, or a different chain of reasoning still. If my guess is right then there's so many failures of theory-of-mind going on right now that I have to wonder how badly I'm doing myself.

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

This was my point, maybe I should have put it at the end and not the beginning. The official position is that Good, after "stalking, harassing, and impeding" then committed a coordinated pre-trained "domestic act of terrorism" and "violently, willfully, and viciously" ran over an officer with who "followed his training and did exactly what he was taught to do." Nearly every load-bearing part of that entire position is false. And it's batshit insane that people read that, do not seem to care that it's so clearly incorrect (falling back to an unintentionally bailey of their own interpretation).

Instead their conclusion is, to tweak your phrase, "it should have been immediately clear to the ICE officer and to viewers that that suddenly-accelerating SUV did pose a threat of death or grievous injury" and that there is zero doubt about that conclusion whatsoever. It's an affirmative claim that is plainly wrong. Perhaps coupled with a claim: "None of the ICE officers did a single thing wrong in the leadup to the shooting". And it's coupled with an emotional "she deserved it" reaction. That final point about emotional response makes it worse, but is not indispensable to the argument.

Another more central statement of the thesis (of the original video, perhaps more accurately, since my own was the first quote up top):

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.

Do you think the administration's reaction to the shooting is a "reasonable path for America"?

edit: edits to second half

The ultimate truth is that it was a tragic accident, of the exact sort that often happens when two groups which despise each other are in open confrontation and neither trusts the other not to escalate to deadly force. People in the thick of it misread cues, do things that are themselves misread, and somebody dies. Good drew the short straw.

Trump put out blatantly-false claims that Good was a domestic terrorist. That's bad. Reliable Sources put out blatantly-false claims that Ross summarily executed her when he knew she wasn't a threat. That's also bad. I suspect part of the reason for this is that nobody wants to admit to "people can die in violence without somebody being malicious", and another part is that the blame for a foreseeable accident depends on who could most easily have avoided it, and that turns on "did ICE have to be in Minneapolis" which is of course subject to intense disagreement.

The official position is that Good, after "stalking, harassing, and impeding" then committed a coordinated pre-trained "domestic act of terrorism" and "violently, willfully, and viciously" ran over an officer with who "followed his training and did exactly what he was taught to do." Nearly every load-bearing part of that entire position is false.

Actually, every part of that is meaningfully true.

Do you think he's actually confused about the legality of hitting police officers with your car?

Yes, obviously. He's calling the police shooting at Good "murder", obviously that implies she should be able to allow to hit the cop.

So, just to be clear, your mental model of the OP is that he literally believes it's legal to run over police officers?

Even in the unlikely event one believes this, we still wish people to engage without unnecessary sarcasm and condescension.

There's plenty of online commentary elsewhere that ICE are not cops and have no legal right to arrest you. So maybe OP thinks they're not cops and so have no legal standing, so while you're obliged to obey police orders, ICE can't tell you to stop, go, get out, or go away. In which case, ICE agents trying to open her car door or stop her are no more authorities than any guy trying to break into your car, and you're justified in whatever you do to get away to protect yourself, including driving at him.

Not the OP, but at a minimum @EverythingIsFine seems to be under the impression that obstructing police and striking a police officer with one's car are essentially victimless crimes that should not warrant arrest, much less the deployment of lethal force.

Nothing else in their wall of text really makes much sense otherwise.

So, just to be clear, your mental model of the OP is that he literally believes it's legal to run over police officers?

My mental model is that he's just backing his tribe no matter what, and to that end he will say whatever. But if we take what he's saying seriously (as anything else would be uncharitable), that is a clear implication. One caveat I will add is that his claim seems to be conditioned on intentions, so if as long as they're not knowingly and purposefully trying to kill a police officer, driving at the would not be a crime.

Yes, so, people may indeed be backing their tribe and justifying actions on that basis. But no one literally believes it's legal to run over a cop. Snarky "hth" "explainers" are a very bad way to engage with someone you think is making a bad argument. Is this what you really want threads to look like here?

Yes, so, people may indeed be backing their tribe and justifying actions on that basis

Well again, should I take what he said seriously, or devolve into questioning his motives? (Which, in hindsight I guess I kinda did anyway, so feel free to spank me for that one).

It doesn't imply that at all does it? Unless you think someone having committed a crime means their killing cannot have been a murder?

We probably could still use that Minneapolis mega thread, after all.

Addressing only some of your points:

The top down approach to this issue from the administration has been deranged IMO and pure conflict theorist.

I think there should be a credible investigation of the officer to get all of the facts out, even though I think it was justifiable self defense, so far. That probably isn't happening. That's bad.

Separately, I haven't seen many people here argue that the driver was specifically trying to kill him. The dominant belief is that she was recklessly driving away but didn't have good control, she clipped him, and some combination of the two ton vehicle coming right at him and the contact reasonably scared him into shooting her.

If you look at the third video from the officer's POV, it is indeed scary. It very much looks like the same setup of body cam video from 2019: guy in a vehicle, stopped, same distance, floors it and runs over the officer. Takes a second at most. The officer dies from the fatal crushing injuries. You can find both videos in last week's thread if you are inclined.

I freaked out a bit myself just watching the first person video of Good floor her car at him. I would have shot her too.

The bundle of biases I've collected in my life up to now cause me to react that way. To me it seems reasonable.

For fuck's sake, someone (possibly Ross) called her a "fucking bitch" not two seconds after she was shot, which cuts the other way.

That "fucking bitch" only sounds bad if you're not capable of empathizing with the state of mind of someone who opened fire because he thought she was trying to run him over.

what is "deranged" about it specifically? Is conflict theorist deranged by default? It seems to me be a straightforward application of consequences:

  • Tribally back the officer => Narrative is less likely to create popular pressure to see conviction etc.
  • Anything else => agent gets Derek Chauvin'd.

Ironically, I will say, like argument for Ross's self-defense, the mere fact that a reasonable administration thinks this could work might as well be enough for us to NOT call this "deranged."

Well, it's ordered if the plan is to win the war.

It's deranged if the goal is to seek truth, which is what the public is owed.

Maybe the Minnesota AG can indict the wife on murder charges so that they can subpoena all of the evidence, because I don't see any other way a real investigation will happen.

Also, did the wrong thing happen to Chauvin? I don't believe he really intended to kill GF but he really should have known how dangerous that move was. He previously put someone in the hospital for doing it.

Could you link the videos? I tried finding them, but couldn't. In general, is there an easy way to search for all post that include links?

I've seen the officer POV video before and also found it quite scary, and tbh have a hard time emphasizing with people pretending he had no right to be scared, that it was trivial to just sidestep (how should he even know beforehand into which direction?), etc.

But I haven't seen the 2019 video, and can't find it on google either.

Although one thing to keep in mind is that the video (unless you're talking the 2019 one?) is not a body cam video, which might lead to some unhelpful priors. It was filmed from a cell phone in his left hand. So for example, the perspective is inherently off - you might think that the video is shot from the center of his body, but it's actually forward and to the left of his torso a distance that normally wouldn't be super meaningful but with this perspective actually skews things quite a bit. (Also, it appears to be icy, so the normal physics are slightly affected)

is there an easy way to search for all post that include links?

Yup, the search engine goes over the "source code" of the posts, not the rendered text, so you can just search for "https://"

Thanks, wasn't aware of this.

I think one of the big problems is people have information about what happened afterwards but are attributing that to the actions before hand.

A more full treatment of the 2019 officer body cam is here. It's inside of a news segment but no less disturbing. There's the part where a car drives up to her and stops and then a second part later where it drives into her.

CW: This is a first person video of female law enforcement officer being hit by a car. You hear her scream and groan. She dies from this. Hearing it makes it 10x worse to me, for whatever reason.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7lG1NDhBTsQ?si=Ajz-RRWaTtueHekf

Similar incidents have happened in France also.

I read the first few sentences and got to “mask off moment” and thought: oh boy I can’t wait to see which side has taken their mask off.

Anyway, it is a scissor statement. It’s basically definitionally. I dislike a lot of rationaistisms, but this is about as scissory as they come.

Yes, I’m inclined to think that your side is just as much in full on dishonest propaganda mode as you think mine. That’s the scissor.

Take the NYT example. It on the one hand says “the officer appears to be hit.” It then says “but if we look at it from the different angle the officer isn’t run over” (note the quote may be off but substance is accurate).

The impression they are trying to give is that the officer wasn’t hit at all. But they choose their words carefully to be both true but misleading. The officer wasn’t run over but he was hit which helps create reasonable fear.

Repeating some of my positions from the other thread: I agree that the claims that Good was somehow actively malicious, or that her death is anything else than a tragedy that shouldn't have occurred, are disgraceful. However, circumstances being what they were, I do have some sympathy for Ross's position. She wasn't actually trying to run him over, and shooting her wouldn't have helped even if she had, but I am prepared to believe that in the context of a split-second life-or-death decision, he sincerely got both of these things wrong. I don't buy that this was some sort of premeditated, cold-blooded murder-by-loophole. I don't think he's guilty of murder, I'm not even sure his tragic mistake was foreseeable enough to warrant internal sanctions. If there are actions worth taking here, I would think they have more to do with revising training and procedures so this sort of thing is less likely to happen again.

Of course, I would expect a decent person in his situation - a man who shot a mother of three for what, in hindsight, he ought realize were probably spurious reasons - to be, like, torn up about it. Remorseful. To release some kind of statement, say his heart is with the kids and the widow. Which AFAIK he hasn't. And he loses still further sympathy points if it was him who said "fucking bitch", to say the last. But then again… being an asshole about having committed manslaughter doesn't make you a murderer. It would make me less likely to shake his hand and offer my sympathy for the tough hand Fate has dealt him if I should chance to meet him (as I would with, say, a driver who'd accidentally killed a pedestrian through circumstances that mostly weren't his fault); but I don't think that lack of remorse should affect his case at the judicial level. Nor do we know for a fact that he isn't privately grieving and just staying silent for legal/institutional reasons.

To release some kind of statement, say his heart is with the kids and the widow. Which AFAIK he hasn't.

You only release a statement if you want to be eaten alive by leopards.

While ICE training seems to be questionable, I am reasonable sure there's a lawyer, administrator, or chief that strongly informed him "GOOD GOD DON'T SAY ANYTHING TO ANYONE ABOUT ANYTHING!"

And he loses still further sympathy points if it was him who said

slightly fascinated about how much attention this comment has gotten. Surely there's a good descriptor for the way certain insults are perceived as worse than rape or murder.

To release some kind of statement, say his heart is with the kids and the widow.

I would be surprised if more than one in a thousand lawyers wouldn't strongly try to dissuade you from doing this, even if you really wanted to.

General side-note, but it would be nice if we could figure out a way to let people express human decency in a way that doesn't potentially create legal liability

I do wonder if the cop is worried that putting out any statement could be seen as admitting guilt.

The usual advice when you are (or suspect you might be) facing legal proceedings as a defendant, whether on the civil or criminal side—regardless how innocent you think/know you are—is to only talk about it with your lawyer and remain silent otherwise.

If he's worried about that, he would be correct. The smart move is remaining silent.

Driving a car at a cop will result in being shot in any country where the cops have guns. Especially if you’ve already hit one. This woman won a Darwin Award.

That being said, I’m sympathetic to the idea that better policing practices could have saved her life, and the agent in question is almost certainly being advised not to speak to the media. We don’t really know what the result is going to be, but both the ‘ice committing cold blooded murder’ crowd and the admin are behaving irresponsibly in their rhetoric.

I agree that the claims that Good was somehow actively malicious, or that her death is anything else than a tragedy that shouldn't have occurred, are disgraceful.

I don't. She was obviously being malicious. She may (may) not have been deliberately, conciously attempting to murder a LEO, but at the very least she was acting with depraved indifference to the well-being of everyone around her, and having a great time and feeling extremely proud of herself for it.

If she had hit and killed that officer, she and her partner and all of her fellow protestors would likely have thrown a party.

There comes a point where stupidity (or "depraved indifference" for that matter) is functionally indistinguishable from malice.

I don't. She was obviously being malicious

I tend to agree. She was trying to be as obstructive as she could get away with; dancing as close as she could to the line; and she slipped over it.

There's a legal principle that the mental state for the commission of one wrong can substitute for the mental state of another. So if you are robbing a store and you accidentally shoot someone, that's treated as murder. I think the same kind of reasoning applies here to the morality of Good's actions, if not the legality.

There's a legal principle that the mental state for the commission of one wrong can substitute for the mental state of another. So if you are robbing a store and you accidentally shoot someone, that's treated as murder.

While the specifics vary by jurisdiction, US law typically breaks Murder/Homicide into four levels or "degrees"

  • First Degree Homicide: Intentional and premeditated infliction of injury leading to the death of another, IE the killer knew what they were doing and they purposefully set out to do it.
  • Second Degree Homicide: Infliction of injury leading to the death of another that is not premeditated but committed in the process of some other criminal activity. EG a bank robber may not have set out with the intention of killing anyone, but if they get into a gunfight or car chase with the police and someone dies as a result, they are going to be on the hook for it.
  • Third Degree Homicide: Infliction of injury leading to the death of another that was not premeditated nor committed in association any other crime. EG the old "Crime of passion" cliche. (Note: Some jurisdictions flip the 2nd and 3rd degrees)
  • Fourth Degree Homicide/Manslaughter: Unintentional infliction of injury leading to the death of another.

What you're describing is basically the second degree. Does it apply in the specific case of Renee Good? I don't know, it seems like a bit of an edge case given the circumstances. However, I do feel like someone would have to be coming form a position of significant privilege and entitlement to not recognize "I might get shot by the cops" as a possible (perhaps even likely) outcome of trying to forcibly evade or resist arrest.

What you're describing is basically the second degree.

Actually what I am describing is known as "felony-murder."

Does it apply in the specific case of Renee Good? I don't know, it seems like a bit of an edge case given the circumstances.

It doesn't really matter because Renee Good is not being charged with any crime. My only point is that by analogy, and from a moral perspective, the malice inherent in one wrong act can suffice to show that a related wrong act was malicious.

And he loses still further sympathy points if it was him who said "fucking bitch"

This cannot be a serious talking point. This is downright mild profanity compared to what I'd spew if I were hit by a car. Again.

It's kind of inline with some of the zeitgeist of the day.

https://archive.is/JQyEC#selection-561.0-565.189

Defense attorney Daniel Small said the most relevant evidence was recorded later, when security officers heard the wounded man shouting the racist slur and captured it on their body cameras as he described the incident.

"The most relevant evidence" is that after a man was stabbed, he called the stabber a bad word.

It's always hilarious to me when the political faction that justifies so many of their positions and behavior with the word "empathy" cannot imagine why, for example, someone might have unkind words to say about the person who just put them in a life-threatening situation.

And he loses still further sympathy points if it was him who said "fucking bitch", to say the last.

It's been a few days since I watched any of the numerous angles of the altercation, but my recollection is that whichever person said "fucking bitch" said it mere seconds after shots were fired. If indeed it was Ross who said it, I think it's entirely possible he didn't know Good was dead at the time of speaking.

Fair point. Still not a great thing to say about someone you may have just shot in the head on instinct, but admittedly more excusable on sheer adrenaline grounds.

Why do we care about the words? What was he supposed to say in the split second while his adrenaline was pumping after almost being run over “My heart goes out to her friends and family”?

If the shooting was warranted then any nasty words were warranted. If the shooting was unwarranted that is enough grounds to criticize him on, the words are irrelevant. This strikes me exactly as accusing him of murder, arson and jaywalking.

I mean again, I'm not saying the words, in any context, would warrant any kind of punishment. I'm only speaking of personal sympathy and judgment here. But to that very subjective extent, I don't think "if the shooting was warranted then any nasty words were warranted" follows. Taking a human life is a grave thing, even when it becomes necessary, and respect for the dead is an important part of civilized humanity. If you've just killed somebody, and the threat is passed, then you should ideally be somber, even contemplative; you should take time to make the gravity of what you have done sink in deep, even - indeed, especially - if you are confident that your actions were just. Insulting your victim beyond the grave like an action-movie thug is just not decent. I don't think insulting someone you've just killed is ever warranted, however justified the killing.

(Whether it is forgivable is a very different question, and again, to the extent that Ross(?) may have blurted it out because he was still in shock from her seemingly trying to kill him, it's an understandable emotional reaction much more than it is a moral lapse.)

Taking a human life is a grave thing, even when it becomes necessary, and respect for the dead is an important part of civilized humanity. If you've just killed somebody, and the threat is passed, then you should ideally be somber, even contemplative; you should take time to make the gravity of what you have done sink in deep, even - indeed, especially - if you are confident that your actions were just.

An hour or day later? Sure, though it's a grace she would have been very unlikely to offer back if she'd killed him instead.

Two seconds after she just put him in a life-or-death situation and hit him with her car, after a prolonged period of her acting like a fucking bitch Karen? When he very likely doesn't even know if she's dead or hurt?

You're being absurd.

though it's a grace she would have been very unlikely to offer back if she'd killed him instead.

Maybe. But if law enforcement are going to be lawfully empowered to kill people when necessary, in a way that ordinary people are not - and they know that this is part of their job when they sign up - then I am going to hold them to higher standards in how they conduct themselves on such occasions than a random felon.

When he very likely doesn't even know if she's dead or hurt?

But IMO that makes it worse. He doesn't know if she's dead, but he certainly knows he tried to kill her. His first priority "should" have been to in fact check if he'd actually killed her, or if perhaps she was injured in such a way that calling for urgent medical attention would be of some use, etc. Likewise, the idea that he said it partly because she'd been acting obnoxious before is not exculpatory in the least.

The entire argument for the killing being justified is that it was an attempt at self-preservation in the face of her presenting a sudden, unexpected, immediate threat to life in a way he could not have foreseen, and had only his instincts to fall back on. For interpersonal irritation at her earlier behavior to still have been a factor on his mind post-gunshot is mildly concerning for that narrative; it raises once again the possibility that he did in fact shoot her at least partly because he was mad at her. Which I don't believe is actually true, but it certainly doesn't help his case - that is, if you believe the sympathetic self-defense version of why he shot her then "obviously, if you expect him to shoot her, you expect him to curse her out as well" doesn't add up, because we're then talking about aaaaah-car-coming-at-me as the rationale for the shooting, not Mrs-Good-is-annoying-and-I'm-mad-at-her.

Basically I would like to think that if I was in the situation "someone is irritating me > suddenly out of nowhere they seem to attack me > I reflexively fight back > now I blink and they're dead", the kind of profanity that'd come to my lips would be more along the lines of "oh shit" than "what an obnoxious fuck". That Ross's mind-state trended more towards the latter tilts me ever-so-faintly in the direction of suspecting that he does not regard the act of killing with all the gravity it warrants. That's all.

Again, all it alters is my respect for Ross as a person, which isn't really here or there to anything, in the grand scheme of things. I'm not claiming anything more than "it makes him feel like a noticeably less likable person to me", and I don't see how that's absurd.

the kind of profanity that'd come to my lips would be more along the lines of "oh shit" than "what an obnoxious fuck".

That's a you thing. For myself, my initial reaction would probably be something like "You stupid asshole! (Why did you make me do that!?)"

But that's a reaction to your scenario, which skips the "attacker hits me with their car" step, in which case my language would likely be quite a bit worse.

A few minutes later, after I've left the scene and calmed down? Sure. Introspection, maybe grace. Two seconds after being hit by a car and shooting at someone in self defense? I'm more:

"Piece of shit pigfucking retard motherfucker asshole scumbag Karen bitch motherfucking shitstain waste of cum - holy shit, am I ok? Whew, I guess I'm not crippled. Where's the- Oh, fuck, did she die?"

If you hit somebody with a car, they get to reflexively curse at you. Sorry not sorry, those are the rules.

I contend the bullets were a lot more offensive than the words.

My concern is not offensiveness; my concern is excusability on the basis of survival instincts kicking in. Shooting at the threat as a split-second reaction to a belief that you are in sudden, life-threatening jeopardy is not necessarily a poor reflection on someone's character. Insulting someone you have just killed, who is no longer a threat to you and about whom, if you have any kind of conscience, you should be starting to wonder whether or not your knee-jerk survival instincts were justified - that is a more intellectual process, and as such, one that can be more readily judged. (Though less so the closer to the event, and thus, the more spontaneous/unreasoned, it was.)

Cursing somebody you believe yourself to have killed in self defense seconds after the act seems incredibly normal.

I didn't say it was abnormal, just rather less than saintly.

Is anyone asking for sanctity? Is that even a thing being discussed?

I was joking. Sorry. Yes I agree with you.

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.

There are certain tells that you know someone is lying about this. This is one of them.

By way of example, because I guess this is what schools do now, or maybe just my daughter's old school, "Please walk away" was the prescribed phrase kids were told to use when another kid was bothering them. Sounds polite right? Your inner monologue reading that probably made it sound as nice as can be, yeah?

Yeah, that's now how the kids say it. They've found a way to pour as much passive aggression, or even overt aggression, into that polite phrase as possible. It became a universal means of taunting. Get up in another kid's business who was quietly doing their work, and start chanting it at them in that shitty sing song way that comes so naturally to kids.

If you actually watched the video, you'd know how Good was saying "I'm not mad at you" was not at all matching the blank page reading of the words. Nor were her actual actions consistent with it, nor were the goads and taunts of her wife. And the fact the left is falling back on the same defense of their shitty behavior as a pack of feral 6 year olds is concerning to say the least. "But she said 'I'm not mad at you'! This is unfair!"

It reminds me of other protests actions I've seen, with crowds of antifa beating people senseless while shouting "nonviolence". Or punching people in the face doing nothing while screaming "I'm being attacked!" I don't know if the cognitive dissonance created by them saying the exact opposite of what they are doing is the point. Or if it's purely to enable liars like you (or maybe you are just repeating the lies you've been told, you are a liar by proxy. I'm not mad at you), to say with a straight face "The crowd was chanting 'nonviolence' as police fired tear gas canisters and waded into the crowd with riot gear".

Anyways, this whole screed is pack of half truths, lies of omission, and naked emotional pleading. I'd rather have a country, thanks.

The complicated but true thing is that Good appears to be de-escalating, but her wife is obviously escalating. It's tempting to treat them as a single unit, but that's not really true. Shocker: they are different people. And anyways, good policing is telling Good, "if you continue to block the road you will be arrested" and then taking it from there. Bad policing is for example the other agent reaching his hand into her window to try and unlock the door from the inside as she's got the car in gear. Bad policing is boxing in a car from all sides including the front with bodies. Good policing is using the minimum necessary force for a situation, something the policies and law alike instruct to do. Bad policing is jumping directly to force on a whim, and lethal force on a split second.

But all of this is beside the point to some extent. You are implicitly (!) alleging that Good is correctly and objectively categorized in with dishonest protestors who would punch a man while screaming they are being attacked. There's insufficient evidence to claim this. And that's the point about how strong the biases have become that you see this shooting and go "well, she/they deserved it".

Do you believe that the officer should be charged, or punished in some alternate way? I'm not asking what you think the result should be. I'm asking whether you think he should even be investigated and considered for punishment.

I'd also like you to address the Trump and Noem comments. It's plainly obvious that they are deceitful, that's not even really up for debate. How serious a problem do you think the comments are and why?

How on earth is insisting we go through the process for Ross risking not having a country? Talk about hyperbole. And you really don't think the overall response was callous in the slightest?

Do you believe that the officer should be charged, or punished in some alternate way? I'm not asking what you think the result should be. I'm asking whether you think he should even be investigated and considered for punishment.

My personal opinion is that this agent is too trigger-happy, possibly due to his having been attacked with a vehicle in the past, and that it would be appropriate to reassign him to different duty while he conducted psychological examinations and additional use-of-force training. But that's me holding him to a much higher standard due to him being a police officer. I don't think he should be criminally prosecuted or personally liable.

By way of example, because I guess this is what schools do now, or maybe just my daughter's old school, "Please walk away" was the prescribed phrase kids were told to use when another kid was bothering them. Sounds polite right? Your inner monologue reading that probably made it sound as nice as can be, yeah?

Not at all. My first impression is to read it as either a condescending sneer or a threat of violence, depending on the tone. It’s crazy that someone would offer that to children as a social script.

My first impression is to read it as either a condescending sneer or a threat of violence, depending on the tone.

"Just walk away." is the first thing I think of ... I can't believe it didn't make the Trope page!

It’s crazy that someone would offer that to children as a social script.

"He's pretty good!"

"Please walk away"

I am predicting that "I don't hate you" is gonna become a common right wing troll against leftists in the same way.

'I'm not mad at you!', even better. Should go to the same list as 'Bless your heart' (LOL), 'i'm sorry that you feel this way' (the way Japanese prime ministers 'apologized' for war crimes, I guess?), 'I hope one day you'll be able to feel less hated and persecuted' (h/t darwin2500).

Surely in saying this you're actually agreeing that Good was acting like a teasing teenager in a school hall or a sarcastic sitcom character, rather than like a domestic terrorist?

You seem to be implying that using these phrases is a kind of acting of the type: "teenager-y" which you juxtapose against "terroristy." It's you, you are the one being dishonest in exactly the way previously mentioned.

These phrases allow for a disconnect between the words and actions. What Good is saying is irrelevant to how she was acting. How she was acting is she struck someone with a car. The steelman for calling that a domestic terrorist is people use cars all the time for domestic terrorism.

I don’t think domestic terrorist in the right word. But she was part of an organized group trying to illegally, routinely thwart the legal exercise of federal police power. She was targeting civilians so I don’t terrorism fits the bill. But it isn’t civil disobedience either. It’s some third category.

If Regina George hits you with a car, did her Mean Girls taunting somehow positively affect the transfer of kinetic energy?

Two things can be true at the same time. She was being a profoundly obnoxious and immature criminal. Hardly unique, nor exculpatory.

I don't see how you've suddenly gone from this to supporting a mass militia of the government killing people.

Oh, like that thing that happened in 2020, perpetrated by the exact same people trying to disrupt law enforcement now (who functionally had absolute immunity for those actions especially given how the people who defended themselves from that were treated)?

If you don't see that, then you don't see this.

Bad shoot? Maybe. So was Babbit. Maybe try not to charge at law enforcement and obey simple verbal commands, then you won't die, seems simple enough to me. "Duty to account for local hysteria about federal law enforcement going to disappear random citizens to some black site" is simply not a thing a working system can tolerate- since you appear to feel the opposite, perhaps you can expand on the reasons why it's only OK for only one side to be protected when it claims this is a thing?

that they have lost empathy for a dead mother

An excess of empathy for human traffickers (and the trafficked) is the reason the US is even in this situation in the first place. MN could have enforced the immigration law but decided it didn't want to, so now the Feds are doing it for them, just like what happened in the '50s in the South- if you want to deny the legitimacy of this action, you must in turn also deny the legitimacy of that. And yes, enforcing laws on people who don't want them is always going to lead to this to some degree.

I'm a "the system works" kind of guy. This is not working.

Sure it is. This is a whatever-wing attempt to disrupt the logical consequences of an election they lost, and the fact they're failing is good from a conservative-as-in-stability-of-system point of view. The system failing would be federal law enforcement not being able to operate in the area at all, which was actually more true in the BLM days than it is now.

Oh no! Too much empathy! Too much due process! What horrific threats to the stability of the country! How pesky.

I suppose an excess of empathy can be a thing. At risk of getting too philosophical though, I'm pretty sure most schools of thought consider an excess of apathy (or worse, contempt) to be more dangerous in virtually every sense, yes? If we must err, let us do so on the side of empathy. And due process, for crying out loud.

Bad shoot? Maybe.

Yes! That's mostly what I'm asking for. My thesis was, if you recall:

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

Let's not whitewash the administration's position to be something more reasonable. The official position is that Good was a domestic terrorist, that leftists are "being trained and told how to use their vehicles to impede law." The official position is that ICE officers are immune from everything. That's baseless and insane.

Even now, a few days later, the narrative is further doubled down on and even supplemented:

the individual and her partner had been stalking, harassing and impeding law enforcement.

I'm going to be on the lookout for more information, but based on a video released today or yesterday of the minutes leading up to the shooting (conveniently clipped with a fade to black right before the actual shooting), this is also false. There are no agents around the vehicle until very shortly before the confrontation.

I suppose an excess of empathy can be a thing. At risk of getting too philosophical though, I'm pretty sure most schools of thought consider an excess of apathy (or worse, contempt) to be more dangerous in virtually every sense, yes? If we must err, let us do so on the side of empathy. And due process, for crying out loud.

If we must err on the side of empathy, then let us do so universally rather than selectively. Those decrying ICE are rarely acting out of universal empathy. For instance, did you know that MN has the largest number of indefinitely detained citizens in the country? Ie, it locks people up indefinitely with civil commitment to work around the due process that would be necessary for criminal detention in a process routinely defended by Democrats including progressives like Keith Ellison. They curiously don't get protesters out like ICE, despite being subject to consequences far worse than deportation.

Yeah, and in fact I hate that. I would never in a million years consider moving to Minnesota. It's definitely a violation of due process. My feelings are quite strong on the lack of sufficient public defenders and judges too, don't even get me started about speedy trials, though that's more universal (albeit no less serious!)

However if you had to choose between selective empathy and zero empathy the choice seems pretty... obvious?

Does it? Zero empathy seems better to me--inequality tends to build the kind of resentment that burns bridges rather than building them, while shared hardship tends to do the opposite.

I'm pretty sure most schools of thought consider an excess of apathy (or worse, contempt) to be more dangerous in virtually every sense, yes?

Perhaps. But an excess of empathy and an excess of apathy are two sides of the same coin, especially when the empathetic stand to gain financially, and the costs will not fall on the empathetic.

MN could have enforced the immigration law but decided it didn't want to

Not really, as I understand it, thanks to Arizona v. US (2012).

Conservatives were locked out of a state-by-state approach to immigration (which even then would have been derivative of federal law) and had to seize control of the federal government in order to enforce it.

traffickers

smugglers

Human trafficking and smuggling are two different crimes. However, the two are related and often intertwined. Human trafficking is involuntary and victims are exploited, whereas smuggling is voluntary, yet still bears life-threatening risks. A smuggling case can become human trafficking if the victims are exploited—for example, by being held for ransom, or to pay off a smuggling debt through forced labour or sex work.

Human trafficking is involuntary

The traffickers have often claimed migrations are involuntary, yes.

A smuggling case can become human trafficking if the victims are exploited—for example,

like a citizen holding that trafficked status over that person; "piss me off, and I'll report you to ICE".
Even the traffickers would agree that this would constitute unfair exploitation, though of course they have a sociofinancial incentive to say that anyway.

The reason human trafficking occurs in the first place is because men want a supply of cheap women to use and throw away.

This is the same thing, except it's women wanting cheap men to use and throw away. And those women call it trafficking when men benefit from it; so it doesn't make rhetorical sense to isolate a demand for rigor and only exempt one from the harsher language.

I am with @ToaKraka here. You just threw in "sympathy for traffickers" as a Boo-light.

Nobody (so far) seriously claims that the reason MN is soft on migrants is that they are feeling sorry for pimps who are importing sex slaves. You know fully well that the left is primarily sympathetic to the illegals, probably indifferent towards smugglers and probably hostile towards people trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

This is the same thing, except it's women wanting cheap men to use and throw away.

Even if I grant you for the moment that everyone who supports turning a blind eye towards illegal migration is motivated by using the male illegal immigrants as fuckbois (which seems a very far-fetched claim in itself), that is not trafficking. Consider: if I supported letting in a million hot single Latinas, in the hope that they will enter the dating market and make that market more favorable for men, that is not trafficking. I would have to add "... and then these Latinas will have no choice but to find a sugar daddy or starve" to even come close. Even then, this is not the central case of a trafficker, which is someone who gets paid for providing victims of exploitation.

if I supported letting in a million hot single Latinas, in the hope that they will enter the dating market and make that market more favorable for men, that is not trafficking

Of course not- mere encouragement of lawless action is not a crime. If instead you formed organizations to buy them all plane tickets and encouraged them to overstay their visas, and ran a campaign to suppress immigration enforcement, then I think you'd agree that would be trafficking.

this is not the central case of a trafficker, which is someone who gets paid for providing victims of exploitation.

But they are getting paid through that massive economic benefit they claim exists. Sure, we can dispute what that comes out to in practice, but the important thing is that they justify it because they believe it exists, so I judge them as if it does.

I would have to add "... and then these Latinas will have no choice but to find a sugar daddy or starve" to even come close.

Trafficked humans are not citizens, thus not entitled to any social services/welfare, so this condition holds. Indeed, you can find the male equivalent on the street corner- the only difference is that they're there in the morning, crowded around Home Depot.

by using the male illegal immigrants as fuckbois

You misunderstand: a foreigner X is "trafficked" when the reason for them being imported is that the fundamental reason to value a domestic X should go down, and a law was broken [or intended to be broken] to do that.

Men and women (and Red and Blue/"right" and "left" pursue the respective gender politics) are different, thus the way they bring value to society is different. Which is why the assertion that women would want to import men for sex is nonsense- that's not the value men provide to women. By contrast, sex is the value women provide to men, and when men see fit to devalue it we call that a sex crime. But the qualifier of "sex" is only there, and only important, as a statement that the crime attacked the fundamental value of a citizen with those characteristics.

So yes, I treat women seeking cheap labor outside the country as the same crime, with the same motivation, as men seeking cheaper sex is. If men and women are to be equal, then the former is just as serious a crime, with just as wicked an intent, as the latter is commonly held to be.

Hence, "human trafficking".

probably hostile towards people trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

I wouldn't grant that. The common attitude among the left towards sexual exploitation perpetrated by "oppressed peoples" is awkward doublethink. Regarding illegal immigration in particular, they actively encouraged illegal immigrants to show up with children, were quite indifferent about whose child it actually was, and then deliberately hampered oversight while losing track of tens of thousands of children.

I'm not sure that I've ever seen people on the left take human trafficking / sex trafficking seriously as a concern. They generally seem to treat any discussion of the topic as a bad faith attempt to restrict immigration or be racist at brown people.

I'm not sure that I've ever seen people on the left take human trafficking / sex trafficking seriously as a concern.

I've seen them cite the risk of an increase in sex trafficking as a reason to oppose the legalization of prostitution (example, found here).

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