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So like, I understand that these people and their lawyers are just trying to find a way to stay out of prison, but it's still absolutely stunning to me that anybody can say with a straight face that a bunch of folks who all showed up at the same place at the same time wearing the same thing carrying loaded rifles and explosives, who then all participated in throwing those explosives at a bunch of police officers, were actually a bunch of totally unrelated individuals with completely independent and totally legal motives after one of them shot a police officer. Like yeah, I get it, you want to put up the best legal defense you can and you can't exactly admit that you were knowingly organizing terrorism, but who are they actually expecting to buy that?
Never underestimate 'There can't be any "members" of Antifa. It's just an idea, not an organization, bro.'
I get a distinct 'something is off' feeling every time I hear someone say that. I don't know why exactly but I'd like a name for it. Like when you hear something you know is wrong but also know that if you tried to explain why you'd be getting nowhere.
Because it looks like the person using it is creating a fig leaf of an argument so an allied group will never be held responsible.
It's an attempt at bullshit. It isn't really about truth but is just an attempt to convince (or, more likely, just deflect and waste time long enough to dissipate actionable outrage) so what's the point in trying to get into a factual debate about it?
The person has revealed themselves to be a partisan.
As a side note, that's one of the things I find really annoying about these Leftist activist types. For example, suppose they block a highway and get arrested and prosecuted for it. I would have a tiny bit of respect for them if they would own up to what they did, take their licks, and accept their sentence of 100 hours of community service or whatever. But instead, their MO is to spin, lie, etc., do whatever they can to avoid punishment for their wrongdoing.
What does your tiny bit of respect matter to them compared to not being punished by the laws they believe are unjust?
That's an interesting question and I think it touches on one of the core parts of the issue I was raising. So there are laws against blocking traffic; disrupting gatherings; arson; destroying people's property; etc. Do Leftists believe that these laws are unjust? I tend to doubt it. If someone destroyed their property; disrupted their gatherings; etc., they would freak out and demand that the offenders be punished. So what's really going on is that they simply believe they have carte blanche to break the law because in their self-serving judgment they are "punching nazis" or "fighting fascism" or whatever.
A point that MattyY makes is that acts of civil disobedience work because they play on existing faultlines and sympathies. Which is why stopping traffic for Gaza does nothing. It's just a cargo cult licensing their Main Character Syndrome.
That is why they should care, insofar as they care about their cause at all and it's not an excuse to impose their will: you don't need to earn omw_68's specific respect, but you probably need to earn it from some segment of society if you want to make sweeping changes to very big systems or policies.
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Wrongdoing? What wrongdoing. They did no wrong. And besides, punishment would harm their enjoyment of those social acitivities. Taking punishment isn't part of the plan; punishment for socially just acitivities would be injustice, after all! If it can be avoided, then that is justice. And what do they care about your opinion, anyways? You're probably a fascist anyways, or at least a violently-silent bystander who refuses to take the correct side.
They're engaging in a socially accepted and promoted social activity (just not accepted by the wrong people whose opinions are wrong) with a thin veneer of sanctity-within-the-civil-religion, why ever from their own perspective would they want to take punishment for it?
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"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." - George Orwell
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Just like the "youth club" one town over isn't an antifa cell, it just so happens to be staffed and frequented by people who organize questionably-legal political activities together while wearing antifa regalia, quoting antifa slogans and distributing antifa media.
It's a good thing we can just close our lying eyes and decide to stop seeing.
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"Antifa activists" is a parallel to "Environmental activists". You can't be a member of "Environmental" either, because it's just an idea, not an organization.
Nobody cares about that fine distinction for environmentalism, like when Sea Shepherd ships ram whalers or when Last Generation Canada members throw paint on museum pieces. Outsiders recognize that the disparate groups (and non-affiliated individuals) all share a common goal and philosophy, and treat them as a coherent entity. This is as it should be.
Antifa is the leftiest of the left wing, so its adherents use tactics like "[not] Fucking Tell[ing] Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Social and Political Changes You Demand". 1984 may have overreached a bit when it said if you can't name something you can't think about it (hence the Party making Newspeak), but it sure does make it harder to legislate against something if you can't establish a definition first.
Why is it "as it should be" to look at environmentalists using low resolution? Surely there is a significant difference between a scientist studying climate change models who calls for using less fossil fuels, on the one hand, and Ted Kaczynski on the other. And plenty of people make the distinction, indeed it is unusual not to.
Notice that you yourself picked two particularly militant examples of environmentalists.
Even if you mean "nobody cares about that fine distinction for militant environmentalists", that is not true. Most people make a distinction between people who throw paint on museum pieces and Ted Kaczynski, and recognize that not only do their actions have different moral qualities, but they can also in no way be said to be part of the same organization. Indeed, since Kaczynski acted alone, his actions cannot be characterized as being the actions of any environmentalist association whatsoever.
To look at people who share common (or somewhat common) goals and philosophies as belonging to a coherent entity is the type of low resolution thinking that perhaps makes sense in the face of an existential threat, when there is no time to try to use higher resolution and to do so would decrease one's emotional willingness to fight, but even in that kind of a situation it would be just an expedient, not something that is good in itself.
I question your characterisation of Kaczynski as an environmentalist. I don't recall him mentioning climate change or acid rain even once in his manifesto. He was opposed to modernity primarily for what he saw as its deleterious effects on the human psyche, not for its impact on the environment.
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Unless you specifically mean Ted Kaczynski, and not violent eco-activists generally, this is complete nonsense, and of course people think they're a part of the same movement.
The reason Kaczynski doesn't fit is that he was following a different set of ideas than environmentalism, not because he was violent.
Even the militancy is hardly relevant. Few people bother drawing distinctions between violent and not violent Nazis, or violent and non-violent Jihadis.
Jihadis and Nazis, whether non-violent or violent, are pursuing evil aims. At least some environmentalists are pursuing good aims.
Bringing humanity to the light of Allah, doesn't sound evil in and of itself to me, and even a good leftist will find lots to agree with even in the OG Nazi party platform. So I don't see a reason to allow this kind of picking and choosing for one, but not the other.
I don't think this is the same kind of "picking and choosing". Sure, not all the aims of jihadis and Nazis are evil, but all jihadis and Nazis pursue at least some evil aims - whereas many (most?) environmentalists have wholly good aims. Thus any given jihadi or Nazi, even if they're non-violent, has some amount of evil intent, while the same is not true of a given non-violent environmentalist.
(And anyway, insofar as "bringing humanity to the light of Allah" is ultimately a euphemism for "enslaving humanity to the tyrannical will of a supernatural being" I would consider that an evil aim in itself, even before the specific of shariah law are taken into account.)
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The same people who say that, also say that "white supremacy" or "nazis" are a real threat to society, despite "white supremacy" also being "just an idea, not an organization," and also literally zero of the people they accuse of being "nazis" self-identify as such.
The term for this is "being disingenuous," aka "pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible"
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I mean, it isn't an organization the same way, say, the NAACP is, where there are local chapters and a national office and membership lists and a full-time staff. It's more like the Crips, where various local crews of a dozen guys will wear the colors but aren't beholden to any larger organization. This is assuming that people still identify as antifa and it isn't just an insult political opponents lob at people they don't like who presumably engage in certain practices.
Indeed, these people didn't identify as Antifa- IIRC, they identified as members of the john brown gun club, one of several groups that people refer to when they say 'antifa'.
Splitters!
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"Corruption" is just an idea too; that doesn't stop us from punishing those who advance its cause.
The difference is that corruption refers to a specific set of practices, many if which are illegal and most of which violate ethics rules. Antifa is a theoretical set of political opinions that can result in illegal activity, but the activit isn't antifa in and of itself, and holding certain opinions isn't illegal.
No, corruption is the idea that your personal goals are so important that you're willing to break the law to accomplish them. Antifa, therefore, is simply corruption by another name.
It isn't illegal to be a member of the Mafia either, but they're never punished for that; they're punished for the evil, corrupt actions that naturally arise from that idea taken to its logical conclusion.
I think this is an overly expansive definition.
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I'd say "betray your responsibilities", not "break the law". Not all corruption is illegal and not all premeditated crimes are corrupt.
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Give a fig leaf so a sympathetic juror can do some jury nullification?
Not just he jury. Usually they operate in areas where the prosecutor and judges are friendly.
If something like this happened in Portland only the shooter would have been charged and they would have found an excuse to let him plead down.
I agree. I do think their biggest mistake was trying this in Texas.
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In this case, though, the charges were federal, so local judges and prosecution are less of a factor.
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I suppose one of the major mistakes these people made, in terms of getting away with their crimes, was committing them in Texas where a jury of their peers will consist entirely of Texans.
There are shitlibs, resistancelibs, and blue tribe tribalist tards in Texas. Probably very few in Johnson county, but immigration jails aren't built in downtown Dallas.
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The first mistake was committing the crimes in the first place. The second mistake was using electronic communications to discuss their crimes. Committing them in a jurisdiction where the jury might not be as sympathetic as it could be is pretty far down the list.
Seems to me that apart from shooting the cop, they weren't committing any crimes that haven't successfully been committed all over the country for years by their fellow travelers. Seems that shooting a cop is the threshold for getting the book thrown at you, and as long as you don't do that you can just keep doing low level terrorism forever.
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Zoomer criminals just leave the damn phone at home challenge [IMPOSSIBLE!!!].
Leaving your phone at home can also be presented as evidence of intent to commit a crime, especially if your usual pattern is to carry it with you everywhere. This has been successfully presented as circumstantial evidence by prosecutors at trial in various cases.
I think the argument is intended to be that since you carry your phone everywhere and the phone was at home, you must have been too.
If the intent is to use the phone as an alibi based on location data, the issue is that modern phones track a lot more than just rough location. Eg. unlock/lock events, movement, checking notifications, etc. For a habitual phone user, a gap of a few hours with absolutely no activity in the middle of the day looks pretty odd. Especially when a digital forensics expert could compare it to the pattern of life for the last six months or something.
And if they get any indication that the suspect left their house (eg. vehicle GPS, red light camera, neighbor's Ring camera) now they are caught lying, plus leaving the phone at home looks like preparation for an illegal act.
We're not an antifa group, that's just an idea. We're a book and movie club. We all met at Agatha's house where we watched One Battle After Another and then debated it over vegan snacks. That's why all of our phones were in one place and turned off for the duration.
Kevin McCallister could handle these arrangements. I believe in our leftist terrorists, that they too can aspire to the level of planning and agency displayed by a fictional 8 year old from 1990.
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@urquan
Yeah, the unstated premise there was "assuming you don't get caught". If you get busted in flagrante delicto then I can see how that would make things worse. But if you even hoped to get away with it, not having the tracking device in your pocket with a time-stamped trail is a good idea.
I think it's possible that even if they left phones at home, the police were able to obtain them by getting search warrants for their homes after arresting them. From there, if the phones were already on, and using biometrics for unlocking, the police don't even need sophisticated methods to access the messaging apps on them.
One of the lessons has to be to turn off the face/fingerprint unlocks on the phone you use to plan terrorism.
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