This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
You're saying that the FBI framed several J6ers by "sprinkle some child pornography on him" ? source? would love to read up on this.
This is just what has been reported in the media.
Do people who were framed for CP usually submit a guilty plea? The only thing he’s contesting is that the search was illegal.
The other guy linked was Andrew Jackson, who apparently skipped the image step and got life in prison for actually molesting a kid.
Probably, because they aren't allowed to argue framing as a defense and the United States federal court system is well known for beating people, figuratively, into guilty pleas through intimidation via threatening cruelly long sentences if they don't plea and are found guilty. So, imagine, you are told by the judge you can't allege the government framed you in your trial. You can stage a half-defense at your trial, but if the jury doesn't buy it, since it is not the true defense, you will go to jail for 5 to 10 extra years. They plea out at this point.
And that is a federal matter how? Because the kid will at some point cross state lines in interstate commerce? How is that relevant to J6? It seems suspicious. People lie and slander each other all the time, what if the allegations were produced by the J6 investigation and are not true?
I'm going to reply here to keep the conversations we have together concentrated.
I don't doubt that instances of this happens. But for this particular case you cited, I see that Daniel Tocci plead guilty to child pornography. Let's say he was intimidated and framed into pleading a guilty plea on "sprinkle some child porn on him", well, this is the perfect administration and the perfect FBI director with a great conservative media system who would love to hear this story and spread it as far and as wide as possible. His defense attorney also doesn't seem like the type to let his client make such a plea seeing as they're fighting on procedural ground for evidence dismissal. If the injustice to Daniel Tocci is real, Trump is right there in the correct spot to help him.
I would love to have a different example where you can point to J6er defendant intimidation/framed.
Trump's blanket pardon applied to Tocci and then the DoJ argued that it should not apply to easily-frameable, obscene photo possession cases, but should apply to hard-to-frame illegal gun possession cases springing from J6 searches. What kind of logic is that? And IIRC that logic worked, and Trump stood down because he can't afford to look like that guy with all the Epstein stuff going on. It would be the perfect framing these days, it's like a witch allegation 400 years ago, anyone who gets in the way of it also gets accused and it's incredibly easy to frame more people.
well this is a different argument isn't it? Trump pardoned the J6 stuff, and looks like the DOJ is arguing that evidence of other crimes collected during J6 investigation should not be prosecuted further. And yes, looks like they're only doing that for the politically defensible stuff. And yes that's bad because it's inconsistent.
But what you're saying happened to Daniel Tocci is clearly a lot different: intimidation, planting of evidence, and framing of child porn possession. Again, if Daniel is innocent, there are now plenty of platforms in which he can tell his story.
In addition, based on what I can find, "[s]ix of the pardoned January 6th insurrectionists are charged with committing child sex crimes, ranging from sexual assault to possession of child pornography." (I think I counted only 2 with child porn charges). Seeing as there's 1.5k+ J6ers, that's a very very very small amount of people being framed. I can easily see at least an order of magnitude more and most people won't bat an eye. I also don't see any reason why Daniel Tocci is so special that he needed child porn planted. Occam's razor points to that Daniel Tocci was highly likely already in possession of child porn.
I still believe it has not been proven that he wasn't framed, and therefore he isn't guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But I agree it would be a rogue framing and not systemic action by the US federal government. My priors on him already possessing it are low because I'm skeptical anybody actually enjoys obscene photographs, I'm skeptical such a person would go to J6, see the news about investigations, and choose not to throw it away or at least encrypt it, and I am generally skeptical that the few people who do enjoy such material actually let it sit around in a giant downloaded collection unencrypted. When you add all of these priors up and combine it with FBI agents being allowed to posses and distribute the obscene photographs, I'm thinking it's more likely a rogue agent or technician, motivated by hatred for MAGA, planted it, knowing that Trump would likely pardon him for the J6 behaviors.
Just as you think "it has not been proven that he wasn't framed", you also haven't provided evidence strongly against "it has not been proven that he was framed". And I do think Daniel Tocci has a lot of avenues to pursue justice if he so desires. At the very least, he probably can get someone whom he trusts to lay out the evidence that he was framed.
Uhhhhhhhh, I mean out of 1.5k+ people, only one or two did so, is it really that surprising? My priors is that people who would follow a liar are not that intelligent, they are depressed about the loss of their political idol, stressed about news of investigations, or just stupidly overconfident, and let things slip. I don't know anyone who like obscenity but there's a reason why anime is looked down upon because of the weeb's penchants for lolis, and that's the public ones, who knows what they do in private.
So this person, a rogue agent, or this group of people, a rouge group, was able to plant:
This rogue agent, or this group of rogues, was able to pull the wool over the judge (who could be part of the group), all the people that handled chain of evidence (who could also be part of the group), and the defense attorney (who could also be part of the group), and the interrogators (who could also be part of the group) would put pressure on Daniel Tocci so that even though he's innocent would then plead guilty. And they must have done it with future sight because their search (and therefore planting of the evidence) was done November 2023, a full year before the 2024 November election. And of all the J6ers, they just decided to plant evidence on this random Daniel Tocci guy.
Look, I am always ready for stories of systematic abuse of power and coverups. No need to look further than the Catholic Church and Boston to know that decades of widespread wrongdoing and injustice can escape the public eye. But that proves the point: there was a system that worked its weight to let the crime happen and then coverup the crime. Like I said, if framing Daniel Tocci was so easy, I would have expected an order of magnitude more at the very least (so 20+ instead of 2) also had that done to them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link