domain:alexberenson.substack.com
If I were to try and make a fancy title for my opinion on the Texas anti-ICE attack, I'd call it 'How I Had To Figure My Way Out Of A False Flag Suspicion.'
I was hoping to do a writeup on this incident, since the Antifa attack has some ties to a post last month on how the Democratic civil war will give the Trump administration a lawful basis to go after parts of the background Democratic coalition. Antifa is a fringe part of that coalition, but still a part, and this certainly counts as a basis to go after a network. I was holding off because Ngo's article- while informative- had several 'weird flag' indicators that had me raising an eyebrow and waiting for information to dispel a possible false flag / misattribution.
One of the weird things was the mix of preparation and self-affiliation. Preparation is usually a sign of competence, but self-incrimination is usually incompetent, unless it's intended for a false-attribution, in which case incompetence can be explained by even greater competence.
On the preparation side, there was clear material preparation for first, second, and even third order consequences. From the Ngo article, the plan was to use fireworks and graffitti as a flashy / damaging, but low danger, way to bring out the ICE agents. Then the responders would be ambushed by the gunmen with, well, lethal guns, even as the team had personal radios for their own communication. At least a limited firefight was prepared for with body armor. An electromagnetic blocking device, i.e. a jammer, could then be used to frustrate the secondary response units, any ICE-Police coordinations, and otherwise help with the escape. The assailants appear to have fallen back and retreated through the immediately adjacent woods. They had a getaway car plan as well.
This is a multi-step plan that supports a level of sophistication and prior thought. This is competent, dangerous, and effective small-unit tactics that comes from training and deliberate preparation.
But then you have some of the incompetent aspects that suggest the planners were going for tacti-cool rather than tactical advantage. At least seven of the militants dressed in all black, as opposed to useful camouflage or even clothes to help blending in with normal people on the escape. Pure-black 'looks good,' but it's more a uniform for official police teams to distinguish or play to light contrasts in overt contexts- it makes as much sense in a guerilla force as thinking that historical ninjas actually dressed in all black, as opposed to the black uniform being the stage-show theater dress to make it obvious. They used AR-15s, which are not, despite years of anti-gun campaigning, particularly good rifles for waging war (or insurgency). They discarded their AR-15s, leaving evidence behind in literal walking distance of the target. Some of the discarded AR-15s were found jammed, suggesting poor weapon handling... or, reported later, weapon modification attempts to increase rate of fire. This theory of 'more bullets = better' is not actually better in general, since a good part of the value of a semi-automatic rifle for small teams is that the slower rate forces better shooting fundamentals for reliability per shot, rather than wasting ammo faster for less gain.
And then there's the backpack with antifa literature. Just... why?
This, more than anything, got my 'is this a trick?' allergy going, because this is the sort of thing someone could do to try an inflame political tensions for its own sake as a false-flag action.
Leave behind left-coded Antifa literature to feed the initial view of a blue tribe attack. The right-coded AR-15s as a symbol of red tribe means. The mix of high-competence (a group who knew what they were doing) and low-competence (a group who were making incredibly basic mistakes) that could in and of itself be used to dismiss / deflect initial attributions. 'Of course it's Antifa- the literature matches the motive matches the target in attacking ICE!' could be deflected with 'Of course it's not Antifa- Antifa would be more competent, it's obviously a fake by a red tribe domestic extremist. Right wing extremists are obviously military competent, and look- they used the scary AR-15!'
This is the sort of narrative motivation that could support a broader variety of 'true' actors. Anyone with a 'maximize for heat, not light' could want that sort of recrimination spiral. It could be right-wing accelerationists. It could be the Antifa actors seeking to maximize (in)famy while invoking a circle-the-wagons effect of their left-tribe brethren. It could even be foreign agitators. If you want to accelerate a conflict in another country, the ideal false flag is to do something that elements in the target country would plausible want to or even try to do. It's not like this would be the first Antifa attack on a ICE facility.
To be clear, a false flag is not the assessment I would make from the initial information. But it's not a scenario I would rule out either. One of the most effective ways to do a false flag attack is to do something that non-trivial parts of an existing political coalition's fringes wishes (someone else) would do. And with the recent Democratic politician accounts in the (increasingly visible) Axios "Democrats told to "get shot" for the anti-Trump resistance" article, there are certainly people who think fighting ICE and Trump is the good fight.
Which is why another of the really weird things about Ngo's initial big post was how it didn't support that this was an actual Antifa cell in the first place, particularly when the initial government accounts didn't make that claim.
Ngo didn't actually provide evidence that these people were Antifa in the original article. Ngo makes the claim, but his supporting evidence in his post is that there was Antifa literature in a backpack of one of the caught shooters- aka, the sort of very easy thing to do if one wanted to insinuate Antifa. Ngo also cites fundraising by Antifa-linked people in support of the shooters... but the political tribal sympathy nature of tribal fundraising is also well established, and doesn't rely on prior association. Ngo does not actually cite any Antifa organization / social media / group that claimed the shooters as their own, or cite any of the shooters self-identifying as Antifa.
One reason I'd been holding off posting on this was hoping that follow-on media reporting would clarify the affiliation. It largely did not. The Washington Examiner released an article repeating the claim, but they did not really justify it either. The WE article did include a reachout to the FBI, but didn't attribute any Antifa attribution to the FBI. Then again, the FBI is often mum with ongoing investigations. The New York Times article does not make the antifa attribution... but this could be explained on partisan grounds of omitting politically unfavorable context. (Another weird(?) thing of the NYT article- no comment section. Not all NYT online articles get to have comment sections, but enough do that sometimes it can be seen as a choice not to.)
So I was waiting for yesterday's Department of Justice charging statement. I would imagine that at least some in the Trump DOJ would like to emphasize an antifa connection if they could. But there is no mention of Antifa in the DOJ statement.
So, not Antifa?
Well, not quite. Not only has there not been the sort of firm denunciation/separation that would be expected if a group was not affiliated with the broader political spectrum (as with other politically-sympathetic but unaffiliated political violence attempts over the years), but there's also Benjamin Song.
If you don't recognize his name from the OP article, that's because he was not one of the ten identified in Ngo's initial article, or the NYT article of the incident, or in the initial DOJ statement of charges.
The Dallas Express has published a much more extensive look at a specific (but still at large) suspect, which gives more compelling evidence of a specific connection via one (still wanted) suspect: Benjamin Song.
The Dallas Express writer is not entirely neutral- the left-skeptical political bias of which was probably why they got the presumably FBI-supported information for the article- but it provides a bit more specific claims that are contestable by others. So far none seriously have been, but these are at least falsifiable. To quote-
Song was a member of the militant Antifa group Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, and he had a history of left-wing radicalism.
This, at least, is falsifiable. And elaborated upon, with a history that suggests a clear pattern of 'helping others with violence.'
He was a member of the violent Antifa group Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, known for intimidating people outside drag shows. Song faced a lawsuit for “battery, assault, stalking, and conspiracy” after a confrontation at a 2023 drag show, as The Dallas Express reported. During the event, Fort Worth Police busted violent members of Song’s group.
Song was also reportedly a member of the Socialist Rifle Association. A transgender suspect, accused of shooting and bombing a Tesla dealership, was part of the same organization.
He trained Antifa in firearms and combat in 2022, according to a video uncovered by journalist Andy Ngo.
The account that posted the video – “Anarcho-Airsoftist” – is an apparent Antifa training ground in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Notably, according to his alleged LinkedIn account, Song was formerly a martial arts instructor. The account* showed participants learning to fight.
Before he trained Antifa militants, Song was arrested for “aggravated assault” at a riot in Austin during 2020, according to KVUE.
And, of course, where he got his skill set-
Song was a member of the Marine Corps reserves from 2011 to 2016, when he was dismissed on an “other than honorable discharge,” as The Dallas Express reported. According to LinkedIn, he “managed up to 60 Marines” and “managed, organized, and accounted for inventory worth over $1 million” during his time with the service. His profile stops after this.
For those unfamiliar, 'other than honorable discharge' is the 'you are being kicked out for causes that don't necessarily raise to the level of a felony' that typically accompanies the dishonorable discharge. 'Up to 60 marines' in turn scales to between a larger-than-normal platoon or a smaller-than-normal company. 'Managed' insinuates, but does not imply, a platoon leadership position- rather, when mixed with the inventory metric, suggests an administrative role. This does not imply he was not also tactically proficient, but would explain additional skill sets in organization.
And with this, some of the earlier discrepancy falls into place. We are not talking about a group of an average consistent quality that must be competent or incompetent. We can be looking at a cell with a more-competent organizer, a former Marine who taught tactical skills, and less-competent line members.
Which also helps explain another weird flag in the initial report, of how 10 suspects were arrested... but 12 sets of body armor were recovered.
And why Song is still at large.
From the Dallas Express-
[Song] allegedly bought four guns used in the ICE facility ambush on July 4, which wounded an Alvarado police officer, as The Dallas Express reported. He reportedly hid in the woods near the scene for a day after the shooting, then fled.
This, if true, could be a result of a particularly competent technique. Two, possibly. One way to hide something valuable is to hide it in relation to something extremely visible and attention-grabbing, so that to observer's attention is drawn away. Another is to use a sacrifice play, so that the person who searches finds a first, and expendable, asset, but doesn't know to keep looking for the more valuable, and better hidden, asset.
If immediate police response finds 10 suspects fleeing a scene... what are the odds there is another still hiding for the attention to drift further away, to depart under better conditions once the initial surge of attention starts drifting and looking further away?
Of course, there are limits to this level of competence- limits that are explainable by the limits of Song and of chance. If he was a small-unit-tactics focused Marine for only 6 years, that would suggest limited exposure to the sort of investigation/exploitation awareness that might have led him to plan better on the evidence disposal. He didn't know what he didn't know, and thus didn't prepare for them, which is how investigators could unravel things relatively quickly afterwards. He might have typically-minded his Antifa cell members and not overseen them.
And, of course, the rapid capture of specific members- especially the get-away driver- allowed a rapid exploitation of evidence / safe house / etc. while he was still in his hide-and-escape phase. This was not part of the plan, and was an issue of chance, probably. If that getaway driver hadn't been caught, then the members might not have been captured, the staging base might not have been identified, and so on until Song could get back, clear out, and cover his tracks before the police found it.
Or maybe those preparations wouldn't have been enough either. Point is- the police response that found the getaway driver, something that might have been pre-empted by the jammer or if the police car had taken a different route or any number of things, created a vulnerability in the getaway plan. That's not necessarily incompetence on his part.
Song specifically has since appeared in more reputable, mainstream, and Democratic-Party-respected media like ABC, Newsweek, and CBS. This is consistent with standard media industry practice to support government requests to publicize criminals to increase their profile and make it easier to solicit tips to lead to their capture.
None of the above media sources mention Song's antifa affiliation.
Same vibes as my series (is three a series?) of "unenviable lives" posts, which in turn was, I suppose, inspired by many Slate Star Codex posts about Scott's (aggregated for anonymity) patients. These are not people who write thoughtfully about their (actual) lives in extended blog posts; these are Henry David Thoreau's "mass of men," who "lead lives of quiet desperation." Only, you often wouldn't even know it, they do not seem to express any desperation. They're just living their wildly suboptimal lives, and the people observing this (in those cases where people observe it) can only wonder at the seemingly unnecessary tragedy of each successive move.
Aristotle famously (now, infamously) thought it quite obvious that some people are born "masters," and some born "slaves." Contemporary thinkers are of course quick to point out the problems with Aristotle's arguments (for example, he regarded Greeks as natural born masters, and everyone else as natural born slaves) but most carefully avoid noticing those circumstances in which Aristotle seems to have been obviously correct. To this day, children in Western nations are frequently treated in the Aristotelian way: as "slaves" in substantially ancient Greek fashion. The 1000 Word Philosophy link says:
The second premise, that there are human beings who lack the capacity to deliberate, might be true in some cases – perhaps those with severe brain damage or advanced dementia – but they are certainly not who Aristotle had in mind.
This is true just to this point: Aristotle would suggest that people who are temporarily or accidentally impaired are not slaves by nature. But he would I think readily agree that they are slaves, as he means it, insofar as they are impaired! And sure enough: in the United States, it is possible to become subject to the rule of another, in the form of conservatorships, guardianships, etc. I cheerfully grant that these have more safeguards and checks and hurdles than would have been encountered (or even conceived of) in ancient Greece! But in Aristotelian form we still substantially enslave people today. We justify it by insisting it is only and exclusively for their own good, of course, or perhaps for the safety of others (as in the case of enslaving much of our incarcerated population, per the Constitutional permit to do so). But focusing in on people who are wards of their family or the state as a result of impaired reasoning (i.e. due to IQ below 70): if an IQ of 69 can trigger a "guardianship," why not an IQ of 70? Or 71? And even above those thresholds, other impairments--youth, drug addiction, or mental illness, for example--also apply.
We draw lines in law because, it is often suggested, "we have to draw the line somewhere," and that is perhaps true as a practical matter. But reason and agency seem to be more of a spectrum, and a quick Google search suggests that more than a fifth of the population has an IQ falling between 70 and 90--the range from "borderline retarded" to "low average." These are people I suspect Aristotle would want to put in the "natural slave" bin (assuming, of course, they aren't Greek!). Why? Because it would be better for them, in so many ways, to have their lives managed by someone with greater executive functioning. This, even though they are certainly intelligent enough to survive on their own. In the modern world we outsource this--we increase the perception of independence through subsidies and welfare and wealth redistribution, but wards of the state are still wards, and the fact that they are not forced into hard labor as a result is predominantly a function of contemporary abundance. To whatever extent taxation is slavery (PDF), we often enslave the free in order to free the slave!
But the natural slave cannot ultimately be freed; they can only be managed well, or managed poorly. Left to their own devices, they will manage themselves poorly. Aggressively managed ("literally enslaved"), they will lash out against the strictures of the arrangement, often violently (the free citizens of slave societies live ever in fear of revolt). How much of the history of "government" is the history of developing increasingly sophisticated methods for obfuscating the nature and extent of the bondage imposed on the "mass of men," not only for their own ultimate benefit, but for the benefit of all? And--to what extent might we as a people be slowly forgetting that, as we seek to "liberate" those masses, by continuing to give them the resources of life, while withdrawing (or declining to enforce) any guidance?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13hr ago
This post is about Tariffs, again, lest I be accused of burying the lede. Just read the last two paragraphs if you don't enjoy window dressing.
China tightened regulations on real estate developers in 2020. Xi Jinping stated 'houses are for living, not speculation.' Ghost cities, huge numbers of Chinese citizens owning multiple houses as investment vehicles, I assume you're all familiar with the stories after five years of news stories and discussion. Economists and western commentators largely agreed that the policies were A Really Bad Idea due to the ensuing chaos and meltdown in property prices.
To which I have to say ...what? They said they wanted to reduce housing costs! What did you think that would look like? How else are you going to do it? And what do you think it would look like to 'make housing more affordable' in the USA? If the YIMBYs and neoliberals abundance socialists get their way, home prices are going to tank here too. This is a good thing! Maybe there's some Chestertonian benefit to the upwards spiral of housing costs, but this here's a fence I'm ready to take a torch to.
Anyways, to inch closer to the issue at hand - I have to confess that I had some tepid enthusiasm for Trump returning to office. Despite it all, I'm still an Elon stan and I thought some of the Dogemaxxers might have cogent arguments. I had some hope for racking up some China tariffs, eating bitterness for a few years and coming out the other end as a cohesive autarkical bloc of NATO + AUKUS + Japan + South Korea + anyone not named Putin or Jinping we can convince to join the squad. Setting aside my disappointments with Trump 2.0...
I'm utterly perplexed by the dialogue around tariffs? I can remember breathless fearmongering about shortages, empty shelves, inflation all spring. People on reddit posted invoices where what used to be a 10,000$ order from China was now over 50,000$. And yet...none of this chaos has come to pass? As far as I can tell, TACO is somewhat responsible, but also, average US tariff rates are just over 50% on Chinese goods?. Is it all TACO? If 50% tariffs have been painless, do you expect me to believe that 100% tariffs will truly be apocalyptic to the US economy? Do any of the firmly anti-tariff crowd have an explanation or prediction to make?
And on the other side, I fully expect victory laps and crowing about 4D chess from the 'Trump BTFOs retarded soyboy economics ExPeRtS crowd' again, but if the tariffs are painless and everyone is still buying cheap shit from China, aren't we losing??? Isn't the inflation, the spike in prices and the empty shelves the point of this whole exercise? Why are you promising people it will be painless, rather than YesChadding and telling them that the pain is the goal? You can have affordable housing when you're willing to accept that your own home will depreciate in value, and you can have low-skill manufacturing in your country when you're willing to accept higher prices for your goods. Eat bitterness with a smile on your face. Tell your daughter she only gets two dolls instead of 30 this Christmas because communism uncle Jerry with the high school degree needs a better job.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
19hr ago
While I agree with you, for the most part:
This is bullshit. Especially as the beatings would likely be administered by the husband with no judicial oversight. I mean, sure, if the husband had beaten his wife for no reason on the general principle that she should live in terror of him, it would have been very likely that she would not have picked up her hobby of sexting convicts. But this is like suggesting that cobalt bombs are a good way to stop wildfires in California: while technically correct, the cure would be worse than the disease.
Despite what Western media reporting might have you believe, the rate of petty crime in India is surprisingly low. People rarely get pick-pocketed or robbed. Do you know why?
Because if caught in the act, the perpetrator would be rather unceremoniously beaten to a pulp, both by whoever caught them, and any civic minded individuals present. You can get a nice crowd going, it's fun for the whole family.
This is of course, strictly speaking, illegal. Yet any police officer, if asked to intervene, would laugh, shake their head and say the criminal deserved it. If the crook had the temerity to file charges, he'd probably be taken out back and given a second helping to change his mind.
As far as I'm concerned, this is strictly superior to prevailing Western attitudes regarding property crimes or theft. A shopkeeper who discovers someone shoplifting has very little legal recourse, the police rarely do any more than file a report and then give up on pursuing the matter. Giving them the de-facto right to take matters into their own hand and recover their property? The shopkeeper wins. Polite society wins, the only loser is the thief, and in this case the process is quite literally the desired punishment.
Before you ask, the number of false positives is negligible. I've never heard of anyone being falsely accused in this manner (at least with accusations of theft), and I've never had to have that particular fear myself.
I am, in general, against husbands beating their wives. Yet, in this specific scenario, I could hardly fault the poor chap should he be forced to resort to such methods to protect his own family. At the very least, I'd vote to acquit. It's a bit moot, because with prevailing Western norms, he likely didn't even consider a haymaker as a solution to his problems. In general, that's a good thing.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
20hr ago
Are people really in such a mental state that they think an assault on trying to murder federal agents over deportations is an appropriate course of action?
If you truly believe that these are concentration camps and you're living the rise of a new fascism, it seems only appropriate.
Now it's insane to believe that evidently, but we're talking specifically about violent communists, so it's not surprising at all they believe this stuff.
Until the trigger actually has to be pulled, anyway.
Evidence of it not being a fed op like Malheur or the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping is the tend to not let the patsies actually get to the point of starting to shoot at law enforcement.
They used AR-15s, which are not, despite years of anti-gun campaigning, particularly good rifles for waging war (or insurgency). They discarded their AR-15s, leaving evidence behind in literal walking distance of the target. Some of the discarded AR-15s were found jammed, suggesting poor weapon handling... or, reported later, weapon modification attempts to increase rate of fire.
How good 5.56 vs battle rifle cartridges for war has been a debate forever. The reality is 5.56 has been used in war for decades. It 100% has the ability to kill people, and has killed a lot of people. Largely thanks to the legends at Palmetto State Armory AR-15s are relatively cheap, and practicing with 5.56 is much cheaper than full powered cartridges. Would I want take on US LEO with a 5.56 poverty pony? No. Will some of the best operators in the world take 5.56 into combat? Absolutely.
This theory of 'more bullets = better' is not actually better in general, since a good part of the value of a semi-automatic rifle for small teams is that the slower rate forces better shooting fundamentals for reliability per shot, rather than wasting ammo faster for less gain.
This is even debatable along certain lines.
naraburns
nihil supernum
8hr ago
Did I strawman the Right? Let's ask Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the United States secretary of labor:
This is exactly why we have the rule,
Post about specific groups, not general groups, wherever possible. General groups include things like gun rights activists, pro-choice groups, and environmentalists. Specific groups include things like The NRA, Planned Parenthood, and the Sierra Club. Posting about general groups is often not falsifiable, and can lead to straw man arguments and non-representative samples.
Making top level posts "responding" to specific users without using the "reply" button instead is kind of obnoxious, but this is downright antagonistic:
I expect that @RandomRanger will withdraw his claim
Don't do that. Ideally, unless you think someone would like to get an alert from you, don't @ them.
If you want to talk about what Lori Chavez-DeRemer thinks and why it is stupid, or not stupid, or whatever, like... have at! And really, there are contexts where referencing "Left" and "Right" is fine, where it would be stilted or misleading to speak differently. But you have been moderated several times in a fairly short period, mostly for antagonism, and you seem to be making kind of a hobby horse of weak manning "the Right" or some portion of it you perceive as worthy of scorn. I don't know if you're subtly pursuing a kind of consensus, or if you're just trolling, but you don't seem to be here to move past shady thinking and test your ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases.
Do better. Next time I see you pulling this, you get a ban.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
16hr ago
Even the most politically loaded prewar narrative, Frederick Douglass, reveals the same pattern. One of my favorite anecdotes is when he bribes young white street urchins in Baltimore to teach him to read by giving them bread, which he has free access to an effectively unlimited amount of in the kitchen. Or his lament for how the institution of getting drunk on new years causes plantation slaves to waste money that they could be saving to try to buy their freedom. Slave experiences varied wildly and were not unform suffering and lack of agency.
Still, it must be noted that ancient Greek slavery was just a different institution. Most slaves were not slaves for many generations, slavery was not racialized as radically, freedmen did not worry (any more than anyone else) about being re-enslaved.
There's a major difference between:
"The "Woke Rightist" looks at his race, sees a mostly imaginary mass of helpless unemployed drug addicts and demands tariffs so that they can rise to the lofty heights of sewing bras, picking fruit, hauling equipment, and digging ditches in the rain."
and "Americans are willing to do unspecified jobs that illegal immigrants do (at some unspecified but presumably higher wage)"
The former is basically an insult. The latter is vague politician opportunity and positivity speak. It's not deliberately and specifically picking out the lowest status roles. Hauling equipment, what is this, a Simpsons episode? https://youtube.com/watch?v=zTK_5Xz6X8Y&t=195
Likewise with 'skilled, up-skilled'. That's the future they envision. Some kids will be picking fruit as a summer job at a good wage - while not defrauding benefits like illegals. Then farmers will get some Made-in-America machine to scoop the tomatoes out of the ground. The kids will move onto more productive labour like making or maintaining machinery or building good houses... Whether this will actually happen is unknown but that's the idea.
And tariffs aren't even relevant here, the quote you find is about illegal immigration. Tariff 'industrial policy' may be ill-conceived and poorly executed but the goal is not to develop the lucrative ditch-digging sector. Trump and co want a revitalized US industrial sector - steel, semiconductors, assembly, machine-tools, rare-earths, manufacturing generally, petrochemicals... They dislike being dependant on foreign countries for anything and want everything made in America, even textiles and similar. Ideally in some high-tech, very productive factory like in the golden age of American industry but if not, they probably still would prefer low-tech industry to HR and 'professional services' industries or NGOs they think are working against them.
naraburns
nihil supernum
15hr ago
I think we are broadly in agreement, but this bit I think is important:
But it doesn’t matter what the person’s IQ is.
This is surely false on its face; at some point, your IQ is clearly too low to do anything but behave like a herd animal (at best!). I think what you might mean to suggest is that "a sufficiently high IQ is a necessary but insufficient condition to not being a slave," and I think that's right--that's why I pointed out that youth, drug addiction, or mental illness are also things that lead to "natural slavery" (Aristotle regarded even free children as essentially slaves, albeit temporarily).
Something I have seen happen a lot in rationalist and rationalist-adjacent spaces is someone getting really angry (or sneery) about IQ discussions, because of a tendency to valorize high IQ in ways that might be explained as well, or better, by reference to conscientiousness, emotional awareness, family wealth, etc. But I suspect that the area where actual IQ tests have the most real world impact, at least in the U.S., is in the legal system--and it's not high IQs under discussion there! IQ is the gold standard for objective evaluation of whether a person can be made a slave, not in name but in the Aristotelian sense of being subject to the rule of another, because they are not intelligent enough for adequate self-care.
Yes, a high IQ person may also be in need of guidance, temporarily or permanently, as the result of other circumstances, and I agree with you re: etiquette etc. But a completely conscientious, totally decisive, utterly courageous person with an IQ of 50 would still be better off with a master guardian (which is, not coincidentally, the world Plato often used to describe the philosopher-king rulers of his ideal Republic).
FWIW, the "nazi by association" rule has been strongly enforced by leftists and the leftist-dominated mainstream for a long time, has been weaponized, codified in rules and even law, has been a defining aspect of the German political landscape for generations (still being called the "Firewall" here). It's absolutely the water that most media swim in, classical as well as social, and the preferred weapon of SJWs and SJW-influenced useful idiots everywhere.
Anecdote: I used to discuss politics with my mother. Once, as she was mid-rant about the nazis ruining society, I told her that I had gotten to know an AfD voter and that they were an actual human being. Since then we never have spoken about politics again. Her way of eliding the issue that, by the rule of association and a failure to apply the rule correctly, I was now on the wrong side.
This isn't some new or poorly-observed phenomenon (just to be clear; I'm not implying that you see it that way), but a core doctrine of the left in the culture war.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
13hr ago
There's one false flag that I think you haven't ruled out, though, and that's the possibility that this was yet another FBI sting gone wrong. The FBI would have recruited Song under false pretenses, provided him with the guns and some plans, and planned to arrest the bunch at some point, but the group jumped the gun and actually did it. That's probably not what happened here, but it does fit their M.O.
I do always enjoy being reminded of the FBI's involvement in the shooting at the "draw muhammad" contest in Texas.
No_one
16hr ago
The problem with false flag theory of this size is that the ten people arrested would have to be genuine. You can't find ten people willing to do a decade in prison over a false-flag attack.
And the mix of amateurish and sound seems exactly like what you'd expect from an organisation that tries to plan but doesn't have much real world experience in doing so.
Of course, the whole thing could still be a 'false flag' of the type of some red-coded psychopath devising the whole thing and selling it to Song to accelerate matters, the way FBI informants created terrorism plots. But that seems unlikely as such competent people are rare.
This theory of 'more bullets = better' is not actually better in general, since a good part of the value of a semi-automatic rifle for small teams is that the slower rate forces better shooting fundamentals for reliability per shot, rather than wasting ammo faster for less gain.
Well, they didn't seem to have practiced or thought this out. A competent cell could have modified rifles for fully automatic, controllable fire. I'm sure if you do a bit of research you can find accurate blueprints on how to modify the receiver to allow full auto..
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
17hr ago
Insurance just means that everyone pays a share for all of the robbery (plus a cut to the insurance company), and also that they're required to run their businesses in the way the insurance company (which is itself regulated by the state) demands. It's strictly inferior to stopping the crime.
quiet_NaN
18hr ago
The insane thing is that they imagined that cop killing would be a step towards defeating ICE. That firmly places them in the bottom political intelligence percentile of the broader SJ movement.
It should obvious to anyone that the US in 2025 is not China ca. 1930. It is very much not like there are millions of wokes just waiting for a signal to put down their pumpkin spice lattes and pick up their assault weapons and wage a civil war against the USG. They don't have the guns, they don't have the training, they don't have the stomach and I would argue that most of them do not have the ideological radicalism which enabled Mao's troops to win through atrocities. Sure, they might cheer on Hamas, but they would likely shy away from Hamas-level violence in the US. The slogan of the BLM riots was "defund the police", which misguided as it is, is notably different from "shoot the pigs".
It is obvious that the less violent resistance to ICE seen in California is a much less suicidal way to express their dissatisfaction with Trump's policies. If this is successful in affecting policy remains to be seen, the way I see it, Trump can use the publicity to highlight how he keeps his campaign promises, and he does not really care how much it will cost to continue the deportations despite widespread disruptions, it is not like he is fiscally responsible or anything.
But escalating to a firefight with the feds is terminally stupid.
Also, the group managed to have an excellent gender balance for a terrorist cell (four cis-women, two trans-women, four men, presumably cis), but their racial composition is Problematic. One of the women might be Asian, but all the rest is White. Let us hope that they were not shooting Black cops from their position of privilege.
Also, why post a picture of one of the guy's Mexican wife? That guy just tried to murder cops, he could be in a polycule with bearded North Koreans and it would not be relevant. Put the picture of his wife in once she is wanted or charged with anything.
stuckinbathroom
20hr ago
Hard cases make bad law. Bad law makes easy cases. Easy cases make good law. Good law makes hard cases.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
4hr ago
An important ingredient here is that the overwhelming majority of tattoos are just hideous. Aesthetic harm. Visual downgrade. I know of a grand total of one person whose tattoos actually look good, and I think the secret sauce is that he has only a few, and they're perfectly sized to be clearly visible and framed on his body as you would normally look at them. Most people look like either a toddler slapped stickers on them, or like a derelict wall in a shit part of down.
Scott’s cultural barber pole. When you were growing up tattoos were only worn by sailors, gang-bangers and punks. Then upper class youth started doing it and it filtered down to the respectable middle class. You still remember back when tattoos were mostly the domain of scumbags so unfortunately you end up being the old man yelling about President Kennedy’s disrespectful Brylcreamed hair. I personally don’t mind tattoos but the Zoomer broccoli haircut has me convinced that Sitting Bull Did Nothing Wrong.
DiscourseMagnus
11hr ago
I agree that the story buries the lede here, but I don't think that the "criminals" aspect is the red herring, it's obviously the part that makes it interesting; unfaithful spouses are sadly rather commonplace in this day and age. The buried lede is the pictures of children related to her, which strongly suggests, IMO, that something more sinister is going on than "mere" rampant infidelity, and casts light on the depths of the hybristophilia: she's actually trying to create as terrible of a problem as possible.
Assuming, of course, that the story's real, which is a pretty bad assumption. It could also be the storyteller trying to create as terrible of an imaginary problem as possible. But taken at face value it is the character's doing.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
12hr ago
My fancy ramen from the Asian grocery does indeed seem to have gone up significantly in price. That's the only "pain" I've been personally felt from the tariffs and I'm pretty sure the response from pro-tariff policy people would be that I should stop buying Chinese noodles and get aboard the Korean noodle train. Because I am a very stable genius, I predicted this months ago:
None. I think the impact of tariffs will turn out to be wildly overrated. I have no actual empirical basis for that belief or an articulable mechanism, I just kind of don't believe that Nike is actually going to have more than a marginal price change. Maybe I'll be wrong, but my current stance is that "tariffs don't work" will be even more true than many people believe.
In all seriousness, I will continue to be actually pretty agnostic about the whole enterprise and think that we won't really know what the actual outcomes are for quite some time yet.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
13hr ago
I think the "criminals" aspect of this is a red herring, and the real issue is the infidelity and "messaging multiple men" part. If she was a single mother messaging one man in prison, and he wanted to become the father of her kids, there wouldn't be an issue. If she was married and messaging a dozen non-criminal men and promising them to become the father of her kids they would end up in a similar risky situation.
Yeah, no. How do you think the situation would play out if a dozen dudes straight out of prison ran into each as they were serenading her in front of her house, vs. a dozen normal dudes? I'll go out on a limb and say the latter have a significantly higher chance of figuring out what happened, calling her a bitch, and laughing it off at the bar, and the former have a significantly higher chance of turning the neighborhood into a minor war zone.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
13hr ago
It could be, but it would be an unusual setup and it's not similar to any real case I've personally seen. One inmate talking to multiple women, where (some of) those women realize he's talking to (and scamming) multiple women but continuing to engage (and send money and run errands and help him further his criminal schemes) with him? Yep, seen those cases. One woman engaging with multiple inmates and sending them all money? Sounds odd.
I think it's pretty easy to figure your way out of a right-wing false-flag attempt aimed to implicate antifa or the left generally: Two trans people included. This wouldn't rule out third-party shit-stirring (Chinese or Russian?) false flags, but I think your reasoning does this. Also just using AR-15s isn't really enough to implicate the right except in the minds of the New York Times.
There's one false flag that I think you haven't ruled out, though, and that's the possibility that this was yet another FBI sting gone wrong. The FBI would have recruited Song under false pretenses, provided him with the guns and some plans, and planned to arrest the bunch at some point, but the group jumped the gun and actually did it. That's probably not what happened here, but it does fit their M.O.
More options
Context Copy link