Police State
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@Catseye3 said in Police State:
I'm actually confused as to the Portland situation. What federal troops are there that have a right to be there? (This is not argumentative, I really don't know.) What troops are there whose presence is at best problematical? Which Trump has solved -- as if by magic! -- by referring to the protesters as 'terrorists'.
Sorry, Donald. Not.
What specific insights have made it to the press from protesters about specifically what they are protesting about, specifically? How many are there? What is the ratio of protester to cop? How many of the protesters are inflicting damage to property, federal or otherwise?
To what degree is the press so bollixing up the coverage that we have no hope of getting a clear picture of what is really going on? If it bleeds it leads, right?
It's a mess, IMO.
But a priority action has to be getting unauthorized federal-level law enforcement out of the area.
There is no federal unauthorized law enforcement in the area. The state has no say, when it comes to protecting federal property. And, if a city cannot control its inhabitants, and exists in a state of semi-anarchy, the Feds have the authority to quell that disturbance, whether the city wants them there or not.
Those questions were permanently set red at Appomattox.
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@Jolly said in Police State:
And, if a city cannot control its inhabitants, and exists in a state of semi-anarchy, the Feds have the authority to quell that disturbance, whether the city wants them there or not.
What's the authority? And which agencies? "The feds" doesn't mean anybody on one federal payroll or another.
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As for Trump calling the Antifa terrorists? They are.
Google up their handbook and do a bit of reading. They are socialists, perhaps communists, certainly anarchists, and do not mind overthrowing the government by violent means.
Some video for y'all...
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@Catseye3 said in Police State:
@Jolly said in Police State:
And, if a city cannot control its inhabitants, and exists in a state of semi-anarchy, the Feds have the authority to quell that disturbance, whether the city wants them there or not.
What's the authority? And which agencies? "The feds" doesn't mean anybody on one federal payroll or another.
You can use the U.S. Marshals, ICE, Treasury, Secret Service, etc. If Trump wants to, he can invoke the Insurrection Act and send Abrams Tanks, if he thinks he absolutely must.
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@Axtremus said in Police State:
This time, it’s the “wall of vets”, as in military veterans forming a human wall to protect the protesters.
There were only a couple of dozen. About half of those weren't really vets. It takes a true moron to think that out of all the veterans there are there's not a dozen or so true nutjobs who are stupid, and seeing these nutjobs lined up at a riot is significant of something.
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The Portland riots remind me of a scenario, where there are enlisted men/women doing battle, but no officers.
BLM is the convenient rallying cry, and the most violent personalities get to move to the front lines, weilding everything from lasers to metal saws, to setting fires to hopefully burn down the federal building. As one proterster was heard to ask another, "what happens when we get inside the building?" Foot soldiers do not know the answer, and like I said, there are no officers representing the will of the government. So it's cacophony interspersed with a few meaningless chants.
I believe these people represent a huge number of people, who realize that by playing by the rules, they will never achieve the American Dream. And, there is no one, or no political party, that will change the rules of the game, politicians are all in it for themselves for the most part, the power and the money, and hardly any of them regardless of how much they rip off the American people, will see any jail time based on justice.It's a mess. A serious, catastrophic mess, with no leadership to guide the sinking ship, and by extension no officers, with the enlisted unable to make any sense to themselves other than violence.
But I understand there are free hot dogs for protesters. There is that. I always like to focus upon the positive.
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@Rainman said in Police State:
believe these people represent a huge number of people, who realize that by playing by the rules, they will never achieve the American Dream. And, there is no one, or no political party, that will change the rules of the game, politicians are all in it for themselves for the most part, the power and the money, and hardly any of them regardless of how much they rip off the American people, will see any jail time based on justice.
Great post, Rainman. It stands to reason that out of thousands of protesters, there will be varying degrees of sincerity. Some will be in it for snicks and giggles, some of them because their friends talked them into it, and some whose anger and sense of injustice is genuine. But you have to wonder, what is it they think they will achieve from all this? Or do they not expect to achieve anything except blowing off steam? When will it occur to them that what they're doing is, yeah, kind of stupid and pointless?
The whole business is incredibly sad.
I appreciate your insight.
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@Jolly said in Police State:
The state has no say, when it comes to protecting federal property.
There goes the Tenth Amendment in Jollyworld.
Just find an excuse, any excuse, to protect any “federal property”, maybe “information/data” or “intellectual property”, not even “physical property”, that some federal agency declares belong to the federal government, and the federal agents can do anything anywhere to “protect” it, the state cannot do anything about it.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/29/trump-administration-portland-protests-federal-agents?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1
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The Trump administration is to pull federal paramilitaries out of Portland starting on Thursday in a major reversal after weeks of escalating protests and violence.Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, said she agreed to the pullout in talks with Vice-President Mike Pence.
Brown said state and city police officers will replace Department of Homeland Security agents in guarding the federal courthouse that has become the flashpoint for the protests.
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@Horace said in Police State:
You were telling him that by talking about those things, he betrayed a soul in need of refreshing. You were shaming him for talking about whatever it is that you would prefer people not talk about.
No, just no. She was just being compassionate. We still have room for that here, do we not?
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@Axtremus said in Police State:
@Jolly said in Police State:
The state has no say, when it comes to protecting federal property.
There goes the Tenth Amendment in Jollyworld.
Just find an excuse, any excuse, to protect any “federal property”, maybe “information/data” or “intellectual property”, not even “physical property”, that some federal agency declares belong to the federal government, and the federal agents can do anything anywhere to “protect” it, the state cannot do anything about it.
Sometimes it's hard to believe that you can be this stupid. A federal courthouse belongs to the federal government. End of story. There is no "we declare this or that to belong to the federal government". The 10th amendment doesn't have a damned thing to do with it. There is nothing new about it, and there is nothing new about federal agents protecting federal property.
You're so dumb it hurts to watch.
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@Axtremus said in Police State:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/29/trump-administration-portland-protests-federal-agents?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1
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The Trump administration is to pull federal paramilitaries out of Portland starting on Thursday in a major reversal after weeks of escalating protests and violence.Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, said she agreed to the pullout in talks with Vice-President Mike Pence.
Brown said state and city police officers will replace Department of Homeland Security agents in guarding the federal courthouse that has become the flashpoint for the protests.
— — — —State and city police were supposed to be protecting the courthouse anyway. The only reason federal agents were brought in in the first place was precisely because this stupid mayor refused to let them.
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@Larry said in Police State:
@Axtremus said in Police State:
@Jolly said in Police State:
The state has no say, when it comes to protecting federal property.
There goes the Tenth Amendment in Jollyworld.
Just find an excuse, any excuse, to protect any “federal property”, maybe “information/data” or “intellectual property”, not even “physical property”, that some federal agency declares belong to the federal government, and the federal agents can do anything anywhere to “protect” it, the state cannot do anything about it.
Sometimes it's hard to believe that you can be this stupid. A federal courthouse belongs to the federal government. End of story. There is no "we declare this or that to belong to the federal government". The 10th amendment doesn't have a damned thing to do with it. There is nothing new about it, and there is nothing new about federal agents protecting federal property.
You're so dumb it hurts to watch.
No, he's not stupid. But he has no common sense, is overly literal and I bet he sucks at long term interactions with people. He's probably great with computers.
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@Jolly said in Police State:
But he has no common sense, is overly literal . . .
Ax has the mind of an examiner. He doesn't leap to conclusions that may appear warranted on the surface, but which are seductive and are often false coin. This can lead to questions, exploring different paths to get to the truth. Far from being stupid, he presents his questions with the reasonable expectation of getting answers. He's not afraid of marching to his own drum. Accusations of stupidity reflect more on the accuser than on Ax. His habit of mind can lead, yes, to accusations of being overly literal -- though it presents the question, overly literal compared to what?
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You're not all that bright either, and you're more interested in getting a dig in at me than anything else.
My brother is a computer programmer. He can run circles around Ax when it comes to computers. In fact, he has spent the last 20 years writing top secret programming that runs our nuclear weapons. He has some difficulty with his social skills - but the man has common sense, and would agree with me that Ax's problem isn't that he's a computer guy so he's literal, it's because his brain doesn't work right.