MAGA rioters storm the Senate

[Thebestoftherest]

I worked the election and I encountered intimidating behavior from a Republican protestor exploiting observation rules.

You deserve to hear this, I'm sorry.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well I more observed it. I'm exceptional at being pacifist, though I'm old enough to the point to just be more steadfast and the event kinda happened through me and I didn't really obstruct the guy on his interrogative filming.

[Admiral X]

Authoritarian leftists have yet to assault the US Capitol in an attempt to interfere in the constitutionally-mandated election process.

You can call those idiots trashing the Capitol whatever you want, Steve, that doesn't change the fact that the Authoritarian left have all but taken over this country while crybullying constantly about being supposedly oppressed. Their brownshirts went completely wild this summer, and Democrats consistently ordered the police to hold back on the rioters, and release any that they actually did arrest. Meanwhile, they sent the police to places of worship or to anti-lockdown protests, some even going as far as to declare that the first amendment was "non-essential."

The "unarmed woman" you're wringing your hands about about was part of an attempted self-coup by an incompetent manchild

First off, Trump's actions and statements speak for themselves, and it's clear he wasn't part of that. If you want to argue he riled them up, that's another matter. Either way you can stop shrieking about "attempted coup" because we all know how Democrats feel about the country and its system - they've made it abundantly clear. And another thing: I'm not wringing my hands over that woman dying - I'm laughing at the hypocrisy of how the left is reacting to what happened, because for all the shrieks of "attempted coup" none of them were armed. Not to mention that the regressive left claims to hold women up on pedestals, yet will be straight-up misogynist if those women don't share their politics. So I'm just going to keep bringing up the fact that an unarmed woman was shot and killed by the police.

the Republic that he has undermined and attacked the very foundations of.

Oh please. The Democrats have done that. Trump hardly did anything, period, let alone actually live up to those accusations of being a fascist. But then, leftists are guilty of all the things they accuse others of.

I lament the loss of life, but the shooters who put Ashli Babbit down were protecting the United States Congress from a mob that included people out to take prisoners (hence the zip-ties) and who were clearly trying to prevent the constitutionally-mandated transfer of power.

Or, as far as they were concerned, an illegal one. That woman was a vet, as it turned out. And while I noted zip-tie man, too, I also noted a distinct lack of firearms, and frankly how easily they were able to enter the building and basically go wherever they wanted and do whatever they wanted. I find that pretty suspicious.

Nor does a relative lack of firearms do much to address the fact that said mob posed a very clear and present danger to the lives of Congress and the Vice President,

Possibly, but I doubt it. I kind of suspect this all was planned. As someone pointed out, this was apparently all planned out on social media, so there was every opportunity to call in extra security to deal with it, and there are even witnesses claiming the police who were there helped take down some of the barriers. I was pretty flabbergasted at what footage I saw, because I've seen how the police there have treated protestors in the past, and it was completely different. The only aspect of that which went the way it should have was ushering all the professional crooks down into the shelter underground. At one point, though, the secret service agents had every opportunity to open fire on this bunch, yet they didn't. I kind of wonder why.

and who in fact caused the death of at least one officer of the Capitol Police who resisted their sacking of the Capitol.

I thought ACAB. Suddenly the left cares about a police officer? Y'all were cheering over those cops that some rando shot in their squad car over the summer. There was even a group of "mostly peaceful protestors" who went down to the hospital to try to finish the job. And of course there was that retired black cop who died trying to defend his business which no one gave a shit about, because only some black lives matter, apparently.

Whether or not the news media have been unfair to Trump,

Everyone knows that's the case. They've also covered for Biden and his son, and pretty much any Democrat that's ever been accused of anything. The harshest coverage I've seen of anyone else was Pelosi for going to a salon during the lockdown, and even that petered out pretty quickly.

But you know what our Republic simply cannot survive?

Obvious election fraud and politicians and law enforcement who ignore the Constitution they swore to uphold.

[Admiral X]

I worked the election and I encountered intimidating behavior from a Republican protestor exploiting observation rules.

Sorry, I'm going to believe the footage I saw more than some random person on the internet, and the footage I saw involved observers being kicked out and having their views blocked even from outside, all of which was in flagrant violation of the law. Not to mention in Georgia, where they faked some kind of water leak to get all but four counters out of the building, who then went right back to counting, including one who ran a stack of ballots through the counter multiple times. That in particular seems to keep getting dismissed and ignored in spite of having all been caught on camera.

Speaking of intimidating behavior, did you hear about that MI politician who intimidated witnesses during that state's election hearing and then went on to issue a threat over social media? Or those certifiers who got doxxed by another state official and got death threats? I mean, I am seeing intimation that happened over the election, it's just that, at least what I've been hearing about, has been coming from the left.

[Captain Crimson]

Let me be clear, there's rumors going around Mr. Trump orchestrated this attempted coup, it's so laughably haphazard I can't take it seriously, via some email things going around, and I can totally believe that. I have no bones about it. And it's why I'm very happy he'll be gone in a week or so. Especially since this is going to give incentive to Congress to do it. Though I'm way more concerned with the idea that just by even attempting criticism on the voting machines and whether this was a fair election, you can be canceled because it's sedition. It's a logical fallacy, like thinking that being a vegetarian is bad because that's what the literal, for-real Nazis were all about.

Dark days we live in... I'm actually looking forward to when Mr. Biden is sworn in on these grounds alone. Get Mr. Trump out of there.

[Draco Dracul]

Authoritarian leftists have yet to assault the US Capitol in an attempt to interfere in the constitutionally-mandated election process.

You can call those idiots trashing the Capitol whatever you want, Steve, that doesn't change the fact that the Authoritarian left have all but taken over this country while crybullying constantly about being supposedly oppressed. Their brownshirts went completely wild this summer, and Democrats consistently ordered the police to hold back on the rioters, and release any that they actually did arrest. Meanwhile, they sent the police to places of worship or to anti-lockdown protests, some even going as far as to declare that the first amendment was "non-essential."

So we have one group of people that protested decades of police brutality and systemic racism, and another group of people that set up a gallows, stormed the Capitol Building, and chanted "Hang Mike Pence" and it's the former group that are brownshirts? It's also kind of funny to me because their really isn't an authoritarian left in the US, a big chunk of the democrats are centrist or even slightly right, and most of the left wing are decidedly lib left.

The funny thing about Trump and the media is that they spent the better part of the last 5 years treating him with kid's gloves, it's just that he's such an utterly loathsome human being that any talk about him that has even the barest hint of objectivity will come across as very negative and there is basically no way to even frame his actions in a neutral light without heavily editorializing in his favor. The media has also been falling over itself, even into the final months of the election, to try and let Trump have his "'big Presidential moment" often letting him have high praise for showing even basic decorum or the faintest hint of human decency.

[Admiral X]

Has it occured to you that it is not a media narrative?

It's pretty obvious that it is, though.

That he really is the worst president?

As a Native, I take offense to the suggestion that Andrew Jackson was not a worse President. Not to mention you have other much better contenders for the title of "worst" in Nixon, Johnson, Carter, and Wilson. Oh, and maybe FDR considering his New Deal policies extended the Depression and that whole internment camp thing. Frankly I'd argue Obama was a worse President than Trump because of his continuation of Bush's policies on homeland security, government spying (including the mass surveillance Snowden revealed and the way he was treated, not to mention the spying on the campaign of a political enemy), his attempt to blame the Benghazi attack on some random guy's video (seems like that was leaning toward violating that person's first amendment rights), the gun-running fiasco run by his justice department as part of his attack on the second amendment, his ramping up of the "war on terror" even as he decried it in public, his extrajudicial execution of two American citizens without due process, and, of course, this little gem here:

And, of course, Bush the Younger is the one who really set that ball rolling. The only things I can see knocking Trump for are the travel ban from Middle Eastern countries, his ban by fiat of bump-stocks (which entirely pointless if you know anything about the mechanism of how they work and how easy it is to make one), and his support of red-flag laws.

That determinations about this have been done by various people who have put a lot of thought into the hows and whys?

That thought process entirely consisted of the fact he says he's Republican and "orange man bad."

I know we all can't list our qualifications on here, because no one would believe us and even if they did I can hear the words, "well, that is just your opinion" ringing in my ears, but I am actually super well read on this subject matter and definately qualified to write one of those asinine books that ranks presidents based on various criteria. I am no Kevin Kruse, but I am capable of making a well informed determination.

I understand that you don't see the fundamental differences. You seem to have no grasp of how motivations, justifications, and intentions shape the moral dimensions of actions, and that is weird.

I'd say look in the mirror. The thing I can respect about both the Capitol building mob, and the one that attacked that police precinct is that they identified what they thought was the source of their grievance and attacked it instead of looting and burning random businesses or attacking random people in the street. What's hilarious about that is you see the left claiming the latter was some form of justice, or at the very least making excuses for it, or just brushing it off "they have insurance," and now, the same people who did that and who have been spouting anti-American rhetoric all along are suddenly trying to sound all patriotic and shit. Kind of like now, even though they've been saying "all cops are bastards" all summer, they suddenly give a shit about the guy that died from a blow to the head by a protestor. Shit, I can think back to some Antifa who did his best to cave some random guy's head in with a bike lock, and y'all were cheering that on, not only the fact that it happened, but that even though the internet figured out who that guy was and the police ended up arresting him, he got off scot-free. I swear, if the regressive left didn't have double-standards, they'd have no standards at all.

Rationalizations are not bad, you have to be able to rationalize your actions, especially if those actions run counter to the law or social order.

Kind of like storming a government body you think is guilty of election rigging?

These are not double standards, different groups are doing different things, in different places, at different times, for different reasons, and with different goals. They are different.

Not really, no. And the real point is that the Democrats/regressive left are all about double standards. The foundation of their entire political ideology in the form of identity politics is based on it.

There are important differences to the events you are juxtaposing and your inability or unwillingness to see those dimensions to the conversation is frustrating to me, and makes your insanely long and numerous comments come off as intensely hollow and without merit.

At this point, your suppositions are so off base that I don't know how to talk to you in a manner that would be informative or convincing, I don't know how to ask you questions via socratic method to lead you down a productive line of thinking.

We could say the same about you.

[Thebestoftherest]

Authoritarian leftists have yet to assault the US Capitol in an attempt to interfere in the constitutionally-mandated election process.

You can call those idiots trashing the Capitol whatever you want, Steve, that doesn't change the fact that the Authoritarian left have all but taken over this country while crybullying constantly about being supposedly oppressed. Their brownshirts went completely wild this summer, and Democrats consistently ordered the police to hold back on the rioters, and release any that they actually did arrest. Meanwhile, they sent the police to places of worship or to anti-lockdown protests, some even going as far as to declare that the first amendment was "non-essential."

So we have one group of people that protested decades of police brutality and systemic racism, and another group of people that set up a gallows, stormed the Capitol Building, and chanted "Hang Mike Pence" and it's the former group that are brownshirts? It's also kind of funny to me because their really isn't an authoritarian left in the US, a big chunk of the democrats are centrist or even slightly right, and most of the left wing are decidedly lib left.

The funny thing about Trump and the media is that they spent the better part of the last 5 years treating him with kid's gloves, it's just that he's such an utterly loathsome human being that any talk about him that has even the barest hint of objectivity will come across as very negative and there is basically no way to even frame his actions in a neutral light without heavily editorializing in his favor. The media has also been falling over itself, even into the final months of the election, to try and let Trump have his "'big Presidential moment" often letting him have high praise for showing even basic decorum or the faintest hint of human decency.

Admiral tell me when the left invade government property then you won't be a hypocrite.

[Admiral X]

So we have one group of people that protested decades of police brutality and systemic racism, and another group of people that set up a gallows, stormed the Capitol Building, and chanted "Hang Mike Pence" and it's the former group that are brownshirts?

And yet another example of how you ignore wrongdoing on the part of your tribe while trying to highlight the wrongdoing of another.

The funny thing about Trump and the media is that they spent the better part of the last 5 years treating him with kid's gloves,

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni7H6RqtN8A[/youtube]
You can't be serious.

[Thebestoftherest]

So we have one group of people that protested decades of police brutality and systemic racism, and another group of people that set up a gallows, stormed the Capitol Building, and chanted "Hang Mike Pence" and it's the former group that are brownshirts?

And yet another example of how you ignore wrongdoing on the part of your tribe while trying to highlight the wrongdoing of another.

The funny thing about Trump and the media is that they spent the better part of the last 5 years treating him with kid's gloves,

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni7H6RqtN8A[/youtube]
You can't be serious.

I can't stress this enough the LEFT did not invade the capital building, please don't try to get off topic because you bet on the wrong horse.