rshetts
5811
The attorneys for our gun totin’ lawyers have come up with a rather novel twist. Apparently in response to allegations that they were breaking out their gats in response to the Black Lives Matter protest, they now claim that they fully support BLM and their actions were because “the agitators responsible for the trepidation were white” Now that is some serious legal kung fu there!
Tman
5812
No I’m just yanking your chain because I think this whole thing is an episode from the Black Mirror and trying to find any sense of this just makes me laugh.
RichVR
5813
I’m a gun owner with a CCW. But I rarely carry these day. Actually, not at all now. Because when you carry you have to be 100% aware at all times. Can’t drink. On red alert all the time. It is so fucking draining. I’m too old for that shit.
I say that to say this. I do not want to live in a totally armed society like the “old days”. The police need to be fixed, big time. But armed citizens replacing them? No. The same way I don’t want flying cars. The schmuck next door flying over my house? Hell no!
I don’t think anybody is like “the CHOP is the ideal way to structure and run a society in the long term”. Well, nobody outside die hard anarchists.
I think a lot of people are like “man, given how fucked up the police seem to be, maybe this extremely fucked up situation is preferable.”
Timex
5815
To be clear, the Seattle PD are super fucked up.
RayRayK
5816
A disconnect for me is why jump from “given how fucked up the police seem to be” to “maybe this extremely fucked up situation is preferable.” Shouldn’t we try ending the war on drugs, ending the use of quote/stats based policing, etc. before we decide to throw the whole thing out?
Preferable in the short term as an active protest, I guess. I don’t think anybody really expects this to be sustainable.
Although I guess it could be for a while as long as they don’t try to stop paying taxes.
RichVR
5818
Certainly. No doubt. But a fully armed populace? As I said, wild west shit. No thanks.
Just to clarify, I’m not actually in favor of CHOP. I just think it’s reputation is wildly overblown.
Glad we agree on that much. And to be clear, I’m not going there…not a chance. I agree it is messed up. But I think it has much more to do with the failures of law enforcement and government than the people there. I don’t know, the word “lawless” just seems rather loaded somehow and that “thugs” is waiting right behind, but maybe that’s projection part.
If it actually went that way it would become necessary to flee the country for saner pastures. Fortunately, aside from some fringe nuts and a ready supply of internet arguers, there’s no evidence that much of anyone really wants such a thing. In fact, the only polling I’ve seen on this had even African Americans 40 points in favor of having some police, just obviously not the ones we’ve got.
RichVR
5822
Aye. There is the rub. :)
LockerK
5823
Cross-posting from the MLB thread. Rockies outfielder Ian Desmond on his experiences as a biracial man (click through, there’s 9 pages).
I’ve read multiple media reports of this incident and I still basically have no idea what happened here. Did the people in the car shoot first? I don’t know. If they did, why did they shoot? I don’t know. Who shot back at them? I don’t know. Did the incident actually happen inside the boundaries of the area claimed by the protestors, or only near them? I don’t know. Did it have anything to do with the protests? I don’t know.
On the other hand, ‘the CHOP has become violent so we have to tear it down’ is probably precisely the narrative the authorities need to tear it down. So there’s that.
Heck, upthread we even have two news reports where one describes the police entering in force and searching for the shooters (WaPo), and another saying the police were violently repelled so the paramedics stayed out too (Inquisitr (p.s., eyeroll for the site name :-P )). Everyone gets their preferred narrative, yay!
MSM got bored and moved on.
In fairness, the Russian bounty story and the massive uptick in COVID cases are damn good reasons for the media to be distracted.
Well, people are stupid. I won’t repost the stuff about how fucking dangerous it was to live in the wild west. But as bad as cops shooting people are, not having cops and having random people engage in vigilante justice, which often is indistinguishable from criminal gangs is an order of magnitude worse.
