"I won't be spirited away to a black site by speaking ill about the president."
It is happening in Oregon.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/18/call-kidnapping-...
It is happening in Oregon.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/18/call-kidnapping-...
When I was a child, the US wouldn't open admit to torture. It didn't have publicly known programs to ship prisoners to other jurisdictions so the U.S. rules of conduct could be bypassed. It didn't have a (publicly known) prison filled with non-U.S. people that were denied a civil trial. It didn't have a president that actively preached for or against public companies outside of criminal matters. When I was a child, a president openly violating ethics concerns WAS a matter of that president getting removed - with such certainty they'd step down to avoid the inevitable result.
I'm totally willing to believe that an aberrant behavior doesn't have to become the norm, but I won't believe that should be expected. I've been told all my life to expect that dramatic reactions and concerns are overstated and not the case, that we should all be calm and expect things to work out well, but if I look at the actual events of my life, I see the opposite lessons being taught: Unless we react strongly, clearly, and persistently, progress will not happen and things will slide for the worse.
It's not the lesson I want to learn, it's not a lesson I am comfortable with, but it does appear to be what I've seen in the last few decades.
JFK - lying about the missile gap with Russia to get elected
Johnson - lying about his intentions in Vietnam
Nixon - too many to list
If anything, I'd say there is more transparency around unethical behavior by elected officials.
And that's what worries me - note in my post above I was careful to talk about "public". Before there was a veil of deniability, the idea that at least a pretense of innocence had to be maintained.
Now it feels like there is little care to hide it. Sure, many of us are outraged, but that outrage has done nothing to translate into stopping the actions.
When even pretence is no longer a concern, there's no limit really.
Yes, and it's because there are more watchdogs and reporting than ever before, and "the internet does not forget"
And politicians using inordinate behaviours as political currency and more people to condone the same absurdities
Go back a little more and you've got Mexicans at the border branded as dirty, forced to take bleach showers and have their clothes fumigated using Zyklon-B, inspiring the Germans to use it to mass-execute Jews. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots ).
Go back a little more and you've got slavery and states trying to segregate from the US to maintain the system.
Go back a little more and you've got immigrants genociding the native population using biological agents, bullets, and mass rape to conquer the land as their own.
The US has NEVER had the moral high ground; their best claim to fame is helping to liberate Europe from the Nazis, but other than that they've absolutely shit.
But no, let's focus on the Karens who claim oppression because they need to wear a mask in Walmart instead.
I recall the racially loaded term "Vanilla ISIS" being used.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-co...
Today it would be impossible to ignore something that big, it would show up on social media.
To people arguing these are "arrests", well funny the arrested are just let go when they ask for a lawyer. It's an intimidation tactic. The rubberhosing and disappearing will come too, when that's deemed an acceptable intimidation tactic.
It's going to backfire in cities with popular support for the protests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onmsFzEtK7U
> anyways the federal agents are not pulling out random genuine protestors (how would that make sense?). they are pulling out the violent ones.
You are assuming that the federal agents are interested in the well-being of protestors. There is no proof of that. Much more likely, the federal agents have 2 goals: stop and deligitimize the protests, and protect federal or local property from the looting.
The first goal is best achieved by detaining and threatening non-violent protestors, especially their leaders, and journalists friendly to the cause. Violent protestors are already giving the protests a bad name, so they are helping the government's cause. Of course, some violent protestors also need to be stopped, to fulfill their second goal.
Proving whether that person participated in the riot is a matter for the courts, all that's needed for an arrest is reasonable suspicion.
I don't know if you are a native speaker, but the word kidnap might not be the one you should be using. "Kidnap" has strong connotations, and while sime people will happily use that property of the word to create feelings I don't think it is appropriate here.
kidnap: abduct (someone) and hold them captive, typically to obtain a ransom.
There's a lot to be said about police, federal agents, TSA etc, but lets keep this serious.
It's not about accepting it, it's been knowingly used for decades in different countries around the world. Why would the US be immune to it?
And 'waiting for the details to come out in a few weeks' is never justified. If the government has just cause, they should ideally show it before they do seemingly illegal actions, especially in the current climate; at the very least, once the governor of the state is suing to get federal agents to stop, any evidence of a just cause should be immediately made public.
Since neither has happened, people should act now, not later. Any data that comes to light weeks from now is going to be rightfully suspected of being manufactured anyway.
Given how distorted and contextless the politically relevant information we get is, waiting a few weeks for the details is almost always the right choice. This situation may be an exception but I doubt it.
1. Cops pull over people and arrest them all the time using unmarked cars - why is it an issue now?
2. The cops are identified as such (that's the badge on the shoulder). Undercover cops can arrest people too - why is it any issue?
3. These people are being arrested and released - doesn't sound like kidnapping to me. Sounds like law enforcement doing their job.
But hey, the never let the truth get in the way of your political goals, right?
People are arrested and released because they haven't committed a crime. Arresting people who haven't done anything wrong is not the job of the police.
The Portland Police are arresting people for disturbing the peace. So are the federal police, the only difference is the people they are arresting are being release because the Portland DA chooses not to press charges.
It's all political. I don't know about you, but I'd be more concerned about the Portland justice system being perverted just to stick it to Trump.
People arrested for disturbing the peace in the US won’t disappear or end up in a re-education camp where their organs may be harvested.[2] Hong Kongers are certainly fighting for the right to remain under common law, there’s a clear difference in theory and practice.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_(law)
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-china-rights-idUS...
I don't think people are trying to stick it to Trump. People have been angry about police brutality and police killing black civilians for a long time. The LA riots were 30 years ago, and things haven't really changed that much since then - there are still cases of the police killing people with far too much regularity. This is a political issue, but it's one that crosses party boundaries. People are only really angry about Trump because he's in office at the moment; if it was a different president they'd be angry at him.
In effect, he's arguing that rioting has been decriminalised in Portland without any popular vote and without any explicit decision ever having been made. If that's true it's unsurprising the police keep arresting people and they keep being released. The issue there wouldn't be the police. If Portland wants riots to be legal when the rioters support leftist causes, they should explicitly adjust the local laws to allow it.
That said, the link they provide states the guy was released "on own recognizance" which basically means he promised to turn up in court at a future date, albeit with no bail money paid. So it doesn't say charges were dropped.
Well, the entire context. The first is that they are barely marked, you mention this in point #2, but a badge that just says "police" with no further identification or badge number is basically anonymity. How do you report abuse in this situation?
In addition to this, you have a historical precedent where right wing groups have gone on patrols through the streets of Portland to beat up non-binary folks and where they've stopped to beat up people for flicking them off when they drive through with a trump flag. I gotta ask, who is stupid enough to not entertain the thought this is just another escalation? Especially in the moment.
Thirdly they're actively telling people that, if they're followed, they'll shoot them. That's pretty low in the accountability standards.
> 3. These people are being arrested and released - doesn't sound like kidnapping to me. Sounds like law enforcement doing their job.
Kidnapping doesn't entail being kept indefinitely, it means being whisked off the street at the threat of violence into a stranger's vehicle.
Every other time in history, this has been bad, but this is the one outlier, right? That's pretty convenient.
Going all the way back to May 29th, protesting has morphed into rioting on a nightly basis. Rioters have fired guns and hit bystanders. "The rioters and looters shattered store windows and tagged buildings with graffiti that police say stretched for 20 blocks." "Demonstrators broke into and started a fire inside the Multnomah County Justice Center, home to hundreds of inmates." "Other protesters set fires throughout downtown, torching dumpsters, trash cans, cars and pallets." -- That was all May 29th.
Here is timeline of the first 12 days. It's much the same every night. [1]
I believe it's Day 50+ now.
[1] - https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/protests-in-...
What's your point?
Wishing there was evidence of something is different than there actually being evidence of something.
Riiiiight.