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Comment by Traster | Hacker News Reader

You're not sure what the other options are? You've seen it.

Which is worse, censorship of people calling for the violent otherthrow of the democratically elected government. OR what we've seen this week - people literally overthrowing the democratically elected government of the US.

Oh and by the way- when the MAGA hat wearers have taken over, sure as hell they aren't going to be defending your right to equivocate between the people violently overthrowing democracy and the people not allowing a violent overhtrow of democracy.

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> people literally overthrowing the democratically elected government of the US.

The hysterics in this thread are pretty rich.

I don't know how many people need to storm the capitol under the instructions of the loser of a recent election before you stop thinking the people commenting on it are "hysterical".

> I don't know how many people need to storm the capitol under the instructions of the loser of a recent election

Not OP, but I will stop thinking people are hysterical if they can provide a single shred of evidence that the people who stormed congress were "under the instructions of [Trump]". A tweet, a video, anything that proves the storming of congress was a pre-meditated move by Trump to stop the electoral count.

Saying "oh, well Trump didn't come out and say it, but he chose dog-whistle terms that activated his sleeper agents" isn't going to cut it.

Also the part that is rich is the implication that a rag tag handful of protestors have the ability to overthrow the government just because they broke into a building for a few hours.

He consistently encourages violence and when his followers do something bad he usually refuses to say it was bad. So sure he only specifically said to march on the capitol while the election was being stolen inside, but his response to the storming was not "this was bad, go home" but "we love you, go home".

The man knows how to guide a crowd. He has responsibility here.

The protesters left peacefully after a few hours. The senate isn't holy ground, nor are the people inside it divine. They work for us, after all.

All things considered the events left me pretty unscathed.

4 people died.

Five, actually. Officer Brian Sicknick died as a result of wounds suffered during the conflict [1]. Details beyond that are still hard to find. This after Giuliani demanded "trial by combat" from the gathered mob. Hard to believe he will face justice though, given that Trump plans to pardon everybody and their mother.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/01/08/capito...

Thanks I didn’t hear about that

An unarmed protester was gunned down by police.

And yet, the mob continued to attack for another hour or two, while the DoD refused to send troops to help out.

I have to wonder if Trump intended the DOD to send in troops and use those troops to shut down the certification, and they refused.

incompetence does not overwrite intent. They were gathered there and committed political violence for a specific reason - to halt the peaceful transfer of power to the next administration.

And they left after a lockdown was already in-force and they were removed from the premises by force.

It left him unscathed though, so it’s fine.

What was the intent? Do you know or are you assuming?

I think if their goal was to actually take control of the capitol things would have gone much differently. I find it hard to believe this was anything but a protest.

Out of the total number of demonstrators, how many was that?

Have you watched the videos of the occupation of the Capitol on Wednesday? The rioters who broke in were chanting things like "Fight for Trump!" and "Find Mike Pence!" presumably to kill him. This of course shortly after Trump himself had tweeted that "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution" while he surely knew that rioters had broken into the building. How the f*** can you say it's hysterical to call that an attempted violent overthrow of the government?

There were 2-3 guys with pistols between congress and the mob. It only would have taken a minimally organized armed group, or even one person with an AR-15 to inflict casualties on congress and/or take it hostage.

From Wikipedia (I know...):

> Many scholars consider a coup d'état successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.

They didn't seize and hold power for any time whatsoever. They had no plan. They had no organization. They did not execute a plot in any way. They were rioters. There was nothing close to what could be constituted as overthrowing of the government.

Not interested in a pedantic argument. The initial comment implied an overreaction to this incident. The president incited a mob to attack Congress. The mob was beyond anyone's control for several hours and there very easily could have been bloodshed. The president declined to condemn the mob (or did so with obvious winks and nods).

What am I missing? Are you suggesting there was no reason for alarm?

I'm saying that the phrase "people literally overthrowing the democratically elected government of the US." is hysterics. That is not what happened.

Also there was bloodshed.

I don't care about what this president does because he's a repulsive child.

Is there reason for alarm? Sure. The Capitol Police were negligent in planning and performing their duties. There was not a sufficient lockdown and security protocol for the physical items. Probably all sorts of other things. These people committed felonies and should be punished.

But this was not a revolution. Our government was not overthrown.

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