Hacker News Reader

Comment by flippinburgers | Hacker News Reader

I dont see reason for people to downvote you: I find it exceptionally hard to believe that the capital building does not have a proper response to a small group of people trying to storm the building.

Here is my theory: the "coup" was such an utter non-threat that those in charge did not want to give an ounce of evidence regarding how they could respond in order to prevent legitimately threatening bad actors from understanding the possibilities.

The side effect of being able to move towards more restricted speech is just icing on the cake.

View on HN

After seeing thousands of soldiers with machine guns in full military gear with armored vehicles protecting the Capital from Black Lives Matter, your statement sounds ridiculous.

Perhaps a history of burning and looting might have had some influence in that difference.

Sometimes I wonder, and serious question here, when the reporter on TV stands in front of a burning building and exclaims the protest is mostly peaceful, do you see the building in background on fire?

I mean, I see the capitol building being broken into and think "that needs to stop, bring in the military if necessary".

Right wing millitias and groups have history of violence last years in USA. They also talked about their plans openly. It is not like the bombs they brought to capitol were shock this January. It was not first bomb plan.

Also, in videos you see organized trained equipped men in uniforms. That is absolutely something agencies are expected to follow.

> Here is my theory: the "coup" was such an utter non-threat that those in charge did not want to give an ounce of evidence regarding how they could respond in order to prevent legitimately threatening bad actors from understanding the possibilities.

Six people died! How is that an "utter non-threat"? The mental revisionism is out of control. How is it that people are so unwilling to condemn the most obvious kind of political violence imaginable?

You can condemn it, be fearful of it, and be specific with regards to the threat it presents. It presents threats. I assume the specific threat the poster was refuting (which I won’t throw my 2c on here) is that it posed a threat to materializing a new government in the United States, which is typically the top of mind threat when talking about coups. So citing the number of deaths is neither here nor there in assessing the validity that it was a legitimate threat to creating a new government and ending the previous one.

I hadn't thought of that, yet I see the sense in the thought.

However, I don't think providing adequate police presence for a planned protest would have been showing your hand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com