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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

One cop died in the storming at the hands of the mob. One protestor died at the hands of the police.

Three protestors had fatal medical issues, and it's not clear they were related to the violence.

Another cop died of suicide days later. Nobody knows if his suicide is related to the events on the sixth.

They stopped being protestors the second they stormed the capitol looking to kill or kidnap elected officials. They’re insurrectionists, and being charged as such.

There was an insurrection last week. What caused it?

If you took the beliefs of the people involved in the insurrection to be true, you probably would join an insurrection as well. They believe that an election was stolen and that democracy has been destroyed in the United States and replaced with some form of a deep state dictatorship.

Trump supporters believe this because they have been lied to repeatedly for years without corrections they found to be believable. How do we correct these firmly held (but false) beliefs?

We need to hold people who lie accountable. If a talk show host makes a claim that an election was fraudulently stolen, that host needs to be able to provide real evidence to support that claim in a court of law or face civil / criminal penalties for disseminating false information.

Many people on HN hate the removal of Trump from Twitter and Facebook, and the removal of Parler from AWS... but private companies always have the right to choose who they do business with, barring a very limited set of protected classes. "Big Tech" are private businesses that most conservatives would support being able to exercise their freedom to choose who to do business with, and Big Tech made the right decision in removing people and organizations from their platforms who have repeatedly tried to promote harmful lies.

Beyond holding liars accountable, we do need to do a better job of making the truth more easily accessed. Perhaps holding elections in some sort of open source / public format would help... then you could look up your own vote and the votes of your friends to confirm, and also double check the counts across the nation.

> Beyond holding liars accountable, we do need to do a better job of making the truth more easily accessed. Perhaps holding elections in some sort of open source / public format would help... then you could look up your own vote and the votes of your friends to confirm, and also double check the counts across the nation.

Private votes is itself a practice with very strong reasoning behind it, to prevent coercion and such. So I can't really get behind this.

But yes, it points directly at the problem right now: if recounts and audits overseen by agencies run by members of their own political party aren't enough for these people, what would be?

How far should we be asked to go to appease these people?

Could we even reasonably appease them? When others are constantly shouting from their TV that they're being abused?

> appease these people?

appeasement should not be the goal. You do not appease people, or they will just push for a mile given an inch.

There needs to be ground rules set, and punishment for crossing the line. I think the line has been crossed. Society, at least, in the majority, will agree that the line has been crossed, and that those who crossed it shall be punished.

> If you took the beliefs of the people involved in the insurrection to be true, you probably would join an insurrection as well.

This is not an excuse. See below.

> Trump supporters believe this because they have been lied to repeatedly for years without corrections they found to be believable. How do we correct these firmly held (but false) beliefs?

The reason these beliefs don't excuse anything is because they arguably do not believe them in the first place. These people are not stupid -- they do not have a problem thinking things through when it suits them.

The problem here is a culture of impunity. These people thought they could do this and face no consequences. Look no further than their shock and dismay at the (very light) treatment they're getting right now.

Yes, we should hold the liars accountable. But we should be just as harsh on the people who actually stormed the Capitol. We need to break this culture of impunity now -- by meting out harsh consequences -- before they try it again.

It’s naive to think that most of these people don’t actually believe the election was stolen, a huge number of them do.

>If you took the beliefs of the people involved in the insurrection to be true, you probably would join an insurrection as well. They believe that an election was stolen and that democracy has been destroyed in the United States and replaced with some form of a deep state dictatorship

Oh the irony

Another fact that’s quickly forgotten is the media’s role in Trump’s rise. Trump benefitted from millions of dollars of free publicity by being outrageous and creating stories. The media fed that frenzy through the primaries and even into the general election. They should have done a better job of not giving liars a platform to lie from and of not being bated by every manufactured drama.

We already have a mechanism for harm from lies - libel and slander laws. Just expand these laws to make lying to the public about something that if they believe it could cause them harm a tort.

The problem is always who decides what’s a lie and what isn’t. Fake news was a mantra for the left before Trump coopted it and started calling everything he disagreed with fake news.

Elon Musk used his powerful Twitter account to call a cave diving hero a pedophile last summer. The man lost the libel suit and Musk walked free, ironically with L Lin Wood as acting prosecutor.

Trump benefitted from millions of dollars of free publicity

Billions: https://www.thestreet.com/politics/donald-trump-rode-5-billi...

In 2016 most of the left-leaning media saw this as a win-win. Promoting Trump's antics would both boost their ratings and cause the Republican party to lose. Unfortunately they were half right.

> you could look up your own vote and the votes of your friends to confirm

You can't do that because visibility causes voting fraud.

By coercion. If votes can be checked by other people, a very large number of people (enough to change the result) will be forced under threat by someone else to "vote correctly".

The same happens if you can check your own vote, because any mechanism that lets you do that can usually be used by someone else - "give me your phone so I can check you voted for X like I told you to" (while holding a gun).

That's why free & fair elections have secret ballots, without personal identification on the ballots. To prevent coercion fraud.

Were any of the 3 that had heart issues/strokes actually in the Capitol building?

FWIW: the legal tresspass started several hundred feet away from the building proper. There was a police barrier in place that was the first thing violated.

There was a lady with a don't tread on me flag that was trampled to death in a crowd/mob squeeze against the police:

https://www.revolt.tv/news/2021/1/8/22221070/woman-trump-sup...

If it was a heart issue there was a bit more to it than simple heart attack.

There are conflicting reports of how she died.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rosanne-boyland-died-capitol-ri...

The Onionesque headline is apparently too good to fact check though, because lots of media outlets are running with it for laughs.

I think both accounts of he friend that was with her and the detective that contacted the family could easily be simultaneously true: she could have been crushed, pulled out, and then died of cardiac arrest later, and tried to indicate that in my original post where I said more Han a simple heart attack (as in instead a heart attack triggered by trauma, etc.).

Has anyone actually been charged with sedition, treason, or insurrection?

No they've been charged with misdemeanor "entry into a restricted area" and or felony "violent entry into a restricted area and disorderly conduct".

FBI has indicated that they are in the process of putting together a larger case.

Well, unfortunately they can't be charged with the most serious charges until Trump leaves office, as it's highly likely that he would pardon them. If anyone is shocked by this... why? He pardoned mass murderers that were employed by Betsy Devos's family's mercenary company a few weeks ago; pardoning his supporters is what he's hoping to do.

No, they pulled their white privilege get out of jail card.

You've been using HN primarily for political battle. We ban accounts that do that (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), regardless of which politics they're battling for. It's against the site rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and destroys what HN is supposed to exist for, which is curious conversation on a wide range of topics.

I think a lot of people have been using HN for political battle since January 6th, but I stand by my comment history, and I think that I more than earn an ongoing voice in the HN community with my contributions each week.

I don't think it's fair to say I have been using "HN primarily for political battle". When I do post on political threads, I try to do so with reasonable counter-points, logical debate, and appeal to avoid hyperbole and flame wars. I am certainly not perfect, but that is my aim. I'll try to do better.

Over the last 2 weeks I've posted 48 threads, 30 of which were non-political. Some of the highlights;

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25684154 (+128) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25585764 (+31) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697136 (+30) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25589742 (+6 posted late, underrated)

Of my rare political post, which of course have been +3 sigma more frequent since the 6th, here are some that I fully stand behind;

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25695844 (+21) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25688330 (+10) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691821 (+9) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711604 (+4) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711572 (+1, was in fact disinformation)

And in full disclosure, some that were less substantive;

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25677651 (+3) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25680846 (+1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25710688 (-2) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25693504 (-4)

I'm not sure if you took issue with this particular post, which is currently (+12) and a totally fair point to question an incorrect factual claim by throw_m239339, who by the way I usually agree with.

EDIT: I see that you posted a ton of these warnings throughout the site on many profiles, which helps me feel less singled out. Again, I'll try to do better. You have an impossible task the last 6 days.

It's certainly true that a lot of people have been doing that. That will probably settle down somewhat, but I think we need to raise the bar for what counts as acceptable on HN. That's why I've been posting a ton more warnings, and I'm glad that you noticed that I wasn't singling you out!

I take your point that you've been participating in other sorts of discussion too. I look through account histories fairly quickly—that's all there's time for. It's a pattern matching game. If I matched you to the wrong pattern, I'm sorry, but if you'd please err on the side of avoiding political battle and sticking to intellectual curiosity, we'd appreciate it.

As has been said so often in the past year about other protests, they were “mostly peaceful“. It would be very difficult to prosecute on charges such as kidnapping, etc. because they are generally not true and very difficult to prove.

I assume you feel the same way about the antifa and BLM protesters who stormed the houses of the mayor of Seattle, the governor of Washington, and the mayor of Portland?

I'm only familiar with the Jenny Durkan (mayor of Seattle) incident. However, I don't think graffiti on her fence and the street are really the same type of 'storming'. From her public complaint:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13YZiZXv6votoHh_CjhxEUhgth_Z...

"Using her official position to lead a march to my home, despite the fact that it was publicly known I was not there, and she and organizers knew that my address was protected under the state confidentiality program because of threats against me due largely to my work as U.S. Attorney. All of us have joined hundreds of demonstrations across the City, but Councilmember Sawant and her followers chose to do so with reckless disregard of the safety of my family and children. In addition, during or after Councilmember Sawant’s speech at that rally, her followers vandalized my home by spray-painting obscenities. (Photo attached)"

> They’re insurrectionists, and being charged as such.

They are not yet being charged as such (and I’d be surprised if insurrection was a charge, though “seditious conspiracy” seems likely a fairly easy case to make).

Mostly, the charges are much simpler (which is unsurprising; its easy to survive a probable cause hearing for “unlawful entry to a restricted building or grounds”, it takes a lot more evidence for seditious conspiracy, treason, insurrection, conspiracy to impede or injure an officer of the united states, or any of the myriad of less simple but more serious crimes they might end up charged with as further investigation occurs.)

One of the medical issues was a trampled protestor... another supposedly had a medical issue unrelated to the riot while going to their car before or during the riot.

https://people.com/politics/family-member-of-woman-who-died-...

Haven’t found a reference for the other.

If the cause of death isn't easy to find that strongly implies the death wasn't direct. Because if it was you'd be hearing way more about it and it would be much more well documented.

A death on one side does not erase a death on the other side. This is not a game.

The OP strongly implied that 2 cops died at the hands of protesters. I think its appropriate to offer corrected info.

OP forgot to mention the 2 pipe bombs, the long guns found and the famous zip tie guy. Also forgot to mention the chants to behead Pence and Pelosi.

Two zip tie guys, one of whom was a retired Lt. Col. in the Air Force, and there’s video of a large group of men with apparent training and in matching tactical gear moving through the crowd towards the Capitol. One of them has an OathTakers shirt.

These were militia.

Oathkeepers / Three Percenters

Don't forget the gallows!

nostromo's comment doesn't seem to be a scorekeeping effort, more a statement of fact (though I will confess to having an initial reaction similar to yours before finishing reading). It's a good idea to keep the facts straight in general, but especially in such a controversial case.

Don't get your point here.

If the mob (these weren't protestors, they were a mob) hadn't stormed the Capitol, nobody would have died.

That isn’t necessarily true though. Three of the people, regardless of what you call the group they happened to be in at the time, died of medical issues that have not been tied to the events of that day. They may have just as easily died had they gone for a jog that day.

I don't see how continually looping back to semantics and pedantry helps advance this conversation.

One of the three was trampled by the crowd, which rarely happens in non-crowd settings.

It can happen in crowd-but-not-storming-the-Capitol settings, though. A 100% peaceful protest is usually still a crowd.

Ok. What about the other two?

What a inane line of questioning.

"Maybe they didn't die because of the riot?!"

"It was really only 4 dead not 5 becomes someone might have died in their bathtub."

This is the most insensitive fucked up hairsplitting I've ever read.

How is it insensitive to point out that people have strokes, heart attacks, etc. each and every day, whether they are involved in riots or not?

I am not in favor of anything that happened, but in order to have any perspective on any of this, accurate information is important.

I found it ironic that one protestor who died carried a "don't tread on me" flag was trampled to death by fellow protestors.

She might have been a protestor earlier that day but at the time it happened she had become an intruder. This does not mean that she actually deserved to be shot but only that it should not come as a surprise that she was.

> Three protestors had fatal medical issues, and it's not clear they were related to the violence.

Rosanne Boyland was trampled. Certainly that's related to the violence. The other two were a stroke and a heart attack, both of which seem almost certain to have had as a proximate cause the stress of mob violence.

It would be silly to not treat the suicide as a consequence of the situation. Either a head injury or simple psychological stress. He lost colleagues at the very least he should have had access to better mental health resources.

> One cop died in the storming at the hands of the mob

Didn’t they die the following day after returning to duty? I don’t recall, does anyone have a link?

At times like this, we should honor the fallen and remember their name. If only for the short time to honor their duty.

Someone in the mob threw a fire extinguisher at Officer Sicknick's head. Later on the 1/6th, Sicknick collapsed due to a stroke (probably related to the beating he received). A day later on the 7th, he succumbed to his injury and died. I don't believe he ever "returned to duty", but now that we have his name, his story is at least more easily searchable.

The cop was beaten with a fire extinguisher and died later of the injuries sustained.

That is definitely being killed by the mob. They don't get a pass because it took some time before the fatal injury caused death.

Yup. We don't know the full details, and I don't want to speculate any more than I have to, but it needs to be pointed out that subdural/epidural hematomas caused by head injury can take some time to kill you. Remember Natasha Richardson?

In any case, RIP Officer Sicknick.

Nope, no returning to duty. Is this something going around the right-wing social media discussions? Huh.

One of the fatal medical issues was a man accidentally tazering himself to death while trying to loot a portrait of Tip O'Neill, so it seems reasonable to infer that one's "related to the violence"

I think this was disproved. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/capitol-riot-taser-death/

Thanks for the link. It is disheartening and disappointing that some people decided to create an imagined instance of narrated mockery of a dead person by spreading a rumour/lie that he had died ‘tazing himself in the balls repeatedly’ causing distress to his bereaved family.

Stripping a deceased person of their dignity via caricature is really a new low. This truly beggars belief and makes me very very sad. I hope the family finds peace.

I certainly agree that it's disappointing that people will so readily believe false and humiliating stories about somebody they don't like.

But describing it as "a new low" against the background of a violent disruption of Congress, with the intent of interfering with the peaceful transition of power... that's not a phrase I'd have thought to use. The mockery is disgusting and disappointing, as is the gullibility of its spread, but both are very common. The violence, by contrast, is genuinely novel.

> The violence, by contrast, is genuinely novel.

The violence is not ‘genuinely novel’. We certainly saw many instances of creative ways of violent destruction in protests by the other side in 2020.

Anyways...my 2c. Ymmv.

If they weren't carrying Biden flags then they're not "the other side".

A joke in poor taste, yes.

However, his social media posts before traveling to DC were enough to strip him of any dignity he may have had.

i havent seen his social media posts. what did they say?

> Stripping a deceased person of their dignity via caricature is really a new low.

Its a low, but I don’t think its actually new, and not very uncommon in situations where there are both strongly divisive emotions and people dying.

can you give another example?

That always sounded like nonsense to me. It doesn't seem likely that a medical practitioner would have specifically reached that assessment and publicly released the information so soon after the event.

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