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Comment by rocketpastsix | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if your opinion would be different if those unarmed rednecks were able to get to Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell or VP Pence?

Those "unarmed rednecks" were able to do something not even the various armies of the Confederacy couldn't: get inside the capitol.

People are not terrified enough, because this group of people saw they could do it and I have a strong feeling they will try again.

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I watched the live stream. The capitol police opened the barriers in front of the building to let them pass. They seemed friendly towards the protestors.

I agree, which should also be terrifying.

The capitol is (normally) a public building. There is a sitting senator who has been arrested at a protest in the building. Likewise it was not long ago that the capitol was full of protesters accosting senators in the lead up the the supreme court pick.

It's not meant to be a secure building that takes an army to get into.

Susan Rosenberg was part of a group of former Weather Underground members that bombed the U.S. capitol in 1983. She was pardoned by Clinton and became involved with the company bankrolling the largest BLM organization in the world.

In what way is a group of proles walking around, taking selfies, and breaking some glass comparable?

In the sense that they were there to lynch the vice president for certifying a fair election result.

In that sense, the capitol attack was comparable to your whataboutist example.

They weren't. You, I, and everyone else knows that hyperbolic, sometimes violent language is par for the course on both sides of the aisle. It's actually protected speech.

Whataboutism increasingly seems to be used as a thought-terminating buzzword by people who want double standards.

Fine

What's Undetermined In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions for which Rosenberg was convicted and imprisoned — possession of weapons and hundreds of pounds of explosives — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ Interesting fact checking.

Comparing this to the civil war is ridiculous. They were literally invited in by the capital police because it is a public building. The south is not at war with the north. The only shots that were fired were from the capital police. No one brandished a firearm in that capital except the police.

“But what if…” is a pointless exercise because the past has already proven that those things didn’t happen and is just a mechanism for a bunch of people who desire authoritarianism in this country to justify making a free people less free.

The Canadians/Brits burned the capital down and it did not matter.

Some rednecks stopping by arent going to topple anything

The capitol police opened the doors. Nancy pelosi was offered help by the executive branch to help keep the protestors at bay. She refused.

uh... Nancy Pelosi has limited control with the Capitol Police. She can't call in the national guard, or DC police.

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