Pretty sure everyone working inside the Capital that day felt terrified.
that's exactly the point poster is making; there was a distinct disconnection between the terror that 'everyone working inside the Capital that day felt' , and the actions/personalities/feelings/emotions portrayed by those considered 'terrorists' that day.
I can't think of any other 'terror' event ('event' chosen in an effort to be non partisan) that took place that way, even when considering suicide bombers and hijackers -- there is clear evidence that the 'terrorists' in those respective incidents felt fear and terror themselves during the act.
the 'terrorists' involved in the Capital event had big smiles on their faces, posed for pictures, texted with friends, drove together in large groups, got together on social media publicly and invited their friends and families to come join them in (what they called) protest.
I have no doubt that those in the Capital were afraid -- but to view this as just the same as any 'terrorist' activity in the past is, too, missing nuance and context.
I don't know what happened, and I don't know what it was -- but I know it wasn't anything like 9/11 or the Oklahoma City Bombing , two events that stick in my head as 'terrorism' , writ large.
The first kind of people were the ones with big smiling faces, posing for pictures, taking selfies, etc. They are the ones crying in open court, claiming they thought they were there protecting democracy at the president's behest. They are not terrorists, but idiots radicalized by a lie.
The other group were organized militias Proud Boys, 1st Amendment Praetorians, 3%ers, Boogaloos, etc. They came prepared in tactical gear, communication gear, they moved in formation, and they even stashed caches of guns and ammunition in nearby hotels in case things got really bad. These people are the actual terrorists, the former group are useful idiots. They were necessary to complete the objective: to occupy the capitol and delay the certification of the vote. These people were embedded in the protest at the capitol and were instrumental in egging on the crowd more. For example, they are recorded on bullhorns, shouting out tweets from the President as they occurred. Notably, this one:
Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!
So let me say it one more time: The plan was to delay certification in order to cause a contested election. The delay had to come by occupying the capitol because Pence refused to decertify the election. Militia members could not breach the capitol on their own, hence why they needed the help of rubes who are now flowing into jail cells across the country due to their actions that day.
Obviously there's a lot more that needs to come out to put all of the pieces together, but the picture is getting clearer and clearer. If you stopped paying attention on Jan 7 2021, there's a lot of info that's come to light that shows Jan 6 insurrection was the pointy tip of a month's long premeditated effort to overthrow the US government.
Anyway, to your point, I don't think it's appropriate to discern a terrorist based on their personal state of mind regarding their acts of terrorism. To flip your point on its head, if McVeigh had done exactly what he did but took a selfie and smiled while he did it, wouldn't he still be a terrorist?
are you serious? what do you think the tactical gear is - anything with a pattern?
> they even stashed caches of guns and ammunition in nearby hotels
ah yes. the true sign of domestic terrorists executing a coup planned for months - intentionally not bringing your guns.
> to occupy the capitol and delay the certification of the vote
this makes so little sense i cant even formulate a reply. you think they had a plan, and that plan was to bring nothing and do nothing in order to temporarily delay a vote that could be done over video conference... why, again?
> The plan was to delay certification in order to cause a contested election.
...what? theres no rule that if the certification gets delayed, the election is suddenly invalid. what is this, the 5-minute rule?
I am referencing militia groups like the Oath Keepers, who dressed in fatigues, vests, helmets, gas masks, eye protection, gloves, boots, bore insignia, moved in formation, communicated over radios... they were prepared and organized.
> ah yes. the true sign of domestic terrorists executing a coup planned for months - intentionally not bringing your guns.
Oath keepers did in fact bring guns [1].
There are many other instances of guns and other weapons being found. Anyway, I'm not sure what the fixation is on guns because a mob without guns is more effective at doing exactly what was needed -- to get into the Capitol and delay the certification of the vote. An unarmed mob will not be met with lethal force by police for some reason in America, no matter how violent it is. The summer BLM protests proved that. So really if your objective is to get into the capitol, the worst idea in the world would be to shoot your way in; if you attempt this, the police will automatically go straight to lethal force. It's true that the mob outnumbered police, but police outnumbered militia members, and they would have lost that fight. I think if bodies started hitting the floor and bullets started flying, the regular rubes that comprised 99% of the mob that day would have scattered into the streets of DC.
> to temporarily delay a vote that could be done over video conference
Well that's just the thing... once you delay the vote there's no guarantee that the session would ever be reconvened. I already explained the plan in another post, but it's clearly laid out in the Eastman memos [2]. The point is that Pence on the morning of January 6 finalized his position that he would not decertify the election. That was their last hope at preventing Joe Biden from being president because it's essentially irreversible.
I believe not even the Supreme Court could overturn a bicameral certification of the election results. What authority would they use? There's nothing in the Constitution that would give them the power to review such a solemn power granted exclusively to the legislative branch. So if Trump had any hope of remaining as POTUS, it rested on preventing that certification from going forward at any cost. Hence the mob.
> ...what? theres no rule that if the certification gets delayed, the election is suddenly invalid. what is this, the 5-minute rule?
US Code Title 3 Chapter 1 Section 15 lays out exactly what happens on Jan 6. It does not have anything to say about what happens if Jan 6 is delayed. There is no process enshrined in law to handle that outcome. Evidently, the authors of the law did not anticipate a violent mob incited by the the loser of the election would attempt to delay the process.
It was extremely important to delay that certification as long as possible, because it allowed this behind-the-scenes pressure campaign to continue, and it prevented the transition of power from commencing.
On January 6, Rudy Giuliani articulated in a voicemail exactly why they needed a delay in certification so badly [3]:
the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow—ideally until the end of tomorrow.
I know we would delay you a lot, but it would give us the opportunity to get the legislators who are very, very close to pulling their vote, particularly after what McConnell did today. It angered them, because they have written letters asking that you guys adjourn and send them back the questionable ones and they'll fix them up.
Here's my bottom line:
The Constitution and law prescribed that Joe Biden was to hold the title of President Elect on Jan 7. If the former President had launched an assault on the Capitol that would have delayed the certification past that date, he would have successfully halted the transition of power. The transmutation from mere candidate to President Elect represents the beginning of the transition of power, which is a process and not a moment. But it begins in earnest on Jan 7, and if it hadn't, that would have meant the United States was under extraconstitutional order. I can't tell you what would have happened, because there's no precedent for that. But I think this is a scenario where a the slope could be exceedingly slippery. First it's one day, then a week, then a month.... the longer you step outside of the constitutional order, the harder it is to get back. I believe this is why Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence were so insistent on completing the certification that very night. Once it was done, it was essentially impossible to undo, and they knew that.
[0] https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/oath-keeper-jessica-watk...
[1] https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Jason%2...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos
[3] https://thedispatch.com/p/giuliani-to-senator-try-to-just-sl...
More walls, security, and protections for them means less freedom for us.
They've had walls up for just a year and what do we have? Federal mandates for medical procedures, 9 supreme court justices deciding whether or not 30% of people will lose their jobs or have a forced medical procedure.
Giving more weight to people willing to threaten violence won't fix your problems.
More precisely: making a freely elected government more vulnerable to violence won't yield an improvement.
There should be a law against using a quote from an American founding father without understanding its original context or the subtlety and dry wit of literate, pre-internet language. The person who wrote that was not saying what you think they were, nor were their beliefs about political violence what you think they were.
Also, just for the record, because you seem to be one of those, that person was also a supporter of vaccinations when the science was in its infancy, the risks were little understood and vaccines actually were dangerous.
I'd be a supporter of vaccines as well if they were a new scientific technology, not corrupted by big pharma for profit / to make infinite customers. The COVID shots are not a vaccine either it's why we're still in this mess. If you still deny that reality after all that has happened and continues to happen then no one can help you.
Let's see here. YOU pay for the vaccine with YOUR tax dollars, every shot administered also is paid with YOUR tax dollars, marketing paid with YOUR tax dollars, mandates paid with YOUR tax dollars. And we have the most infections / deaths ever occuring around the world.
Accept that you're being scammed and you might start to understand why the tree of liberty needs the blood of tyrants.
Minus the whole forced entry thing.
> and nobody was arrested
Also untrue (or at least equivalently untrue. People were charged with crimes, although afaict all misdemeanors because there was no forced entry or threats of violence)
> and nobody claimed to being terrified that day
Probably because they weren't the same.
Only only person died in the 1/6 protest, and it was one of the protesters (shot and killed by a police officer).