US Marines carry out first known detention of civilian in Los Angeles | Hacker News Reader

US Marines carry out first known detention of civilian in Los Angeles

reuters.com

51 pointshypeatei16 comments

This is a disaster. I mourn for what my country has become. We have to fight against this tyranny if we're to remain a free nation.

Military force against US civilians should be a no go. Instead it's a stunt to distract the public.

The US military being used against US civilians is very bad. Imagine the outrage from the right if a Democrat president was behind this.

> Imagine the outrage from the right if a Democrat president was behind this.

America has partially (each quality is a spectrum of degrees) lost the plot regarding theory of mind, consistency, decency, lawfulness, proportionality, truth, and reasonableness and is rapaciously normalizing deviancy.

DoD would be wise to proactively send a panoply of JAGs out there to monitor any domestic "not deployments" to keep a lid on things.

Hypocrisy is a feature of fascism, not a bug. Demonstrating that the rules apply to your enemies but not your supporters is part of the appeal.

How long it will take to americans to stop pretending America is still a democracy and admit it became a totalitarian state?

1.5 to 3.5 years. The next two federal elections, their legal outcome (voting results), and actual outcome (whether there is a proper transition of power) will matter significantly.

Maybe sooner or later (increased variance), but I think the expectation is correct (2.5 yrs). The problem is Americans don't demonstrate nearly as assertively as the modern French, much less anything close to the French Revolution. The crap the US and the world sees on TV is done by a tiny subset of agitators who aren't party to organized, nonviolent, peaceful demonstrations that the establishment and the media love to paint with a brush as "criminals" and "insurrectionists". This is why people who protest about disagreements with the way things are need to carry only American flags because it does several things:

- Encourages unity and solidarity

- Reclaims the symbol to be neutral

- Doesn't look like "foreign" "agitators"

- Makes it harder for some thugs with badges to inflict wanton hurt on protestors who might be patriotic Americans and/or possibly on "their team"

It would be great if Gavin Newsom would actually do something about this mess. He’s been talking tough in podcasts and tweets but in my mind you don’t have to be elected to office to do that. Anyone can.

An executive takes action. Call on the legislature to pass a law that anyone (marines, ICE, national guard) who violates civil rights is subject to arrest. Sign it and enforce it.

I don’t want to hear any more about tyranny this or authoritarianism that. You’re not a pundit, you hold the highest office in California. If you aren’t going to do anything with it you’re not the man for the moment.

The state of California did file a lawsuit against the Trump administration, but a judge temporarily blocked the return of control today.

https://apnews.com/article/california-immigration-national-g...

> Speaking to reporters after he was released, the civilian identified himself as Marcos Leao, 27. Leao said he was an Army veteran on his way to an office of the Department of Veterans Affairs when he crossed a yellow tape boundary and was asked to stop.

> Leao, who gained his U.S. citizenship through military service, said he was treated "very fairly."

> "They're just doing their job," said Leao, who is of Angolan and Portuguese descent.

Interesting. This is much more nuanced than the headline may seem. I hope things stay nuanced.

Except that in no way is doing that “their job”.

Ideally, we wouldn't deploy a branch of the military against citizens at all even if nothing bad happened in this instance.

Marines were deployed during the 1992 riots and a miscommunication resulted in them firing 200 rounds into someones house[0].

> According to the book “Fires and Furies” by Maj. Gen. James Delk, who oversaw National Guard operations in California at the time, Marines caused an incident when they accompanied police officers to a domestic disturbance in the wake of the riots.

> A police officer asked the Marines to “cover me” as he tried to enter the residence, according to the book. Instead of simply pointing their weapons at it to deter the people inside, the Marines opened fire on the house.

> “The officer had not meant shoot when he yelled ‘cover me’ to the Marines,” Delk wrote.

0: https://www.yahoo.com/news/los-angeles-officials-fear-marine...

And they just lost their retirements, GI Bill and all other benefits

"Speaking to reporters after he was released, the civilian identified himself as Marcos Leao, 27. Leao said he was an Army veteran on his way to an office of the Department of Veterans Affairs when he crossed a yellow tape boundary and was asked to stop."

It all happened before approx. 90 years ago in Germany. "This times it is different". Or not?

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