The protesters who stayed on the lawn were peaceful. The ones who broke into offices or carried zip ties were not. We don't define the Russian Revolution as mostly peaceful due to most of the peasants staying on their farms.
I have no objection to protesting on the lawn of the Capitol.
For a leftist, you seem to repeat a lot of right-wing talking points verbatim.
People go to jail for burglary, prostitution, and drug possession every day, and none of them are violent offenses.
There was an insurrection, and there was violence.
Name 1 freedom I have lost since 2021-JAN-06.
Mongoose
Well-Known Member
I know it must be hard for the hard core blue maga cultists to understand, but I’m skeptical of what I’m told by powerful warmongering criminals and I draw my own conclusions.
I even like to give fellow Americans the benefit of the doubt even when I disagree with them politically, because both parties are serving the same oligarchy many folks just don’t want to see it.
BP sees how this can seriously hamper americans ability to protest in the future. I didn’t learn it in history class, but I know our government organizations have been involved in some very nefarious **** in the past and I don’t see all of this so cut and dry. I’m not attacking anyone, just asking questions.
I think BP is saying that this ill-advised attempt at storming the castle will hamper future attempts that might just be grounded in reality, not the reaction to the Jan. 6th crimes that hundreds upon hundreds of protestors committed.
I'm all for charging people that rioted after BLM demonstrations when they committed crimes and I'm all for charging people who broke laws on Jan. 6th.
I can imagine circumstances where I would be willing to break laws as part of a demonstration/protest/riot, and I would do so accepting that I might be charged for it.
I haven't seen frivolous prosecutions of Jan. 6th protestors. Everything I've heard about has been aimed at people who clearly broke the law.
fishonjazz
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Yes, the prosecution of a leading presidential candidate could set a troubling precedent. But the other option, non-prosecution, would also set a troubling precedent: that attempting to steal an election is legal.
Of course, political candidates have a right to challenge election results, demand recounts when legally available, and expose fraud or tabulation errors. Trump was calling the election fraudulent months in advance and simply manufactured ludicrous claims of fraud as a pretext to retain power.
Perhaps the argument Graham has in his mind is that safeguarding candidates’ right to demand limited, reasonable election challenges means allowing figures like Trump to pursue unlimited and unreasonable ones.
To not prosecute Trump’s coup attempt would effectively legalize the tactics he employed. It would consecrate a new system in which an election result, even a clear one with multiple states providing a margin of error, would merely be the start of a negotiation. The outcome of the process would be determined not just by the votes but also by which party controls the legislative and judicial channels that will steer it and has the willpower to assert the most favorable claims.
Graham’s threat that prosecuting Trump will trigger Republican retaliation echoes the same warning he made when Democrats impeached Trump for inciting the insurrection. “I fear that if this model is followed in the future, impeachment to disqualify one from holding office based on partisan hatred will become the norm,” he argued. “I hope I will be proven wrong, but it seems that impeachment based on partisan differences seems to be becoming the norm, not the exception.”
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As Will Saletan has pointed out, Graham led the effort to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about an affair, and has called for impeaching Biden over his immigration policy. So the outcome he claims to fear is actually a course he has already taken.
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Graham bitterly opposed convicting Trump in the Senate. Now he opposes convicting him either at the federal level (because the Justice Department is subordinate to Joe Biden) or the state or local level (because they are “liberal jurisdictions”). Instead he deems the sole legitimate venue for holding Trump accountable to be “at the ballot box.”
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Yet Graham has endorsed Trump’s presidential candidacy! Which is to say, despite all his crocodile tears about preserving norms, he believes Trump’s scheme to install himself as an unelected autocrat should not be punished at all, but rewarded.
Red
Well-Known Member
We had held an election, including an election for president, some two months earlier. Trump lost that election. I was one of 10’s of millions of Americans who found themselves saying that day: “wait, we held the election, the guy I voted for won, wtf is this all about? A few thousand people cannot take matters in their own hands, at the loser’s urging, and cancel my vote and millions of others, just because they don’t agree with the outcome. This is third world country stuff, we held an election, and we know who the winner was. What the hell are you people doing?”.
I know all about the right to protest, coming of age in the Vietnam era. But, on 1/6/21, it seemed like they were taking away our expectation that the winner of a presidential election will always be decided by ballot, and never by a mob smashing windows and searching out a vice president in order to hang him. Something told me, “gee, this isn’t the way we do things now, is it?”
Those protestors were not speaking for me. They could protest to their heart’s content, it was certainly their right. But they had no right to speak for 100% of the American people, by storming the People’s House, when the election results were already decided and absolutely not in the least in dispute.
And the “means for making a difference politically” was not taken from the protestors and “regular Americans”. If eligible, they had every right to vote on Election Day, and make a difference politically. They did not have the right to try and change the outcome by smashing windows and invading the People’s House. That is not the way to “make a difference politically”. Americans are free to protest their government, but they don’t have the right to smash their way into the People’s House.
Every high profile politician goes in knowing that the opposition is constantly watching and constantly looking for an opening to attack you. The other side is always trying to tear you down.
This is a benefit of a two party system, not a flaw. The other side is there to keep you honest, keep you vigilant against corruption and impropriety.
If criticism is only valid when it comes from your own team then there will be no criticism. We've seen that for decades in law enforcement, where they investigate themselves and determine everything is fine, meanwhile the community they police no longer trusts them and no longer sees them as a protector, but as predators.
This is a benefit of a two party system, not a flaw. The other side is there to keep you honest, keep you vigilant against corruption and impropriety.
If criticism is only valid when it comes from your own team then there will be no criticism. We've seen that for decades in law enforcement, where they investigate themselves and determine everything is fine, meanwhile the community they police no longer trusts them and no longer sees them as a protector, but as predators.
That's not skepticism, it's counter-reaction and conspiracy-swallowing. Skepticism relies on following the evidence.
Who is BP, on what basis did they draw this conclusion, and how do they reconcile that conclusion with the enormous amount of protests that continue to this day?
I will leave you to your JAQing off.
BP= @BabyPeterzz I believe. At least that's how I was using it.
He was just so off from what that post said, I didn't make any sort of connection.
Fosto
Well-Known Member
“Just Say That the Election Was Corrupt, and Leave the Rest to Me”: In Georgia, Donald Trump Appears Beyond F--ked
The ex-president operated like a Mafia boss and, thanks to a new racketeering charge, may go down like one too.