[Oldmanmatt]

Just one story from last night 🤯
https://mobile.twitter.com/holmescnn/status/1346987917273608194

Nope.

You don’t even look that healthy coming out of a gas chamber full of CS and CS is absolutely f’all compared to MACE. Shit, that stuff *can* stop a charging Grizzly ffs.

This article from October, is a great little primer in National Guard operation and utilisation, as well as the possibility and legality of a Presidential EO declaring marshal law.

I don’t think they’ve actually thought this through:

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/10/23/how-the-president-could-invoke-martial-law/?utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR3HPUCnMXbP_VeYsG3i8ON4UPhPXZpBt12FZqbij4pgvZoBCsu1cM8U0WY

[webbo]

Apparently Trump spent today awarding the Presidential medal of Honour? to three golfers. Including one who’s dead.

[Oldmanmatt]

It's interesting that this has come round to truth and the deciding of what it is. To me, the thing at the root of this is social media, without which Trump could not do what he has done. If we don't manage to reign in the darker side of social media we'll continue to see this and things like it as more and more people fall under the spell of conspiracy theories and violently polarised debate.

What's not been mentioned on this thread is that each of those people who entered the Capitol believes, earnestly, that Trump won the election but that the vote was rigged. If that were the case, surely direct action is justified?

If you were to try and explain to these people that what they believe is wrong, they would look at you like you were crazy and blind to what is so obviously the truth. They believe it, their friends believe it, their family believes it, their president believes it, the people they speak with online definitely believe it. You'd be a liberal, a communist, a sheeple, antifa. The deeper people sink into the lie, the more that they reinforce each other's views. It's not just happening to the right.

Well, yeah, I mean that little “I got MACEd” clip is the perfect example. I’d posit, that even if she has an onion/vinegar/chilli in the towel to induce tears, she has rationalised her story into her internal narrative as *true*; because she believes it should be true.
She’s committed enough to the narrative, that she has traveled across the country to be part of the revolution. Note “revolution”. That’s what they came for.

Furthermore, you’re right, it’s not a “limited to the right” thing, plenty of “protesters” tell stories of “unprovoked” this and that during riots and unruly protests and (surprise surprise) not all of them are telling the truth (or all of it, anyway).

Edit:
Yes, I think you are right about the extended consequences of such mind sets and that it’s a rather large problem.

[Will Hunt]

re: revolutionary Karen. Apparently there is a myth that onion neutralises the mace/pepper spray/whatever. So she may well have been sprayed with something.

[Johnny Brown]

Likewise I followed a brief thread showing the guy in the JK hat was an actor who works for both sides. Hard just establishing the facts nowadays but I tend to lean on Occam's razor.

Alex, I think it is semantics. I, and it seems Andy, take truth to have a slightly different meaning to fact. And a quick google suggests this is the generally accepted usage.

A scientific analogy might be the facts of your research results vs the use of them to endorse your hypothesis as true (and yes I know about null hypotheses).

[lagerstarfish]

truth to have a slightly different meaning to fact.

Ooof

My epistemological framework may be based on coherence over dogmatic reliance on reality, but I have a hard time splitting truth from fact.

[teestub]

The deeper people sink into the lie, the more that they reinforce each other's views. It's not just happening to the right.

Can you give some examples of such dangerous rejection of facts on the left? You were doing quite well but I feel like you’ve thrown some false equivalency in at the end there.

JB I don’t believe that guy has stolen JK’s hat and is calling himself a shaman!

[tomtom]

The deeper people sink into the lie, the more that they reinforce each other's views.

talking about grading...?

again... :D

[mrjonathanr]

truth to have a slightly different meaning to fact.

Ooof

My epistemological framework may be based on coherence over dogmatic reliance on reality, but I have a hard time splitting truth from fact.

You are gonna love alternative facts then. But then Trumpism is all about the divine, not the divinable.

[Oldmanmatt]

Likewise I followed a brief thread showing the guy in the JK hat was an actor who works for both sides. Hard just establishing the facts nowadays but I tend to lean on Occam's razor.

Alex, I think it is semantics. I, and it seems Andy, take truth to have a slightly different meaning to fact. And a quick google suggests this is the generally accepted usage.

A scientific analogy might be the facts of your research results vs the use of them to endorse your hypothesis as true (and yes I know about null hypotheses).

Yeah saw a similar thread (same?), so dug around:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jake-angeli-viking-capitol-blm/?utm_source=agorapulse&utm_campaign=1p&fbclid=IwAR1oBNH_rKqlbzIn_JWzaZO9HuH5ZlQL1kCe2rWAA11PnBoo_-ETBjfSEDI

[Will Hunt]

The deeper people sink into the lie, the more that they reinforce each other's views. It's not just happening to the right.

Can you give some examples of such dangerous rejection of facts on the left? You were doing quite well but I feel like you’ve thrown some false equivalency in at the end there.

No, you're right, it's not at the same scale. Sorry if it wasn't clear. I'm not saying there's an equivalency, more just sounding a caution that folk on the left shouldn't be complacent and think that we don't also get put in our own echo chambers.

Distortion of facts is not as big an issue, I don't think, but you don't have to look far to find violently divisive rhetoric. It's all part of the same problem.

[Oldmanmatt]

 I know, banging on etc.
However, I think the question of security at the Capitol yesterday is the crucial one. Plenty of military types are pretty baffled and the US military press are doggedly chasing it. Their style is to (somehow) make assertions by pointedly not making the same assertion. This expands again on why the DC guard wasn’t deployed and it casts a shadow on both the Capitol Police and the DOD:
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/01/07/army-secretary-6200-national-guard-troops-to-be-in-dc-area-by-the-weekend/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL&fbclid=IwAR0gxHM9Mo2owgCRcmkbxydlptk_V4ekyFG8PB2k6nthMwtFCN6h6Xoz9Go

Edit:
Nope, that smell of rotten fish? Looks more like it’s probably rotten fish, by the hour:
https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/01/07/capitol-police-rejected-offers-of-federal-help-to-quell-mob/?fbclid=IwAR2HCsrruOt9G0QaTlapPX7XMS8PdxfqyNkJqL-gakHoTg7KLvvjwv17vH8

[andy popp]

An officer of the Capitol Officer has died after being injured in Wednesday's insurrection.

[mrjonathanr]

There’s another article on the snopes site you linked OMM that quotes in detail from the speech Trump made, captured on video by Bloomberg it says, about marching on the US Capitol. I referenced it earlier but here it is more fully:

After this, we’re going to walk down — and I’ll be there with you — we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down — anyone you want, but I think right here — we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing, and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated — lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your votes heard.

Later in the speech

The best is yet to come. We’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue — I love Pennsylvania Avenue — and we’re going to the Capitol. And we’re going to try and give — the Democrats are hopeless, they never vote for anything, not even one vote — but we’re going to try to give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don’t need any of our help; we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-tell-supporters-storm/

The intent to disrupt the certification sounds clear enough to me.



Edit - second quote included

[Oldmanmatt]

An officer of the Capitol Officer has died after being injured in Wednesday's insurrection.

Because, the real people that the twunts in power, throw around, manipulate, use and discard like paper plates at a party; always pay a higher price than the people they serve.

I despair for the radicalised army of idiots, that stormed the Capitol, but I don’t blame them; they were made, manufactured. Blame the twunts who made them.

I lament the ease with which the barricades were breached, but I don’t blame the officers manning them. They were clearly overwhelmed, unprepared, undermanned and it’s clear that many still tried (and must have known how hopeless it was) to fight back.
But, it’s already obvious that those officers were set up, by their own leaders, all that remains to be discovered is whether that set up was one of pure incompetence or pure corruption.

[Oldmanmatt]

I’ve always like Liz, a bit of a polite version of “Tucker”. Every bit as scathing though:

[Oldmanmatt]

Sorry, it’s been busy overnight.
I think many Western Governments are about to publicly call this an orchestrated coup attempt.
Given the nature of the people quoted in this article, I believe they have been asked to brief the media anonymously. People in such positions don’t stay there if they like talking to reporters:
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-attempted-coup-federal-law-enforcement-capitol-police-2021-1?fbclid=IwAR37j8K8_Uwl8y0fD9mv5FmO-JhBXrioUdMyr-DRh_HmihlGyRwq5scYogI

[andy popp]

But, it’s already obvious that those officers were set up, by their own leaders, all that remains to be discovered is whether that set up was one of pure incompetence or pure corruption.

As someone else said yesterday, I always prefer to apply Occam's razor when looking at causes and explanations - which pretty much rules out anything smacking of a conspiracy theory. But this particular fish is beginning to stink to high heaven.

[Oldmanmatt]

But, it’s already obvious that those officers were set up, by their own leaders, all that remains to be discovered is whether that set up was one of pure incompetence or pure corruption.

As someone else said yesterday, I always prefer to apply Occam's razor when looking at causes and explanations - which pretty much rules out anything smacking of a conspiracy theory. But this particular fish is beginning to stink to high heaven.

Being a diagnosed paranoid, does not preclude the possibility that they are following you.

[Oldmanmatt]

No Sean.
You are wrong.
I’ve lived with some of these people East and West Coast. California (where I lived with a Deputy Sheriff and his 911 dispatcher wife and attended Middle school in San Jose),  Georgia (Savannah/Thunderbolt where I was a project manager in Universal shipyard). I was stationed first in Rosy Roads (Puerto Ricco) and later in Port Canaveral for a year. Lived in New England, running vessels between there and Halifax and Greenland and so on.

These people are raised in these (underlying) beliefs, from early childhood. They are no more (and no less) deluded than a devout Catholic, Muslim or Hindu. Just as many of those “more obvious” groups are prone to radicalism, so too are these “American patriots and Christians” (most of them think they are engaged in a holy, Christian, endeavour (Shaman not withstanding)).

It’s a cult.

Shit, any religion, any “national identity” is a cult (except yours, dear reader, obviously yours is the only true way; you being the only “true” people. I’m talking about the others).

Of course there is individual choice in play.
Are you surprised at the choices they made?
Bollocks.
They made they only choice they could, or at least, the only choices they were able to see, because they’re whole lives lead them to that conclusion. The people they were raised to trust, told them the “others” were lying, showed them “evidence” they had not been equipped to question. Told them the very foundations of their existence were being destroyed. Fed them literature and 24hr “news” channels that “proved” it. Bombarded them to the extent that there was no space, no time, no “in”, for any other reality.

I dunno, read some of the stuff from people who “woke up” from the Nazi rabbit hole mind set. Or Opus Dei. Or Scientology. Or the IRA. Or even just bog standard Christian Preachers/Ministers, who lost their faith and suddenly awoke to the misogynistic, homophobic, elitist crap they’d learned to spew.

Yes, being a Nazi is a choice, but it’s usually Hobson's; it’s just the people making it don’t realise they’ve been manoeuvred there.

If you want blame someone, look at who benefits from the system that created those people.

[SA Chris]

Sean who?

[Oldmanmatt]

Nope. That’s not enough.

Look at this picture, even ignore the sarcastic (but accurate) comment attached:

 

See the guy on the right? In the hoody? Look at the lanyard around his neck.
That’s his work id badge.
He’s already been fired and his bosses have passed all of his details to the FBI.
These people do not think they are doing anything even remotely questionable, they honestly believe they are doing the “right” thing and that they are making their parents, community and leaders proud. They believe they are good citizens, serving their country and it’s people and that the “others” are not. Not part of that community, not part of the country, not “true” citizens, not fellow countrymen and women.
Because that’s all they’ve even been told, by everybody they’ve ever trusted.

That dude, is sat at home (or in a bar) blubbing into the alcohol of his choice, wondering how everything he believed in, betrayed him. He doesn’t understand why he’s paying, quite a lot, for doing what he was told was right.

[Oldmanmatt]

Sean who?

Sorry, Seankenny.
For some reason he thinks I like Nazis.
Tit.

[spidermonkey09]

I don't know if that's remotely fair, Matt.

I understand your argument but at what point does societal blame stop and personal responsibility/agency begin? I appreciate that this is a group of people who have been lied to for many years, systematically underfunded, fed bullshit by Fox etc. But they still have agency don't they? They are still responsible for their own actions.

[seankenny]

That’s not what I think in the slightest. But your analysis is quite wrong, in my view. I simply haven’t got the time right now to explain why in detail, but should later.

I will say that whatever environment you’re born into, the decision to openly support death camps and pogroms remains a choice, one that clearly not everyone from this background makes. Yes, systemic factors are super important. But everyone, everywhere, in every situation, has a choice about how they support, accommodate, or oppose such evil acts. Some times and places (1930s USSR, or 1990s central Africa, for instance) place people into nearly impossible situations in which the range of moral acts open to them is limited and brings appalling consequences. I don’t think 21st century America is great, but it’s not the worst either.