Re-writing history:
The Capital invaders were patriots. Ashli Babbitt was a victim. The real insurrection was the election on November 3, not January 6.
Introducing Ashli Babbitt.
These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!
Then, the next day, a moment of remorse. It played badly on TV. Their actions, he said, were a "heinous attack":
The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay.
That was then.
Trump now describes the Capitol rioters as patriots. It was a modern Boston Tea Party, a disorderly event undertaken to bring political justice. This week Trump sent a video to a birthday party memorial done by Ashli Babbitt's family. Ashli Babbitt is the woman shot and killed as she attempted to climb through the broken glass window to enter the House Chamber. Trump said she is a "truly incredible person" and he offers his "unwavering support to her family."
Movements gain energy from martyrs. Ashli Babbitt is offered up to play that role. Fox News hosts treat her as an innocent victim. Demonstrators rally in her defense.
Ashli Babbitt was part of a crowd that was shoving and hammering on the broken window on a door barricaded with stacked up furniture. Beyond the door was the House Chamber, where House Members were huddled. The scene was loud and disorderly, people shouting "Fuck the Blue." Might she have "listened to reason" if she had better understood that her death was imminent if she did not retreat? Here is the scene:
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The video below was new to me. Here is Ashli Babbitt, in a self-filmed video, done while she drove her car. Possibly some Americans will be thrilled by her passion. I consider her dangerously manic. I think efforts to portray Babbitt as a victim will be difficult.
10 comments:
Yes, Trump calls people who tried to overthrow the government (including himself) patriots. Meanwhile, people have been putting up billboards to remind him that he lost the election, his delusions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Just las week he was at a Republican retreat wailing about the “stolen election,” praising Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, ranting about windmills and denying that he likes “golden showers" (but he lies a lot).
This is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party. I think that tells us all we need to know about it.
The George Floyd murder became a tipping point after numerous incidents of excessive force, some leading to death. The killing couldn't be ignored like so many others. George Floyd wasn't doing anything to justify the treatment he received. No one can deny that had he been white under the same circumstances that he would have survived.
The 1/6 riot was not a spontaneous incident. Republicans have been tacitly condoning violence for years, for example note the lack of Republican outrage at the attempted kidnapping plot against the governor of Michigan, as well as winking at the militias menacing statehouses. They came to DC with intent, and got encouragement from those on the podium.
Certainly Ashli Babbitt didn't intend to sacrifice her life for Donald Trump. She is his victim, not the capital police officer who was doing his duty protecting the lives of Congress members. She was tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time, albeit at her own choice, and needlessly died defending a vicious lie.
There are those who try to equivocate BLM vandals with the 1/6 rioters. There is one distinction. While the property damage is misguided and not to be condoned, the BLM protestors are expressing their anger against undeniable injustice, not a cynical, politically motivated falsehood.
I think the capital police should have shot more protesters breaking in with the intent to kill various people. Maybe that would have stopped them. If someone is breaking into my home isn’t it ok, right for me to protect myself? Portray her as a hero if you want. I view her as a criminal who got what she deserved.
I took down another comment written in Curt Ankerberg's style: Name calling, bad language, and anonymous. A judge found Ankerberg guilty of tax fraud. Ankerberg's unsuccessful defense was that he was mentally disabled due to brain damage.
One of the telltale limits on the value of purported procedural or nonpartisan rule-making and ethical analysis is when it is conflated with or substituted for bald substantive preference. Before and during the Floyd riots, we frequently heard from our good progressives about the violent pathology of American policing. Police seem the criminals as much as the criminals, went the refrain. Deadly force was routinely, even reflexively decried as gratuitously brutal and excessive except when no conceivable alternative existed, even if a suspect was reaching for weapon or reasonably appeared to be.
Flash forward—and now backwards—to the January 6 Capitol riot. Suddenly progressive eyes were misty with sympathy and gratitude at the courage and sacrifice of law enforcement officers in face of unpredictable suspects, especially as here, a violent, politicized mob. We read here in the comments what we heard on CNN and MSNBC. Suddenly the police killing of an unarmed rioter who represents no explicit nor immediate threat to officer life and limb—heretofore the new bedrock procedural rule—IS thoroughly justified, and more besides, when the substantive political cause is reprehensible.
Favored causes may justify or at least mitigate all manner of means. Disfavored causes? Anything goes. You deserve it.
Dear Ms. Dungeon:
Blacks comprise 12.4% of the U.S. population, but the rate of fatal police shootings of unarmed Blacks is more than three times as high as it is among Whites.
Get a clue.
Dear Ms. Mike—
The key to making the best use of statistics is not ignoring definitions and potentially important variables which may not be convenient to one’s prefab social or political narrative.
(Black) Mike Brown, of Ferguson fame, for instance? The case that galvanized the entire Black Lives Matter movement? Turned out “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” was a toxic fable.
Why? Because Brown was bullrushing Officer Wilson when he was shot. Even the Obama Justice Dept. concluded that, as did the Brown family’s hired forensic pathologist.
Oh, and per the stats Brown was “unarmed”….because he narrowly failed to wrest away Wilson’s pistol. Brown’s DNA was on the gun, which discharged inside the patrol vehicle.
Clues are good!
So your point is...what? Blacks have no basis for complaint? Get a clue.
Peaceful BLM protests were coopted by hoodlums as an excuse to run rampant. The riot at the Capitol was incited by a so-called president and was an organized attempt at preventing an election from being certified. That's sedition.
She stuck her head through the window to climb through and go get a Congress person. She and her window bashing friends saw the serviceman with his gun aimed and ready. Ashly( Babble )made the wrong impulsive choice. She chose to die, no. She trespassed and experienced the consequences of the secret service who protect and serve,
Re: wailing
Left, right, progressive, etc.
All do it. Why?
To try to divide us all. Sometimes the anecdotes are spot on. Other times the truth is stretched, mistated, or downright wrong. It's helpful to read from multiple sources to better understand.
Armchair quarterbacking is just too easy these days.
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