Do I take the view that every fatal consequence is the fault of law enforcemen?
No I don’t, Captain Strawman.
But in cases like this when multiple independent videos from multiple independent sources show Mr. Pretti holding a camera when he is shoved to the ground, pinned onto his stomach by five ‘agents’ while a sixth seizes his gun and shoots him in the back after which they flee like gangsters rather than secure the scene like law enforcement officers do, that is literally getting away with murder.
Do you always assume that every fatal consequence is defensible regardless of the evidence?
I make no assumptions and wait for the facts to come out. Two things can be true. Any investigation may and could include criminal charges for officers. Also, Alex put himself in harms way while carrying a weapon. I don’t know many peaceful protestors that come armed.
I watched the Pretti video several times and listened to competing opinions of it. At full speed and in the chaos of the moment, it’s not clear to me yet. But, there is supposedly more evidence from other angles that may give a clearer picture.
I’ve also watched the prior videos of Pretti in days leading up to this incident where he attempted a similar physical interaction and broke out ICE vehicle taillights. Alex was looking to engage in a way that puts himself and citizens at risk. It doesn’t justify the outcome if there was actual wrong doing by officers but it does complicate what some view as a simple case.
Irregardless, it’s the most ridiculous of straw men to equate our situation to 1933 and Germany. Again, if you care to re-read the post, you’ll see eldo’s comments. I think some of you don’t actually know what a strawman argument is.
When I was an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in the early 1980’s I easily could have won a capital murder conviction against the shooter and a first degree murder against his confederates on these facts.
No. Multiple videos show him holding up his hands, with one hand empty and the other holding a phone. They show an agent removing his gun while he was pinned to the ground, and another shooting him in the back after the gun was removed. They fled the scene rather than secure it, and refused to cooperate with state authorities when they tried to conduct an investigation.
Lawfully carrying a gun to a peaceful protest does not give police the right to murder you in cold blood.
Turning a blind eye to the facts, like you are doing now, is exactly what law abiding citizens did in Germany in 1933.
Nor did anyone suggest that should be the case. I think the part you conveniently leave out is the part where another officer shouts he’s got a gun, not realizing the other officer has secured the weapon. There are then two different officers that discharge their weapons. I of course don’t have your expertise in criminal prosecution but it raises doubts as a novice observer.
No, they did way more than that, which is my point.
I am talking the top bracket. I am talking corporate taxes.
The issue is retooling the US as the emerging industrial power. It is not playing at nonsense and a ton of inflation. A factory build-out would be deflationary. There are other ways to win at this game.
Did you also hear the part where I explained that we don’t have to choose?
But if we did, yeah, an open border would do less harm than current policies. Let’s take it point by point:
The vast majority of illicit drugs are smuggled into the country at ports of entry. The idea that roving hoards of immigrants bring drugs into the country in their backpacks has been proven to be ludicrous. The drop in fentanyl deaths is largely attributed to China cracking down on precursor chemicals and better access to life-saving care.
The issue of minors “disappearing” at the border is largely an administrative paperwork issue, not necessarily minors going missing. This is clearly unacceptable, but it’s not the same as suggesting hundreds of thousands of children slipped into the control of nefarious organizations that exploit them.
It doesn’t help when JTT says stuff like -
“We have 325,000 children here during Democrats — and this was done by Democrats — who are right now slaves, sex slaves or dead,” Trump said. “And what I will be doing will be trying to find where they are and get them back to their parents.”
It’s really unfortunately that there are still a large number of stupid people who still believe our stupid president.
If you’re going to make a statement that has been proven to be false, you’ve got to provide evidence. Crime rates went down. Your previous claim about 1/2 of violent crime not being reported is a cop out. If it’s unreported, you don’t know if it went up or down.
Again, I qualified my statement by explaining that we don’t have to choose between border security and compassionate immigration policies. We can do both, and that’s what I’d prefer. But given the choice, I’d choose the option that imposes less harm to US citizens, immigrants, our economy, and our democracy…open borders.
The collateral harm you described as being caused by open borders wasn’t happening. The collateral harm caused by current policies is real.
I don’t think I’m the one who finds collateral damage perfectly acceptable.
Choice to do no harm is a positive expression of personal responsibility.
Most all of us are relatively recent sojourners in the US.
Those who champion individualism and free markets, in their purest and most sacred forms, also champion free movement of labor and capital, in pursuit of maximal ROI (at least since 1980).
Those who rent-seek their capital and underachieve their labors, often look outward for their failings, to outsiders, instead of inward, which is the path of ultimate freedom: personal responsibility.
In times of uncertainty, corruption, war and inflation, trying economic and immoral times, when our road might seem cloudy and dark, we can always look to our spiritual canons for light:
”When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land …”
It is unacceptable that any child would be abused or trafficked or any American would suffer harm because we are not properly vetting entrants to our country. Zero is the acceptable number. Any failure to enforce the border and immigration laws risks letting in those up to no good. I don’t care if it’s 1 in 10 or 1 in 100k.
I understand what you said, it was perfectly clear. You said rather than face the current approach, you preferred the pure negligence of the last administration, when faced with one option or the other.
1% of the population commits roughly 60% of violent crimes. It’s why the vetting process is so important.
I too would prefer a secure border and sensible immigration. Lacking that solution, my default will be protecting innocent Americans and minor children being shuttled across the border for who knows what purpose.
Those that want to antagonize law enforcement and insert themselves in dangerous situations are on notice. This isn’t a game.
It’s unacceptable that children are being detained and separated from their parents. It’s unacceptable that any American is detained or killed as a result of ICE brutality. Why is zero only acceptable on one side of the equation? Seems hypocritical.
Sure, and immigrants, undocumented or not, commit far less crime than citizens in the US.
Your default is based on falsehoods. Show us some evidence of how undocumented people coming across the border increases crime. Child exploitation is a serious problem. Open borders are not the issue. Systemic failures in immigration policy and proper vetting policies need to be addressed. It takes an act of Congress to do this.
In fact, strict border security may be driving migrants, including children, into the shady cartel underworld. These ineffective policies also drive children into dangerous working conditions.
Nobody said it was a game. Our country was founded by antagonists. We have a long history of antagonists instigating justice reforms. Spoiler alert, the patriots of today are on the left.
The Patriots are people that don’t care about left or right. They care about family, faith, and self reliance. They don’t get hysterical about every administration change. They never think their experience in life comes anywhere near the monumental tragedies of what those faced before them. They understand that political ideology is downstream from being an American.
Agreed. Patriots are those who stand up for democracy, fight corruption, and support the things that have made our country great…like immigration. These battles are being waged by the left.
Patriots care about service to others. The founders of this nation believed that the republic would depend on virtuous citizens putting the public good above their personal interests.
Like when the current president incited violence when he lost the election? Give me a break. Kowtowing to the current administration is not patriotic, it’s endangering our democracy. That’s not hysterical, we have lived experience that warns us of the clear and present danger.
There were certainly past tragedies. People who fail to appreciate current tragedies will contribute to future tragedies.
You should preach that to the numerous people in Congress who don’t have the courage to do their job.
We should vet and train any officer that we put into a position of enforcing laws.
I think many of us don’t really know how to define the left anymore.
Is it those wearing keffiyehs and shouting from the river to the sea and the extermination of the sole democracy in the Middle East?
Is it the newest ones like in NYC asking the public to embrace the warmth of collectivism and wanting to takeaway private property rights?
Is it 80 year old socialists that have achieved nearly nothing in office in 30 years but want to tell the rest of us what is fair?
Is it those justifying violence because they don’t like the outcome of elections? Those telling us the environmental battle is life or death and then burning electric cars?
Is it those telling us the we risk losing our democracy but then want to abolish the Senate and rewrite the constitution and don’t believe in borders at all?
Is it those that say words are violence and any critique of ideas, even fundamental facts around biology, are completely unacceptable?
Is it just the incompetent left, overseeing reading levels at 40 year lows, making housing affordability, homelessness, criminal activity, cost of education, and inflation even worse?
When you say the left, what do you mean? Are these the patriots you speak of?
You live in an alternate universe. January 6 was the unmitigated expression of mass, organized violence by the right because you did not like the outcome of an election. No moral person could support that.