• bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Duh.

    It’s astounding to me that a second January sixth isn’t at the top of people’s minds this go round.

    Not because it’ll be successful (although there’s always a chance) but because we already have elected officials who believe that trump won the 2020 election and there will only be more this time around.

    What’s the long term effect of legitimizing disbelief in a functioning democracy? America never was one, but what does it mean when there’s double or triple digit numbers of elected officials who publicly say so?

    The usual explanation for distrust in government has nothing to do with people recognizing reality and changing their views based on it but instead blames that change on lack of bread and circuses, no basics of life and no distraction from reality.

    We certainly don’t have the basics of life, but the distraction machine is running like a champ slaps hood you could fit like seven more dissociative technologies in this sucker!

    What combination of lack of basic necessities and distractions are driving people’s belief (true or false!) that the election was stolen and that our fake democracy is actually fake?

    • NutWrench@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The only good news is that if they try to storm the Capitol again, they’re not going to have Trump and his “acting” Secretary of Defense giving them cover this time.

      Those troops are going to be loaded for bear.

        • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          she presented no threat at all

          Yeah I’m just gonna smash through the only barrier between me and the senators and hope security realizes I just want an autograph and am not trying to hurt any government officials. Genius plan. That said, she DID present a threat by her actions, and a larger potential threat as several rioters were armed. They did their job when they shot her and if anything, showed incredible restraint by waiting until she was literally climbing into the room.

            • CouncilOfFriends@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              On that topic, in my estimation it is going to be a far worse time for everybody if we normalize a violent coup whenever Fox News radicalizes a critical mass of reprogrammable meatbags. After January 6th, even conservatives were briefly able to condemn attempted treason before they found enough room to stand in the shadow of their dear leader. Most Americans did not have a great perception of the state of government, however I’ve never actually met anyone who believes rioters should have been allowed to break through barricades to kill members of congress.

        • Soulg@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          She shouldn’t have been forcefully attempting to enter a restricted area while having guns actively pointed at her while being told to stop, then.

          • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            the state justifies its actions. i’m not asking if the justifications are accurate or not, but what the outcomes of those actions are with regards to peoples trust and perception of the government.

            regardless of weather many people were willing to approve of the state’s justification, what will happen to our trust in our government when january 6 part 2 participants are getting hosed down with m855a1 this time?

            • _tezz@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Personally, I feel that preventing fascist traitor scum from installing a dictator and subjugating the democracy would give me more trust in my government. The state would not have to justify that action to me, that is perfectly just already.

            • Xhieron@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I can think of few things that would restore and bolster my faith in government more than watching the arms of the state rapidly, effectively, and effortlessly put down an active, armed rebellion against the democratically elected institutions of the nation.

              Anyone who marches on the Capitol to unseat the legitimate government of the United States should be met with lethal force, preferably while on camera being broadcast live.

              And that includes anyone who marches on the Capitol to unseat a legitimate Republican government.

              Flowing from the rule of law is the peaceful transfer of power, and flowing from that is the presence of loyal opposition.

              A government that defends the people’s ability to select it with the means entrusted to it is doing exactly what it should. The bitch my state sends to the Senate is an utter slimeball whom I despise with the very core of my being. But the people of my state in their wisdom sent her to DC, so anybody who charges that building with designs on her life should immediately eat a red, white, and blue bullet. If the government fails to defend that bitch, then it has failed me, and my faith in it will have been tarnished.

              That’s my perception of the government in such an event. I certainly don’t speak for everyone.

              • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                Okay so if this becomes a pattern how do we break the cycle of having to dome protesters every election cycle? Historically it hasn’t been good for the state to have constant uprisings no matter if you support their cause or not.

                • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  You’d have to dismantle the right wing propaganda network that’s being coopted by hostile powers to damage trust in our government and sow discontent amongst the populace.

                  But unfortunately, the right would rightly see this as an attack on them, because their media ecosystem is the generator of this shit…

            • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              what will happen to our trust in our government when january 6 part 2 participants are getting hosed down with m855a1 this time?

              Me personally? Trust immediately restored. Jan 6 showed how fragile our system really is with the right people pulling the right levers. It was public knowledge that something big was being organized, yet security was not increased and the national guard was not called in (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they were on standby as it was shortly after George floyd protests/riots). Rioters accessed offices of officials and came VERY close to the senators themselves. Had they not reconvened and certified the election later that night, we would’ve had a constitutional crisis which was one possible goal of the whole thing.

              Bottom line, I don’t give a fuck how a bunch of actual seditionists that worship trump as a god emperor feel. You can’t just storm the goddamn capitol of the country. If preventing that requires mowing down seditionists, that’s not the government’s fault and not my concern.

            • Zink@programming.dev
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              5 months ago

              You may have just picked a bad example, because I think the state’s stance doesn’t really factor into many people’s opinions on this particular shooting.

              • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                Idk, my experience talking to people who claimed to have voted democrat showed otherwise. I had a lot of older people saying they didn’t have to shoot her. Someone who lives a couple of roads over even said the “just shoot her in the leg” line.

                I guess for people who are old enough to remember like maybe Kent state forwards there’s a real bad association with cops or national guard shooting anyone protesting, demonstrating or rioting or whatever and I think if it goes off bigger this time around that’s a bigger problem.

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          She was carrying a backpack big enough to hold a bomb, climbing through a hole in a door that was barricaded, being warned by armed guards not to, and was backed by thousands of angry rioters ready to follow her in.

          I’m pretty sure she represented a threat.

          If your house were surrounded by people yelling and waving bats and batons and pipes and you barricaded your door against them entering, would you feel threatened by someone who broke your window and started climbing in?

            • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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              5 months ago

              if you wanna talk about that i’ll reply but if not i won’t.

              You shouldn’t have brought it up if you weren’t prepared to discuss it.

              No one is asking you to debate this first part:

              seeing that one woman get shot in a situation

              We all know a woman got shot by the government and was justified by the government.

              However, YOU made this statement:

              where she presented no threat at all

              And you are 100% nothing more than a troll IF you claim it’s not reasonable to have to justify such a position, YOUR position, as stated by you.

              • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                Okay, I’ll defend what I said so that it’s clear that I brought it up not to troll or engage in bad faith but as an example of the effects of state violence on public trust.

                Regardless of weather or not you believe the states defense of its agents actions, you can’t deny that the woman who was shot was unarmed (I think I saw some news articles trying to call her armed because she had a pocketknife, but come on!) and that there were alternatives to deadly force available. I saw them discussed online and heard even my very vote blue no matter who style lib neighbors say them when we talked about the news.

                Some of the stuff I remember hearing people say was “push her back through”, “push her back through with a stick” “let her come through and arrest her” “beat people trying to come through with a stick” and “shoot into the air/ground to disperse them”.

                I’m not bringing those things up to then give you the opportunity to ask me to defend them, but to provide examples of normal everyday people’s responses to seeing the states agents kill someone who looked like them or someone they knew and only became more sympathetic as her background was reported on and pictures of her from before January 6 surfaced.

                I also know that she was brought up in the news as a victim of state violence and her name was used as a kind of dogwhistle for stop the steal type right wingers and even normal republican types for little while.

                I don’t remember it because I don’t run in those circles but it had a cadence like “Sharon bobbit” or something.

                The effect of that one death was very polarizing and did little to build broader trust in government except for with people who took the controversial “I don’t like those people/they’re criminals so good riddance” view.

                So that’s why I brought it up and specifically said that she posed no threat. Not because I wanted to defend the people who did January 6 or the ones who use her name as a shibboleth but because it’s a good example of state violence suppressing January 6 prompting a negative response.

                • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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                  5 months ago

                  I appreciate that you expounded on your overall point, but I don’t think you defended what I quoted at all, and that’s the only bit I think you are really on the hook to defend here.

                  where she presented no threat at all

                  I won’t list all the examples others already gave you of how easy it is to see that from the point of view of anyone on the other side of that specific door at that specific time, she was indeed a threat. That’s not “accepting the government’s justification” that’s using my own eyeballs and not pretending I don’t understand the context of what was happening. Anyone claiming she’s not a threat at that moment is willfully ignoring every other detail of the situation.

                  • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                    5 months ago

                    I’m so sorry for not being clearer about the meaning my words have.

                    In the context of a shooting by cops I’m using “no threat” to mean no threat that merits deadly force, not that it wasnt a crazy situation.

                    My point was never to say that the situation wasn’t unique or that fear or feeling threatened never factored in, but the situation in which that woman was shot didn’t constitute a threat to anyone that merited deadly force.

                    She was unarmed (again, I remember some news trying to say that her pocketknife constituted a weapon but whatever), was climbing in through a barrier that she had to be lifted up to reach and could have been restrained with several different tools or techniques at the disposal of the cop that shot her.

                    If there were no other options available then a person could believe otherwise and plenty of cops have gotten off for killings because they said their service weapon was their only option.

                    I was hoping it would be clear what I meant by “no threat” when I explained how lots of people had said all those things they thought the cop could have done, but that’s my fault.

              • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                There’s a lot of people in the replies saying something along these lines but none as succinctly put as you.

                What’s the right way for the state to deal with “idiots” when it doesn’t care what they think? Certainly after this next January 6 the state can’t just kill them, what’s the response from the state you’d like to see?

            • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I think most Americans didn’t have any perception change of their government when they saw that chick get shot. If anything they were shocked by what levels conservative civilians were ready to go to for their completely unfounded beliefs.

              • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                If anything they were shocked by what levels conservative civilians were ready to go to for their completely unfounded beliefs.

                And just how far the government was willing to let them go before they took off the kid gloves and began to consider treating them even somewhat like the George Floyd protestors were treated.

                It was rather eye opening to see the dichotomy between law enforcement response between protests that started non violently protesting in the street vs an angry mob marching on Congress while they actively tried to do a peaceful transfer of power.

              • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                I agree with you that most Americans were shocked in general or didn’t care but I think there was a significant amount of people whose perceptions were maybe changed.

                Do you think the scale would change things? If this becomes a pattern, what’s the way out?

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          She presented a threat and I don’t know what mental gymnastics you have used to argue that she didn’t.

          You don’t fucking accidentally invade the capital building. No one has ever called their spouse and said “hey honey I was trying to buy milk at 7-11 and for some reason I am in the Speaker of the House’s office. She seems mad at me.”

            • BlitzoTheOisSilent@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              If you’re referring to the woman who was killed during the January 6th Insurrection, she was a traitor. She was an Air Force veteran who took an oath upon enlistment that she would faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

              And then when her guy didn’t win, she decided she would forget her oath and try to overthrow the very Constitution she swore to protect. Honestly, fuck her, I don’t wish she had died, but she’s not a martyr, nor should she be.

              Your reasoning is why Democrats never fucking do anything: it’s all about the what-ifs. Republicans don’t give a fuck about the what-ifs and they’ve accomplished countless numbers of their goals over the years.

              So enough: if people want to try Insurrection 2.0: Electric Boogaloo, fucking mow them down like they so badly want to do anyone who isn’t a fucking white, cis, heterosexual male who dry humps their Bible every fucking night thinking that makes them a good Christian.

              Your logic and your comment are asinine, and you’re completely oblivious to the other side of your coin: We should just do nothing because stopping fucking traitors from overthrowing their government because their dipshit lost may hurt the perception the American people have of their government. Yep, better just let fascism happen then because people may look at the government, the same one that drone strikes women and children in the Middle East, what, may be too fucking tough on terrorists and insurrections?

              Please.

              • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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                5 months ago

                She was an Air Force veteran who took an oath upon enlistment that she would faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

                I’m sure from her thoroughly deluded, brain-rotted perspective that’s exactly what she was doing - protecting the Constitution from a domestic enemy seeking to steal the election.

                Practically no one sees themselves as the villain of their own story.

                • BlitzoTheOisSilent@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Then her death rests at the feet of the politicians who sold her the big lie. But that would hold Republicans accountable, and for some fucked up reason, we just can’t have that in this country.