> Then surely you can agree that labeling this regime as unrepentant murderers of American mothers is a good way of building broad opposition from people who might otherwise think it doesn't concern them, yes?
No. In fact I think jumping to conclusions, exaggerating, trying to use a tragedy to your advantage, obfuscation, and outright lying to try and manipulate public sentiment is perhaps the WORST way to try and move that needle.
Because what happens is what is happening now, more and more information trickles out and when that some of that info runs contrary to your narrative, people realize you have been trying to manipulate them and you lose your credibility. It creates reasonable doubt to all accounts about the situation and people simply reject it as evidence of anything.
We have seen first hand what the “don’t trust your lying eyes” approach has achieved…it’s achieved a second Trump administration.
Someone was murdered with plenty of video footage, it's reasonable to form some preliminary conclusions.
As you're appealing to a general concept of restraint, I presume you have much harsher criticism for the administration, which immediately dropped into pushing bald faced lies [0] and rejecting responsibility for the situation rather than taking even a moment to assess? Would you care to share that criticism here?
The flip side of this refrain of "don't trust your lying eyes" is outright lying by this administration "supported" by narrow video clips that don't tell the whole story. Like a clip of "stop" and the victim trying to drive away is pretty convincing, if you're not shown the other clip where another violent attacker was yelling "move move move".
[0] The basic known facts here are that ICE electively confronted and escalated a situation with an American citizen, did not follow their own mandate or rules of engagement, the woman was shot repeatedly, and then a nearby doctor tried to render emergency aid and was prevented from doing so, correct?
There is no more need for me to comment on this any further save this: As I predicted, additional footage is now emerging that is showing her actions well prior to the shooting, people coming out who knew her and are describing her connections to activism and affiliations to the media and investigators, and the very words of the woman’s partner as to what they were doing right after the incident on site were recorded. All of this will ultimately contribute into the overall legal analysis into this incident.
Edit:
Also, the ICE agent who shot her POV video in realtime of the incident has just been released and it includes the interaction with the the driver and what appears to be the driver’s partner.
Would you care to point at anything specific in these actions that show either one of them physically impeding or otherwise violently aggressing on ICE?
> people coming out who knew her and are describing her connections to activism and affiliations
... because what I'm seeing is a lot of handwaving and innueno.
> the very words of the woman’s partner as to what they were doing
Once again, care to quote anything specific?
I've always been one to go to primary sources, but I haven't seen the need to give this regime the benefit of the doubt since I combed through all those fake legal claims that Trump filed to support his "stolen election" hoax. I guess I'm going to have to break down and just watch this woman be executed over and over to see for myself. But I'd also think if there were facts here that demonstrated she was the initial physical aggressor (as opposed to inconveniently engaging in Constitutionally-protected observation, filming, and heckling), they could be stated quite plainly!
> I guess I'm going to have to break down and just watch this woman be executed over and over to see for myself.
Just like a jury will have to do should this come to trial. The act of judging someone for a crime often means you have to see all the evidence in detail even when it’s disturbing and difficult.
Sorry for continuing to make the judgement that I'd rather spend several more hours of quality time with my son than using that time to come down from the stress of seeing a woman be assaulted and executed again and again from many different angles. I guess I'm just not cut out to be "MAGA" material.
But I do have jury duty a few months from now, and if it requires me to do a similar thing then I will rise to the challenge for my civic duty. I have become quite conservative - supporting our remaining institutions of law and order is especially important in these days of rampant criminality by all three branches of the federal government.
If you want to make your case here, I have asked you two straightforward questions that you have so far thus avoided:
1. Would you care to describe anything specific shown by these videos where either Renee or her wife physically impede or otherwise violently aggress on ICE? (before their escalation into a high-stakes assault on her vehicle. also keep in mind this would be the beginning of forming a logical argument and that the principle of equity between those actions and the response still applies)
2. As you've been appealing to a general concept of restraining judgement, I presume you have much harsher criticism for the administration - as supposed leadership for the country, they immediately dropped into pushing bald faced lies and rejecting all responsibility rather than taking even a moment to examine, reflect, and work to prevent further tragedies regardless of fault. Would you care to share your own criticism here?
I think there is definitely evidence now that makes it pretty clear that those two women were specifically in that situation and area to intentionally interfere and antagonize ICE. The driver ignored direct orders to exit the vehicle and chose to flee instead. Her act of fleeing created a dangerous situation where a law enforcement officer had to make a split second decision and still was physically struck by the vehicle. I think it’s up to investigators, prosecutors, judge, and jury to decide if action against the agent is appropriate understanding all of the evidence surrounding the incident. We have had the benefit of days of analysis with slowed down video from multiple vantage points. That officer had 2 seconds mere moments after being directly antagonized by one of the people from the vehicle.
The inconvenient truth here is that the constitution EXPECTS the executive branch to enforce the laws that congress passes. ICE is enforcing laws that America wanted and passed in a bipartisan manner many years ago. If we the people don’t like a law, we the people should undo it the way we originally “did” it…via congress.
I have never voted for Trump. I don’t like many of the things he does and says. I can be critical of the Trump messaging and rhetoric (including around this situation, which like the outraged—-is filled with excessive emotion and a rush to judgement). At the same time I can be supportive of the constitutional requirement to enforce our laws, because I don’t want to live in a lawless anarchy.
> there is definitely evidence now that makes it pretty clear that those two women were specifically in that situation and area to intentionally interfere and antagonize ICE
You are still handwaving while not pointing to specific evidence. Please tell me exactly what they did that physically interfered with or physically antagonized ICE? Does one of the videos show one of them straight up physically attacking an ICE agent, and it's just obvious or something?
Alternatively if the claim is that they had planned to physically interfere with ICE but never got the chance, then presumably there is the evidence of whatever physical items they had that look like part of a plan to interfere with ICE.
Because it feels like the continued lack of specifics in favor of handwaving and innuendo is an attempt to use protected first amendment activity - criticizing of government agents including heckling - into what seems like a cause of action for people who do not like the protected first amendment message. I keep asking because I know I could easily be wrong here, but I still have yet to see anything claiming any sort of physical attack or physical obstruction that would give credence to claims of obstruction that allegedly precipitated the assault on the car.
> ICE is enforcing laws that America wanted and passed in a bipartisan manner
As a high level goal, I'm mostly ambivalent about these! Maybe even slightly pro as I've come around to seeing the virtues in legibility, especially if there would be common law equitable judgement applied to situations created by the situation festering so long (cf adverse possession).
But a need to enforce immigration (or any other) law has absolutely zero bearing on whether citizens are allowed to criticize the agents for doing so. It also has absolutely zero bearing on justifying an escalation of what seems to be at most a minor physical skirmish into a summary execution by ignoring common sense rules of engagement (don't step in front of a car that is about to move) codified in the agents' own written procedures.
My problem is entirely with the methods by which it is being achieved - pointlessly cruel, inhumane, procedurally unconstitutional (as we're discussing), secretive and hidden instead of openly documented, directly contrary to the law for people that are here legally, denial of due process exacerbating the previous issues, etc. The cruelty deviates so far from the norms of free society, and is so completely unnecessary, that it informs my seeing this whole current call of enforcing immigration laws as a mere pretext for something much more dark and sinister.
Take a detour here - why hadn't immigration laws been fully enforced for the past two decades? My understanding is that the primary driver was businesses interests that rely on manual labor - they saw it was lucrative to kill the bargaining power of American labor by using undocumented workers with very little bargaining power or recourse. What really is the chance that those business interests have been finally made to take a back seat, versus those business interests now being content that labor's economic power has been fully smashed and this change is merely the next step in subjugating the common American? Most especially with the figurehead leading the charge being a business owner highly reliant on cheap undocumented labor in the industries of real estate development, hotels, golf courses?
> At the same time I can be supportive of the constitutional requirement to enforce our laws, because I don’t want to live in a lawless anarchy.
If we're talking about lofty goals like the rule of law, then why are you not as concerned about the laws regarding freedom of speech or deprivation of life [, liberty, or property] contained in our country's very charter? Because what I see here is the creation of anarcho-tyranny - an unconstrained gang of masked thugs doing effectively whatever they feel like, enabled by a federal government that has stopped even attempting to enforce its own laws that would otherwise restrain them for the sake of our natural rights and liberties.
(I will also say, your criticism of Trump's statements there is quite tame given how aggressively dismissive those statements are from someone who is supposed to be leading the country rather than dividing it)
This conversation is not productive. This woman’s death was not about free speech and it’s not about Trump. It’s about decisions and actions that she made and the agent made in their interaction. There will be legal accountability performed by people who will see all of the available evidence, understand all of the policies, procedures, and legalities that govern something like this and will make judgments. Those people are not me and likely not you.
Wow. I wrote a pretty substantive comment so you could see we have some common ground and I'm not just a "fAr lEfT wAcKo", but apparently that's "not productive".
If you want to be done, sure, be done. I think we could have converged much quicker if you hadn't been leading with these kind of abstract-oblique points that demand adding nuance, but then avoiding the nuance. And also I've got to say, this last comment is a whole bunch of retrenching at "nobody can know" FUD.
But at any rate, let us make no mistake: this incident is most certainly about our freedom of speech, which includes the freedom to criticize government agents in ways they may not personally appreciate.
I did finally just watch a video of the run-up of where they surround the car. She was stopped across the street like an asshole, blaring her horn, and seemingly mocking/heckling the agents. Vehicles were going by her just fine (including some ICE vehicles), just as you'd expect in regular city traffic. But being an asshole is not illegal, and what she was doing looks to be exactly first-amendment protected activity - heckling ICE agents because she disagreed with what they were doing.
Even if there is something there that ICE can legally stretch into a federal crime, it certainly doesn't rise to the level of necessitating a high stakes boxed-in gun-drawn escalation that induces a fight or flight response. And given that the killer had previously fucked around and found out about moving vehicles six months prior, his positioning and subsequent reaction would seem to be highly deliberate and likely even premeditated.
Renee most certainly could have done many things differently, and I wish she had. But government agents also have a duty to execute their roles in good faith to minimize harm regardless of whom they're dealing with and what they've done. What these agents did here was the complete and utter opposite, making them responsible for her death.
I realize this is difficult for people on this thread to accept, but unless you are someone selected for a jury evaluating this case your opinion, my opinion, the half dozen or more others opinions commenting about this situation on this thread, every pundit or talking head, every news agency, federal government officials, politicians, and even Trump’s opinion (unless he decides to preemptively pardon before any charges are brought, which is now a thing thanks to Biden) just doesn’t matter.
Frankly at this point I am just tired of rehashing the same things over and over again. I will leave you with this as my final summary of my thought (which I have more than once articulated on this thread): The government has the ability to take your life from you. The legal bar to prove that they did this illegally is very very high. Your best protection against it is to minimize being in any situation where the conditions will easily exist for it to happen.
I am well aware of the distinction between what is and what ought to be. You seem to be perfectly content with what is such that it has replaced your ability to even ponder what ought to be. We are all quite fortunate that the founding fathers of our country did not think like you.
> We are all quite fortunate that the founding fathers of our country did not think like you.
Ironic that you think that when all through this thread I have suggested to people that were upset with how this works that the best way for them to change all of it is to use exactly the process our founding fathers put in place for us to do so. Just to get push back from many that mob rule was a better method.
You completely missed my point, which perfectly demonstrated my point. Thank you.
(as I'm eternally hopeful, I will give you a breadcrumb that you might start following. ask yourself: what do you think the first steps of using those processes might look like?)
No. In fact I think jumping to conclusions, exaggerating, trying to use a tragedy to your advantage, obfuscation, and outright lying to try and manipulate public sentiment is perhaps the WORST way to try and move that needle.
Because what happens is what is happening now, more and more information trickles out and when that some of that info runs contrary to your narrative, people realize you have been trying to manipulate them and you lose your credibility. It creates reasonable doubt to all accounts about the situation and people simply reject it as evidence of anything.
We have seen first hand what the “don’t trust your lying eyes” approach has achieved…it’s achieved a second Trump administration.