A few weeks ago: "regime change is bad" was updated to "regime change is good". This was a great success, so now new updates are being released.
Now, there is a new update: "must not be infringed" now means "if you're carrying a concealed gun at a protest, you are a domestic terrorist and will be summarily executed after being disarmed and restrained."
Please prepare for your next update, due to be released in a couple of months. In "We oppose Middle Eastern quagmires", strike the word 'oppose' and insert 'support'.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, and remember to keep trusting the plan.
Agreed wholeheartedly. But instead of being upfront and honest about that reality, many are trying to frame it as the shooting was justified because he had a gun. I think that needs to be nipped in the bud whenever possible.
Another consideration is the unfortunate reality that the American people are probably too stupid to understand the nuanced reality, so from a PR standpoint digging in one's heels and pretending there was no wrongdoing may have been the correct move.
Sticky situation overall. When the initial backlash has died down I think there should be an investigation and if they want to claim the officer thought the guy reached for the gun, that's one thing, but I don't think it's good for them to maintain it's justified because he had a gun.
Also it is hard to shake the feeling that everytbing is being handled this way to achieve a poor results to backlash ratio so that they lose the midterms without making all that much ground on deportations.
Yea two things can be true. There are issues with this shooting and you shouldn’t be interfering with ICE or blocking the vehicles. Some blame definitely needs to go to the ones who have brainwashed these people to think enforcing immigration law is evil. I’m personally tired of them as much as I got sick of blm morons
But at the same time, anyone protesting Covid restrictions needs their kids taken away by the government...
They do not respect the rule of law, so the don't deserve it's protection.
You make sense my friend.
The other consideration on top of that is the morale of the ICE officers and of law enforcement in general. You're never going to get mass deportations and border enforcement on the scale you want if the administration is seen to throw ICE officers under the bus, even if one of them might deserve it. That rips the rug out from under them, and it will make them more hesitant to do their job.
This is far from an ideal situation, but just as with the other scenario that the OP is still fuming about, the side that clings to ideals in the face of an enemy cynically engaged in the realpolitik of win-at-any-cost will inevitably lose.
This needs to be hammered into people's heads. Saw so many "conservatives" joining in the frenzy bleating about muh principles. Even if I can agree with specific gun rights angles, anyone joining in the frenzy amplifying anti-ICE sentiment right now without attaching the appropriate qualifiers is undoubtedly pushing in the wrong direction and is an enemy at the moment.
FWIW, I'm not criticizing ICE (this wasn't even ICE). I'm criticizing these guys and administration officials.
But here's the deal. What do you think will make ICE more hated? If people think they can be killed by ICE with impunity, or if they think there is some rule and procedure to use of force? Did the previous "ICE killing", more justified than this one, increase or decrease opposition to ICE?
Opposing accountability comes back to bite people. But it's OK if you want to claim I'm the enemy.
I agree, and that is why I am going back and forth with another user about accountability in this thread. Public perception is important so long as we are subject to the wills of any room temperature IQ normie capable of dragging themselves to the polls to vote.
The problem is when people get frenzied and frothing at the mouth over it and don't attach the appropriate qualifiers. I saw plenty of conservatives yesterday retweeting and amplifying known terrible people who have 90% the wrong message just because they agreed with the one part where they said they don't like this shooting. People need to keep their heads on straight and be pragmatic.
Well said. Nuanced discussion is impossible unless everyone involved is reasonably intelligent, shares some common values, and is willing to act in good faith. None of those things are remotely true in American politics.
To the extent nuance is used at all in our politics, it's to muddy the waters on issues that should be clear cut.
I think people struggle to put into words the sentiment that the shooting was not justified in retrospect, but it was a very understandable mistake. The guy didn't just have a gun, his gun discharged in the middle of a melee of other officers, outside of the line of sight of the guy who started shooting. You have the situation where something walked like a duck and quacked like a duck, but turned out not to be a duck because Sig made a deathtrap of a pistol. A "duck" in this case being a guy shooting at your coworkers point blank.
It's like the difference between a guy swerving to avoid a dog in the road and totalling an oncoming car with fatalities, and the same situation with no dog just a guy too wasted to drive straight. Technically both of them fucked up, but one of them just had an understandable moment of panic, the other just showed a blatant disregard for his responsibilities as a good citizen. And people intuitively know the panic guy isn't nearly so bad as the blatantly negligent guy and don't want the same level of punitive punishment for the same outcome, even if they can't quite enunciate that logic. So when people are saying he's a cold-blooded, premeditated murderer they just say "no he's not" without being able to expand on it properly.
Very well said and I think that explanation applies to the vast majority of people. Personally I think politicians and those in positions of authority should be held to a bit of higher standard in terms of articulation ability, but then it circles back to my point of Americans being too stupid to understand it anyway. Just a mess all around.
It's not just "he had a gun." It's also where and when he "had a gun." "Had a gun" is a funny kind of re-framing of "Armed himself before wading into a conflict."
Those are very different things.
I think having a gun in such a situation is and should be protected by the Constitution though. Don't get me wrong, I'm not losing sleep over it. He was almost undoubtedly a terrible person. But the administration needs to get its messaging right.
It is protected. Just because it is protected, doesn't make it not a bad idea, and the fact that it is protected doesn't mean you're not a piece of shit for exercising that right in bad faith. It's for self-defense. This doesn't cover aggression. If you're armed for aggression, it's not self-defense.
I don't think this concept has any legal merit though. And if it does, I really don't think I want the government to be the arbiter of that. Barring him not carrying ID (which incurs just a small fine), he was legally carrying.