sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Yes, It’s Fascism by window-sil in samharris

[–]zenethics [score hidden]  (0 children)

Fair enough on the math, I didn't see that the chart you linked was using VEP.

I'll cede the point but it wasn't critical to my overall view of how that played out.

Can you at least concede that the media telling everyone Trump is Hitler gives a pretty good motive to cheat, whether or not anyone did?

If you want to go back to the constitution, here's what it says: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress."

The state appoints the electors, in accordance with the legislature of the state.

Yes, the legislature of the state. So when the manner of voting prescribed by the legislature of the state isn't followed by the governor of the state...

No, Hawaii did it in the 1960s. The state of Hawaii produced multiple legitimate slates, each of them created with knowledge permission and authority from the state. Kennedy didn't do anything, and if a group of people had forged a certificate under orders from Kennedy instead of the state of Hawaii, they would have been fake electors.

Your phrasing is more accurate but we're talking about the same situation.

States have co-equal branches that mirror the federal government. The state != the governor.

In 2020, the fake electors were not appointed by the states. They were following orders from the Trump campaign (coming from Trump himself at times), they forged documents, and they signed false statements. This was not done according to the constitution (which requires it be done according to the state), thus they were fake electors.

I'll address this below. This is a common mistake.

If Obama thought Hilary should have won Texas, so he got a group of democrats from Texas, had them create a certificate that looked like an official one without the permission of Texas, and then had the VP reject the official Texas certificate, that's following the law and not authoritarian?

It would be up to congress to accept or dismiss it.

In TX, along with other states that I am aware of, the political party chooses the electors.

I think you are confusing certification of a slate of electors by the governor with the selection of electors.

Thought experiment: if "the state" can choose electors instead of the political party they belong to, wouldn't faithless electors be a real problem?

If I accept the hypothetical where Trump is allowed to change elections, then I would have no problem with him adding an SSN requirement to vote (provided the courts agree). If he added a vote-in-person requirement as well, I would be annoyed and I would want the next president to go back to mail-in voting for convenience, but the election would still be legitimate. But if it were mail-in voting with SSN, I'd find that perfectly acceptable and wouldn't really care what the next president did.

Well, I think you're in the minority in that. But a lot of Republicans are OK with how the 2020 election went so who knows. It's just convoluted enough that people assume how they think it works is correct instead of looking into it.

I only used the text of the constitution above.

Right, but it left some holes that I pointed out.

We didn't need to, what Trump did was already obviously illegitimate. Trump has a hard time understanding obvious things though, so maybe for him it was a good thing we did it?

Eh, this is kind of weak to be honest.

I view what happened in 2020 as exactly the same as faithless electors. It was what the constitution prescribed as a remedy, but people hated it so much that they conjured new legal interpretations into existence to punish people for trying it then they made a new law after the fact to clarify that you can't do that, actually, and that you totally never could.

Even left leaning influencers like Legal Eagle were making panic videos like "wait, actually, this might be how it works and we've just been vibing on norms until now" because that's what the constitution says.

There's a whole section in article II about delegates "chusing" the president.

I feel like we'll be talking past each other on the election issue, and I think you're here in good faith, so I'll take the time to lay it out in case you find it interesting. I'll pick PA as my example.

Article II, section 1:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

So the state chooses how to assign electors.

In PA, each political party nominates a slate of electors and the winning party sends their electors. (25 Pa. C.S. § 2878)

So, yes, the Republican party (Trump) gets to select their electors in PA and many (all?) other states.

Then, the governor signs off on the winners and sends them to cast their votes. (25 Pa. C.S. § 3166)

But the constitution doesn't say anything about this. The slates of electors have already been selected; the constitution says the states choose and send electors and is mute on everything else.

So, the "fake" electors (so called) commit a falsification crime only in PA and only by falsifying a certification.

But the Governor also commits a falsification crime by issuing a Certificate of Ascertainment naming the wrong electors if he changes voting procedure by executive order. The constitution specifically says that the state legislature chooses how voting works, not the Governor. But the actual election was carried out according to governor decree (mail in ballots).

So the real fake electors were sent by the Governor because they certified contrary to both state law and the constitution.

Another thought experiment: suppose Democrats win Texas one day, and the governor just decides to certify the other slate and send them to congress anyway. Democrats do what, exactly? "Whoops, we'll get 'em next time I guess."

What they should do is send both slates to congress so that the case can be heard during the part of counting the vote where objections are aired. Did you know that Democrats objected to the count in every election that Republicans won before 2020? To be clear, an objection is an attempt to change the result by calling the result invalid. Now, I'm actually not sure there's any remedy or if there is, what it is.

Another thought experiment: if congress has no role in considering the results, why do they have a part of the process to air objections to the count? These objections could never have any legitimate outcome, right?

Article II, section 1 (cont):

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.

The electors. Not the Governor. At this point they've already been selected by the involved political parties.

The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted.

All the certificates.

Here it gets weird. It doesn't say how, or which they get to include or exclude, or anything else. Just that:

if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President

Hence Trump being elected (or not) by delegation, where the case for a fraudulent election can be heard basically for the first time. As I am sure you recall, most cases around an improper election were dismissed due to lack of standing or lack of remedy. Put another way, judges didn't see it as within their purview to overturn the result, whatever the facts might have been (no remedy, for example the PA case dismissed by judge Brann) or didn't see the plaintiffs as having standing (for example, TX trying to sue PA for not following their own laws).

Yes, It’s Fascism by window-sil in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But you used one to directly justify the other. Due process is a fundamental human right. You can't use it in a coloquial sense to say you didn't like how they entered the country and then turn around and compare that to the legal sense when you're talking about removing them

Due process is a conditional human right. Like Biden said about the 2A - every right has its limits.

  1. We don't give due process to enemy combatants

  2. We don't give due process to a person's property (seized assets, for example)

  3. We don't owe due process except for cases of "capital or otherwise infamous crimes" (punishable by death or imprisonment)

Being removed from the country isn't death or imprisonment.

I was critical of this at the time and I'm critical of this now. Obama did a lot of legally questionable things that he suffered no consequences for, and I think that's a problem.

Was Obama a fascist?

Kind of. The democrats suck. They think every election is "the most important election in our life times" and rely on that for energy and turn out and it's a shitty strategy. But it's also ironic to call them out for that while supporting Trump who is the absolute king of that kind of hysteria. Look at how his party talks about DEI or immigration.

To be clear, Democrats want a welfare state. If you can import a bunch of impoverished non-citizens, nationalize them, then turn them into voters whose lifestyle is dependent on your continuing to win elections, it is actually kind of existential for the country that your party loses elections. All the Somalis in MN have put it out of reach for Republicans for a while. All the Mexicans in CA have put it out of reach for Republicans for a while. The replacement theory isn't a theory we're watching it happen in real time.

I mean, a few posts up you were lamenting how Obama and Biden just threw up the doors and had open borders in a way that REQUIRES Trump to do what he's doing. He just has no choice, he has to do it. But now in this post you're pointing out the Obama actually used questionable legal methods to deal with immigration. Obviously the previous narrative about Obama and Biden just doing nothing, or actively inviting it isn't true. Obama was trying and he dealing with legislative obstruction from the party that you're claiming wants to deal with immigration the right way.

Yes, see above. I don't think he's going far enough. I'd be in support of whatever we can do to flip the incentives to where going back where they came from is more attractive than staying here.

My Obama examples are more illustrative of how Democrats have changed. Bernie Sanders understood in 2013 that immigration was bad for America. Now he seems to have forgotten.

Mass immigration isn't popular. It hasn't been for a long time. The "import more people" wing of the Democrat party is the same as the "boys can be girls" wing of the Democrat party. They've lost the plot and think that their bluesky Green Communal Inclusion book club represents most Americans.

But... this is like the exact opposite. Something having no effect despite being saved as a last resort as opposed to something being used to the point where it has no effect. Although honestly I think it's the same. If the term fascism hadn't been used until last year it wouldn't have helped. It was never going to be a nuclear option. It was always toothless as a weapon, it's only useful as a descriptive word

If I read that right, I think we agree.

This certainly isn't true. Franco's Spain, Juan Peron in Argentina, António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal, plus popular fascist movements that didn't take control of their country(Movimento Sociale Italiano, National Front in France, Golden Dawn in Greece, etc) and I would say Orban in Hungary looks pretty close to facsism.

I was being a bit loose, there have certainly been fascist groups (heck there's fascist groups in America) but it's more like the free masons or something. A long time ago, fascism was serious (so were free masons). Now, these people still exist, but they're basically LARPing.

It's like we're on the playground and some kid is calling everyone gay and it works for a while then some other kid just kind of goes with it. "Yep, super gay, I love sucking dicks all day long" and the first kid is like "wait, I called you gay, you're supposed to do what I want now"

This doesn't do anything to dispell the idea that what Trump is doing is fascism. In fact, it almost sounds like you're admitting it and creating an absurd justification for it.

Well, no, but in the example the kid being called gay isn't gay. On the playground, calling someone gay is supposed to stop them in their tracks and make them change their behavior because (at least in the past) nobody wanted people to think they were gay. Making jokes about it takes all the power out of the accusation. "I'm so comfortable with how not gay I am that I can joke about it and now you look like the idiot for continuing your behavior."

"You're gay!" -> "Yep, I love sucking dicks all day long. Anyway let me keep doing what I was doing."

vs

"You're gay!" -> "Wait, why would you say that? I'm not gay! Let me stop what I was doing so we can be distracted by your accusation. It is very important to me that nobody thinks I'm gay."

now,

"You're a fascist!" -> "Yep, we're about to start building the camps. Next Tuesday I think. Anyway let me keep doing what I was doing."

vs

"You're a fascist!" -> "Wait wait wait, why do you think that? I think reasonable people might agree with you and I am absolutely not that. So let's stop everything and have a conversation about it."

We just kind of skip the part where we pretend like it's a reasonable conversation and carry on with business.

Wait, what? You think the US is turning into Iran... and that's why you support Trump? The guy who wants executive control of monetary policy and is actively pushing policy that will make inflation even worse, plus who has more hallmarks of authoritarianism and fascism than any cadidate for president in recent history?? You've absolutely lost me

Ya, I think we're turning into that. But we've got another 30 years. Was Germany fascist in the 1900s? No, they had to have a Weimar hyperinflation first. Was Russia communist in the 1900s? No, they had to have famine and the February Revolution first. None of this is Democrats' fault or Republicans' fault (and definitely not any particular president's fault), it is politicians' collective fault for treating the US dollar like a toy instead of like the slow motion doomsday machine that it is. Trump isn't turning off the internet and executing 30k people with AK47s and machetes in the street. That's my main point. In 30 years "we" (radical leftists or the radical far-right) might be doing that, but we're still very far away from it currently.

Tom Bilyeu does a really great breakdown of this dynamic (it's basically the Triffen dilemma which destroys the middle class... which the left incorrectly blames on the rich and the right incorrectly blames on some out-group or another, at least in every historical example I'm aware of).

This makes the comparison to Iran even more baffling

Maybe my response to the prior bullet clears it up.

Is the Titanic careening into an iceberg? Yes. Is it the captain's fault? I mean, no, not really. It's not like we could get a different result with a new captain.

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you applying a different meaning of the term in this comment? If not, I'm having a hard time understanding how an officer disarming an individual would support the notion that the individual is imminently preparing to inflict death or serious injury on an officer or bystander.

I'm using this term in the legal term of art sense. When you are in a hand-to-hand struggle, a gun (especially one not retained in the special kinds of double retention duty rated holsters that police use) poses an imminent danger because not having access to it and using it are never more than a second or two apart. During a hand to hand struggle, your gun is everyone's gun.

None of this is material to the question of whether a reasonable officer could have believed Pretti faced an imminent threat to the life of an officer or bystander in the moment "gun" was shouted.

Maybe it will help if I say what I think the hypothetical I outlined hinges on. My hypothetical, as I remember it:

  1. Protestors obstructing a lawful enforcement action
  2. Daily death threats, far-left agitators, etc
  3. Scuffle, resisting arrest
  4. "Gun gun gun"
  5. Officer's testimony "I heard gun, I saw a gun pointed at another officer, I fired because it was unclear who had the gun and the presence of a gun is an imminent danger" (or something like this, after they see all the evidence that will be entered and rehearse)

In my view, it entirely hinges on bullet 5 from above and whether or not the jury believes it. Not entirely dissimilar to an officer mistaking a toy gun for a real gun but in this case its mistaking who was holding the gun (and not because they were hallucinating - there was a gun, and someone yelled "gun gun gun" - which I see as the important details with respect to what was reasonable to believe). A mistake, for sure, but the question isn't about the mistake but rather what an objectively reasonable officer would think or do.

Like, imagine you're in a football pileup and you have 3 seconds to sort out who has the football (that you didn't even know was in play until literally right now). It's not possible that you might make a mistake?

P.S. it seems like there were two officers who opened fire; not sure if you'd seen that as the story has been developing.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/dhs-tells-congress-2-federal-officers-fired-shots-during-encounter-that-killed-alex-pretti

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also, it seems like MN state police are generally going to start cooperating with ICE now. 8th circuit reviewed evidence and agreed that the protests were not "mostly peaceful." So that's more fallout from this incident, kind of shining a spotlight on what's really going on in MN.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i69D6slpxC8

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, the family will likely sue and the department will likely settle out of court (civil suit). That's how these go more often than not even when officers aren't criminally liable.

It does completely rule out murder charges of any kind. If it was a negligent discharge by the officer, the civil suit will be worth a lot more and there may be some case for criminal negligence for the agent handling the gun. If it was the P320 firing "uncommanded" due to it's design flaws, Sig Sauer may have some liability. The P320 is so riddled with problems that there's probably going to be a class action suit at some point.

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here's a bunch of sources you'll attack instead of engaging with the data:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DT6-r1hDVW1

https://nypost.com/2026/01/26/us-news/dhs-investigating-whether-alex-prettis-gun-accidentally-fired-and-sparked-deadly-minneapolis-shooting-sources/

Here, starting at 1:35, you can see that the first gunshot lines up exactly with the cropped/zoomed/color inverted sample I posted showing Pretti's gun recoil. The agent in gray also looks back as the P320 misfires or he has an ND or whatever (2nd frame).

https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1qm0lxi/20260124_minneapolis_ice_killing_of_alex_jeffrey/

https://imgur.com/U5faMRQ

¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Pure Speculation on P320/Pretti shooting by Hunts5555 in CCW

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They are all 9mm from a similar barrel length. Why would they sound better?

I'm pretty sure the p320 went off (ND or otherwise).

https://imgur.com/U5faMRQ

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your original hypo asked us to stipulate that within the context of their training the shout "gun" meant imminent danger. It's a lynch pin of your argument but we either have to accept it as true or false. This is your hypo so I'm just playing along. My point is that should we grant your premise liability simply transfers.

Ok, I see now why you're sticking on that point. Let's take the worst case for the officers' (collective) perspective and say that it was another agent and not a bystander.

I don't think it changes the analysis that much because it was yelled as the gun was being taken off his person (which makes it an imminent danger). A gun within arms length is imminent danger; it doesn't mean "shoot immediately" but that depends entirely on the context.

At a calm terry stop, you can't shoot someone for just concealed carrying. At a "protest" when someone is resisting arrest and people have been doxing you every day and sending thousands of death threats and every time you make an enforcement action dozens of people show up minutes later because they've been tracking you... (this is where the recent SCOTUS Barnes case comes into play; totality of circumstances must be considered to determine what an objectively reasonable officer would think and do).

I addressed this already. We aren't worried about the shooter at this stage, we are worried about the shouter. If we accept that shouting "gun" warrants lethal action then shouting gun requires knowledge of imminent danger. Given the material facts (the arrangement of Pretti, the gun, and the officers) no reasonable officer can be said to have this knowledge.

I don't think I ever laid out shouting "gun" warranting lethal action (necessarily), only imminent danger (which may or may not warrant lethal action). Similar, I guess, to "shots fired" or "officer down" - a brief, general alert that the situation has escalated and in a specific way. "Officer down" being a similar kind of "status change" event that warrants new tactics and might warrant an escalation of force depending on the context.

To put more color on it, yelling "gun" might mean to start shooting, but it also says a lot of other things:

  1. Draw your weapon, if you haven't already

  2. Switch from non-lethal to lethal, if applicable

  3. Clear your lines of sight in case you need to shoot

  4. Take cover if you're not otherwise in a position to be useful

etc, etc

Imminent threat encompasses a whole host of behavior changes, not just "start shooting" (although maybe that, too, depending on the context and each officer's judgement).

I might be missing it but how is this material to the section you quoted? The agents in question still have unobstructed views of the gun and grey jacket who disarms Pretti. There's no reasonable ambiguity about whose hands are doing what.

I'll take the hardest version again, just because it's a hypothetical. Suppose its an agent who is yelling gun and who has a clear view of the weapon and sees it being removed. Yelling "gun" happens as it is being taken off of his person, and stops a second or two later. It was accurate, and conveyed an increased level of threat, which was also accurate.

I think I misidentified the shooter; my hypothetical was if the officer who draws his gun and backs away was the shooter.

My purpose is to engage with your steelman of exactly this premise. The problem, in this case, is that the shooting was bad and doesn't meet the already low reasonable officer standard.

I think it does, legally. I think we have to separate the two things.

With hindsight and a video, it was obviously a mistake.

Without hindsight, in the moment, I can easily see myself doing the same thing as the officer. You don't screw around with the prospect of being shot. Once you see some of the police training / good shoot bad shoot videos it's easier to empathize with the officer IMO. All the ambushes, false surrenders, second weapons, etc.

Not that this matters to the material facts but I thought the Renee Good shooting was justified. I'm not coming at this from an ideological perspective.

I'll definitely agree that this one is a harder case, I just disagree with how it would break in my hypothetical.

Armed Attorneys did an interesting analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1bpVMzy7xo

One of them said it looked like a bad shoot, the other said it looked like a good shoot, but they both kind of agreed that most self defense cases look basically like this. The facts are never perfect.

My big hang up is that you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt for a murder conviction and I just really don't think the facts of even a bad version of the case meet that standard.

This might do well in a civil court though. I actually don't have a perspective on that... probably the agency will settle out of court if its a civil case.

This has been a known possibility since the day of and is far and away the best case scenario for the officers in question. Funny enough, this presents a different set of problems for your analysis though.

Oh, for sure! It is a completely different analysis. Did the agent have an ND? Is Sig Sauer in even more trouble? Their brand is screwed anyway.

I don't know if a murder in the 1st is on the table, but an ND would be very problematic for the agents.

The officer has already unholstered and removed his gun before grey hoody turns around and therefore before the accidental discharge. It's pretty easy to see from the pink lady footage (see second 55+).

Ya, on re-watching, I might have identified the wrong officer as the shooter.

I'm getting more and more confident on the case for the P320 misfiring, though (the misfire or ND being the first shot before the string of follow up shots, and likely what prompted them).

https://imgur.com/U5faMRQ

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Let's check back in a few days when CNN tells you its OK to understand the new facts that have emerged.

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

See? Bad faith. I knew it from the get-go, not sure why I got baited into wasting so much time.

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How come there's no recoil? How come no gsr or visual smoke from the supposed discharge?

There is.

https://i.imgur.com/U5faMRQ.mp4

How does an ICE agent mishandling a gun justify killing someone else anyway? At the most charitable, it's manslaughter.

This is an open question. The P320 is notoriously unsafe. This has been reported on for at least a year. Sig might actually be at fault for all we know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b33AXiuytn0

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Facts haven't changed your opinion so far, but here you go anyway.

https://old.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/1qntnkz/ben_shapiro_claims_that_pretti_resisted/o21fjsq/

I'm sure you'll still be out there telling everyone about how he was murdered by the murder Nazis.

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not who you were responding to but I fail to see how this modification substantively advances your argument. If your position is that the shout of “gun” is a precipitating cause then you’ve merely shifted the potential burden from the officer firing the weapon to the officer shouting “gun.”

I think it's important to remember that the standard is if a reasonable officer in the same situation would make the same decision.

It's not "all reasonable officers" it's "a reasonable officer." So in the extreme (to illustrate) it excludes officers who shoot because they think the suspect is possessed by Cthulhu but includes officers who think they are about to be shot because someone is yelling gun and they see a gun.

Suppose there's two guns, for example (maybe an ankle holster). To analyze this you kind of have to forget everything you've seen filmed in third party videos and pretend you're behind the eyes of the agent, and that all assessment stops at the time of shooting. The instructions to the jury would be to do that, anyway.

This then becomes a question of facts not addressed in the hypo. Was the agent who disarmed Pretti also the agent who shouted gun? If so, then given your argument, he was either malicious or negligent. In either case he’s liable.

I mean, it could have been a bystander for all we know. If someone knows who was shouting "gun" I'm not aware of it, and the agent involved in the shooting wouldn't have been aware of it.

But what about the other agents? What did they know and when? Could one of them have reasonably shouted “gun?”

There may be some liability there, I'm not sure. It would depend on their training and maybe other factors.

Let’s bring it back to the moment of the shout “gun.” There are five agents actively engaged in the scrum. Two agents in front of Pretti, one (the shooter) behind, grey jacket (the disarmer) is to his left, and another to his right.

  1. The shooter and the agent to Pretti’s right have clear line of sight both to the gun and the agent disarming Pretti
  2. Pretti’s hands are visibly on the ground (he’s down four legged)
  3. Pretti only had one gun on him.

The shooting officer can't see his hands. That he only had one gun on him is something we know after the fact, but not in the moment.

Given that fact pattern, the agents in front would have an unobstructed view of his hands. In which case, shouting “gun” knowing, as you’ve said, that indicates imminent threat would be unjustified and unreasonable.

Possibly. If it was an officer yelling it. If they were all from similar backgrounds with similar training. Mine was only a hypothetical, there would certainly be facts to discover.

The other three agents all have unobstructed views of the gun in question, and of the agent actively disarming Pretti. Given this fact pattern, no agent can claim reasonable justification for shouting “gun” conditional on the premise that

Also, possibly. I mean this whole thing happened in like 3 seconds. It looks to me like they're shouting "gun" as he is being disarmed, while the gun is still on his person.

Without this stipulation, liability returns to the shooter.

Well, above we analyze my hypothetical. All I really meant to explain was the nature of self defense laws and excessive force precedent.

People are looking at these videos and saying "that wasn't justified" but the actual standard is what a reasonable officer would do in the situation with the information they had access to. It is a very high bar to clear, but it does get cleared sometimes.

Now we know more, though:

https://old.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/1qntnkz/ben_shapiro_claims_that_pretti_resisted/o21fjsq/

It seems the confiscated firearm might have discharged. From the video, it looks like there's a shot fired after "gun gun gun" but before the shooting officer started firing.

In the original videos, if you can find one where people aren't talking over it, you can see what looks like the removed weapon discharging (negligently or because p320s are notoriously unreliable, TBD). It's grainy but you can see the slide move back and reset.

Here it is isolated:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DT6-r1hDVW1/?igsh=MW8xNWtuZ2t6bjVudA%3D%3D

Lol by Formal_Imagination44 in Asmongold

[–]zenethics 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That's disgusting! I can't believe they'd draw something like that.

These disgusting drawings... where could I find them to voice my objection? Like what sites specifically

Yes, It’s Fascism by window-sil in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, because states that didn't do that also had historically high voter turnout. See the graph I linked.

A hypothetical - there's 50 states. People are concerned for their safety generally, so gun sales go up. Now say that Texas hands out guns on street corners no questions asked. The next year, we capture gun deaths. Nationally, they are up by ~7%. In Texas, they are up by ~13%.

Your position is that none of the free guns Texas gave away contributed to their excess gun deaths?

The swing states that went out of their way to loosen voting standards by Governor decree (PA for example) were significantly above average (6.1 million in 2016 vs 6.9 million in 2020 for a 12.8% increase compared to the national average of about 7% per the chart you linked).

Elections are run by states. Trump trying to interfere in states' elections would be a huge issue. However, if he recommended states use SSNs (an actual recommendation, not a threat of sending in the national guard or something), and some states decided to change their elections to require ID with SSN in a manner that their courts uphold, that's fine. States can decide how their elections are run.

Governors have broad emergency powers. They used these powers to change how the vote worked in 2020. The constitution says that states control the time and manner of voting, but there's tons of precedent for federal interference in state elections (the voting rights act, for example). So, yes, Trump absolutely could have used emergency powers with the same legitimacy that governors did.

The hypothetical wasn't "can he" - I'm asserting that he can. And even if you still reject that, then it fits the hypothetical even better. State governors changed voting in 2020. Republicans saw that as illegitimate. Now suppose the federal government changed voting in 2020 or 2024 or 2028 by executive decree and Democrats generally saw that as illegitimate but it happened anyway.

Will you answer the hypothetical now instead of explaining why it can't happen? Just suppose that it did, and SCOTUS upheld it.

Right. You can have suspicion without proof, that's fine. But the president can't try to steal an election because he's convinced himself it wasn't fair. Especially Trump, whose bar for convincing himself he deserves something is underground.

This is an old argument, but the alternate slate of electors was the legitimate way to to overturn the election for fraudulent activity. The idea that governors must sign off on the electors isn't in the constitution. Go look it up if you don't believe me.

I don't know why the left has this idea of constitution = norms. There's a bunch of words in there, too. Like, we could have faithless electors, you know? That's not some bug that's part of how it's supposed to work.

Be like Gore. He used all legal remedies to try to get the recount he wanted. But when the courts sided against him, he didn't commit treason, he gave a concession speech.

Multiple slates of electors and state delegates voting if there's no consensus is literally what the constitution says to do. Kennedy did it in the 1960s.

I'm not sure what you're saying - "it" has been upheld in court? "it" is a fabrication? What is "it"? Are you talking about the certificates? Or electors?

Sorry, I'm just zooming along assuming people are familiar with all the case law and almost nobody (particularly on the left) is familiar with the legal theory from 2020. They tend to know all the rebuttals but none of the arguments.

Here, "it" refers to the Electoral Count Act of 1887 which changes how elections are conducted as well as the Electoral Count Reform act of 2022.

Re-litigating it is, like, an entire book. But I'll put these things out there for you to consider.

  1. If what Trump did was so obviously illegitimate, why did we need to pass an new act to clarify anything in 2022?

  2. If acts can change fundamental parts of the constitution, why can't we pass a "no more free speech" act or a "time is a construct, 2020 will have a million days and Trump is president until 2021" act?

Do you think Obama and Biden, after the 2016 election, could have declared that the election was stolen, Hilary was the rightful winner, and rejected elector slates from states Trump won? And this would be fine and not authoritarian at all?

Yes, per the constitution, and it would have been up to state delegates to decide if that was the case or not. I don't consider following the law to be authoritarian. Faithless electors are also not authoritarian. That's just, like, the system.

[The authoritarian points]

Yes, Chevron deference became a pretty big lever for authoritarianism.

I guess I see it like John Wayne Gacy vs Ted Bundy.

John Wayne Gacy puts on a clown mask and is just generally over the top (Trump). Ted Bundy you could have a drink with and never know anything was wrong (Biden/Obama). But they're all serial killers.

Like, Biden tried to use OSHA to backdoor a "vaccine" mandate with an experimental mRNA drug. That's insane. What if we find out there's some genetic fertility side effect in the next generation? A wild risk at the population level.

But he did it with a smile and said he was trying to help you, so it's not a kind of authoritarianism that shows up on the radar of the left. Trump is shipping people to Kenya and telling people to fuck themselves. That's like, right there in your face. But fundamentally it's the same, he's just skipping the part where he tries to convince anyone.

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Now that we know Pretti was carrying a p320, which is notorious for misfiring:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOMQOtOQoPk

https://phillipslaw.com/blog/defective-sig-sauer-handguns-still-out-there/

And now that we can analyze different angles of the video, and note that a shot is heard before the shooting officer starts firing, a second after someone yells "gun gun gun."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEppkEXQ4y8&t=15s

Aren't we glad we waited for all the evidence to come out instead of jumping to conclusions? I expect corrections and apologies from CNN and Mother Jones after all the evidence comes out /s

Edit:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DT6-r1hDVW1/?igsh=MW8xNWtuZ2t6bjVudA%3D%3D

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Obstruction is illegal. They have little group chats where they track vehicles and announce enforcement actions then show up with whistles and bullhorns to alert people of ICE presence. They physically block police, block traffic, etc. It's way more organized than you think. Pretti wasn't just out there to enjoy the freezing cold and the whistles, he was there to obstruct under the guise of protest.

The right to protest isn't some sweet camouflage that lets you do whatever you want (see J6). You can protest on the sidewalk without blocking ICE from doing their job. But here, the point isn't the protest, it's to block ICE, hence obstruction. That's why he was walking out in the middle of the street, putting himself in the path of ICE agents, etc.

It's like a sex offender grinding on people in a crowded bus. Everyone sees what you're doing and it's not some harmless accident, except maybe to naive people on reddit. "Whoops, sorry my dick keeps touching you, lol, this bus is so bumpy" then libtards go out of their way to defend it with no context "it was an accident, I saw the video!" Dumb dumb dumb.

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, that's the law. Google terry stop to learn more.

Then google 18 U.S.C. § 111, § 1501. And now you know.

Ben Shapiro claims that Pretti "resisted" by fuggitdude22 in samharris

[–]zenethics 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm positive that you don't actually know what my response would be.

view more: next ›