You don't even have to look that far, there are secret police officers using unmarked rental cars to arrest protesters without telling them who they are and why they are being arrested.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/17/portland-pro...

https://twitter.com/sparrowmedia/status/1283436911307218948

How many bad apples makes a police black site?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli...

The guy they’re “arresting” also doesn’t say anything, and is extremely compliant for someone who’s allegedly an anti-police protester. I believe that is a video of an informant extraction.

> I believe that is a video of an informant extraction.

It could very well be but it isn't an isolated thing (as far as I can tell) and it's in line with everything that happened in the last weeks/months in the US.

In absence of any proofs I wouldn't side with the law enforcement by default, but you're right to question it.

> it isn't an isolated thing (as far as I can tell) and it's in line with everything that happened in the last weeks/months in the US.

If that’s the case, then why is this very strange and anomalous video the one thing people keep talking about when there are much more clear-cut examples such as Lafayette Park? More importantly, why is that the one data point that people are building the narrative around and saying, “well, it isn’t an isolated incident”.

And while you are aghast at that, I’d have ask if you’d be aghast at the people who bully and gaslight and threaten individuals who are critical of some aspects of progressivism. I ask because if we ever had an “antifa” government I can be almost certain the abuses would escalate to heights we dare not imagine.

"Yes I understand you're outraged by killing people with drone strikes, but think of the people whose companies didn't want anything to do with them after they said something nasty!"

I also am not a fan of cancel culture or the sort of progressive Victorianism we see these days. Sure an antifa government would suck.

But that's just bad manners, these are people being assassinated because the government disagrees with them.

I wouldn’t be so optimistic. Level headed people in the French Revolution, the liberals in the Russian revolution, they had some rather horrible things happen. Done by very lucid people. You can’t say that was then. It’s hard to escape that fate.

The fact that an article exists, and it’s possible for him to sue, is a right and luxury afforded to us by this American belief in freedom.

His suit was dismissed by the government because having to defend themselves against the accusation would disclose state secrets. The right to sue only matters if you can meaningfully exercise it...

And your standards are ridiculous. If anyone anywhere was able to show you a story of the US trying to kill someone for committing ideological heresy then the very fact they could tell you the story is proof that Amrrica believes in ideological freedom? You see the contradiction surely...

I don’t quite see it, because at least in the part of the world I was raised, I can tell you that someone talking about this on the news would have sounded ridiculous.

I do agree that America has never been a perfect bastion of freedom, and there are large struggles today. It definitely saddens me to see that.

Yet, this is the whole point of the idea that our ties to freedom are fundamental — that some group in the U.S _will_ disagree with authorities, that even if a suit is dropped, they may continue the fight. It’s not ideal that we have to fight, but the fact that we can is a freedom that is very rare.

I was raised in such a world too.

I get what you're saying. But like everything there is a middle ground. US has good press freedom, but they also, like every country, will kill you if you "blaspheme" against them too much. There's a balance between freedom and security. And what the US deems "safe" and "unsafe" is always important to keep in mind