> The type of person that stormed the capitol will perceive this as an escalation.

One can argue that this type of person would potentially perceive any action (or inaction) as an escalation. That doesn't mean that action shouldn't be taken.

Indeed, even inaction may be infuriating to these mislead people.

Look at the utterly insane mental gymnastics you're engaging in. "People are angry at constantly being treated with contempt and having their elected representative smeared. Let's impeach him again, call all his supporters terrorists, and ban them from communicating!" People like you and the Democrats seem desperate to cause more violence instead of de-escalating the situation with a peaceful, dignified exit. It's a shame that you care more about "owning Trump" one more time rather than promoting peace, but I'm not surprised.

You've been using HN primarily for political battle, which we ban accounts for, regardless of which politics they're battling. We have to, because doing that destroys the curious conversation HN is supposed to exist for (see [1] for more explanation).

You've also been breaking the site guidelines egregiously and often, such as with personal attacks and name-calling. That's seriously not allowed here.

Therefore I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. The rules are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

> The type of person that stormed the capitol will perceive this as an escalation. I’m sure that’s not what we need, but I’m also sure that there is no good way out of this mess.

I actually think that the reason we are in this mess is because there have been zero consequences for terrible behavior, so far.

Of all the terrible things Trump has done, it has taken inciting a riot, an attempted overthrow of our democratically elected government, for him to loose his megaphone. Why was incarcerating children at the border not enough? Or encouraging those "fine people" in Charlottesville who murdered a woman? Or one of the many other instances of him spewing hate?

We need more accountability. Actions have consequences, and it is long overdue that those people who take irresponsible, harmful actions, either out of desire for personal gain or sheer idiocy, start feeling the consequences.

The right is supposedly the side to which "law and order" appeals. Trump and his people are exactly the kind of people who need to know that they will get punished to the full extent of the law when they misbehave. That's the only thing that will keep them in line.

Because it's not like they have a moral compass to fall back on.

You've posted nothing but political and ideological battle comments to HN for a year. We ban accounts that do that, because (a) it's not what HN is for, and (b) it destroys what HN is for. See https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for more explanation about how and why we ban this sort of account.

Obviously plenty of other people are currently posting abusively in these huge political flamewar threads—but most of them are not using HN primarily for that purpose. We ban the ones that are.

I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

I think the point about wars is fair.

However, there's no evidence that the election was crooked - the courts think so too. In addition, the President's moral compass seems to be pointing towards strong arming election officials to provide him the exact number of votes (11,780) that he needs to overturn Georgia, pardoning his former friends and allies and convicted war criminals. And this is just within the last couple of weeks.

> no evidence that the election was crooked - the courts think so too

Haven't all of the cases been thrown out for lack of standing thus far? Doesn't that mean the evidence hasn't even been heard? How can the "courts think so too" if they haven't heard evidence?

Also, it's offensive when people say the election wasn't crooked to people that witnessed its crookedness firsthand. I am one of the many people whose ballot went uncounted.

> Also, it's offensive when people say the election wasn't crooked to people that witnessed its crookedness firsthand. I am one of the many people whose ballot went uncounted.

? Please explain how your ballot went uncounted.

The problem is there's evidence should you choose to see it, constitutional unlawfulness & just cause on an unprecedented scale to at least demand a thorough discovery stage in the courts, which never happened.

The way to kill the fraud narrative is by debating those raising the charge, actually hearing the cases in court instead of tossing them on procedural grounds and allowing full audits, signature matches in Fulton for example.

If you listen to the full phone call from which the carefully picked snippet you refer to was lifted Trumps moral compass seems far better than the shifty and obstructionist Georgia Secretary of State to me - Raffensberger has no explanation for simple charges and whimpers when reminded of the requests he has been actively ignoring [1].

It does not exactly scream "innocent" to anyone with half a conscience. Nor did the threatening and doxxing of children that occured during the certification of the Michigan electors.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/audio-trump-be...

"The problem is there's evidence should you choose to see it, constitutional unlawfulness & just cause on an unprecedented scale"

Maybe you would want to provide examples of these then?

"The way to kill the fraud narrative is by debating those raising the charge"

I am actually not quite sure that debating the issue will kill the narrative but that's just my opinion.

"actually hearing the cases in court instead of tossing them on procedural grounds"

Frankly I have no comments here. What real evidence of fraud is there?

"Trumps moral compass seems far better than the shifty and obstructionist Georgia Secretary of State"

I never commented on the Georgia Secretary of State's conduct and frankly, that's not under review. If the President had just asked for the review of votes, that would be fine. Instead, we received the exact number of votes that he needed, statements to the tunes of: 'Fellas, what are we gonna do here? I only need 11,000 votes' and to do 'the review with people who want to find solutions but not with those who do not want solutions' or something to that effect. Claiming that someone stuffed ballot boxes does not constitute evidence.

Furthermore, this does not change my comments about the pardons either but that's not really the point under discussion.

This is whataboutism.

This comment is entirely divorced from reality.

Would you care to be more specific about what you think is factually incorrect about that comment, or are you just glibly trying to borrow a phrase that is more commonly (and more accurately) used these days against Trump and his supporters?

It certainly seems to me that Trump and many of his most high-profile supporters have been remarkably free from serious consequences despite behavior that has been scandalous to an unprecedented degree. Going by the political and societal norms of just a few decades ago, Trump's political career should have been dead and buried dozens of times over.

The "kids in cages" and "very fine people" nonsense continues to get peddled despite not being rooted in reality. And lets not forget, Trump told everyone to drink bleach to treat COVID-19!

You seem to be complaining about some stuff that's not actually mentioned in the comment at issue. That's not a great way to back up that "divorced from reality" assertion. And for the stuff that does appear to be at least somewhat relevant to the comment at issue, you haven't clarified anything about what you believe to be divorced from reality, merely asserted that it is all "nonsense".

The comment at issue did not use the phrase "kids in cages". That's you adding your personal color to a subject that you seem to object to being brought up in any manner at all. It looks like you're trying to build a straw-man or three, rather than justify the accusation that the comment in question is "entirely divorced from reality".

"Or encouraging those "fine people" in Charlottesville who murdered a woman" is divorced from reality, because it didn't happen

More specifically, it gets the order of events wrong. Trump's comments about "very fine people" came after the deadly white supremacist rally, so it's misleading to imply that those comments were in encouragement of the killing.

However, it's perfectly valid to construe Trump's comments as praise after the fact for the white supremacist rally, even though he specifically condemned the killing that resulted. Because Trump's assertions that there were "very fine people" on both sides and that there were many people on the alt-right side of that event who were not neo-Nazis or white nationalists are simply not credible claims. Trump was praising somebody. Even praising or encouraging the kind of white supremacists who don't get violent is abhorrent conduct on the part of the president, but the comment upthread exaggerated beyond this.

"And you had people — and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally"

Right. Trump said that, but that doesn't actually change the fact that that there was no reason for anybody to be showing up to support the alt-right side of that event unless they were in fact a neo-Nazi or white nationalist. Pretending that there was a significant faction of those torch wielders who somehow weren't white supremacists is just silly. But Trump definitely didn't intend to praise the empty set with his "very fine people" comment.

On the one hand it looks bad for the incoming party to immediately replace the palace security and start issuing arrest warrants for opposition leaders, but on the other hand it may need to be done in order to run a government that isn't under physical siege on a regular basis.

The people that stormed the capital have been pretty clear about their position here: they plan to continue escalating unless Trump is installed into power for a second term. There's nothing we can do to meet people who think like that halfway; the only course of action which might avert further tragedies is to convince them that they aren't very powerful and won't be able to achieve their goals.

If you see their radicalization as the problem instead of a symptom you’re missing the plot.

Severe enough "symptoms" can turn into comorbidities and are diseases unto themselves. Sometimes worse that the initial disease. If you get a rash from poison ivy, itching is a symptom. If you scratch all your flesh off because it itches and you're a stubborn idiot that won't go get treatment from a doctor, and then that exposed flesh gets a nasty infection that eats your limb, well then the symptom has now advanced into a disease worse than the initial cause.

Let's say in this metaphor the doctor stands for maybe seeking therapy for paranoia and oppositional defiant disorder, or something like that. These people are not without agency in their own radicalization, though we could argue that society really doesn't help matters when it comes to mental health or pernicious algorithms that send people down conspiracy holes.

Well, I'll just be over here renegotiating the Treaty of Versailles to deal with those underlying causes. France can wait...

I see it as a symptom, but the underlying problems are complex and can't be resolved over the next 2 weeks. So we need a stopgap solution to prevent the violent attack many of them have promised for the Inauguration.

the stopgap was the supreme court and they've chosen to be derelict in their duties. these people just want their case to be heard. in absence of doing so, the narrative around the election is being entirely defined to them by lin wood. this situation is a chinese fingertrap, force will only make it worse.

The people you're hearing this from just aren't being honest with you. Their case was heard dozens of times in courts across all the disputed states. The idea that the Supreme Court specifically needs to weigh in was created only after those losses, as a deliberately impossible standard to keep people mad; everyone familiar with the legal system was saying from the start that the Supreme Court wouldn't rule on the merits of this case.

Was a survey performed as people were entering the grounds?

Also, how does one learn how to see the future with such certainty? It's like there was a sale on crystal balls and everyone but me got one. :(

>Was a survey performed as people were entering the grounds?

No. But an inventory of some of those who left the grounds in handcuffs was performed. And various types of weapons, police-style zip ties and molotov cocktails were found.

Dozens were injured, five people are dead, one of them beaten to death.

Offices were trashed, items stolen and the seat of our government was vandalized.

You don't need a crystal ball to draw conclusions from that.

You need a crystal ball to draw correct conclusions about the future though. What's happening in threads like this is that people have completely lost control of their minds. I estimate that 90%+ of comments are people mistaking their imagination for reality - reality is mostly unknown, but you'd never know it from the way people talk.

It's almost as if people have been hypnotized or something. No one has the slightest concern for what is actually true. I hope it's only people on internet forums that are like this.

>You need a crystal ball to draw correct conclusions about the future though.

I don't know about that.

I'll prognosticate that the close compatriots of the violent insurrectionists who are currently enjoying three hots and a cot courtesy of the US Government will almost certainly engage in more violent acts. Probably fairly soon.

History is generally a pretty good guide to the future.

Will every single person who smashed windows, beat on people with pipes and bats and went looking for Congresscritters to take hostage show up at the inauguration with RPGs to kill as many people as they can? I don't know.

I can't say for sure, but since they've already shown themselves to be angry, violent and willing to harm/kill others, it's a pretty good bet that a significant number of those people will attempt violent action against their perceived enemies in the future.

Why is that an unreasonable assumption to make?

>I'll prognosticate that the close compatriots of the violent insurrectionists who are currently enjoying three hots and a cot courtesy of the US Government will almost certainly engage in more violent acts. Probably fairly soon.

I hear most people on the left support reforming criminals, and finding underlying root-causes. Do you?

>I hear most people on the left support reforming criminals, and finding underlying root-causes. Do you?

I do, for root-causes such as poverty, lack of economic opportunity, lack of education, being victims of racist policies, etc... sure, reform is possible.

When the root causes are massive delusion, indulging in ridiculous conspiracy theories, general resentment that other people want to be treated fairly, cult-of-personality-like worship of a dictator, etc. Then unfortunately the root-cause is ignorance and the problem is unfixable.

>When the root causes are massive delusion, indulging in ridiculous conspiracy theories, general resentment that other people want to be treated fairly, cult-of-personality-like worship of a dictator, etc. Then unfortunately the root-cause is ignorance and the problem is unfixable.

And how do you know all this? You're pretty quick at finding root causes.

>I hear most people on the left support reforming criminals, and finding underlying root-causes. Do you?

I didn't realize that whether people can or can't change was a political, left/right thing.

I'll assume you're asking that question in good faith, just somewhat awkwardly.

It depends on the person and the situation. Wouldn't you agree?

>It depends on the person and the situation. Wouldn't you agree?

Exactly. However people seem reluctant to grant this to Trump supporters. They seem to be always lumped together as evil racists.

>However people seem reluctant to grant this to Trump supporters. They seem to be always lumped together as evil racists.

I find it more than a little ironic that you choose to paint others with a very broad brush while making the claim that those people paint others with a broad brush.

Personally, I try to treat others based on their individual actions. Perhaps you should try it sometime.

EDIT: I mistook you for SpicyLemonZest

> Why is that an unreasonable assumption to make?

Your statements are fairly reasonable, and you have awareness of when you are speculating. If more people were like this, perhaps this tailspin could be averted. But look through threads like this and judge for yourself how many people are as reasonable as you.

Do you need a crystal ball to draw such confident conclusions about how other people think? It seems pretty unlikely that everyone who disagrees with you does so because they've lost control of their minds and don't care about the truth.

Then when I mention the notion of the truth, why is it received with hostility, and downvoted, universally?

Here, I'll give you a chance to see if you care about the truth:

SpicyLemonZest says:

> The people that stormed the capital have been pretty clear about their position here: they plan to continue escalating unless Trump is installed into power for a second term.

Can you come up with a plausible explanation for how this can be known?

> There's nothing we can do to meet people who think like that halfway; the only course of action which might avert further tragedies is to convince them that they aren't very powerful and won't be able to achieve their goals.

Can you come up with a plausible explanation for how this can be known?

There was a survey! Many news reporters were on site, interviewing people who entered the grounds. They talked about how they were taking the government back, how they'd like to get their hands on Congressional leaders, and how they'd be back with rifles on January 20th if Congress didn't do the right thing. Without random sampling, there's no easy way to know if it was 20% or 80% of the insurrectionaries thinking that way, but even 20% of such a big crowd leaves enough people to do some serious damage 2 weeks from now.

In fairness. The news interviews a lot of people and picks the best quote.

Remember they are selling you a story and need you to watch.

Is there any specific reason to believe the media accounts are false, or just a general principle? I feel like this is starting to approach the level of skepticism where it's impossible to be convinced of anything.

Who said they were false? Click bait is rarely false just misleading.

My local news runs a promo every night that they have some super important message that you need to hear "what you could be doing wrong with kids". When they finally share it's something like 'yoga is good for your health'.

Journalism is a business. All news orgs are judged by selling papers to driving clicks.

Seeing a few people saying something means a few people said something. Assuming it applies to all and skepticism sets in.

Some people may follow through with that, or they may not.

The media tells stories, social media tells stories, our friends and family tell stories, and our own mind tells stories. But they are just stories. Some of them will surely come true, some of them will not.

It feels like you know, just as it feels to the people at this riot like they know - it is the very same underlying phenomenon: human consciousness, with its ability to see into the future, to read the minds of millions of people, to know the fine details of what happened at an event even though no one who was actually there may have witnessed it with clarity. It is the most powerful device on the planet, but if it isn't kept under control: watch out (as we saw at the Capitol).

I think the person who was blocked on twitter will perceive this as an escalation too.

They should have just shadowbanned him.

Probably not going to work for someone with millions of followers and thousands of likes and replies on every tweet.