Because it is third-person video, "dragged out of their cars before they can start recording video?" is moot. There is nothing preventing the third person from starting the recording earlier, and indeed they have done so in many cases.
> I'd suggest reading it again more carefully; it is a call to be more thoughtful (I literally use that word).
I read it just fine. You speak of more "thoughtful" posting, but I can find no charitable way to interpret this, because I am not violating HN guidelines but I am getting flagged anyway. I notice that you ignored the point about other people flagrantly violating guidelines without consequence because they have the approved opinions. I also notice that you did not try to defend the flagging of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46750452 . Instead, you argue that it is my responsibility to not let other people perceive my strong disagreement as inherently trolling, or else not post at all.
The net effect of this is to suppress strongly dissenting opinions, under threat of further community action ("flags and downvotes... will keep coming (on this topic) until..."). Hence, intimidation.
I think it's unfortunate you call it suppression instead of rejection but I am otherwise more than okay with these thoughtless opinions (thanks for admitting this is your opinion instead of trying to hide behind things you call factual analyses) being rejected by the community. Though, not rejected so much that the opinions can't be addressed (hence not flagging them) because others should have a chance to weigh in. Ironically, I've been foiled by comments being flagged when posting comments; the result was actually my speech being prevented from responding to someone else's.
Regardless, a threat of a downvote is hardly "intimidation" and calling it such is emotional rhetoric. Especially calling it a threat of "community action"; it's not like I'm speaking for anyone but myself. Nobody's out to get you personally, they just don't like America's gestapo being normalized and excused, which your posts happen to do regardless of being within the guidelines.
> You speak of more "thoughtful" posting
Think about the effects of posting something which seems to normalize or excuse the actions being taken by ICE, especially their needless escalations which have twice resulted in something that is reasonably called murder. I suspect you will arrive at the conclusion that these aren't murders (or that their actions are already normal and/or excusable) and therefore you are simply cannot be normalizing and/or excusing their actions. Of course, such thoughtless posts will be flagged and downvoted; that is still not intimidation to suppress opinions but an obvious conclusion based on simple observation. One might consider, with an open mind, whether a community-rejected post is legitimately in bad taste. That is what I mean.
> but I can find no charitable way to interpret this
Your reading comprehension was, and appears to still be, lacking. Being unable to find the meaning is not evidence that the meaning doesn't exist. It's possible you just gave up too soon when searching for it. Such is the nature of learning.
> Regardless, a threat of a downvote is hardly "intimidation" and calling it such is emotional rhetoric.
is blatantly misrepresentative. I said the word "flag" over and over and over again and did not talk about downvotes; and I referred to the effects of flagging (a comment in my history that is [flagged] in the view presented to me cannot be seen even with a direct link in a private browsing tab; a comment that is downvoted, even to -4 but without flags, can be).
You scold me for lack of reading comprehension, and then condescend to me about the "learning" process, but you overlook a central point that I made abundantly clear and attack a strawman.
And you completely disregard everything I've shown you about how I've been treated unfairly in this situation.
> I suspect you will arrive at the conclusion that these aren't murders (or that their actions are already normal and/or excusable) and therefore you are simply cannot be normalizing and/or excusing their actions. Of course, such thoughtless posts will be flagged
Again setting aside downvotes because I did not complain about downvotes:
That is unfair treatment. It does not violate HN commenting guidelines to express that conclusion. My conclusion is justified by extensive research and by prior general awareness of how LEO operates and what happens at protests. It is not at all "thoughtless" to say so; I put considerable thought into this, and have brought forward large amounts of evidence and reasoning. It is frankly offensive to tell me otherwise.
I am simply not "thinking" about the specific matter of whether other people will have a strong emotional reaction to being told that the thing they consider murder might in fact be legally justified. Because I care about truth; and because HN (in principle, to my understanding) only tolerates these submissions because of the potential for actual discussion, which involves people disagreeing about things.
You've made it abundantly clear, by this, that no matter how I actually went about it, you would consider it inappropriate to make comments that suppose that ICE agents (citizens with due process rights, BTW) might not have committed murder, and would consider that it's inappropriate that comments making any argument of that form are permitted to remain publicly visible (again: flagging, not downvoting); only concurrence is okay.
And many recent political threads have made it abundantly clear to me where that leads: an environment where people chant "Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, fascist, fascist, fascist" — despite the admonitions "Be kind." and "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." Maybe you're okay with that, but I'm not. The solution to divisiveness is not to exclude one side of the divide.
This isn't ambiguous: yes, any behavior which normalizes and/or excuses these actions is not appropriate, no matter how said normalization and/or excuse is delivered. That is surely not against this site's ethics because...
> And many recent political threads have made it abundantly clear to me where that leads: an environment where people chant "Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, fascist, fascist, fascist" — despite the admonitions "Be kind." and "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." Maybe you're okay with that, but I'm not. The solution to divisiveness is not to exclude one side of the divide.
When one side of the divide is driven almost exclusively by their hatred of others, it is of course reasonable to reject them as hateful. At this point, calling something "fascist" is primarily intended as a description; it's not an insult except to the fascists who aren't brave enough to wear it on their sleeve. It's rather thoughtless to disregard that simple observation.
Sure, maybe you don't see that ICE are murdering citizens who are doing nothing wrong but that doesn't mean your opinion is unequivocally right or even needs to be given any consideration by others. Sure, maybe you can say you observe things differently but that doesn't mean others' observations are invalid, nor that people need be respectful to your behavior which has the effect of normalizing and excusing what they observe to be terrible things.
That is the thoughtfulness I am suggesting; the thought you might consider is that others are rejecting your comments because said comments ignore these observable facts of community. These comments which have people chanting "fascist" can objectively meet all of the site guidelines and they will be rejected simply for being in extremely bad taste. For an example, consider that Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal meets this site's guidelines. Of course a post genuinely suggesting that we eat poor children is going to be rejected, regardless of the sugar coating with which it's delivered.
> And you completely disregard everything I've shown you about how I've been treated unfairly in this situation.
Something you have also missed is that you completely disregard everything others show you about how the protesters have been treated unfairly by ICE in their situations (your complaint is that your opinion is disregarded, yet you disregard others' opinions); I am entitled to my opinion as you are yours and my opinion is that your supposed unfair treatment is something that can be disregarded as such. To say otherwise would be to deny others their opinions to reject your thoughtless commentary as such. In other words, your perception of such rejection as unfair treatment is a personal problem which has no place affecting the opinions others choose to express (say, by flagging your comment).
People are telling you to stop carrying water for fascists; complaining about how they do that (flagging your comments), rather than considering why they do it is, indeed, thoughtless.
Do you think it is not worth considering?
> This is effectively intimidation.
I'd suggest reading it again more carefully; it is a call to be more thoughtful (I literally use that word). Again, you're not going to get anywhere with complaints about the responses to your comments.