Prosecutors produced group chat logs showing that the participants had debated at length whether they should bring guns. The former reservist allegedly wrote that "Cops are not trained or equipped for more than one rifle, so it tends to make them back off." Other chat participants argued that a noise demonstration was low risk and the assumptions about how police would respond were "way over the top".
as in well organised militia’s right to bear arms? They demonstrated a level of organisation much higher level than Rittenhouse ever did.
If you are able to use a stungun on a cop and get a pardon, then why not this? (actually pardons are usually not precedent setting, but forgive the stupid legal interpretation. )
Especially when the crux of this entire case was that the convicted are members of a terrorist organization - a fact that was declared at the whim of this same president.
I'm not saying that some of the people convicted don't deserve consequences for their actions, especially violence like shooting at officers. I'm not saying that this was a lawful assembly, especially given the documented intent to breach the facility and use pyrotechnics offensively. I am saying that this is an extreme escalation in action against dissent against the Republican agenda, with a highly visible inequality in enforcement against those who dissent similarly against the Democratic agenda.
If this kind of heavy-handed action was taken against everyone who challenges our government, I would still be concerned, but it is doubly concerning that some members of our society appear to have the permission to do these things, while we destroy the lives of others with different politics.
> that same government hands life-ruining prison sentences to people who weren't even present for conspiring against ICE
I don't understand what distinction you're drawing between this and the January 6th cases. The same happened. For example, Enrique Tarrio was not even in DC, but he was handed a 22-year prison sentence.
And he got less of a sentence. I don’t think your argument equating these 2 is arguing what you think it is.
Zines related to a shootout and murder by an armed group after retrieving them from the home of one of the parties involved, discussing it on a jail call, and placing them in a third person's apartment.
Oh yes, how could we have forgotten the crucial detail that every single person in the group had their hands on the trigger.
Wait, that's because it didn't happen.
One individual fired their weapon. (And whether that's a murder is very questionable, but let's set that aside).
Nobody else should've been facing prosecution in this case.
I only have the .gov version, but 20-30 rounds were fired, Song was convicted as the attacker apparently and Baumann and Morris were evidently armed as well (the woods gunmen). It wasn’t the whole group but doesn’t appear to be just one individual.
They were successfully tied together by the prosecution as conspirators to the satisfaction of juries by their shared mission, chats, organization, papers, safe houses, and prior meetings among other things.
By whom?
> Baumann and Morris were evidently armed as well
And, did they fire any of the shots at the scene?
> It wasn’t the whole group but doesn’t appear to be just one individual.
So, it was one individual beyond reasonable doubt.
The rest is pure speculation.
>They were successfully tied together by the prosecution as conspirators to the satisfaction of juries
Yes, you are saying the same thing we already know: that there was a mistrial.
Now pray tell why Bin Laden is responsible for 9/11, but 1 billion Muslims aren't.
They're in the same "group", right?
They have "safehouses" (mosques), "radical zines" (Quran), organized leadership (imams), regular gatherings, shared goals, group chats, and so on.
Clearly the entirety of 1B Muslims "conspired" to murder people on 9/11 and should all face harsh punishment "to send a message".
That's not at all absurd, isn't it?
For example one may demonstrate to get a law changed, on the premise that they will not be shot on sight or otherwise extrajudically punished for assembling. Why would you expect entities of the state that behave illegally to engender an opposition to follow legal norms?
This is not new in America. 250 years ago the Declaration was preceded by the olive branch. To the people that founded this country, the distinction meant everything.
No it doesn’t. It’s enshrined in the constitution. The entire point of the United States is to be able to change the system. I’m struggling to imagine a worse take than this.
Have you read about the Continental Congress? They thought pretty hard about these questions. They did not engage in insurrection (what would surely today be called "terrorism") against the crown lightly and without great consideration.
You should take the opportunity of the 250th anniversary to educate yourself as opposed to writing such comments. Nothing about your comment makes any sense in almost any legal context, in America or otherwise. How could something like laws of armed conflict even be comprehensible under your standard? Truly I am sad for the state of your mind that you wrote such a comment.
I meant more along the lines of "30 years for hiding a zine" being a weird take. It is logically inconsistent, IMO, to both want to fight a system, and want to be afforded its privileges.
Why do we read people their rights or formally charge them? If someone has committed a crime is that not in some sense "fighting [the] system"? Why would then the same apparent contradiction you highlight in your last sentence not arise?
Even in cases of extreme conflict, there is a certain base state of "rights" or "privileges" one wants to be afforded, and it is not contradictory of people to do so. See the laws of armed conflict. Even if someone is a complete psychopath and doesn't respect these laws, the law itself usually does not respond in kind.
That is the nature of the law. If the law could allow for a situation where "legality goes out the window and any outrage about punishment becomes moot" then its no longer law. The only state this exists is one of anarchy. Far more likely in some situation would be the state tries to exercise some emergency power, itself sanctioned by law. In such an extreme case the contradiction no longer applies because the "privileges" have been legally suspended. However, now society has entered a dubious state re the nature of the law itself. Alternatively, take the Codes of Hammurabi. But then the proposed contradiction also does not apply. For in an eye for an eye there are far less afforded privileges to appeal to.
A state of dubious legality was essentially the state of affairs that convinced the founders revolution was inevitable. But there was never - and is usually never - a state where "legality goes out the window". That is anarchy. Even if the founders had lost, surely they would have a right to be outraged if instead of simply being hung (as was the legal remedy for their acts at the time) the British soldiers had rioted and killed all of them and their families on sight.
There is no contradiction here. It would not be a "weird take". Frankly if some among them were also outraged at being hung, I'm not sure that is a "weird take" either. It certainly doesn't strike me as "logically inconsistent". Its not like the "privileges" of life and liberty are granted by the government after all. If you believe in the principles as the founders did, those rights are given by a power beyond that of any terrestrial government. You may be deprived of them by such an entity, but it is not something the state gave you. Therefore once again, your proposed contradiction doesn't really make sense. I guess your position boils down to "if you do wrong against someone, you should have no expectations about your treatment in return"? But I don't think this is ever actually seriously considered as an ethical position when it comes to a people and their government. At least not since divine right and the like went out of fashion. At the end of the day, one can both transgress and be entitled to outrage about how the state acts in response. I fail to see how the alternative is anything less than barbarism.
Thank you for putting it together.
Of course not. I'm speaking directly about intent. It's pretty obvious to me that most crime is committed without any intent regarding "the system".
> Even in cases of extreme conflict, there is a certain base state of "rights" or "privileges" one wants to be afforded, and it is not contradictory of people to do so. See the laws of armed conflict. Even if someone is a complete psychopath and doesn't respect these laws, the law itself usually does not respond in kind.
Well yeah, but again, I'm not explaining this well, I'm not saying they shouldn't expect or want due process. At issue here is "30 years is too much for X". That's not "my rights are being violated", that's "the system is being especially mean to me with respect to applying the law to me with maximum force".
I think they can expect every legal protection due and that's fine, but the outrage at getting the book thrown at them when they were trying to burn the book is what I find strange.
> But there was never - and is usually never - a state where "legality goes out the window".
My wording was really bad. I didn't mean the state shouldn't follow the law, I just meant on a logical basis the "fight the power, wait no, not that power" position becomes inconsistent IMO.
But isn't this exactly what people do when they vote for a different government?
He certainly wasn't expecting to have to shoot someone, but that's the case for most examples of self defense.
Inversely, someone shouldnt attack someone unless they accept the chance of death or harm.
A nice concession from you might be to admit that kids on your side maybe shouldn't attend protests with intention to do harm.
That's basically where right and left don't see eye to eye on this.
I dont think that is really the major party dividing line tho. I dont think most of the right thinks they went there with intention to harm, but to "defend".
I also think many people on the "left" take issue with someone putting themselved in a situation that could require lethal self defense, particularly over property.
With the exception of Luigi and I think that's more generational than left vs right.
I think if you reversed the roles, you would get much the same reaction.
Lets say you get some militia marching in the street, lighting cars on fire, vandalizing schools and businesses. Then one of the marchers chases down a counter protesters saying "im going to kill you", corners them, but gets blasted.
I think there would be a lot of rallying around the shooter if people wanted to try them for murder. People would say they were just taking out the trash and the deceased FAFO'ed.
The problem is that Kyle drove out of his way with a non-defensive firearm, with a clear intent to put himself in that situation so he could murder someone.
Let's say I want to experience killing someone without consequences. I leave a nice bike completely unlocked in the bad part of town and hide in the shadows, then when someone tries to steal it, I axe them in the back of the head. I'm clearly a criminal guilty of first degree murder, not a victim of theft.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much nuance the American legislative system has for cases like those. Let alone when exposed to the biases our executive/judicial systems have when executing them.
- There was photo evidence that he spent the morning cleaning grafitti of a shool in Kenosha.
- Multiple independent journalists testified they were calm and walking around calling "Medic! Does anyone need medical help?" or helping put out fires
- Independet protestors tesitfed that Rittenhouse helped them bandage injured
Regarding the bike, that would be murder. If you walked with your fancy bike and put yourself between it an a theif who attacked you for it, the answer would depend by state. Some let you stand your ground, some you have to flee until you are cornered.
It is still valid self defense if you choose walk your bike through the neighborhood knowing with certiany you will be attacked. If you are legally allowed to be there, the fault is still with the attacker.
If that was self defense, so was this case.
Why would you think this is even relevant? He lived close to the border, and stayed within the same metro area.
> attend a protest with a gun he didn't personally own
This was not illegal.
> If that was self defense, so was this case
So were the judge and jury just corrupt? Did you watch the videos of him being threatened and attacked, including by someone (Grosskreutz), who also had a gun?
If you actually watched the trial and reviewed the publicly available evidence, and still think the jury made the wrong decision, then I agree, you have a right to that opinion.
However, if you only believed he is guilty because your favorite media figures told you this, then I would say you don't actually believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
* unless you're a law-enforcement officer, in which case folks like laughing_man are totally okay with you killing folks for vandalism because it upholds the legal system.
There is an inherent tension here in wanting the rule of law and peaceful democracy to prevail instead of political violence. But the reality is that doesn't always happen. Slavery wasn't ended with a vote, neither was the rule of King George over the colonies. Civil Rights weren't granted to black folks without a lot of civil disobedience and violent responses by the local authorities.
Hopefully the next administration will abolish ICE and will seriously reform immigration policies peacefully for the benefit of migrants and citizens alike.
This isn't to defend shooting at a police officer, but the framing by the administration and the right is this was the result of a dangerous left-wing terrorist organization, not a response to lawless actions by ICE spurred on by the administration, and how it's hurting people being ripped away from their lives because officials like Stephen Miller hate non-white immigrants.
And again, it was one person who did the shooting, not the dude who got 30 years for moving some written material.
I have yet to see anybody assert this, and I have yet to see it happen.
The “crime” investigation obstructed by hiding the zines is being left-wing. That has no actual relation to the shooting. That is 100% a free speech issue.
> The “crime” investigation obstructed by hiding the zines is being left-wing.
That's nonsense. There are literally tens of millions of people in the country that are left wing (including literal communists openly calling for destruction of the United States and Western civilization). As long as they don't get violent, they don't have any trouble for it - in fact, some of them even win elections (including literal communists openly calling for destruction of the United States and Western civilization). The recipe is very simple - do not shoot people. Unfortunately, for the part of the left-wing, this is somehow too hard. They think shooting people who are not left-wing is A-OK. Those people need to be stopped, and putting them in jail for a long time is a good way to stop them. Not for their speech, but for the fact that speech is not good enough for them, and they choose violence.
Are we talking about those domestic terrorists who call themselves ICE?
nineteen people have been criminally charged. including seven people who were not at the scene at the time of the shooting. [0]
you can have whatever subjective opinion about these prosecutions that you want. but at least try to get the underlying objective facts right.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Prairieland_ICE_detention...
Come on, man. It was a conspiracy to shoot a cop. How do you not realize this?
A single individual did.
What you're calling for is collective punishment (a war crime in Geneva convention), and guilt by association (a perversion of justice).
Kindly, abscond and desist.
One little trick human rights advocates don't want you to know about!
/s
So insane for people to defend this.
Only Benjamin Song, convicted of attempted murder/discharging a firearm, shot the police officer. Some others didn't bring firearms, were not in any planning chat (in which no violence was planned regardless), weren't at the protest or had already left, yet still received absurdly harsh sentences - that's the chilling effect.