Here's your blueprint, America. Martial law had to be declared to protect South Korean "freedom and happiness" from the elected members of the opposing political party. Sound familiar?
No, I didn't. What I noticed is people were armed with bear spray, baseball bats, and spears, along with other makeshift armaments such as fire extinguishers which were used to bludgeon police officers.
For four years people have called it an armed insurrection, but if Trump won the popular vote this year, and the authority to rule flows from the people, then clearly the people support the "insurrection." My mother in law HATES Trump and thinks the popular vote was "hacked," and I know that's a fairly popular opinion among anti-populists--is that one of your priors?
Whether the people support the insurrection or not is immaterial to whether it was an armed insurrection. It was.
The fact that a plurality of Americans appears to support the armed insurrection is a testament their willingness to hold Trump and his supporters above the rule of law. That mentality is extremely dangerous, but that's a different subject.
Older, vulnerable people told me that voting for Trump this year was a way to avoid another Jan 6. Your mother in law is brave to say that. Tucker Carlson is a coward for claiming, despite the video, that Jan 6 was unarmed.
> Older, vulnerable people told me that voting for Trump this year was a way to avoid another Jan 6.
Unfortunately it's not easy to have an honest conversation with someone who opposes Trump about Jan 6, precisely because of the cases where people's family ratted them out, ongoing imprisonment without trial, etc.
> Your mother in law is brave to say that.
She thinks she's going to prison for voting against Trump, so I definitely agree with you there.
> Tucker Carlson is a coward for claiming, despite the video, that Jan 6 was unarmed.
I guess it depends on what you mean by armed. If people were planning on actually wresting control of the government then they would have brought their firearms. None of the protestors had firearms. Some had improvised weapons, like bats, so yeah that's my bad for not being clear. A select few were armed with bats. It's more about intent, right? If you're going to overthrow the government you're obviously not going to leave your real weapons at home and instead just bring baseball bats.
Also, events like Jan 6 are massive, complex and chaotic--and what is happening in one area can be totally unlike what is happening in a different area. Especially if there are organized groups trying to take advantage of the dissatisfaction in the crowd. Anyone showing videos and trying to characterize the event a single way is oversimplifying to fit their agenda.
There's a legal definition of "armed" and the Jan 6 insurrectionists fulfill that requirement. It was an armed insurrection. Also, their intent was not to overthrow the government - their intent was to overturn an election by means of interfering with the proceedings of Congress. An election they thought had been stolen due to the repeated lies made by Fox News and the Trump administration.
That's one definition of armed. What if only one person had had a bat? Two people? When does it become generally described as "armed"? 99.9% of the people had no weapons other than their bodies. 100% of the people didn't have firearms. Saying it's armed and leaving it at that is a bit misleading, don't you think? Also I wouldn't call it interference when clearly Congress is less representative of the people than...the people themselves.
However I think this argument won't go anywhere. Clearly the difference between us is that you have a faith in authority that I simply lack. This discussion is really religious in nature and highlights the extent to which different groups of people have diverged in this country.
All I can say is, if you had a little more faith in the common people and a little less in authority figures you might have a more optimistic outlook on the upcoming century.
When does it become armed? When several officers get beaten.
Meanwhile, faith has no place in this discussion. Either you believe in the rule of law, or you don't. If you don't believe the law applies to everyone equally, regardless of their social status and wealth, then you don't believe in equality for all: which is one of the founding principles of America. Trump supporters have repeatedly thumbed their nose at the idea of equality of all before law and I can therefore only conclude that they're anti-American. Why should I put faith in people who are anti-American?
Quoting John Emanuel Banuelos, “I’m the one in the video with the gun right here” indicating the moment he fired it into the air twice. Three trials proved guns without so clear a confession.
