USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

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Randomizer
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#41 Post by Randomizer » Tue Nov 23, 2021 8:53 pm

The judge may have rightfully dropped the weapons charge because of poor wording.

The judge dropped the violating curfew charge when that was clear cut and Rittenhouse couldn't plead extenuating circumstances since he wasn't a protestor exercising First Amendment rights.

He wasn't charged with trespassing on private property after business hours without the owners' permission. He left the place he said he was protecting. He didn't do it to render medical aid and falsely claimed to the media that he was a certified EMT. He ran down the street carrying a fire extinguish to go to a dumpster fire. No mention if he actually used it.

He was seen pointing his rifle at protesters prior to leaving the private property. So there was intent to use the rifle not in self defense.

There was mention that the police were encouraging vigilantes to shoot protestors.

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#42 Post by Jamiet99uk » Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:49 am

bo_sox48 wrote:
Tue Nov 23, 2021 5:28 pm
Jamiet99uk wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 2:22 pm
Octavious wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 9:51 am
...he wasn't guilty.
He illegally transported a deadly weapon he was not entitled to own in the first place, to a scene of ongoing public disorder, and shot and killed two people.

The fact that apparently, in the eyes of American justice, he was a good innocent boy who did nothing wrong, proves what a cesspit America is.

I am glad I don't live in such a horrible country where violence is normalised and shooting other people dead isn't a crime.
It is a crime!
Well apparently not if you're a middle class white boy who can cry crocodile tears on demand, it isn't.
There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. - Lenin.

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#43 Post by bo_sox48 » Wed Nov 24, 2021 1:20 am

When I find myself upset that some would prefer to argue repetitively with no effort or intent to remain openminded when they could inform themselves, I remind myself that this thread, like most political discussions, is supposed to be a place to loudly post one's own opinions, not a place to read, learn about, listen, and understand the issues, navigate the nuances (and differences in belief) that come with them, and either find a compromising stance or agree that one is unachievable with others who share a common goal of unearthing a better society for everyone. I'm sorry for interrupting your diatribe with my knowledge of the Wisconsin legal system or the facts of the case at hand over and over again. I won't do it again.
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#44 Post by Crazy Anglican » Wed Nov 24, 2021 11:13 pm

All three white boys in the Amaud Arbery case were found guilty.
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#45 Post by Crazy Anglican » Wed Nov 24, 2021 11:32 pm

Not totally a shining example. From what I understand a DA is being indicted for trying to sweep this case under the rug. Hopefully that person gets what is coming to him or her as well. Glad those guys got what they deserved for killing that young man.
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#46 Post by Randomizer » Thu Nov 25, 2021 12:02 am

If one of them hadn't recorded a video and it went viral, they would never have come to trial. Even then one of them might never had been charged if he washed his truck before the police found a hand print from the victim on it.
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#47 Post by Crazy Anglican » Thu Nov 25, 2021 3:24 pm

One thing that I thought was great about the Arbery murder trial, was that the defense asked for a mistrial and asked for the armed protesters standing outside to be removed & the judge responded "They have a right to be there."
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#48 Post by Octavious » Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:58 pm

Great is perhaps too strong a word for it. I guess you can argue that it's good that the judge is resolutely defending the rights of the people, but it's damned crazy that that right exists in the first place. Much in the same way that in a more sane nation both Rittenhouse and the chap he shot who survived would both be in gaol for a great number of years for taking loaded guns onto the streets, and the first chap who was killed should instead be alive and well and locked away for violent assault and rioting. But the law is the law...
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#49 Post by Crazy Anglican » Fri Nov 26, 2021 3:05 am

Octavious wrote:
Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:58 pm
Great is perhaps too strong a word for it. I guess you can argue that it's good that the judge is resolutely defending the rights of the people


I am certainly not giving a whole hearted endorsement of the behavior, but I liked that the judge was doing his job and upholding both the 1st and 2nd amendment rights of the people present.
Octavious wrote:
Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:58 pm
it's damned crazy that that right exists in the first place. Much in the same way that in a more sane nation both Rittenhouse and the chap he shot who survived would both be in gaol for a great number of years for taking loaded guns onto the streets, and the first chap who was killed should instead be alive and well and locked away for violent assault and rioting. But the law is the law...
Paranoid certainly, those first ten amendments were a direct reaction to colonial policies that the early Americans had fought against. The first amendment was there to make sure that no strong central government could silence the masses. The second amendment was there to provide an armed populace that the government could not simply ignore, as the Crown had done. As to the law being the law, there is a reason that the second amendment hasn't been overturned. It is simply because you will not get a two-thirds majority of representatives to overturn it. It is the law of the land because the people wanted it back in 1783 and enough people still want it. The overwhelming majority of gun owners are law abiding hobbyists. I assume that it looks from across the pond like the US is infested with gun toting mass murderers. Just like we don't have black widow spiders in every dark corner nor are we being blown away by tornadoes all the time (examples from a youtuber who came from the UK to live in the USA and comments on the differences), gun violence is something that most Americans do not have to deal with much. I am not saying that it is excusable nor am I defending it. Those who have lost loved ones and just in general those who desire stricter gun control have there stance, and I am not going to say that they are necessarily wrong. I can see why there is a general lack of enthusiasm for overturning the 2nd amendment. Historically, those folks that insisted on the first ten amendments of the Constitution had just fought a war with a superpower to gain independence and they weren't about to give too much power and authority to the central government they themselves were forming. Are we insane? Possibly, but more likely nobody has made a strong enough argument for giving up a right guaranteed by the constitution.

I am not sure the history behind gun control in the UK, so I cannot really speak to how you guys got to a point were you don't have guns and like it that way. maybe you folks could give me some historical context for the argument on your side?

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#50 Post by Crazy Anglican » Fri Nov 26, 2021 3:16 am

Apparently there is a time limit on editing? Good to know, so there it is typos and all.

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#51 Post by Octavious » Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:09 pm

The history is fairly recent, as these things go. The right to bear arms was pretty ancient (pre-USA anyway) but it was never really a right that was widely exercised. Guns were used by farmers and hunters for the most part, with the concept of them being used as a weapon outside of the military largely frowned upon. Real men use swords or fists to settle their differences, dontchaknow?

Things didn't really change until the first world war, when lots of young men were suddenly introduced to using and keeping guns. There was also the new and terrifying fear of Communist revolution in the air across Europe. The powers that be decided a heavily armed proletariat may not be a good idea, so in 1920 we got the first Firearms Act. Over the years it gradually got tightened up until you have what we enjoy today. And, as Jamie isn't the Prime Minister, it seems to have worked out rather well ;) .

However, whilst guns are pretty rare in the UK, and you don't get anyone taking them to the shops or a protest, they're more common than you might think. Most towns have a gun shop, and I've enjoyed shooting on quite a few occasions. Mostly shotguns, of course, but also some fun with a.22 sports rifle, magnum carbine, and this lovely Soviet hunting rifle that went off like a small canon and punched a hole through a shipping container at 500m as if it were butter.

With the army, of course, I've got to play with a far larger variety of toys than those mentioned above. And I choose those words purely to irritate the lefties
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#52 Post by Crazy Anglican » Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:14 pm

Octavious wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:09 pm
Things didn't really change until the first world war, when lots of young men were suddenly introduced to using and keeping guns. There was also the new and terrifying fear of Communist revolution in the air across Europe. The powers that be decided a heavily armed proletariat may not be a good idea, so in 1920 we got the first Firearms Act.
So, in theory at least our second amendment was to protect the people from the government, and your Firearms Act was to protect the government from the people?

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#53 Post by Octavious » Fri Nov 26, 2021 10:04 pm

Crazy Anglican wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:14 pm
So, in theory at least our second amendment was to protect the people from the government, and your Firearms Act was to protect the government from the people?
Nah, at best your second amendment was just a continuation of English law. You don't paint yourself in a good light if the first thing you do with independence is to strip away people's existing rights. Especially the rights closest to the hearts of the people who played the most active part establishing the new order.
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#54 Post by Octavious » Sat Nov 27, 2021 11:56 am

As for the UK law, it was based on the principle that provides the foundation for all law. To protect the weak from the strong. The danger was that certain undesirable groups of people had the potential to become much stronger than had previously been possible, so the law was introduced to protect everyone else from this new development.

In Germany, by contrast, history witnessed rival groups of the strong fight it out, eventually seeing the Nazis triumph with devastating consequences. If the German Communists had triumphed I dare say the consequences would have been equally devastating. Indeed, a Soviet alliance with a Communist version of Hitler may have been even more tragic than what we endured.
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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#55 Post by flash2015 » Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:10 pm

orathaic wrote:
Tue Nov 23, 2021 12:28 am
On the other side we have Jamiet and orathaic, who appear to have paid attention to the concerns about the judge, but don't appear to have followed the facts of the case...like the testimony of Gaige Grosskreutz who admitted that Kyle didn't shoot until he pointed his gun at him...
You are right about several things. I haven't followed the facts of the case, however that would include the death of the concerns about the judge, which as Oct mentioned was not reported anywhere i have seen.
There has been debate going around whether the judge had a bias since the case started. If you had been paying attention, I am really surprised you didn't hear anything. For example, for days there was a big thing in the media about the judges ruling on whether the prosecution could call the people that were killed "victims" or not...when it appeared that the same restrictions were not being placed on the defense. I think this could have been an issue with misunderstanding of Wisconsin law though (I try not to hear only one side of the issue). Then we had what Jamiet raised (the ringtone), some of the questions Randomizer raised, how he dealt with lesser chargers etc.

I had a personal concern about how he dealt with the mistrial (the defense were asking for a "mistrial with prejudice"). It felt weird that he never ruled on it...like he was holding it in the back-pocket for if the case did not go Rittenhouse's way. On the other had it could be that the Judge realized that if Rittenhouse got off because of a procedural issue it would have been even more divisive...and if that was the case I give him credit for making the right call.

Of course, whether the judge had a bias or not, the more important question was - if there was a bias, did it make a difference to the case, at least on the most important charges? As I said before, from the evidence I had seen, whatever degree of bias that the judge may or may not have had likely did not make a difference.

I only brought this up because Octavious was showing his ignorance AGAIN here. It is OK to say you weren't following too closely but Octavious responded in a way spoiling for an overreaction from Jamie. He could have said to Jamie "I wasn't following that closely. Is that all you have? That doesn't sound like much". It could have been a more nuanced discussion where we went through some of these things. Instead he went for the incendiary "Questioning the Judges impartiality is eQuiVaLeNt tO QAnon!!"...which was just dumb.
Yes, there are concerns that property will be damaged when peaceful protests get large enough (and the police decide to let them...). But property can be rebuilt, life's lost can not be replaced. And if you want to live in a democracy, the anger felt which underlies these protests must be addressed. That anger, whether you think it is justified or not, is the cause of any property damage. And simply 'not shooting black kids' seems like a great place to start in de-escalating the situation.
I think you are seeing this issue too much through...uh..."black and white" lens where the issue is far more nuanced than this. To most people one of the primary objectives of government is safety and stability. When people see looting, places on fire and boarded up shops they get upset (the shops were boarded up less for a few weeks less than a mile from where I live). The average person isn't going to say "oh, it must all be for a good cause".

If you think "oh, that is only white people that think this way" you would be wrong. We recently had an election for mayor in NYC. The "Law and Order" Democrat candidate (Eric Adams) is the one that won. The parts of the city that laid his path to victory in the primary (the general doesn't matter as NYC is so Democrat currently) were the minority communities themselves.

This makes sense...as minority communities are some of the worst victims of crime. They are also often the worst victims of rioting and looting. As Eric Adams said:

“If Black lives really matter, it can’t only be against police abuse. It has to be against the violence that’s ripping apart our communities,” he told supporters the night of the primary.

For example, he is planning to bring back the plain clothes anti-crime unit that activists don't like:

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/11/11 ... es-matter/

What he saw as important out of the Rittenhouse case is stopping the people that are causing mayhem as part of the protests:

https://nypost.com/2021/11/22/eric-adam ... use-riots/

This doesn't mean there is no problem. There absolutely is and the anger is justified. But we can't ignore the civil unrest. It really undermines the whole thing.

As a general comment, the election last year should not have been close...but all the civil unrest gave Trump a path to victory and he almost got there because the Democrats largely ignored the unrest and people got pissed. Thankfully there is some more return to normalcy now. Some nuance on issues is starting to return unlike the "us vs them" division which Trump sowed. I notice this personally in my local community where I run a Politics group on nextdoor. The crazy of last year has mostly died down. I feel we would have been in a really dark place if Trump had been able to get over the finish line.

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#56 Post by taylor4 » Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:41 pm

If 45K voters in as3 USA states had voted Republican for the presidential line, under the Electoral College obtaining now, D J Trump would now hold office.
Complacent democrats ...
Conversely, the Establishment democrats in the USA are seeking to get judicial convictions. A felony (1 year and a day) conviction would restrain his attempt at delegitimizing 2020 election results, post facto.
Under the federal system obtaining, the USA could retreat in itself into a 2nd Switzerland, as it were. Or, as it is, no?

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#57 Post by orathaic » Mon Nov 29, 2021 12:37 am

This doesn't mean there is no problem. There absolutely is and the anger is justified.
Then we are down to a question of tactics.

Thank you flash for your long and detailed responce. I hope the more settled state of affairs post Trump continues and is widespread, rather than a local phenomenon in your area.

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#58 Post by jessecca » Tue Feb 08, 2022 10:44 am

great post

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#59 Post by ND » Fri Mar 11, 2022 2:31 am

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 12:29 am
Kyle Rittenhouse has been proclaimed not guilty.

This means that in the USA, whenever there is any protest or disorder that threatens white people, any white person is allowed to travel to the location of the disturbance, and start shooting anyone they like, and it's all ok as long as they're defending freedom.
He's not guilty because he did what he had to do to protect people and he fought for his own life. Kyle Rittenhouse is an American Hero.

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Re: USA, a fascist state? Confirmed

#60 Post by brainbomb » Sat Mar 19, 2022 1:37 am

What are you using as a metric for determining Hero status?

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