George Floyd/Black Lives Matter Protests

[NotThePars]

2 hours ago, welshbairn said:

The big story about that was why the military and national guard did nothing to intervene. Who was stopping them and what were they waiting for? I think it was closer than it seemed. I usually go with the cock up theory but this seemed too orchestrated.

If you mean civil war was closer than it seemed then no it wasn't. It was never going to happen. Most people ignored that the vast majority of the people who were allowed to enter the Capitol were fat privileged wankers that were going to spark f**k all. There was never any serious threat to the United States that day.

[Aladdin]

Whilst this verdict was not unexpected as the trial developed, I had missed this story. Don't even remember this guys death being reported at the time.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/18/elijah-mcclain-family-colorado-settlement

 

[dirty dingus]

56 minutes ago, Priti priti priti Patel said:

Aye, surely... I suspect the Wisconsin legislature will amend it now. I think it was an oversight when the law was drafted.

Pretty much the same as the right to bear arms a part of a militia when George the third was still a thing with his bump stock assault rifle.

[Highland Capital]

The greatest country in the world apparently.

[Binos]

8 hours ago, Priti priti priti Patel said:

Aye, surely... I suspect the Wisconsin legislature will amend it now. I think it was an oversight when the law was drafted.

The rule that should be amended is allowing e every citizen to be armed to the teeth 

Despite being angry the president will do nothing about this 

[Aubrey Maturin]

1 minute ago, Binos said:

The rule that should be amended is allowing e every citizen to be armed to the teeth 

Despite being angry the president will do nothing about this 

Biden has an opportunity to do what other presidents have failed to do and stand up to the NRA and the gun obsessed sizable proportion of his population.

How many more killings will it take for it to be enough and to seriously tackle the  issues.

Or will Joe like his predecessors pay lip service and pretty much change nothing as to afraid of voter backlash.  Politics > people is a long term trend growing more apparent around the globe.

Maybe Biden will be the one who makes a difference, sadly I doubt it.

America what a fucked up mess of a country.  

[Arabdownunder]

Cleared and offered an internship with a congressman. Trump/Rittenhouse 24

[BFTD]

2 hours ago, Tynie Trotwood said:

Biden has an opportunity to do what other presidents have failed to do and stand up to the NRA and the gun obsessed sizable proportion of his population.

How many more killings will it take for it to be enough and to seriously tackle the  issues.

Or will Joe like his predecessors pay lip service and pretty much change nothing as to afraid of voter backlash.  Politics > people is a long term trend growing more apparent around the globe.

Maybe Biden will be the one who makes a difference, sadly I doubt it.

America what a fucked up mess of a country.  

I think they're past the stage of reform. A large enough percentage of the population are absolutely entrenched into abandoning logic, and are on the verge of embracing violence as an inevitability when they don't get their way, if they haven't already. These are the folk who are generally armed, and would absolutely use their weaponry rather than have it curtailed in any way. The supposedly left-leaning party have absolutely no interest being an actual opposition.

If you live there and are worried about the rabbit hole they're headed down, it's time to make plans to move, and not in the "I'm totally moving to Canada if Trump wins, you guys" sense. It's going to get worse, and it's the millions of poor people I feel for, as they're stuck with it.

[Highland Capital]

Staggered, absolutely staggered to find out Rittenhouse has had a Fox/Tucker Carlson film crew with him behind the scenes this whole time.

[Newbornbairn]

If ever a video summed up America in a few minutes, it's this one -

 

Warning - weird and NSFW

 

Spoiler

https://player.vimeo.com/video/197854168?h=0958c7ab21

 

[RandomGuy.]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

I think they're past the stage of reform. A large enough percentage of the population are absolutely entrenched into abandoning logic, and are on the verge of embracing violence as an inevitability when they don't get their way, if they haven't already. These are the folk who are generally armed, and would absolutely use their weaponry rather than have it curtailed in any way. The supposedly left-leaning party have absolutely no interest being an actual opposition.

If you live there and are worried about the rabbit hole they're headed down, it's time to make plans to move, and not in the "I'm totally moving to Canada if Trump wins, you guys" sense. It's going to get worse, and it's the millions of poor people I feel for, as they're stuck with it.

This is it.

This case has just confirmed you can turn up to black lives matter events with a gun, antagonise folk, then kill them, and get away with it. Fairly sure there's enough nutters in America to try this a few times now.

Which will lead to the other half deciding they'll just shoot first, then the police start shooting everyone, and the whole thing spirals.

Genuinely no idea where America goes now. They're too far gone to change gun rules or stop the growing divide in their country. They genuinely seem to be fucked.

[Bairnardo]

This is it.
This case has just confirmed you can turn up to black lives matter events with a gun, antagonise folk, then kill them, and get away with it. Fairly sure there's enough nutters in America to try this a few times now.
Which will lead to the other half deciding they'll just shoot first, then the police start shooting everyone, and the whole thing spirals.
Genuinely no idea where America goes now. They're too far gone to change gun rules or stop the growing divide in their country. They genuinely seem to be fucked.

Their self defence laws are largely similar to ours I think, but with the obvious addition that you can be walking around with a gun, at the point where you "defend" yourself and end up in court having to defend your right to do so.

America is no more mental now than it was pre this verdict.

Allow guns in massive numbers, people will continue to get shot in massive numbers.

This seems to be a cost in lives that they are willing to continue paying in order to protect the constitution, which was apparently shat out by God into the arms of Uncle Sam himself....


As I said, my main takeaway from this case has been a final acceptance that actually, we are nothing at all like them and thus constant application of our own standards when analysing stuff that goes on there is utterly pointless. We have no frame of reference here.

[Binos]

2 hours ago, Highland Capital said:

Staggered, absolutely staggered to find out Rittenhouse has had a Fox/Tucker Carlson film crew with him behind the scenes this whole time.

Will you watch the docco

[Binos]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

This is it.

This case has just confirmed you can turn up to black lives matter events with a gun, antagonise folk, then kill them, and get away with it. Fairly sure there's enough nutters in America to try this a few times now.

Which will lead to the other half deciding they'll just shoot first, then the police start shooting everyone, and the whole thing spirals.

Genuinely no idea where America goes now. They're too far gone to change gun rules or stop the growing divide in their country. They genuinely seem to be fucked.

It's already well gone since columbine era

There are mass shootings every week 

Hundreds in a year 

[btb]

The problem is if you take each shooting as being unconnected and occupying a separate 10 second window then the self defence argument probably stands.

 

It doesn't answer what he was doing there, that and a "good ole boy" as judge got him off, he should consider himself very lucky. I've seen opinions stating the prosecution should've spent more time considering what was achievable.

[NotThePars]

A great day for people who love defending “technically legal but morally abhorrent” acts.

[heedthebaa]

Gets away with murder, then most probably will become very rich, as I’m sure there’s someone worth suing after all this 

[Shotgun]

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, NotThePars said:

A great day for people who love defending “technically legal but morally abhorrent” acts.

^^^George Zimmerman's lawyers like this.

[Priti priti priti Patel]

On 20/11/2021 at 16:28, NotThePars said:

A great day for people who love defending “technically legal but morally abhorrent” acts.

This is the thing. I came into the case thinking that it was going to be morally abhorrent. However, after watching a lot of the live footage of the trial, it became obvious the media hasn't reported the facts accurately, and as I previously mentioned I do think the boy can be cut some (not all) slack.

I personally find America's approach to guns bizarre and scary. However, I won't judge a 17 year old who has grown up in that culture for just going along with what's normal for him. I appreciate not everyone will feel this way.

The thing about him travelling "across state lines" is misdirection by the prosecutor. He travelled about 25 minutes. His home town, and the town where it happened, are physically connected. They just happen to lie on either side of the state border. His dad and dad's side of the family live in the town where it happened, his mates live there, he worked at the swimming pool there. It's not like he travelled for hours and hours. 

He also wasn't itching for a fight. He was in that town the night before it happened, staying at his best mate's house. There were riots that night too. His best mate had guns. They all just stayed at home. The next day he was out cleaning graffiti and a business owner offered to pay him and his mate to come and protect their shop later that night. 

I don't think he's faultless. My criticisms are these: (a) it's mad that you can pay a 17 year old to protect your business with guns; (b) he left the business premises with a fire extinguisher to put out fires. That was unnecessary; (c) when people started shouting at him, he just yelled "friendly, friendly, friendly", thinking that would calm them down. I think he was naive; (d) as it escalated (before the first shooting), he just ran away rather than fronting up and defusing the situation. I think he was scared and immature.

However, the only people he shot were already attacking him. He declined to shoot anyone who stopped attacking after he raised his gun. The guy who survived, who himself was carrying a Glock, had travelled three times further than Rittenhouse and had no connection to the town.

There's a snippet from the Tucker Carlson interview now been released where he says he actually supports BLM. It will be interesting to see what he says in the full interview.

For now, my main feeling is just disgust at continued inaccurate and lazy media reporting, from both left and right, which is unnecessarily polarising Americans, backed up by reckless, self-interested comments from politicians (again, left and right).

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by Priti priti priti Patel