> Portland has had nightly riots for over a month.
I live near Portland and have many friends and coworkers who live in the city and this isn’t true. There have been mostly peaceful protests, yes, but not nightly riots.
I’m also not clear on how that would make this acceptable or justified even if it were true.
I'm not saying the entire city is up in flames, but I've seen pretty scary pictures every night I checked of the area these two were protesting in. If a crowd of people dressed in all black is tossing stuff at police officers, I'd call that a riot.
I'm just not tremendously sympathetic to people who contribute to such an atmosphere of lawlessness and then report that their arrest wasn't entirely by the book.
What the fuck? The point is that the police officers and the feds are supposed to do things by the book. They're the law. Their job is to uphold the law, and that includes how they police things. Regardless of who is contributing to an 'atmosphere of lawlessness', that does not give them carte blanche to violate the rights of citizens. Especially not when it comes to pulling people off the streets into unmarked cars and then driving away.
Why are you so dead set on downplaying this incident? How do you even know the people in the video are actually feds if they're not announcing who they are and going through proper procedures to arrest someone? What's stopping some jackass in cosplay from pulling the same stunt?
Your account has unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines a ton lately. That's not ok. Would you please fix it? Posting in the flamewar style is not cool, regardless of wrong someone else is. Personal attacks are not cool. Religious flamewar is right out.
I've deleted it for you. Please don't miss that the issue wasn't just that one comment, though. It's the pattern with your account, unfortunately.
I realize that as social and political conditions become more polarized, it gets harder to practice the intended spirit of the site, but if HN is to survive, we all have to pitch in. That's one reason the guidelines say "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." "More divisive" is the trend of the world these days, and there's no way HN can expect to be immune from that.
I acknowledge my mistake, likewise your graciousness in dealing with me.
Being that the parent comment is dead I'd assume that this comment won't be publicly visible but I'd like to give a deeper commentary that could be misconstrued by some here, as well take some thought to put together so I'll send that to your HN email.
Regardless of the above, I'm chagrinned and remorseful to generate non-positive dialog here.
There is never a point in time where law enforcement should be given the benefit of doubt. Cops lie.
Then again, if the past 2 months of police brutality against protestors and journalists haven’t convinced you of this, then this comment probably won’t either
They are required to tell you that they're arresting you (it's unclear if they were actually saying that), they're required to tell you who is arresting you, they're required to have probably cause, they're required to document it.
It's always possible to impersonate police, I'm not sure what your point is?
Wearing what the officers in the video are wearing - uniform with a prominent POLICE label - is sufficient to be identifying yourself as police, and would be impersonating a police officer if a member of the public did it.
Again, I agree the video looks pretty bad, but these aren't peaceful protests that the article is describing. The protesters have repeatedly attacked officers and tried to destroy the courthouse. In such a volatile situation, I can imagine reasons why military police might need to quickly and urgently arrest the guy - maybe someone who looked similar had a weapon or explosive.
When you keep framing the protests as riots you delegitimize what's going on.
US Police forces are out of control and unaccountable for their actions. We've seen reporters arrested live on the air for simply reporting on the scene.
There's plenty of evidence linking lots of police to the white nationalist movement, so lets stop pretending like they're all impartial enforcers of justice.
There's also the issue of agents provocateur. It's definitely happening and in fact having "riots" is exactly what the police want, because it gives them literal license to shut down any protest.
I've been asked not to get into shouting matches on this site, so I'll stop at agreeing with your first line. I intend to delegitimize what's going on, since anyone protesting in Portland right now is providing cover for bad actors trying to do real harm.
I don't really think it's fair to characterize any of my recent posts as a "flame war". I haven't yelled, insulted anyone, accused them of being dishonest or anything. I'll give myself a time out and see if I can't get to a healthier mode of engagement here, but I'm concerned that my opinions on a wide variety of topics are being treated as hostile and political simply because others vehemently disagree with them.
I believe that you are debating in good faith. I'm just flummoxed by your assertions.
It frustrates me to no end that things that I think should be incontrovertible are not.
The division between "left" and "right" is destroying our country and I'm desperate to try to find some way of some dialog to find common ground. I've failed consistently so far.
Edit: "political" discourse comes in different flavors -- there's the tribal/theater/personality side (where most of the ugliness lives), and there's the policy side which is entirely germane to our lives. It is the policy issue that I'm interested in.
Agreed. I respect that HN doesn't want to be the place for that dialogue - having apolitical spaces is probably a key component of finding common ground - but I struggle to identify anywhere where it could happen nowadays.
It should be positive dialog. I try my best but slip when I'm tired and frustrated, mea culpa.
Could we try this again with an explicit goal of finding common ground?
For example, I'm not a supporter of rioting (but there's some compelling thoughts that in some cases it effectively becomes necessary because the system has failed those involved). I throw that last part in to acknowledge that the topic of "civil unrest" is complicated and can't be reduced demonizing every instance and participant (e.g., the Boston Tea Party is celebrated in our annals of American History).
Likewise, I'm not for eliminating all policing, but I do think the current structure we have does not serve society well. You can't fix what ain't broke, and it ain't broke until it's noticed.
I'd like to, but the rate limit dang mentioned leaves me unable to have long discussions - I won't be permitted to make more than a handful of comments a day. More generally, he's made it clear that my opinions on this kind of topic are simply not welcome here. I'm planning to take a break from the site through the weekend, and then start from a clean slate with a new handle SaltyLemonZest where I won't make any comments on any political topic.
