What's Happening in Portland?

From the torching of an Elk statue to clandestine raids by federal officers, it's like a bizarro episode of Portlandia

It is really hard to make sense of what's going on in Portland, where protests, vigils, and confrontations have been constant for almost two months. Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute, toppled a George Washington statue, and allegedly set fire to a Portland Police Association office . There are nightly confrontations in front of the federal courthouse, and now unidentified federal officers seem to be roaming the streets engaging in secret-police-style tactics (when not beating protesters). It's sufficiently bad that the U.S. Attorney has called for an investigation into the actions of federal agents in Portland.

Local officials have not asked for federal assistance (even if the Portland police appear to be working with federal agents). Indeed, some have said would like the federal agents to leave. So why are they there?

At Lawfare, Steve Vladeck examines some of the legal questions, showing that the federal government has more authority to send agents into local jurisdictions for "law enforcement" purposes than many realize.

Last Friday, NPR interviewed acting Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli in search of some answers. As Cato's Walter Olson explains, Cuccinelli's comments were not particularly reassuring. As Olson concludes, "Cuccinelli's comments confirm that what has been happening is disturbing, and badly needs oversight and investigation."

Writes Olson:

As genuine as the problem of violence and disorder in Portland may be, some of the practices being alleged are simply not acceptable ways for the American government to act and, if proven, should not be allowed to stand. . . .

Congress should also investigate and, as appropriate, draw up new legislation to clarify and limit federal police powers and tactics. . . .

Americans won't, and shouldn't, put up with anonymous, arbitrary, and unaccountable police behavior.

Congressional oversight and action cannot come soon enough, as it appears the Trump Administration is preparing to send federal agents to other cities. It is one thing if local jurisdictions request assistance. It is quite another for the federal government to act as a national police force.

Comments

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Six months, folks.

Then, the reckoning.

So do your damnedest for so long and so far as better Americans permit, clingers -- six months, in my view.

[Brett Bellmore]

Not sure why you'd be looking forward to "the reckoning" when we've got most of the guns. You HAVE noticed all these riots are in places where your party controls things, right? If your red guard ever tried this garbage in most of the country, they'd end up in a hospital if not the morgue.

[Martinned]

I assume that by "reckoning" Arthur mean the election. Revealing that you didn't think of that possibility, and that your might went straight to a change of power through violent means...

[Brett Bellmore]

I wouldn't assume he means the election. I'd assume he means the pogrom he expects to follow the election. He is pretty heavy on the flying spittle these days, you might have noticed.

[Sarcastr0]

Never heard RAK talk about a pogrom, Brett.

[damikesc]

So you ignore him better than most. Kudos. He is a subhuman monkey.

[Sarcastr0]

Wanna link to a pogrom post?

Or is Brett being easily goaded into civil war wankery by a subhuman monkey?

[Brett Bellmore]

He has not, so far as I can recall, actually used the word, "pogrom", in among all the "carry on, clingers", and "open wides". But he's free to elaborate on what sort of "reckoning" he anticipates.

[Sarcastr0]

You're free to jump to conclusions that say more about you than him, apparently.

[JesseAz]

It takes one hell of a partisan failed physicist to defend RAK.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I think he's been pretty clear: he expects Biden to become president (highly likely) and for the Democrats to retain control of the House (fairly likely) and to retake the Senate (less likely, but certainly possible). He then expects a Barack Obama and an unidentified 11th justice to be appointed the Supreme Court, along with the admission of enough additional blue states to ensure a permanent Democratic majority in Congress. I don't think that that's especially likely to happen, or that it would be a particularly good thing if it did, but it hardly seems like a pogrom.

[Brett Bellmore]

You've accurately described steps 1 and 2. But why stop there?

What will the newly packed Supreme court rule differently on? Citizens United, of course, and religious liberty, so conservatives can kiss their 1st amendment rights goodbye. Heller and McDonald, so we can kiss our 2nd amendments goodbye, too.

But, of course, the clingers won't stop clinging. What will the newly entrenched permanent Democratic majority, with it's brand spanking new rubber stamp Court, do in response? They're not going to just stand idle as the clingers continue to cling.

Thus, a pogrom.

[NToJ]

@Brett,

lol why even stop at pogrom?

[bernard11]

No Brett.

Not a pogrom.

Do you even have a fucking idea what a damn pogrom is?

Do you think Biden would launch violent, murderous attacks against people living in certain areas, or belonging to a certain religion? Really?

Let's note, just for the record, that violent attacks on religious groups, though not extensive as pogroms, have been carried out by right-wingers. One of your nutcase white nationalist buddies goes into a synagogue and kills eleven people. Another goes into a church and kills nine.

And then there's your militia pal McVeigh.

And you're worried about a pogrom from the left?

Kiss my ass.

If so, you've lost it. The first step back is to change your media diet. You're being fed truckloads of bullshit.

it’s brand spanking new rubber stamp Court, do in response?

Well, the Republicans have what they hoped would be a brand spanking new rubber stamp court, which it mostly has been, so what is your complaint?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"along with the admission of enough additional blue states to ensure a permanent Democratic majority in Congress"

That point doesn't arise much in my thinking or discussions with Democrats. I believe Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia are overdue for statehood (and, with respect to the District, renaming), but I do not think about it much.

Democratic success in November? I see both parties' polling data -- it is brutal for Republicans. Even Rasmussen, the McLaughlin boys, and the POS crew (Public Opinion Strategies) are unable to spackle enough lipstick onto the current situation. Biden is a strong favorite, a Democratic House seems nearly unavoidable, and a Democratic Senate (including 50+1) seems slightly likely,

Court enlargement? I advocate aggressively for that, and find much more interest in the prospect lately. I also propose enlargement of the House of Representatives (and, correspondingly, the Electoral College). That one doesn't have as much current traction. But Court enlargement has attracted support quickly, so perhaps the House project will follow.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Let’s note, just for the record, that violent attacks on religious groups, though not extensive as pogroms, have been carried out by right-wingers."

It's funny that you'd mention McVeigh, and not mention the atrocity that set him on that path. Tens of men, women and children, attacked without cause, trapped for weeks, and then burned to death. Wasn't right-wingers that did that, it was a Democratic administration pursuing the cause of gun control, and then trying to erase all evidence of what they'd done.

Do you even have any idea WHY there was a militia movement in the first place? Why it had grown so large? Waco wasn't the only such atrocity the federal government had committed, it was merely the latest and the largest of a series of escalating killings. Waco wasn't the first, neither was Ruby Ridge.

And it wasn't just right-wingers being targeted; When I was involved with the militia movement, a common complaint was about the Move bombing.

The militia movement arose because our government was getting terrifyingly comfortable with killing it's own citizens. Because it was pursuing policies that were unpopular enough that only terror stood any chance of enforcing them.

Does Biden mean to start this cycle again? Eh, probably not. Doesn't mean he wouldn't, if he's going to pursue policies that can have no other way to achieve. He'll start down that road, and every new step towards crushing opposition will seem reasonable by itself.

[bernard11]

Some reasonable, if debatable, points, Brett, but nothing, absolutely nothing, to back up your claims about pogroms.

Indeed, even under the worst possible interpretation of Waco, it doesn't qualify. Nor do I accept that it in any way justified McVeigh. It sounds like you do.

[Leo Marvin]

I've never heard RAK talk about violence of ANY kind. Some of the RW commenters here, on the other hand....

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I expect the reckoning to include:

1) the election: a Biden presidency; a Democratic House; a strong performance by Democratic candidates in the Senate and with respect to many state-level offices

2) legislation: health care improvement, perhaps including universal health care; immigration reform, with a strong diminution of nativist and bigoted elements; strengthening of public schools; election improvement, including strong push against voter suppression; law enforcement improvement, ideally rejecting qualified immunity, diminishing police militarization, and promoting better policing and prosecution (better education, better training, better temperament, better judgment, more accountability, more oversight, etc.)

3) special projects: Supreme Court enlargement; House of Representatives enlargement; better pandemic management; resumption of reason-based government

[Krayt]

You left out politicians taking kickbacks for miniscule fractions of one cent per dollar spent, to sling all this money around in certain directions, while getting rubes to vote for them for useful idiot reasons like those you list.

Nah. It's just how most of the world works, and all of history. This country has it beat!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You seem cranky and disaffected, Krayt.

Why not just accept and enjoy progress, a strong society, and modernity?

[sparkstable]

You forgot point 4... enforcement.

How do you plan to handle those who you are so convinced are clinger? Those that will cling to their old ways in the face of righteous progress? How do you envision the moment where one's clinging is matched by your kind's willingness to "shove"?

If you answer is... "IDGAF what they do... live and let live!" Then great. You are an open-minded liberal. If your answer is anything closer to some form of forces compliance or punishment then you are advocating for the use of violence against otherwise peaceful people for no other reason than you don't like their personal thoughts.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What are your thoughts on enforcement with respect to traffic lights, center lines, stop signs, no-parking-at-intersections rules, and the like?

[sparkstable]

I'm not the one making a claim we should enforce anything. The question I asked wasn't directed at me but to you. You are just dodging.

[Leo Marvin]

Brett. I don't recall the details, but haven't you spoken admiringly of the Michigan Milita?

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, the Michigan Militia were organized to defend liberty, not attack it.

[Leo Marvin]

And yet that "organiz[ation]" didn't put off the likes of Tim McVeigh.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not sure what you mean by "didn't put off"; Were we supposed to track him down and stop him, rather than just not have him be a member?

[bernard11]

Brett's a big militia fan.

[ScottK]

The less regulated, the better.

[SimonP]

The only one projecting "flying spittle" here is the guy openly enthusing over armed conflict and killing protesters.

[Kazinski]

It's not the right that's out on the street formenting violence nightly.

But I suspect this will be somewhat settled at the ballot box. I say somewhat, because it's hard to look at the revolutionaries out in the streets and think that Joe Biden will satisfy them, unlike Kirkland who's aspirations are adequately represented by Biden.

Either way Trump wins or Biden wins the middle is only going to put up with this for so long.

[Sarcastr0]

It's the right defending the Feds being out in the street fomenting violence nightly under the auspices of their President.

[Social Justice is neither]

so 50+ days of violence are justified retroactively by the Federal presence in the last week?

[Sarcastr0]

No, that sucked too.

But it is also the right defending the current outside agitators in Portland.

[sparkstable]

If someone were to come to my rescue, and in doing so had to employ force against someone else who had already begun using violence, I fail to see how that third party qualifies as an "outside agitator."

The rioting started sans the feds, thus any blame about its causes does not require the feds as part of the explanation.

And if the feds are arresting people who engaged in violence, that they are feds does not preclude them from actually doing the one thing all governments at any level are legitimately formed to do... prosecute those who violate other people's rights so as to further preserve the rights of the people.

[Jason Dawes the Elder]

Sure, the right will defend cops that are defending federal property. Why wouldn't they? Wearing camouflage doesn't make an arrest unlawful.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" Either way Trump wins or Biden wins the middle is only going to put up with this for so long. "

You figure you're qualified to speak for the mainstream, Kazinski?

That's delusional.

[VinniUSMC]

Not any more delusional than you "Reverend".

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

At least a half-century of American progress and history contravenes your assertion, Vinni.

The culture war is not over, but it has been settled. My good guys stomped your clingers. I am the mainstream. You are the disaffected, receding, obsolete fringe.

Why not try to learn to acknowledge defeat, and accept it with a bit of dignity?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The election is less than four months away. Obviously six months is inauguration.

[bernard11]

So you're saying that if this happened in, say, Idaho, armed civilians would carry out vigilante attacks, up to and including murder, against the protestors?

You know what, I think they would, and that you would cheer them on. Don't ever post a comment about the importance of the "rule of law."

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm not talking about the protesters, just the rioters. And I'm not willing to pretend rioters are just "protesters", even as they're attacking police and setting buildings on fire.

[bernard11]

But you do seem to think that the vigilante approach is justified.

[BadLib]

When the police and/or politicians in power refuse to or are unable to enforce the law and, as a result, citizens use the force necessary to protect themselves, their families, and their community from violent mobs, that is hardly "vigilante" behavior. In fact, it smells a lot like more like the unorganized militia (albeit probably expanded a bit to accommodate modern sensibilities so including females and those over 45 years of age).

[Sarcastr0]

Vigilantes are proactive. e.g. doing what's necessary to protect their community from violence.

[sparkstable]

Yet in this hypothetical the people in Idaho would be reactive and defensive in protecting their rights and property from violence. That would make it defensive killings (if, God forbid, it came to that) but it certainly would not be murder. That is like saying if I kill a guy threatening to kill me I committed murder. That is ridiculous.

Also... we reserve our rights to self defense. Police carry that put for us in a perfect world, but we never abandoned our right to do it ourselves. Our right to life is inalienable and as such so is the right to self defense.

[Bruce Hayden]

Not really. When the riots made it to Spokane, some adventuresome rioters apparently drove over to nearby Coeur d’Alene, ID. They turned back after seeing a number of armed residents patrolling the streets. Not really that heavily armed either - just maybe an AR-15 on a sling. That sort of thing.

But keep this in mind. It is legal throughout much of the country to shoot someone coming at you with a bat. Or, to be more accurate, it is legal most places, but throughout Red America, you won’t be destroyed by a bogus arrest for defending yourself from imminent death or great bodily injury (which typically includes broken bones - which a bat can easily accomplish). You most likely won’t be prosecuted, and if you are, you will likely be acquitted.

[Stephen Lathrop]

If that would happen in Idaho, then Idahoans must have changed a lot since I lived there in the 70s and 80s. The extreme right types in Idaho now came from elsewhere, and invaded the panhandle area beginning in the 80s. They were not welcomed by the natives.

Also, most of southern and eastern Idaho is heavily Mormon, which certainly correlates with right wing politics, at least in a general way. But I don't read right-wing militia nuttery as a good fit for Mormonism's culture of community, and genuine respect for values of law, peace, and civil order—and respect for others who practice those values.

[Krychek_2]

Brett, you really, really do not want that to happen, even if you're right that your side has most of the guns.

Whatever one thinks of the protester's tactics, their immediate grievances do in fact have a legitimate basis: the police do brutalize minorities, usually without recourse, and the politicians have mostly refused to do anything about it. Thanks to the usual culprits -- the electoral college, gerrymandered house seats and an anti-democratic Senate -- their political options are limited. So, they are doing what is left to them to do, unless you think they should just continue to accept police brutalization.

The cost of your side taking its guns and sending them to the hospital or the morgue would be an escalation. As we see in Iraq and Afghanistan, it doesn't take a whole lot of tech savvy to bomb crowded marketplaces, churches, and other places where people gather, even in the midst of Covid-19. De-escalation is what's called for, which is why the mayors of Portland and Seattle have been acting with restraint.

A far better strategy would be to end police brutalization of minorities. It's a thought.

[Bob from Ohio]

"politicians have mostly refused to do anything about it. Thanks to the usual culprits — the electoral college, gerrymandered house seats and an anti-democratic Senate — their political options are limited. "

Look, a squirrel.

Portland has a left wing mayor and council and a completely Democratic controlled state government.

Those Democrats can make any changes they want to the police. Its got nothing to do with the "usual culprits".

[Krychek_2]

Portland's left wing mayor and council can end qualified immunity? Um, no, they can't. For that, one needs federal assistance, which is why my usual culprits were not a distraction. And Mitch McConnell is flatly refusing to allow legislation that includes abolishing qualified immunity.

For the remainder of *your* distraction, see my response to Kevin below.

[Brett Bellmore]

Krychek, qualified immunity protects cops from civil suits by their victims for violation of civil rights. It doesn't protect cops from termination for cause by their employers.

Nor does it protect them from prosecution, if the act they got (un)qualified immunity for was a crime.

All it protects them from is the civil suit. The local government protects them from everything else.

[Al S]

"Portland’s left wing mayor and council can end qualified immunity? Um, no, they can’t."

I'm not sure about local government, but the state government in Oregon (controlled by democrats) could certainly end qualified immunity as to state-level causes of action.

[Dr. Ed]

Massachusetts is in the process of doing it.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Portland’s left wing mayor and council can end qualified immunity? Um, no, they can’t."

The State of Oregon could create a cause of action similar to section 1983 [or broader even] which permits state court suits against city police officers without QI as a defense. Colorado did this a month ago, constant rioting not needed.

The State of Oregon can strengthen police discipline procedures, perhaps ending collective bargaining over discipline. It can create citizen review boards with real power. It can make the state AG responsible for police prosecutions.

The city of course is the entity which controls local training, discipline and organization. It can change procedures, change leadership.

[Krychek_2]

Mad Kalak, Brett, Al, and Bob (I've adopted the habit of waiting so I can respond to everyone at the same time):

You are all absolutely right that in theory, state and local authorities could fix their abusive police problems. In theory. The problem is practical political realities that make it politically impossible at the local level. As Sarcastro points out below, these include public support for first responders and the power of police unions.

As with ending Jim Crow, this is a problem that is simply going to need to be fixed at the national level, and for the same set of reasons: Local politicians who have to run for re-election in places where the police union endorsement carries a lot of weight won't stand up to the police unions. Running against the police doesn't even get you re-elected in Portland. The only way you're going to get genuine police reform is if the feds impose it from above, just like they did with civil rights in the 1960s. That way the locals can say that their hands are tied.

And that's why all this talk about what the local authorities *could* do is entirely beside the point. And at the national level, Republicans, who are the party of law and order, won't either.

[KevinP]

A far better strategy would be to end police brutalization of minorities. It’s a thought.

An excellent idea. Most of this brutalization is due to the systemic racism of Deep Blue cities where progressives and Democrats are in charge of everything, including the police. Can you commit to ending progressive police brutality?

Chicago, which has not had a Republican mayor since 1931:

NBC News: 'Crook County' Author: Judicial System Stacked Against Blacks, Latinos

Quote:
Van Cleve documents how minority defendants in Chicago were referred to as "Mopes," a term with the same derogatory intent as the N-word. Fabricated police reports were overlooked.

Rather than a case of rogue officers and "a few bad apples," Van Cleve presents a searing picture of systemic and deeply entrenched racism - including among defense attorneys. Those within the system who try to fight its defects often risk retaliation and isolation.

Minority defendants, she writes, were often viewed as objects with no humanity. Van Cleve shows how even members of the public, such as defendants' family members, were routinely disrespected and subjected to humiliation and abuse.

[Krychek_2]

Kevin, is it your position that systematic racism is only, or even mostly, progressive? If so, you're an idiot; if not, you're making an argument you know to be dishonest.

Systematic racism needs to be ended in all cities, whether they are blue, red or purple. One fairly critical difference is that in blue cities, not reining in the police tends to be a by-product of other local political factors such as police unions. In red cities, systematic racism tends to be a deliberate strategy. So eradicating systematic racism will require different methods in different places. But it needs to be done everywhere. And if you actually are an honest interlocutor, you'll join me in demanding that red cities end it as well.

Please note I said "tends to be." There are counter examples on both sides. But that's the general trend.

[rsteinmetz]

Is your position that until every city in the country can reform their police no city can take any action?
Portland one of the most left wing cities could take a lot of actions with no help from any one. Why haven't they? If they do it they do is and it works other cities will have no excuse.

[Sarcastr0]

It's almost as though police reform is harder than it looks, being as much a systemic and cultural issues as an ideological one!

Krychek_2's sometimes a bit spicy for me, but he has Kevin dead to rights here. His partisan police violence thesis is either idiotic or dishonest.

[Krychek_2]

Sarastr0, I come in mild, spicy or extra spicy. I'll try to remember that your platter gets mild going forward.

[Sarcastr0]

Just a sign I'm getting old.

I get spicy, as you can tell. I'm just not as spicy about the EC and some other stuff as you. Nothin' wrong with that.

[rsteinmetz]

It is true that may of the cities with the big problems have been controlled by Democrats for generations any yet little has been done.

[Sarcastr0]

No argument on that fact.

But that alone is manifestly insufficient to argue it's all the fault of Democrats.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't see how you can argue it's anybody else's fault. It's local control, and it's happening in locales where Republicans have no influence, and haven't in decades. Mostly in states where they don't have enough political clout to overcome that local control, anyway.

I'd go so far as to say that if the cities were one party Republican states, instead, you might still have this problem. It's mostly a problem of perpetual one party control, which zeros out political feedback. But we don't live on counter-Earth, we live on the one where the Democrats control the cities, and basically everything that happens in the cities is nobody else's fault.

[Krychek_2]

Given a choice I would still prefer to live in Seattle or Boston than in just about any red city. And their problems tend to be overblown as demonstrated by the fact that they are expensive precisely because it’s desirable to live there.

[Sarcastr0]

I love San Fran and Chicago, myself.

I may get out to NorCal as my career progresses. We shall see.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I really don't want it to happen. I wish the Antifa/BLM goons would magically just go away. Or maybe just stay cooped up in cities they control already, (Which is why the police are letting them do this.) and leave the rest of the country alone.

I just don't see any reason to expect it.

Look, sure, this started out with some real complaints, it's a rare cause that doesn't have SOME legitimate complaints. Antifa has never been anything but a communist goon squad, they've been that from the start. But BLM, at one time they were a legitimate movement, with legitimate complaints.

But they weren't careful enough about who they let join, and they got taken over, and now they're just another front for the same communists Antifa works for. The legitimate complaints are still there, and handy as an occasional pretext, but they're not what this is about. This is about trying to kick start a communist revolution in America.

We made a horrible mistake here in America, allowing the left to take over the universities, and turn them into indoctrination camps. And now the same goons who would resort to assault to silence speech they didn't like on campus have moved out into the larger society, and are trying to turn the rest of the country into something more like the universities they terrorized. They're trying to put into action what their idiot Marxist professors were teaching them.

There aren't enough of them to succeed, but there are enough to keep the country from enjoying peace, unless we cut off the goon factories our universities have become.

And, yes, Bob is right: To the extent there's a legitimate complaint, the people enabling this in Portland are the guilty parties. Trump isn't responsible for police brutality in cities, the local governments, all run by Democrats, are.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"We made a horrible mistake here in America, allowing the left to take over the universities, and turn them into indoctrination camps."

Should we expect educational institutions -- the strongest ones --to swing toward the side of reason or the side of superstition? The side of progress or the side of backwardness? The side of science or the side of dogma? The side that favors education and achievement or the side that favors ignorance and rails against "elites?" The side that favors tolerance and inclusiveness or the side that favors bigotry and insularity?

Conservatives have plenty of colleges. The campuses conservatives control tend to be fourth-tier yahoo factories heavy on censorship, dogma, speech codes, loyalty oaths, viewpoint-driven discrimination, old-timey conduct codes, rejection of academic freedom, and the teaching of nonsense.

[bernard11]

You're delusional.

"Indoctrination camps!" Where do you get this stuff?

[bernard11]

Brett,

You're being played for a fool. All this Antifa madness is just like the MS-13 terrors that Trump was pushing some time ago, or the "caravan" of invaders serving as a cover for ISIS or something.

It's Trump and his buddies trying to stir up people like you, by making you think there's some enemy at the doorstep and you need him to protect you. You don't. It's BS.

The federal intervention in Portland - I notice the business about it being faked has quietly disappeared - has made matters worse, not better, and that too serves Trump's purpose. The more people are distracted from his catastrophic policies the better for him.

[Life of Brian]

I notice the business about it being faked has quietly disappeared

Please. The initial wailing over alleged arbitrary, intimidating detentions and secret, extended, unlawful interrogations (you might possibly recall the 400+ post discussion it spurred here a couple of days ago) remains unsubstantiated after the WaPo quietly backtracked from the supposed smoking gun admission it had thrown out without proper vetting (either through sheer irresponsibility, or so people like you who desperately wanted it to be true would run with it -- take your pick). I pointed this out in my last reply to you in that thread. Crickets.

Now you're apparently back for more, having refined your position to the unarguably safer but uncompelling "see -- Federal agents ACTUALLY ARE in town!" Well done, I guess.

[Brett Bellmore]

He says, as cities burn.

[Dilan Esper]

I dislike the Electoral College and the Senate, but it isn't the reason why nothing is done about police brutality.

Mostly, it's because local governments are responsive to property owners (middle and upper classes) who like lots of policing. Indeed, you will notice that a lot of police racism is concentrated in cities with liberal electorates- Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis, etc. (This is NOT to say that conservative places don't have racist cops. It's merely to point out that there's nothing about liberal urban governance that inexorably leads to a less racist police force.)

Secondary factors include the power of police unions and police-friendly immunities in legal suits.

But we could abolish the Senate and the EC tomorrow and our urban police forces would continue to pull over, beat up, and shoot Black people.

[jb]

I think this is an overall fair summary of the situation.

Having said that, some cities have been adopting various reforms that have successfully reduced police violence in urban areas. As a result, the rate of police killings of civilians has been dropping (overall) in cities, but has been increasing in suburban and rural areas which has made the nationwide statistics look fairly stable. See: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-are-killing-fewer-people-in-big-cities-but-more-in-suburban-and-rural-america/

So I think it's fair to say that states and cities have a lot of control over these issues and therefore deserve a lot of the blame for the problems, we should also give some credit for the incremental progress that's been made (and be concerned about the trends in suburban and rural areas).

[Kazinski]

"their political options are limited."

That's a bunch of crap. Because as the age of covid has adequately illustrated most power is still in the hands of State and local officials. Oregon and Portland's government is not controlled by a gerrymandered legislature or the electoral college. They control the police, the schools, the universities. They also could implement single payer, more progressive taxes, universal Pre-K, whatever is on their wishlish.

The truth is that they have been trying to build a liberal utopia in Portland and Eugene for at least 30 years with all the levers of power in their hands. But their competence and vision is so limited that they could come up with is Portlandia.

[sparkstable]

A person who uses defensive force is not the one escalating but responding to the escalation. No, I do not want bodies in the streets. I WANT the riots to stop and return to being only protests. That the protests have a legitimate complaint does not grant them license to become the riots that they have and then impose violence on others nor does it preclude others from responding in kind to defend their rights.

[chrisare]

Can you cite the preponderance of evidence that police disproportionately "brutalize minorities" in a given police-suspect interaction?

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/05/28/police-shootings-black-americans-disproportionately-affected-infographic/#2580047959f7

[Union of Concerned Socks]

in my view.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Whew! That's a good one.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Have fun trying to convince the guys you will need (the police) to take all the guns away now that you have trashed them politically. Maybe you can get all the transsexuals and homosexuals you put into the military over the last 10 years though to do the dirty work. Who knows?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you planning on going "the full LaVoy," Jimmy?

If that is how you wish to expedite your replacement, go ahead. I hope you accept your defeat in the culture war gracefully, and perhaps learn something while you still have the chance.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute, toppled a George Washington statue, and allegedly set fire to a Portland Police Association office ."

You forgot the sarcasm font; Some idiots are likely to think they actually were peaceful.

[apedad]

I agree that Prof. Adler's blog is sloppy.

"Not sure why you’d be looking forward to 'the reckoning' when we’ve got most of the guns."

But you just couldn't keep control of your internal looney-tunes.

[Krychek_2]

Of course it was an elk statue. It would have been a gross moosedemeanor to topple a moose statue.

[rsteinmetz]

What heinous act was the elk supposed to be guilty of?

[Longtobefree]

Not being African, I suppose - - - - - -

[swood1000]

iconic elk statute --> "statue"

[Joe_dallas]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/unidentified-federal-agents-detaining-protesters-in-portland.html

FWIW - reports of unidentified federal agents arresting peaceful demonstrators is highly dubious

[David Nieporent]

Now we've circled back to denial?

[Kazinski]

Well, every picture I've seen of the agents has a CBP logo and an identifying number. So while the agents don't have name tags, their agency and identifying number is there. That's not what unidentified means.

[jb]

Seems pretty weird to post an article full of evidence of a thing and then just blithely assert that it's not happening.

[Al S]

"Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute, toppled a George Washington statue, and allegedly set fire to a Portland Police Association office"

"Peaceful protest" = arson. This is why it's difficult to take the anti-Trump folks seriously. (There are completely separate reasons why it's difficult to take the pro-Trump people seriously.)

I for one don't think it's difficult at all to understand what's happening in Portland. There are nightly riots in which federal property is being damaged and federal personnel are being threatened, and the federal government - in the absence of any local response - it protecting its property and personnel by trying to arrest the rioters. It is not complex at all.

[Glaucomatose]

If the federal officers were arresting people engaged in rioting and looting, or charging people with arson, then it might play out differently. Unfortunately, video of federal officers beating up and pepper spraying a guy standing still and asking them what they think about their oath to the Constitution doesn't do a lot for that argument.

[Al S]

From the OPB link:
"Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests [sic - proper term is riots] so far".

[Glaucomatose]

I wasn't aware that "being in the same neighborhood as a crime" was considered a crime meriting physical assault by the police.

[Al S]

I don't know federal criminal law, but at the state level failure to obey a lawful police order is typically a crime.

[Joe_dallas]

Its unlikely that the person was just "being in the same neighborhood as a crime".

A normal law abiding person would vacate the neighborhood for safety reasons.

[Sarcastr0]

This reasoning is also how many justify bombing civilians.

Lotsa revealing posts on this over the past few days.
I gotta brush up on that Ur-Fascism essay.

[bernard11]

“Peaceful protest” = arson.

How many arsonists do you claim there are? How many peaceful protestors?

[KevinP]

How many arsonists do you support?

Antifa Rioters Break Into Portland Police Union and Set It on Fire

Quote:
On Saturday evening, two groups of antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters terrorized Portland, squaring off against police and federal troops. One group attacked the Portland Police Bureau’s North Precinct and the Portland Police Association (PPA) — the police union — while the other group targeted the federal courthouse and Justice Center, returning to set yet another bonfire at the ruins of the elk statue nearby.

At about 10:45 p.m., antifa rioters broke into the PPA office and ignited a fire inside.

[bernard11]

I don't support any.

Neither do I think that all the protestors, or even most of them, are arsonists.

[sparkstable]

If your friend is standing next to you and begins to commit violence on someone in the name of the cause you are at that very moment professing... what do you do? At some point, complacency is culpability, at least in a philosophical sense (I wouldn't necessarily agree that it should be so legally... different and irrelevant topic there).

If there can be no non-racist... you are either racist or anti-racist... then it is WAY more logically sound to say the protests are in league with violent factions and encourage it through passivity. That is not my actual argument... but it is what I would argue if we accept the protests own terms of what constitutes guilt. So either the accept guilt or accept their terms are horse shit and go home (and taking the cover for the arsonists with them). Either way I am happy.

[Ben_]

It's complex if you want to tell a dramatic story about teh bad orange man.

It's complex if you're trying to decide what to pretend to care about and who you want to pretend to defend and how to pretend the feds protecting the federal buildings are evil.

[rsteinmetz]

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Protesters outside Portland’s U.S. courthouse set a fire in the building’s entryway early Monday

[Sarcastr0]

That was a protester-related fire incident.

[Brett Bellmore]

What's that, some new euphemism for "arson"?

[Sarcastr0]

It's a take on 'officer-involve shooting.'

[damikesc]

So we should defund the protesters and go after their funding and redirect it?

No?

Shocking.

[Sarcastr0]

It's a joke.
Lighten up Francis.

[damikesc]

So don't defund them. Got it.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I am curious why or how you get emotional satisfaction out of posting both sides of a conversation that takes place only in your head.

Do you think that because you have said it every now thinks Sarcastro has a position on your very amorphous and unexplained idea about "defunding" "protestors." Were they being paid by the government? You want to take protestors' money? All the protestors?

Your comments are kind of bizarre, damikesc, particularly as you come across as so proud to have exposed some craziness on Sarcastro's part when he wasn't even involved in this give and take about "defunding" that you are so proud of.

[damikesc]

Again, no need to bring out the kneepads for him. He's on board with them. Groovy.

I would prefer cops who at least have SOME accountability over roving mobs of lunatics who very much do not.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I see you specialize in non sequiturs.

[Ben_]

I think you're required to call them mostly peaceful protesters. Or if that's too wordy, just call them peaceful.

Leftist violence must always be hidden from the public.

[Bob from Ohio]

"engaging in secret-police-style tactics "

That "style" is doing a universe worth of heavy lifting.

Its acceptance of the left's spin and not true.

[Sarcastr0]

From the first post, though, you think secret-police style tactics are cool, when used against the left.

[Sarcastr0]

“you can’t just snatch people and then tell them later who you work for and what law you have allegedly violated to justify your arrest/detainment”

Yes, you can.

Its not illegal to not have id plates or visible badges or use rental cars.

If Portland police were allowed to do their jobs, no need for federal intervention. These “Black Bloc” cosplayers have been attacking the US courthouse daily.

[Bob from Ohio]

Still not "secret police" tactics.

Read some history about how real secret police behave. Its not this.

[Sarcastr0]

I'd like to ask you how secret police operate that is different than what's being reported here.

[Bob from Ohio]

Well, secret police act in "secret" for one thing. This is all out in the open. A secret police would use informants to id rioters and grab them at home.

The so called "kidnapped" people are processed and promptly released if not charged. The secret police grab you, you stay grabbed.

The mayor is walking around isn't he? A true secret police would have disappeared him by now.

[Sarcastr0]

No, secret police create a reign of terror, snatching dissidents, not the merely guilty.

Not everyone snatched and interrogated goes to Siberia. It's a show of force.

No need to disappear the mayor when you can just declare their opinions don't matter.

[JesseAz]

Reign of terror...like 50 nights of rioting?

[Brett Bellmore]

That's obvious: We actually heard from this dude. And the guy filming it didn't get his skull smashed in.

A few years ago Chicago was literally disappearing people. They'd arrest them, and then they'd vanish until their court hearings, hidden at black, off the book facilities to keep them from talking to anybody or getting counsel. That's a start towards secret police.

This is nothing. The only secrecy here is keeping the identities of the cops hidden behind codes so that Antifa can't dox them, which in today's environment could get their homes firebombed or them ambush assassinated during their time off.

[Longtobefree]

And that would be the actions of a city controlled by which political party?

Trump is joining in the cosplay; he is showing the fascists how it really can work, and offering them the chance to dial it back from riots to protests.

[Ben of Houston]

The main difference is that people aren't "disappeared". They are arrested. Once you are in a safe and quiet area, all the "hidden" information is properly revealed in public documentation, as they sign their name, affiliation, rank, and ID as your arresting officer. The prisoner is then afforded the full rights of an arrested person in the United States.

The statement that they are hidden or secret is just demanding the information earlier in a situation where it isn't safe to be standing around checking IDs.

To compare. For Chinese or Russian secret police, someone comes, someone takes you, and you are never heard from again.

[Bruce Hayden]

It’s actually well established police procedure for situations like this, where arrests (and even interviews) are violently contested. Plenty of video showing rioters (and their covering protesters) attacking police to try to liberate people the police are trying to arrest. Snatch and grab is considered the least violent way to accomplish this. The vehicles are typically unmarked because the rioters would mob marked vehicles. And the federal agents involved typically don’t wear name tags in order to protect them and their families from retaliation. Same thing with SWAT teams around the country.

There is no legal requirement, at least at the federal level, that federal agents be identifiable at the time of an arrest or interview. Just typically (but not always) if they testify in court.

[Ben_]

They — get this — arrested one guy. Then they read him his rights like secret police do. Then they asked him questions like only the most secretive of secret police do. Then they secret-police-style released him after 90 minutes.

It's oh-so-dramatic.

[Martinned]

Since we're apparently quoting news headlines, can I play?

Navy veteran praised as 'Captain Portland' after beating by federal officers during riots
Navy veteran Christopher David, 53, said federal officers struck him with a baton and fired pepper spray at him

https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-protest-navy-veteran-federal-officers-baton-pepper-spray

[Joe_dallas]

"David, wearing a white sweatshirt with the word Navy written across, a mask and a black backpack, walks away from the federal officers, flipping them the middle finger."

He went to the court house to join the riots/"peaceful protests"

What did he think was going to happen

[Martinned]

Well, just to take a punt here, he might have thought that people who work for the government might respect his first amendment rights...

[Sarcastr0]

That's not how I expect the government to respond to speech.

[JesseAz]

Remember, when the protestors tore down a federal fence, used them to barricade officers inside a federal building then attempted to set said building on fire.... it was speech.

This is your argument.

Good ole dishonesty from you.

[Joe_dallas]

Rioting is not free speech or peacefully assemble

[Sarcastr0]

The story Martinned linked is not about rioting.

[swood1000]

One headline says: “Man shown absorbing police baton blows in viral video says he just wanted to talk to federal officers.” Would there be any possible justification for this?

What if there is a riot zone around a federal courthouse, with numerous people trying to get close either to attack the building or to attack those defending it, and the federal officers defending the building tells a person that they have declared a cordon around the building, that he is within it, and orders him to move away and he refuses? In the heat of battle how much coaxing is required?

[Sarcastr0]

In the heat of battle

With such words, one can justify a lot of killing.

[swood1000]

It can't be denied that different rules apply when there is an active riot going on and the federal courthouse is actually under attack.

[Sarcastr0]

Except these actions haven't been taken during an 'actually under attack' situation.

Makes one wonder what kind of firepower would be justified if it were, under your thinking.

[swood1000]

Except these actions haven’t been taken during an ‘actually under attack’ situation.

It's clear that the courthouse was under attack at the time. Under such circumstances don’t the federal police defending the courthouse have the right to set an exclusion zone around the courthouse and forcibly evict those who, after being asked, refuse to leave?

[Sarcastr0]

It’s clear that the courthouse was under attack at the time

Not where that guy was, it wasn't.

Your exigency scenario requires a necessity that is not manifest.

[swood1000]

Are you kidding? Look at the video. Is this your idea of a calm summer evening? There’s smoke or tear gas in the air. There’s a group of federal police obviously keeping people away from the building. They are surrounded by a hostile crowd. Are you saying that since in the six square feet around this one guy no attackers are visible, therefore the federal police are not justified in establishing an exclusionary zone that includes those six square feet? As to whether the courthouse was under attack see also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJMycSiJOLY

[NToJ]

Man you need a better video. In the one you picked (with the riot police) the only non-police officers is the guy with the camera on the ground, and some woman shielding herself with a skate board. Where is the "hostile crowd"? The guy with the laser pointer?

[swood1000]

Where is the “hostile crowd”?

”People could be seen throwing things and setting off fireworks towards the justice center…eventually protesters clashed with authorities after the federal courthouse door was shattered…Portland police ordered people to leave the area, threatening to use tear gas and other crowd control measures…”

[NToJ]

Hence, better "video". You asked us to watch a video, presumably to see all this rioting, not to listen to somebody else describe it.

[Sarcastr0]

swood, we're talking about the incident that Martinned quoted. THAT video showed no violence at all; it's quite damming:

https://twitter.com/PDXzane/status/1284726088187310080

[Absaroka]

That video looks pretty bad, but didn't we recently have a discussion about how sure one should be of one's conclusions after watching an 11 second video, with start time, stop time, and camera angle selected and provided by only one side of a confrontation?

I would urge you to try an imagine a similar video, but from the Bundy Ranch standoff, where the Bundyistas provide a similar video. Would your confidence that it was a horrible civil rights abuse be similarly high?

Maybe we should wait and see - let the gentleman sue, and we'll get to have a lot more context, camera angles, and hear both sides of the story. And if he was abused, pay damages and/or prosecute/discipline the officers involved. What was your phrase ... 'keep your hat on'??

[Sarcastr0]

You are correct, Absaroka. Except that here the burden would seem to be on the one justifying this use of government force, no?

Yeah, if the Feds came in and just started wailing on unarmed Bundy chuckleheads, I'd be pretty mad at them as well. Would your position change?

[Absaroka]

Nope, if the Bundyistas supplied me with a short vid of their choice showing one of them standing in front of LEOs, tear gas swirling in the background, etc, ..., I'd be wondering what was going on in the ten minutes or so prior, and I'd like to hear the LEO's side of the story as well, before I reached any certain conclusions.

[Sarcastr0]

I, too, want to hear the LEO's side of the story. Hopefully with body cams.

But they're not talking. So I'm not bending over to create artificial facts that do them favors.

[Absaroka]

"I’m not bending over to create artificial facts"

Good! That makes two of us not making up facts, then!

[Sarcastr0]

So how long will you delay, reserving judgement for maximum data, waiting for the Fed's side of things before you decide what most likely happened?

If the Feds say there totes was a riot, just offscreen, and this is disputed by the media and eyewitnesses, who will you give credence to?

Seems to me you're giving the first mover a great advantage with your reserve judgement plan.

[Absaroka]

I think I'd wait until I heard from both sides, and saw all the available evidence.

Wishing I had information doesn't make it appear.

You seem pretty invested in the harmless peaceful protesters/out of control violent cops viewpoint. Sometimes that is true, sometimes it isn't. For example, watch this video. Maybe not all protesters are nice, and not all cops are out of control monsters?

When you get to pick when the video starts, you get to shape the story. I want to know what was happening in the few minutes prior to that video starting.

We have a process to adjudicate claims. Let the Navy vet file his lawsuit - it's hard to imagine he couldn't get a pro-bono attorney - and we'll get to see all the evidence. What you are advocating seems uncomfortably close to 'well, heck, we don't need to waste no time on no steenkin' trial'.

[Ben_]

As you've no doubt seen by now, anything can be denied.

The building wasn't attacked. Or it was, but the attack stopped for a second and the feds acted at exactly that time, making them evil because they weren't under attack. Or the word "attacked" isn't suitable, it's more of an elaborate dance. Or whatever.

I’m waiting to be told there were mass arrests because the one guy who was arrested has a measurable mass.

[NToJ]

"In the heat of battle how much coaxing is required?"

Why don't you tell us? Assuming for the sake of argument that the things you think were happening actually happened, do you think the degree of "coaxing" actually used was appropriate, or not?

[swood1000]

If the federal officers had authority to declare a cordon around the building under riot conditions that were satisfied, and had the authority to physically expel people who, after having been warned, refused to exit the protected area, and if the use of batons is considered an appropriate means of expelling people during this type of disorder since it doesn't require more than one officer, the idea being that a single blow should suffice to achieve compliance, and if this person was told to exit the area and refused to comply, then yes. Why didn't he exit immediately, or at most after one blow?

[Sarcastr0]

Passive voice doing a lot of work.

[swood1000]

Do you disagree with the conclusion? Do you find the assumptions to be implausible?

[Sarcastr0]

Your conclusion has enough conditionals, it's useless.

You also conflate legal and moral.

[swood1000]

Your conclusion has enough conditionals, it’s useless.

Which of the conditionals do you claim is implausible?

You also conflate legal and moral.

What rule of morality is violated under the fact pattern I described?

[Sarcastr0]

The part where an unarmed protester, by himself, is not allowed to speak, but is charged and beaten.

I don't think it's legal, I KNOW it's not moral.

[swood1000]

The part where an unarmed protester, by himself, is not allowed to speak, but is charged and beaten.
I don’t think it’s legal, I KNOW it’s not moral.

So if during a riot the police establish an exclusionary zone around a federal courthouse and tell an intruder into the zone that he is required to leave immediately and he refuses, it is immoral for the law to allow the police to force the intruder out of the zone by hitting him with the baton until he leaves? What rule of morality are you appealing to? If they have the legal authority to exclude him and he refuses to leave isn’t that evidence of bad faith on his part? How can he claim innocence after this?

[Sarcastr0]

Your definition of during a riot could have a truck driven through it.

Unarmed protesters by themselves don't really occur in an active riot.

What rule of morality am I appealing to? One where I'm not going to get into a philosophical discussion about this. If you don't see a problem, that's just going to have to be you, and I'll keep on being me.

[NOVA Lawyer]

swood,

Seriously, beating someone just standing there until they move is a reasonable, moral solution to you?

I think most of us, at this point, are on board with the idea that beating people as a first resort until they do what you have commanded, even if you have a legal right to command, is, in the vernacular, not cool.

I have seen many videos of protestors escorted out of such areas. Wailing on them with a baton is just not a good first option and, thankfully, most law enforcement officers who know they are being videoed seem to understand this. Hence, ones who don't know they are being videotaped likely know this too, they just have a different incentive structure, so sometimes act according to their character rather than justice or morality.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I am pretty sure I typed "whaling", so blame autocorrupt for "wailing". But, they were whaling on him with batons.

[NToJ]

I do.

[swood1000]

Which assumptions are implausible and why? Given the assumptions why do you disagree with the conclusion?

[NToJ]

On the assumptions, 1) I don't think the riot conditions were satisfied, 2) the video does not show a protester within any cordoned off area, he's standing in front of officers (exactly where you would expect a protester to be), 3) I do not agree that this officer's "use of batons" was is appropriate, nor even considered as appropriate by any of the other officers who didn't use their batons, 4) the use of batons does require more than one officer, apparently, since this one officer's use of the baton was ineffective until supplemented with mace, 5) if the protester is not within a cordoned off area, I'm not convinced the federal agents have authority to disperse them.

But, even if I granted you all the assumptions, the baton was stupid. It was ineffective in fact. If he's in a place he shouldn't, they should have detained him. They didn't. The gas (which was also a bit much, in my opinion) was effective to disperse the individual. Now federal agents have made a hero out of a middle aged veteran who showed up to tell them what he thought of them, which is his right.

[swood1000]

On the assumptions, 1) I don’t think the riot conditions were satisfied,
So when the news report says “a riot again declared in downtown Portland” and “eventually protesters clashed with authorities after the federal courthouse door was shattered” you insist that this falls short of riot conditions. More explanation, please.

2) the video does not show a protester within any cordoned off area, he’s standing in front of officers (exactly where you would expect a protester to be),
But what if the police told him that he was within that exclusionary zone and ordered him to go back across the street?

3) I do not agree that this officer’s “use of batons” was is appropriate, nor even considered as appropriate by any of the other officers who didn’t use their batons,
If there is a riot in progress and people are ordered by police to leave the area and a protester approaches the police with unknown intention and he is ordered to move back across the street and he refuses is it reasonable to assume that he has a hostile intention, or is that negated if he says that he just wants to talk?

4) the use of batons does require more than one officer, apparently, since this one officer’s use of the baton was ineffective until supplemented with mace,
If, during a declared riot, a person is ordered by police to go back across the street and he refuses and he is hit by the baton and he still refuses, is it reasonable to assume that he intends harm to the police?

5) if the protester is not within a cordoned off area, I’m not convinced the federal agents have authority to disperse them.
Surely you are not asserting that if the police have authority to declare a cordoned area they are not required to set up physical cordons like we see at the movie theater. If the police tell him he is in a restricted area and they are authorized to establish a restricted area then what is his justification for refusing to comply?

But, even if I granted you all the assumptions, the baton was stupid. It was ineffective in fact. If he’s in a place he shouldn’t, they should have detained him. They didn’t.
What you are saying is that hitting him so many times enabled bad PR for the police. But don’t you think that most people will follow the refused instructions after one blow from the baton? Are you knowledgeable about appropriate police techniques? Nor am I. What if the police are outnumbered 1000 to 1. If the attackers think that they can reduce the police force by three for each aggressor they assign then it doesn’t take long before the entire defensive force has been sidetracked. The alternative would be to not arrest them but force them to exit the protected area.

[NOVA Lawyer]

swood,

NToJ doesn't need my help, but seriously.

1. I am not sure what your or NToJ's points precisely are. That a riot was or was not going on in the vicinity of this guy is only barely relevant. He was not rioting. He was standing, speaking.

2) Then he failed to obey a lawful order. Police often then either tell him again or escort him away. Are you suggesting once asked, it is kosher to just commence to beating?

3) is it reasonable to assume that he has a hostile intention, or is that negated if he says that he just wants to talk? It is not reasonable. If he says he just wants to talk, he is just talking, protestors typically want to talk, he has only talked, and he has no weapon....kind of like the old guy pushed down in, I think, Buffalo...then, yeah, it is unreasonable to assume he means to attack a well-armed force of multiple officers.

4) is it reasonable to assume that he intends harm to the police? Asked and answered, but yes. Clearly, yes.

5) If the police tell him he is in a restricted area and they are authorized to establish a restricted area then what is his justification for refusing to comply? Several unestablished conditionals. I am assuming he was relying on the First Amendment and being in a public space.

But don’t you think that most people will follow the refused instructions after one blow from the baton? Whether most people try to avoid being hit by a baton, even if they have been told not to stand where they are standing, says nothing about whether they should be hit by a baton. (See Lewis, John.)

Are you knowledgeable about appropriate police techniques? Nor am I. Then why are you so virulent in defending wanting use of a baton?

What if the police are outnumbered 1000 to 1. But the situation appears from the video to be quite the opposite.

If the attackers think that they can reduce the police force by three for each aggressor they assign then it doesn’t take long before the entire defensive force has been sidetracked. This is irrelevant to the baton conversation because he already "sidetracked" more than three officers. You theory of "attacker" strategy works whether multiple police officers attempt to baton the guy into compliance or do so through less violent means.

The alternative would be to not arrest them but force them to exit the protected area. The two alternatives are not arrest him or beat him into compliance. You realize that, right?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Correction:
4) is it reasonable to assume that he intends harm to the police? Asked and answered, but yes. Clearly, yes.

You first asked is it unreasonable. To which I replied: Yes, it is.

Then you asked is it reasonable. I meant, no. Clearly, no it is not reasonable.

Yes, it is unreasonable to assume he intends violence. No, it is not reasonable to assume he intends violence.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I see three uses of the passive voice, none of which seems to be to do "doing a lot work" if any nefarious sense (or any more work than the much-more-common active constructions). Can you elaborate?

[Sarcastr0]

As with most uses of passive voice, he's eliding who is making the determinations about riot conditions and legitimate use of force. Thus making them into unassailable facts, when they are not.

[jb]

Even assuming the guy is in a cordoned off area during a riot and has been told to leave, the use of batons like this against someone demonstrating no hint of violent behavior seems wildly inappropriate. He was outnumbered by officers by about five to one, so an easy option would have been to simply arrest him for trespassing. Even better--and we've seen police do this to deescalate situations--would be just to talk to the guy, since apparently that's what he was interested in.

As to "why didn't he exit...at most over one blow", you seem to be seeing quite a bit more delay between blows than I do. What human do you imagine could have exited in the fraction of a second between each blow?

[sparkstable]

If a group of people come to my front door and are violent, I would be justified in responding with increased force to compel their peaceful action or leaving of my property. If the group was in yard and only some occasioned to approach me, violently, on my porch, I would be justified in the same against those on my porch. If, after several waves of groups leaving the larger gathering in my yard to be violent on my porch, a smaller group or even just one person, came from the yard group and approached my porch, am I required to wait until he attacks me? Or am I in the right to assume he is a member of the violent group that has been attacking me and justified in the use of force to expell him after giving him a fair chance to do so via verbal command? At some point the rules of common sense say that in the moment everyone saying you should die gets treated like the people who tried to kill you after saying you should die.

[jb]

That's a cool analogy that seems very tenuously related to anything I wrote.

It seems clear to me from the video that more force was used than was called for, and is a great example of where the police could try to deescalate instead of using even more violence. That's a separate question from what is legally allowed or what a homeowner might do on their private property, but I guess some people think that just because there's a plausible excuse for the police to engage in violence that it's therefore okay for them to do so.

[sparkstable]

No... I'm saying context matters. If one person emerges from a violent mob then it is reasonable to skip the pleasantries since the other party has done so already.

[Sarcastr0]

An unarmed person?

Explain the exigency that would require state force and injure this person. How is the situation made less tense in such a case? You just made a martyr.

[bernard11]

So he should have expected to be beaten for standing there?

[KevinP]

If he was ordered to leave the area for everyone's safety, then yes, he should have left.

Or are you saying they should have shot him to achieve the same goal?

[Sarcastr0]

So you've just justified the beating of MLK on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Way to go.

[swood1000]

There were a few differences. In Portland there was a riot in progress. Furthermore, federal officers in Portland were not acting pursuant to an unjust law (unless protecting a federal courthouse from active aggression is unjust) and were not trying to deny the vote to American citizens. Do you say that the use by police of a baton under any circumstance is the moral equivalent of beating MLK on the Edmund Pettus Bridge?

[Sarcastr0]

My point is that the authorities were invoking public safety back then as well. Watch who you're echoing.

I didn't see a riot at that time.

The OP lays out how this may not be legal at all, much less just.

They were trying to deny speech from an American citizen.

Your Rube-Goldberg of conditionals does not let anyone off the hook until they are all proven.

[swood1000]

My point is that the authorities were invoking public safety back then as well. Watch who you’re echoing.
Yes but they were invoking an unjust law in pursuance of unjust ends.

I didn’t see a riot at that time.
There was no riot in Selma when force was used against people. There was a riot in Portland.

The OP lays out how this may not be legal at all, much less just.
What are you referring to?

They were trying to deny speech from an American citizen.
Does an American citizen have a first amendment right to remain in a restricted area during a riot against the orders of federal authorities?

Your Rube-Goldberg of conditionals does not let anyone off the hook until they are all proven.
In a Rube Goldberg situation each of the intermediate events is extraordinarily unlikely, rendering the final event comical. Which of my assumptions is extraordinarily unlikely?

[NOVA Lawyer]

swood,

Yes but they were invoking an unjust law in pursuance of unjust ends.

This isn't how it works. Whether beating a non-violent protestor is right or wrong does not depend on whether the non-violent protestor is morally justified in his/her protest.

If an unarmed, anti-abortion protestor refuses to leave a sidewalk she has been ordered to leave, it is not okay to just start whaling on her with a baton. Similarly, if an unarmed pro-choice protestor refuses to leave a sidewalk she has been ordered to leave, it is not okay to just start whaling on him with a baton.

Both of these are true at the same time. Amazing, huh?

[KevinP]

You're the one who was indifferent to Antifa assaulting journalists in Portland.

The dark cloud of fascism is always descending upon Republicans but it usually turns out to be composed of progressives and Democrats.

Antifa Mob Viciously Assaults [gay Asian] Journalist Andy Ngo at Portland Rally

Andy Ngo, a photojournalist and editor at Quillette, landed in the emergency room after a mob of antifa activists attacked him on the streets of Portland during a Saturday afternoon demonstration.

[Sarcastr0]

Andy Ngo lies, Kevin. He shouldn't have been injured, but he lies. Stop linking him.
The concrete milkshake thing is demonstrably false.

[Life of Brian]

he lies. Stop linking him.

Wow, catching someone in something you feel is a lie is the new standard for not listening to anything else they have to say? Great deal. I look forward to rebuilding the entire governmental power structure side by side with you.

[Sarcastr0]

The story he's linking is a lie, though the injury was not.

I linked to the explanation yesterday. And Kevin has acknowledged I did. And yet Kevin persists in linking to this debunked story.

Given his provenance, I would not link to Andy Ngo as a sole source, no.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I linked to the explanation yesterday"

From what I saw, you linked to an article that linked to an article where some small-time journo claimed that she failed to make such a milkshake. That's not much definitive proof.

Props on linking to a "Rolling Stone" article to expose a hoax, though.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute, toppled a George Washington statue, and allegedly set fire to a Portland Police Association office ."

What the...

[TwelveInchPianist]

I mean, peaceful protesters shouldn't be referred to as "rioters" but referring to rioters as peaceful protesters amounts to the same thing.

[Ben_]

That elk owned slaves.

[Rossami]

I'm usually skeptical of the arguments that protests weren't "peaceful" just because the protestors failed to control the criminal elements mixed into their crowd. But Alder goes much too far with the sloppy wording in the second sentence of this article. Peaceful protesting does not include the willful destruction of other people's property. The fact that it's less violent than murder or assault does not suddenly make it "peaceful".

[Brett Bellmore]

OK, looking at what Olson considers "disturbing":

Federal agents identified as to branch, but without individualized names. You know what? I'd find this disturbing, too... In a situation where they didn't have to worry about some loon tracking them down and firebombing their homes. Are we pretending that isn't true? Seems so.

But, wait, they do have individualized codes on their uniforms, which permits you to complain that "XZ1" mistreated you. I expect the veil of anonymity would be pierced in the event a court agreed.

"* How far from federal property are federal agents operating?"

How the hell is this legally relevant?

"* Who invited the feds into Portland in the first place?"

Where did Olson get the idea that they needed an invitation? OK, apparently he realizes they don't, but still finds it 'disturbing'.

Look, I'm open to the possibility that something shady is happening here, but this is awfully thin gruel.

[Martinned]

“* How far from federal property are federal agents operating?”

How the hell is this legally relevant?

Because they're legally there to protect federal property.

Where did Olson get the idea that they needed an invitation?

Maybe from the fact that the Constitution doesn't give the federal government plenary police powers?

[Bob from Ohio]

Federal agents are allowed to enforce federal laws including protecting federal property, its not limited to that one function.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Maybe from the fact that the Constitution doesn’t give the federal government plenary police powers?"

Now, that IS a fair point, the feds exercise far too much power. But, again, you've literally got mobs trying to burn down federal buildings in Portland, with the local government apparently having been ordered to let them be, and the local prosecutors releasing such arsonists as get caught.

There's got to be some federal move short of declaring an insurrection and sending in the army.

[David Nieporent]

But, again, you’ve literally got mobs trying to burn down federal buildings in Portland,

"Literally" doesn't mean what you think it does.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually it does. They are literally rioting mobs, and they are literally trying to burn the buildings down. They're failing, so far, but eventually they'll succeed if they aren't stopped.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, if they wanted to, they'd succeed. That's been proven. So maybe what you think is constant lawless riots...isn't that?

[Brett Bellmore]

Why would they succeed if they wanted to? Are you some how missing the fact that the buildings have defenders?

[Sarcastr0]

How long has this been going on?

If they could tag it, they could wreck it. If they wanted to burn something, I don't think a singed corner is their maximum ability.

The protests around the nation last month rather show how powerful a large group can be.

This ain't that.

[sparkstable]

How powerful they can be in the face of "defenders" who are ordered to let the riot succeed.

At the courthouse the "defenders" are actually attempting a defense (not arguing about if they should or is so, how... that they ARE doing something isn't in dispute is it?).

Wanting things being sole step to success does, at least, fit with leftist ideology. It is a shame history shows their "wanting" leaving a trail of millions dead from all that "equality."

[Sarcastr0]

Local governments don't like rioters. Anyone who says differently is freaking crazy.

You also don't understand the leftist worldview. There's a reason we call them leftists and not communists.

[swood1000]

“Literally” doesn’t mean what you think it does.

What was his error?

[NToJ]

He literally misused literally!

[sparkstable]

Not sure who I flagged for review. My bad... website format is dumb + janky phone interface = mistake.

[VinniUSMC]

Add literally to the list of words that no longer mean what they're defined to mean. Awesome.

It's hard to argue when one side declares words to not even mean what they're defined to mean.

[Sarcastr0]

LOL.

[Longtobefree]

The correct response would be federal troops with fixed bayonets enforcing the injunction of a federal judge.

[bernard11]

Is it just possible that there were peaceful protestors as well as some vandals?

Why does everyone seem to want to lump everyone together into their preferred category?

[Joe_dallas]

peaceful protesters dont typically hang around rioters

[Al S]

I don't see what difference it makes.

If there is simultaneously a riot, and also a political protest, and also a performance of Phantom of the Opera, the existence of the first amendment protected activity (the protest and Phantom) doesn't obviate the need for the government to quell the riot. Might some agent mix up the Phantom for a rioter? Sure! That's probably the risk you run by performing in the midst of a riot.

[bernard11]

They're not "quelling the riot."

They're beating up random people on the street.

Further, they are likely making the situation worse, not better.

[Joe_dallas]

Said person wasnt a random person - He went there specifically to be part of the protest/riot. When confronted he behaved like he was a participant in the riot.

[Sarcastr0]

Conflating protest and riot like you just did is bad, and you should feel bad.

[KevinP]

Like this person? Should he feel bad too?

He brought an American flag to protest fascism in Portland. Then antifa attacked him

Quote:
Paul Welch came to the downtown protest Aug. 4 to let his political leanings be known.

With pride he clutched his U.S. flag as he moved among the crowd of like-thinking demonstrators.

Soon a group of black-clad anti-fascist protesters, also known as antifa, demanded he lose the flag, calling it a fascist symbol. Welch refused, and a tug-of-war ensued.

Video captured by Mike Bivins, a freelance journalist, shows what happened next.

As Welch and the counter-protesters wrangle over the flag, another masked counter-protester begins to strike Welch's body from behind using a weapon concealed in black fabric.

That person then uses the weapon to club Welch on the back of the head, causing him to collapse instantly. The demonstrator with the weapon wanders off.

[Sarcastr0]

So you have what appears to be 3 stories you keep re-posting.

Think about what that means, and how confirmation bias works.

And think about what you're justifying. And how you don't care because you're only focused on raging at the left.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm fine with him reposting them as long as you keep blowing them off.

[Sarcastr0]

3 stories over 3 years to justify this?

Nope, that's weak nonsense.

[Brett Bellmore]

What's the point in coming up with more examples if you won't acknowledge the ones he does provide?

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, Brett, as a general rule anecdotes to justify state violence makes for bad policy.

[Bob from Ohio]

"peaceful protestors as well as some vandals"

There are no peaceful protestors late at night.

[damikesc]

ooh, do police next.

[Bruce Hayden]

Why? Because your “peaceful protesters” are co-conspirators. They know that they are cover for the violent rioters and arsonists. They knowingly and intentionally accompany their violent confederates in order to hide them from the police (or federal agents).

[Sarcastr0]

your “peaceful protesters” are co-conspirators

Dude, that's full-on CCP logic. Cut that out.

[sparkstable]

Day 1: You go out with 3 friends. You go into a convenience store. The three others rob the place while you are checking out and you all leave.

Day 2-50: Same thing.

Finally on day 51 the cops show up. Do you get to say "I'm not part of this I'm q peaceful bystander!"

[Sarcastr0]

There is no evidence that's what's happening.

Deciding that it is happening to excuse a government crackdown on dissenters? That's what the CCP does.

[sparkstable]

That is what the defenders of the "protesters" are saying... quite literally. That even though they are part and parcel with the group of violent actors, know they are violent actors, continue to act in a way that provides support for violent actors... eventually they are to some degree culpable. That you continued to do something on it's own th

[Sarcastr0]

Gotcha. BLM has lost it's rights to speak. And so have all it's supporters in Portland.

You've sold your principles for partisanship. Sad.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" Why? Because your “peaceful protesters” are co-conspirators."

Clinger legal reasoning is entertaining . . . and is not much else.

[Bruce Hayden]

So, your contention seems to be that a group of people congregated late at night to protest something, and another group showed up at the same time to violently riot and commit arson, that the two groups innocently mixed, and that the “peaceful” protesters allowed the members of the violent group to attack the police from within their combined ranks. And then did that night after night, for over a month. And that there was no at least tacit conspiracy?

Remember your inchoate crimes from LS. Knowingly facilitating the commission of a federal felony is a federal crime in itself. Showing up on multiple nights to “peacefully” protest alongside people who are engaging in riot and arson shows intent (once is accident, twice is coincidence, and three (or more) times is enemy action).

In any case, I think that ultimately we are going to see if your theory holds up. It is a federal felony to cross state lines to riot or commit arson, as well as using interstate communications (such as telephones or the Internet) to plan riots or arson (yes - the Klan laws being used, again, against Democrats). What is going to be interesting is if any of the people who get charged try to claim innocence through merely being “peaceful” protesters.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That sounds like the reasoning of someone who was itching to be a prosecutor (the power!) but couldn't get the gig.

[sparkstable]

Prosecutors of people who violate other people's rights seems like a very moral and worthy cause.

Do you contend to let every guilty go free simply to die on the hill of kill all prosecutors?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I neither want to kill nor abolish prosecutors.

I advocate for improvement with respect to (1) the class of people to whom prosecution positions are entrusted and (2) the performance of prosecutors.

[Sarcastr0]

This commentariot has become a pretty awful excuse for libertarian lately.

[Martinned]

Frankly I'm not even sure why prof. Adler didn't close the comments straight away. He's going to have to do that eventually anyway, when all the other toxic alt-right commenters come out in full force.

[AmosArch]

Boohoohoo...opinions I don't like hurt my feefees! Get a grip what are you so upset about? Everybody I see (except me maybe) are acting fairly civilly. Maybe a little heated at times but its not like someone is typing ascii swastikas all over the place. Typical leftwing authoritarian who wants to shutdown discussion.

[Don Nico]

S-0,
It is toxic like almost every other unmoderated comments section on the web. In contrast with WaPo comments, the comments here are civil and polite.

[Sarcastr0]

It's not the civility, it's the substance. The sudden embrace of naked big government authoritarianism, when used against the left.

From people who call themselves libertarians. From people who cried about Obama setting an authoritarian tone whenever he used the government for anything.

That's not a lack of moderation, it's a lack of principle.

[damikesc]

Sarcastro: Silencing views I dislike is libertarian and not at all wrong.

[Sarcastr0]

You're smarter than that.

I'm speaking out against views I dislike, which is not silencing anything.

[Brett Bellmore]

The people you're defending are certainly into silencing, though, aren't they? And yet you defend them.

It's like the rioters and protesters. The violent minority commit the criminal acts, the rest are there to give them cover.

You wouldn't personally silence anybody, you just let them do it, and get in the way of stopping them.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm seeing protesters being beaten and gassed for speaking, Brett.

The people I'm defending are protesters. Nothing more.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not, I'm seeing that happening for rioting, which you refuse to acknowledge. But your refusal doesn't make the riots go away.

[Sarcastr0]

You're conflating two populations in what's a textbook move for anti-dissenting speech authoritarians, and I know you're smart enough to see that.

[NToJ]

You've never seen a non-rioter beaten and gassed for speaking?

[Brett Bellmore]

Not personally, though I've seen non-rioters subject to police surveillance through rifle scopes from rooftops, which I can personally tell you is a little unnerving.

I've seen reporters telling us about peaceful protests in front of burning buildings. At this point most of the illumination the media provide is gas light.

[KevinP]

Sarcastro, plenty of people have given you plenty of factual information about Portland, its Antifa and its targeted violence, but you just refuse to remove the blinders from your eyes.

I think you are basically a decent person, but you are basically behaving like the Democrats of old, refusing to call out the KKK.

One more time:
Antifa Mob Viciously Assaults [gay Asian] Journalist Andy Ngo at Portland Rally

Andy Ngo, a photojournalist and editor at Quillette, landed in the emergency room after a mob of antifa activists attacked him on the streets of Portland during a Saturday afternoon demonstration.

[Sarcastr0]

You have given me bupkiss other than 3 anecdotes scattered across 3 years, one of which is of questionable provenance.

None of them justify what the Federal government is doing right now.

You've got some kind of partisan brain-poisoning if it doesn.

I've given you plenty of sources for why Andy Ngo is a liar who you shouldn't post about, if you care about the truth. And yet you persist. Once could draw a conclusion from that.

[KevinP]

I’ve given you plenty of sources for why Andy Ngo is a liar who you shouldn’t post about, if you care about the truth.

So Andy Ngo was not sent to the hospital by Antifa? You know that this happened in public, yes?

If you justify this conduct, you support Antifa. It's as simple as that.

[Sarcastr0]

No idea if it was Antifa, given his general penchant and association with the Proud Boys, and his claims about the milkshake that have been roundly debunked.

I've posted on this very thread multiple times he shouldn't have been injured.
Doesn't mean you get to post his lies about it.

[AmosArch]

lol you just joined a call for censorship and whined about authoritarianism in the same sentence.

[Sarcastr0]

Where's the censorship?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm somewhat upset by the sudden embrace of naked communist goon squads. OK, masked, black clad communist goon squads.

I'm not willing to pretend that rioters are peaceful protesters, as they go around smashing and setting fire to stuff, and attacking people. This is Orwellian language. They're rioters, and they even claim to be fighting for communism.

And, to be cliched, the only good communist is a dead communist.

[KevinP]

And, to be cliched, the only good communist is a dead communist.

I don't usually agree with this sentiment, but I am willing to make an exception for Nazis and Communists.

We rightly consider Nazis to be monsters. The Nazis murdered around 11 million in the Holocaust: about 6 million Jews and 5 million others.

University of Hawaii: How many did communist regimes murder? About 110 million

Quote:
In sum the communists probably have murdered something like 110,000,000, or near two-thirds of all those killed by all governments, quasi-governments, and guerrillas from 1900 to 1987. Of course, the world total itself is shocking. It is several times the 38,000,000 battle-dead that have been killed in all this century's international and domestic wars. Yet the probable number of murders by the Soviet Union alone--one communist country-- well surpasses this cost of war. And those murders of communist China almost equal it.

[Aunt Teefah]

"the only good communist is a dead communist"

There's the nonviolent right, committed to the free expression of alternative viewpoints, that we hear so much about.

Get stuffed, fascist.

[Brett Bellmore]

Like Kevin says, it's no different from the only good Nazi being a dead Nazi. Not all communists are bad enough to justify killing, but there are no good communists, only the occasional one that only needs shunning.

Communism is an unmitigated evil on the world, and the people who to this day whitewash it, or suggest that maybe it could work if the "right" people ran the show, are apologists for that evil.

[Sarcastr0]

There. Are. No. Goon. Squads.

You're general speculative telepathy has become full-on delusion.

[Brett Bellmore]

You. Are. Deep. In. Denial.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Brett, are there any far-right truth-telling sites you part company with? You a Qanon supporter?

[Brett Bellmore]

You know, it's always that, because people on the left seem to think right wingers are all flesh and blood robots programed from some central location.

I think I *might* follow a link to Fox news maybe as often as once a month, I listen to a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh about as often, except usually I end up hearing Mark Steyn subbing for him, ('Cause he's going through chemo for advanced lung cancer.) I occasionally visit National Review just to laugh at them; They're still a nest of NeverTrumpers, after all, but Victor Davis Hanson is worth reading.

Usually you'll find me reading Reason, Balkinization, Instapundit, and a variety of tech sites like Nextbigfuture. Oh, and the Babylon Bee, of course, they're hilarious in the way the Onion once was. I actually read more left-wing sites, (Like Obsidian Wings, 538, or Crooked Timber.) than right wing. Though they're getting hard to read due to the purges of a few years ago leaving them ideologically unhinged, it's worth keeping track of the other side.

But you figure I'm getting all my talking points from Qanon, (I had to look that up.) because the idea that smart people could generate their own right-wing talking points doesn't seem to occur to you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"And, to be cliched, the only good communist is a dead communist."

These are your peeps, Conspirators.

This is the reason you are relegated to the losing fringe of legitimate, mainstream, reasoning academia.

[swood1000]

It’s not the civility, it’s the substance. The sudden embrace of naked big government authoritarianism, when used against the left.

From people who call themselves libertarians. From people who cried about Obama setting an authoritarian tone whenever he used the government for anything.

One difference between the libertarian and the anarchist is that the libertarian recognizes the need for a government to maintain order and to quell riots, especially ones involving indiscriminate destruction of property. Available peaceful methods of change have not been exhausted.

[Sarcastr0]

This is not how you maintain order, no matter who you are. Not very effective in America, God bless it.

Read the OP again for a libertarian case against these methods in particular.

[swood1000]

I'm sorry, I don't see it. Could you cut and paste what you're referring to?

[ravenshrike]

In a libertarian world the property owners would be allowed to shoot the bastards burning and wrecking their shit. Which you would whine about just as much. So spare us the complaints about non-libertarianism.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, libertarians don't live in a libertarian world. That is not license for them to endorse the federal government beating up protesters.

That's as much an anathema to supposedly libertarian principles as gun rights, no?

[sparkstable]

No. It isn't. The federal government is not necessarily wrong in every action merely because it is the federal government. If Hitler ordered the arrest of an actual serial killer... would we bandy that about as proof of tyranny simply because Hitler was a tyrant? No. As you have said to others here... you are smarter than that.

If the fedgov uses force to detain or prevent actors from destroying property... then the fact that they are fedgov does not preclude them from doing one of the few things a libertarian thinks a government ought to do.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not arguing every government action is wrong, I'm arguing what's happening *here* - the federal government taking over the streets with what's basically federal troops, and beating up unarmed peaceful protesters, isn't libertarian.

A libertarian that thinks such heavy-handed action is cool in the service of protecting *government property* isn't actually a libertarian, they're a right-wing partisan whose a bit worried about branding.

[sparkstable]

Yes... standing up for the enforcement of a law that prohibits the initiation of agression against others and their property is SOOOOO not libertarian. Next thing you know... those pesky libertarians are going to want to enforce laws against murder! We better start clutching them pearls now!

[Sarcastr0]

The Feds are initiating plenty of aggression, chief.

[Allutz]

The protestors in Portland are deputized agents of Mayor Ted Wheeler.

[Sarcastr0]

Fucking lunacy.

[Bob from Ohio]

He encourages them, refuses to let the police do anything about them. Actively opposes protecting of federal property.

Its a fair phrasing.

[Sarcastr0]

Even the unproven facts you lay out as true doesn't create a constructive deputization.

And it's also not true - Portland cops were out beating up protesters last night just like you want them to.

Always new depths with you. Your realism just leads to Pinochet.

[Bob from Ohio]

"leads to Pinochet"

On the contrary, it is the encouragement of riots by government that leads to leads to Pinochet and Napoleon.

Normal people eventually get tired of it and will support whatever it takes to stop it.

[Sarcastr0]

No one is encouraging riots, Bob.

You're justifying government violence and snatching of the populous, so long as they're liberal.

Glad you're not embracing Pinochet though. Better than some on here.

[Bob from Ohio]

"No one is encouraging riots, Bob."

False.

Wheeler is by making the police largely stand down.

The Seattle mayor encouraged CHAZ until they showed up at her doorstep.

Local prosecutors in NY, St. Louis, and other places
announce they won't prosecute those arrested.

[Sarcastr0]

That's not encouraging what you say it is.
There are legit deescalation reasons to have the police stand down in an anti-police protest.

Just because people use techniques other than the maximum force you have a constant boner for doesn't mean they're in cahoots for anyone.

[Dilan Esper]

There are legit deescalation reasons to have the police stand down in an anti-police protest.

I would be a bit less categorical than this. I actually do think allowing these "autonomous zones" is pretty bad city management. In the one in Minneapolis, there were sexual assaults reported, for instance. The Seattle one went on a long time.

And at the end of the road, you end up having to clear the area anyway.

I think the failure of government is a little different. What you want to do is separate the goon squads from the peaceful protesters. And the way you do that is you offer lots of protest permits and relax curfews so that there are organized protests available, day and night.

Because the anarchists hate organized protests. They like property destruction and lawlessness. And once you have alternative avenues available, you kind of have to arrest the anarchists. And refusing to do so is just delaying the inevitable while leaving parts of the city underpoliced in the meantime. And nobody asks the people who live or own businesses in those "autonomous" areas if they would like to have no police force.

Having said all that, this isn't what we are doing. What we seem to be doing is just sending a federal, unidentified police force into the city and clearing out everyone without distinguishing between anarchists and legitimate protesters. And that just doesn't help things.

[Sarcastr0]

What you want to do is separate the goon squads from the peaceful protesters.

So says you. I'm not sure I agree. Deescalation does not require identifies baddies and goodies. Luckily neither your opinion nor mine defines the legitimacy of the Portland response.

I also think violence arises for all sorts of reasons, and hidden anarchists is only one.

[Dilan Esper]

Sarcastro, I have 2 proposals:

1. We are going to have peaceful protests, every day, in front of your house. A fair amount of noise and it will make it harder to get in and out, but no violence whatsoever.

2. We are going to have left-wing violent anarchists organizing demonstrations outside your house. And not only that, when they damage your property, vandalize your car and your dwelling, and scare your family, we are going to "deescalate" and tell the police not to do anything about it.

Would you prefer 1 or 2?

You are acting as if the only stakeholders in this drama are Antifa and the police. That's wrong. Johnnie Cochran sued the LAPD for not policing South Central during the 1992 civil unrest. He was right. Violence and vandalism harms innocent people, and it's all well and good to talk about how wonderful "the revolution" is when it isn't your butt or your stuff on the line. (See also Bono's rant here about the jerks who cheered on IRA terrorist violence from far away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Chq5PY-TzE

You don't get to volunteer OTHER PEOPLE'S safety and property just because you think it may be messy for the police to actually separate the violent criminals from the peaceful protesters. At the end of the day, the police HAS to do that.

[KevinP]

Dilan, I agree absolutely. I don't agree with all of what the BLM protestors are demanding, but I support their right "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances".

None of the following are peaceable:
Graffiti and property damage to innocent third parties.
Graffiti and property damage to public property that is owned by ALL taxpayers for their common use.
Intimidation and assaults upon bystanders, journalists and anyone who is not a riot supporter.

All of the above have been prevalent in Portland for at least two years now.

[Sarcastr0]

Dilan, that's ludicrously reductive. One way to tell is you need to reduce things to a false-choice binary.

Lots of reasons to protest. Lots of reasons to be violent, some of which overlap with the protesting. I don't think political violence can ever be condoned (though it can be justified).

Lots of ways to deal with protests that include or are alongside violence. A crackdown is often not the best way to stop the violence.
If you care about residents, you'll not want a crackdown.

[Sarcastr0]

Also, look at Kevin using graffiti to justify violence against protesters.

[Brett Bellmore]

We're sending the federal force in because that's not what the local governments are doing, and they're letting to mob attack federal buildings.

At some point you have to recognize when the mob and the local government are joined at the hip, and there is no useful response to the mob available by way of the local government.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Also, look at Kevin using graffiti to justify violence against protesters."

I'm down with that.

First, once they vandalize somebody else's property, they're not "protesters" anymore, they're rioters. I've been to plenty of real protests, and with groups you probably don't like one bit, like the Michigan Militia, and we never vandalized ANYTHING. Vandalism is a riot thing, not a protest thing.

Second, property rights are rights, and I am totally down with the police getting violent if it's the only way to stop people's property from being destroyed. These people are costing real people real money, and that money didn't fall to them out of the sky, and it won't magically replace itself. These sorts of riots cause businesses to die, life savings to be destroyed.

I've driven through areas of Detroit that the riots destroyed, and that still looked like a war zone 50 years later. Some of these neighborhoods are not going to recover in a human lifetime.

[Dilan Esper]

If the only property damage that was happening was some graffiti on public parks and statues, I would definitely say "sure, deescalate". Not because I love graffiti, but because I think a certain amount of minor lawbreaking sometimes accompanies protests and we shouldn't have a hair trigger in terms of law enforcement responses.

But graffiti on public works is not the only property damage that is occurring. And once you get a significant amount of vandalism, let alone physical threats to people, police have the difficult but necessary job of protecting the peaceful protesters while arresting the lawbreakers.

[Bob from Ohio]

"people use techniques other than the maximum force "

Maximum force is real bullets. Modest force is not fascism.

There has been nightly rioting for weeks. "deescalation" didn't work.

You get more of what you encourage and less of what you discourage. A couple of nights of increased federal activity does not magically undo weeks of tolerated riots.

[Sarcastr0]

Modest force is not fascism.

Wrong.

[Joe_dallas]

it is lunacy that the mayor is encouraging the rioting

[Sarcastr0]

As though the mayor is saying 'burn down the police union.'

Crackdowns don't work on Americans.
Note how the Feds have only inflamed the situation.

[Joe_dallas]

51 days of rioting - And the Feds are making it worse ?
How?

[Sarcastr0]

Look at yesterday. Look at the 16th. Draw your own conclusion.

[Jimmy the Dane]

"Note how the Feds have only inflamed the situation."

Remember in the post where I said that it was sad the media had lost all credibility so no wonder everyone thought anything they cranked out was fake. Then you flipped out at the mere suggestion that the media could have created such an atmosphere?

Sounds like you are doing exactly that with the Feds. They are there to try to protect federal property. Violent thugs are breaking the law, but the people doing their job are inflaming the situation? I'm sure they are mad they can't burn down the courthouse, but that doesn't mean they actually get to burn down the courthouse.

[Sarcastr0]

I flipped out because you claim to never believe the media, which is dumb as hell and demonstrably wrong.

These feds have been doing plenty to people who are very much not rioters.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The Feds are protecting a federal courthouse from a mob of rioters and investigating crimes. Unless you view both law enforcement actions as not legitimate, then what is your problem?

And you never rebutted my state that the media has pumped so much fake news into the zeitgeist over the last four years it is only natural that people be not inclined to believe a single thing they put out.

[Sarcastr0]

What the Feds did? That's not how you protect a federal courthouse. It's how you do an authoritarian show of force to make Trump happy.

I'n not addressing your point because you don't abide by it yourself, as I noted. Any facts come from the media, so all you're really doing is justifying ignoring anything you don't want to see.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The Feds tried to put up a fence and other barricades. The rioters pulled them down today (or yesterday). How else would you suggest the Feds protect public property from a lawless mob of anarchists?

[Bob from Ohio]

"As though the mayor is saying ‘burn down the police union.’"

No way to encourage other than flat out call for criminal behavior, eh?

[Sarcastr0]

Encourage is generally an affirmative act. Best people here can argue is insufficient zeal.

This is a dumb and crazy conspiracy theory in service of federal authoritarianism. What does that make you?

[KevinP]

Antifa has risen since Ted Wheeler took office in 2017.

I know you hate being compared to the KKK, but this is what Democrats and the KKK were like for generations - brutal, thuggish, and oppressive of anyone who dared to have a different opinion.

The first step towards dealing with this problem is admitting that you have it.

[Sarcastr0]

Antifa has risen

No, it really hasn't. Antifa has become something to tie together the anecdotes the right invokes to justify systematic governmental violence against protesters.

Invoking the KKK just the mountain you're trying to make your molehill into.

I don't need to admit anything; you need to stop justifying this crap by means of your confirmation bias.

[damikesc]

Sarcastro, is that mirror of yours completely foggy?

[Sarcastr0]

Don't just call me a hypocrite, that's not constructive; make an argument.

Because justifying the targeting of protesters because Antifa is right out of the fascistic 'outside agitators' playbook I've seen and read about.

It's a play book the bad-guys use. And so many here are right on board.

[damikesc]

As opposed to "Defund the police" because a fraction of 1% of them are problematic?

Do you wish to compare the numbers of "protesters" who are problems with the number of police?

[Sarcastr0]

I'd dispute the 'fraction of 1% are problematic' based on the events of the past few months. It's a culture.

I also don't want to play your stupid game. Protesters don't require individualized suspicion; law enforcement does.

[damikesc]

You can dispute it if you wish. You might want something a touch more concrete than your views on a culture you do not actually understand.

Ahh, so it's different because you said so. Consistency is strong with that line of reasoning.

[Sarcastr0]

LOL, OK. Police forces are fine except for a few bad apples. Good luck on that shrinking island.

Between the studies on police use of force, the journalism, and videos over this past month, you'll need it.

[damikesc]

You're hoping to pull that with the protesters when I have actual data regarding police interactions with the public at large.

Do you really want to compare property destruction, assault, etc issues involving the roving mob of lunatics and the police? It is not a fruitful path to take but I am loathe to talk one out of an intrisically bad idea if it might be amusing to watch one take it.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, the police have proven at least as thuggish as the rioters. And they tend to target people, not property. Which in my book is worse.

[KevinP]

Sarcastro, who said they are "outside agitators"? They are local racists, supported by the local Democratic Party. Just like the KKK of old.

Portland ICE protesters spewed racist insults

Quote:
Federal officers policing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland say they were subjected to a barrage of hateful and at times racially-charged invective during the monthlong demonstration at the facility.

Email records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive detail some of the insults and taunting that several nonwhite federal officers say they endured.

In emails obtained by the newsroom, one African American officer reported to an administrator that protesters “began yelling racial slurs” at him, including the N-word. The officer said he was also called a “blood traitor” and an Uncle Tom, a derogatory term implying a black person is acting subservient to whites for money or prestige.

“These racial slurs have been directed at me throughout the entire length of the deployment,” the officer wrote.

Another officer, who is a woman of Hispanic and Native American descent, said she was called derogatory terms for Hispanic people and told she is “a weak female” and a “traitor.”

[Allutz]

Just because you want to continue with a defective mental model of the situation doesn't mean the rest of us also have to engage in cognitive dissonance.

"Wow its weird that these people are protesting for exactly what the mayor and city council are also in favor of, isn't that kinda weird, don't you usually protest against the people in power?"

This weirdness evaporates when you understand they are acting in concert.

[Sarcastr0]

That's bad logic. The interests are not aligned, and even if they were that does not prove coordination, and even if it did, that is not the same as being a deputy.

You're posing from crazytown.

Also, NToJ kinda owned you below.

[Allutz]

How so? There are almost no protestors out there that don't know they are working in concert with rioters.

[Sarcastr0]

You think rioters are all trying to move the ball on police reform?

[Allutz]

Their job is to intimidate dissenters. In Portland they seem to have been quite successful.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't know what kind of well-oiled machine you think protests are, but you're extremely wrong.

[Allutz]

Oh look the Missouri couple just got indicted. Hows that look for your theory that these groups are not working in concert with local politicians?

[Sarcastr0]

...how does that prove coordination?

[Allutz]

Its another data point. It indicates that the coordinating power structures will indeed punish enemies of BLM, as the theory of BLM as informal state actors would predict.

[NToJ]

You meant the rioters, right?

[Allutz]

No, I'm just using Prof. Adler and the media's preferred words. Quoting from above, "Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute, toppled a George Washington statue, and allegedly set fire to a Portland Police Association office ."

These are now defined as actions of protestors in the new lexicon.

[NToJ]

Do you think there are any peaceful protesters who did not burn stuff or topple statues? Or have you decided to not draw that distinction anymore, because Adler used stupid language to describe arson?

[damikesc]

Prof Adler AND the entire MSN apparatus.

I bet it'st just a coincidence.

You know who really is mostly peaceful? Police.

Just sayin'.

[NToJ]

While you're just sayin', could you answer my question, too?

[damikesc]

Are there peaceful protesters in Portland or anywhere else after 7 weeks?

No. There are, at best, people providing cover for the truly loathsome thugs.

If I decided to carry a Confederate flag, I'd have little room to complain that people view me as a racist for doing so even if I have no racist intentions in doing so.

[Allutz]

1. There may, indeed, be people that I, in early 2020 would have defined as a peaceful protester.

2. I don't draw this distinction anymore because they have, as a group, along with their allied mayors, governors, and pundits have shown that they prefer to group the whole together under the banner of "protestors." This is, of course, unfortunate for those that want to protest and don't want to be associated with property destruction and violence, but the leaders of the movement have made this choice consciously.

3. Prof. Adler isn't a leading user of this phrasing, he is simply following what is now common parlance.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you see what you are saying?

'Regrettably, because not enough people condemned rioters this year, I have come out against free speech.'

[Allutz]

I am in no way against protests. I am simply saying people who want to distinguish themselves from rioters (now rhetorically referred to as protesters) they need to separate themselves in distinct ways. Don't fly a BLM flag, create your own organization that doesn't embrace violence.

I know, for example, the 2009 Tea party protests and 2012 teachers strikes in Chicago the protestors would actively suppress anyone throwing bottles or bricks.

[Allutz]

Also, again, my POV is that these people largely are not protestors, they are intimidation groups supporting the local government.

[damikesc]

Given that these same rioters view their violence as speech and my speech as violence ---- yeah, I hope their "speech" is rather viciously suppressed.

[Sarcastr0]

Seems you've mixed up a discussion about protesters for one about rioters. Funny, that.

[Aunt Teefah]

Yes, but have you considered whether the mayor's flag has a yellow fringe around it?

This is the sort of thoughtful, well-reasoned legal analysis we love to see.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"The protestors in Portland are deputized agents of Mayor Ted Wheeler."

Did your parents use the same off-brand homeschooling outline that Bruce Hayden's parents used?

[Don Nico]

"Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute, toppled a George Washington statue, and allegedly set fire to a Portland Police Association office"

Does not sound peaceful at all.

[Jimmy the Dane]

For anyone who thinks what is going on in Portland is anything short of mob rule, just browse on over to the Portland Reddit. Check out what people are saying of their first hand experiences in the city. It is far from "peaceful protests." The city is under mob rule right now. Ordinary citizens can't do routine things like shop or even commute to work. Many are hiding in their houses scared to go out because a mob might block traffic and descend upon their car without warning.

If I were Trump what I would do is put up web cams on every piece of federal property and then pull out. Let the public watch these "peaceful" "protesters" vandalize, loot, and commit acts of violence all live on the internet.

Also, if the Left is banking on Suzy Sweatpants and Joe Six Pack to pull the Dem lever in November, they better get the crazy anarchists wing under control. Virtue signaling for suburban mom and dad is just fine, but if they think their safety is actually at risk in their nice quarter of a million house with two new cars in the driveway, because the crazies want to defund police and use restorative justice to mediate a home break-in, the Dems are going to get one heck of a surprise.

[Sarcastr0]

You don't know what you are talking about. Maybe your source should be beyond reddit.

I talked this weekend to a friend of mine in Portland. It's not under mob rule, you utter tool.

Not that it's safe after dark *since the Feds showed up.*

I don't think Portland is going to go red in November, LOL.

[Jimmy the Dane]

OK you talked to a friend. Obviously one friend trumps all the other anecdotal first hand accounts. I suggest people go to a platform like Reddit because there is a wide variety of stories there, not all favoring one side. Go ahead and read accounts of people who are experiencing these mobs first hand. User credibility is easy to track on Reddit. If the account history is turned off or new I would move along. But, most users keep their account history active and have been posting for many years on the same sub.

[Sarcastr0]

Sorry, your mob rule bullshit is bullshit. I trust my friend more than a bunch of randos on a site like reddit, which will naturally have some sampling issues. *especially* when it agrees with your clearly preferred narrative.

[damikesc]

....because Reddit is a well known far right hangout web site.

Sure. Hold on to that one.

[Sarcastr0]

I didn't say confirmation bias, I said sample bias.

[Jimmy the Dane]

You are really grasping for straws here to confirm your own bias Sarcastro. It is sort of sad.

Did you miss the part where I said accounts can be easily vetted by clicking on user history, referencing karma, and ignoring any posts by new accounts or those with little posting history? Or did you just ignore it because you know stories of mob rule in Portland run contrary to your narrative here?

[Sarcastr0]

Look up what sample bias is. Then try again.

[sparkstable]

But a sample of one, who you agree with, is iron clad sampling procedure.

As flawed as it may be, the mere fact of the sample size being magnitudes greater than 1 makes it more reliable than your 1... who you happen to agree with.

[Sarcastr0]

As I said above many times, I'm presenting a counterexample, not a counter-narrative.

[ErictheRed]

S0

I live in PDX. Your source has an agenda, or doesnt live int the roughly 16 sq blocks where this crap is happening. It has not been safe to go out at night since well before the 16th.

You don't know what you're talking about.

FACT: There are violent actors in downtown Portland destroying property and assaulting citizens.

FACT: Wheeler and Brown are doing NOTHING to discourage that behavior.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't know PDX geography - when I visited him he lived on some steep hill about 10 minutes walk from downtown. He had been taking his kids into town on walks pretty regularly. Not now, obviously, but recently.

He's not political. College friend, from my physics days.

I would note that even your FACTS, Eric, do not add up to 'mob rule'

[Jimmy the Dane]

But your friend, one point of information and you readily concede you don't even know where he lives, is more reliable then hundreds of reports located across social media. Yeah. Right....

[Sarcastr0]

Your anonymous reddit anecdotes leading to your 'mob rule' conclusion is incorrect, as even Eric admits.

I only need one point of information to be a counterexample to your dumb narritivism.

[sparkstable]

Eric, above, stated that from his personal experience or is currently NOT SAFE to go outside at night.

That he lives in Portland rather than "maybe somewhere around downtown... I don't know... like 10 minutes away?" is far more believable. Plus... you can walk quite a ways in 10 minutes. Perhaps your friend lives in the good side of town. Here in OKC a ten minute walk will keep you in OKC but you will be in a different world from where you started.

[Sarcastr0]

Eric does not offer evidence that approaches Jimmy's 'mob rule' post, which is what I was pushing back on.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The Oregonian (portlandlive) and Portland Tribune -- the mainstream, leading news gatherers on the scene -- indicate your assessment is daft, Jimmy. You should not expect others to credit your clingerverse delusions in reasoned debate among competent adults.

[damikesc]

"Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute, toppled a George Washington statue, and allegedly set fire to a Portland Police Association office . "

How are any of these the actions of "peaceful protestors"?

[Jimmy the Dane]

It is leftist speak. No it doesn't make sense to people who still have common sense, but to the left it does. Just like social justice protesters don't get Covid due to the magic of diversity. Violent mobs destroying property and attacking dissenters are "peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights..." See how that works?

[damikesc]

The same left views my speech as violence but their violence as speech.

It's ass backwards and it's clear that Portland leadership has decided to violate the social contract with the governed there.

[Sarcastr0]

Adler: well known leftist.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Adler: well known leftist."

Libertarians and leftists both hate police.

He's citing Lawfare, the Pravda of legal blogs, as well.

[Sarcastr0]

Sounds like you an Jimmy should get together and figure out some standard labels.

And also you should look into drinking less deep from the ad hominem.
Just because you disagree with it, doesn't make it state-run propaganda.

[Bob from Ohio]

"doesn’t make it state-run propaganda"

Its filed with lies and half truths, just like Truth was.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Just because you disagree with it, doesn’t make it state-run propaganda."

Please take the beam out of your Fox News eye then.

[Sarcastr0]

I click on the Breitbart and Daily Caller links regularly posted on here.

Everyone knows FOX runs Trump, not the other way around. And criticism of FOX are about conflating news and opinions, and their journalistic standards. In other words, it's content neutral; has nothing to do with how much I disagree with FOX's take.

You, on the other hand, think lawfare are liars because you disagree with them. That's quite silly.

[damikesc]

Because Lawfare's "reporting" is often so not opinion.

Really, it is not.

Totally on the up and up.

Because I bet you're just sharp enough to notice it when it sides with your beliefs.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

Lawfare is a blog largely of legal opinion.
When it's facts, they're linking to court documents directly without any commentary.

I can tell I'm sharper than you, because I don't think the VC is full of liars because I don't share their point of view.

[Larvell Blanks]

Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute

Specifically, O.R.S. 498.076, commonly but mistakenly called the Bullwinkle Protection Act.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Best comment I have read all year, Larvell. Kudos.

[Allutz]

Imagine an alternate universe where Trump was campaigning and brought up similar arrests carried out by the Obama administration. New headline:

"Trump claims, without evidence, that secret police are arresting protestors without probable cause."

[Jimmy the Dane]

No it would be "Fact Check - Russia Backed Rumors of 'Secret Police' Fueled by Trump Campaign"

[Larvell Blanks]

The phrase "without evidence" will be retired when Biden is sworn in.

[NToJ]

I can't tell if this comment is criticizing the media or President Trump.

[NOVA Lawyer]

lol

[jdgalt1]

What's happening in Portland is worse than mob rule: a whole neighborhood has been an Antifa-terrorist-controlled no-go zone since 2017, with the help of a corrupt mayor and police commissioner who order the police to stand down from arresting the terrorists but to arrest anyone who defends his life or property against them.

The feds should have invoked the Insurrection Act three years ago and sent enough Marines to shut the whole thing down pronto. They didn't, and so today the same outrage has spread to other cities. Mr. President, do your job or be replaced -- the people will not permit our country to be turned into fucking Beirut; and if we have to go out there with guns and take it back for ourselves, we won't have any use for you afterwards.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"Mr. President, do your job or be replaced"

Give it six months, you bigoted, backward, ready-for-replacement clinger.

[Dilan Esper]

Here’s my opening bid. We should normally expect police to wear both badges with their names and easy-to-spot agency insignia, not the kind of generic “POLICE” rectangle that random bad guys could readily grind out at home. An average citizen seeing a bundle of poorly-identified men with firearms jumping out of an unmarked van would not be crazy to wonder if they were agents of law enforcement or the kind of cos-play militia-performers we have seen so much of recently.

We should also expect law enforcement officers—whatever the agency—to follow probable-cause standards for arrest and announce and document the grounds for and circumstances of the arrest, label vans used to transport arrestees, and so on down the line with all of the other protections we expect of local law enforcement.

This is from Walter Olson's piece, linked in OP.

I have a question for the conservatives here. Do you disagree with any of this? Instead of going off on Antifa or anything else, do you disagree with what Olson is saying? Because it all sounds pretty reasonable to me.

[AmosArch]

I absolutely agree with the overriding issue that the federal government should be able to protect its own property from 'protestors' if the local government refuses to. In fact the Twitter bluechecks and media have laughed at and called Drumpf out a few weeks ago for not directly intervening in the early stages of the riots only to reverse positions and start crying dictatorship as soon as he does do something or threatens to.

The Dems also continue to get on his case for not ordering stuff like a nationwide lockdown (which logically should involve breaking up gigantic covid spreading 'protests') and do tons of other unilateral intrusive actions infringing on the power or local governmetnt that Adler doesn't care about. If we're all supposed to be okay with this why shouldn't he be able to have a few agents to enforce all this stuff?

Now I don't know why they didn't cross their is and dot their ts by getting better markings etc (probably because like most large groups they are incompetent and weren't prepared) but in the end its an irrelevant side distraction and CNN/WAPOO/etc would be screaming about another issue, and the twitter blue checks would be foaming, and you would be right here in the exact same place making a slightly different combination of keystrokes just as furious at the Orange Man if they had gotten clearly marked uniforms. Probably the headline would be to the effect of EVIL DRUMPF HITLER STALIN JOSEF MENGELE FORMS STORMTROOPER PERSONAL ROYAL GUARD WITH NAZI STYLE UNIFORMS or something like that. And then there would be article after article on Bustle and Buzzfeed about how the uniforms frighten blue eyed babies and you would be weeping about how intimidating they are and how insensitive they are and how they should have dressed down to not give the wrong message.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Do you disagree with any of this? "

Yes.

"badges with their names"

Badges have numbers, not names.

"easy-to-spot agency insignia"

They have agency insignia on their shoulders.

"jumping out of an unmarked van "

They are deploying as an organized group. If they are driving by and see something, are they not allowed to "jump out" and make an arrest?

"announce and document the grounds for and circumstances of the arrest"

He is assuming, without evidence, that every rioter claim is valid. DHS is claiming they have cause to arrest. LE can arrest and release without charge for any number of valid reasons.

"label vans used to transport arrestees"

This is a an emergency reinforcement situation after weeks of rioting in from of the federal courthouse. How many marked federal vehicles are available in Portland? Plus, anyone can get a "Homeland Security" banner to put on a van. Temporaily using rental vans is not a mark of fascism. Plus, many police cars have been torched, in Portland and other cities.

[Dilan Esper]

Bob, if ATF did any of these things to gun owners you'd be screaming.

[AmosArch]

The difference being theres a constitutional right to bear arms but no to torch buildings and spread coronavirus

[Sarcastr0]

Maybe we should conflate all gun owners with mass shooters.

[Dilan Esper]

To make Sarcastro's point without the snark- we are talking about law enforcement here. Gun owners complain a lot about "black helicopters". The point of the complaint wasn't limited to their effect on lawful gun owners- the idea was that law enforcement wasn't supposed to be using black helicopters to police firearms laws, even if the person they caught might be in violation of them.

Draw the analogy to the law enforcement in Portland.

[sparkstable]

A difference is that often the heavy handed methods used against gun owners who are peaceful is that a defense goes something like "One time, not now...In some place far from here someone, not you, did something really bad... you didn't do it... but becaus you both own the same tools we need to drop the hammer on you."

Compared to the riots. In this case we have someone doing a bad thing, right here and right now, while chanting the same thing you are, and doing this thing from the very same place you happen to be... right now."

One is abuse. The other is law enforcement in a sadly tricky and precarious situation, but one that is at the base level justified even if there are particular instances or methods that are bad (which should be condemned when proven to have happened). But that one cop uses too much force in enforcing a law does not make the entire concept of enforcement unjust in all cases.

[AmosArch]

show me hard evidence trump's agents are descending on and beating the crap out of completely peaceful lawful protests. Ain't my fault if you get hauled off for throwing a molotov or serving as a human shield for someone that is.

[damikesc]

ATF had a habit of actually killing people.

[Dilan Esper]

Gun owners' complaints about ATF went far beyond the fact that they killed people. Again, all the tactics Bob defends are tactics he would never defend if ATF did them.

[damikesc]

How many people have these "secret government agents" killed?

We have a kill count for the ATF.

[Dilan Esper]

Again, you guys can repeat that over and over again, it's still a stupid and dishonest point.

Because you guys DON'T just criticize ATF for killing people. You criticize them for "black helicopter" tactics.

[sparkstable]

Yes... like actually bringing in military gear, kicking in doors, no-knock raiding, and then murdering citizens.

Unlike this were people are discretely (as can be in a crowd) and methodically picked up and carried away at which point they are released unharmed.

[damikesc]

I did not and have not.

[NToJ]

"He is assuming, without evidence, that every rioter claim is valid. DHS is claiming they have cause to arrest. LE can arrest and release without charge for any number of valid reasons."

No he isn't. He's assuming that if a person is detained by authorities, that they explain the basis, and have supporting probable cause to do so. You're the one assuming that LE can arrest and release without charge for only valid reasons. The point of an announce and document policy is to separate legit reasons from harassment, mere negligence, etc.

[Dilan Esper]

Right.

[Bruce Hayden]

“Here’s my opening bid. We should normally expect police to wear both badges with their names and easy-to-spot agency insignia, not the kind of generic “POLICE” rectangle that random bad guys could readily grind out at home. An average citizen seeing a bundle of poorly-identified men with firearms jumping out of an unmarked van would not be crazy to wonder if they were agents of law enforcement or the kind of cos-play militia-performers we have seen so much of recently.”

These are not normal circumstances. The federal officers have a number visible, just not their names, and that is to protect their safety, and that of their families. There is no legal requirement that they exhibit their names in situations like this, which would facilitate doxing and attacks on their families. The reason for jumping out of unidentified vans and snatching people off the street, is that it is typically the way of doing such that minimizes the chance of violence all around. This is nothing new. This has been SOP for decades now in this sort of situation - esp with a history of “peaceful” protesters routinely fighting with police to Recover the people the police are trying to arrest. Videos galore of “protesters” attacking police trying to make arrests, screaming “let him go”, and trying to physically reclaim the arrestee from the police.

“We should also expect law enforcement officers—whatever the agency—to follow probable-cause standards for arrest and announce and document the grounds for and circumstances of the arrest, label vans used to transport arrestees, and so on down the line with all of the other protections we expect of local law enforcement.”

If and when they make arrests, they no doubt do just that. Not doing that would get the cases dismissed. But they are also grabbing specific, identified, people off the street to question them. Same argument about safety applies.

As for the unmarked vehicles - they use them because marked Fed LEO vehicles get mobbed by the “peaceful” protesters.

Let me add that these are all SOP, and have been for decades. They are used by SWAT teams across the country, and the federal units involved, are highly trained in these tactics - and routinely use them against drug runners, human traffickers, etc. who are their usual targets.

As for ATF raids, etc - part of the successful defense by Randy Weaver was that the feds invading his property started shooting before identifying themselves. Something similar happened in Waco. So, yes, believers in the 2nd Amdt don’t think that they will be treated much differently.

[Dilan Esper]

These are not normal circumstances. The federal officers have a number visible, just not their names, and that is to protect their safety, and that of their families.

This is unmitigated BS.

There has not been ONE incident of any left wing protester personally tracking down a police officer and doing harm to the person. Not one.

[sparkstable]

Perhaps... but that does not make it unreasonable to be as proactive as one can easily be in such a case. Especially since there have been multiple instances of cops being targeted, and some killed, across the nation during the Peace and Love Fest 2020.

[Bruce Hayden]

This is from an officer who was at Groot's Logan Square home Saturday night:

So my team was used to rotate out other officers on the front line of the protest. Why? To protect the mental health of the front line officers. The original group I personally observed the group of Black Lives Matter protesters hurl vile insults at the officers. One of the officers was a black man, he took the worst of the insults since, in the eyes of the protesters, he was a “sell out”, “uncle tom”, “coon”, etc, etc, etc. So my team rotated in to take the verbal abuse. In time I noted an officer, not from my team start to engage the insults by responding. I personally pulled this officer off the line and took his spot.

Here’s what came my way in brief, I was called a “white shirt” (supervisor), this is factually correct. They then verbally attacked the officer next to me, who was Latino, about how could he obey a “cracker ass cop”, they questioned that officers manhood. They then (and it was obvious to me these were professional agitators) turned to me. I was called “old”, “killer”, “fat ass” (the gent who threw that my way had me by a good 50 lbs), finally the one agitator made this statement to his people “you know what this world needs? I do. I’m going to go to this white shirts house and rape his daughter! I’m going to darken up his bloodline!”

Were the "protestors" shocked?

There were cheers from the crowd at this statement... that someone wanted to commit a rape...
The rape of a child - cheered by democrats. And as bad as that is, it got worse:
They then started grabbing officers names and badge numbers and using the internet to grab personal information about the officers, disciplinary history, time on job, salary, and other personal information. They then used their bull horns to broadcast our personal info to the crowd.

So... when you (non police friends) hear about the “peaceful protesters” who are picked on... this is one group from Black Lives Matter.

To even more cheers from scumbags.

Cops who were ordered to protect a mayor (who hates their guts) and required to identify themselves (by law) had to listen to scumbags threaten to rape their daughters, and via the magic of the internet, hear their home addresses broadcast to more scumbags (who know you aren't able to defend your homes and families because you're on the clock in Groot-ville.)

And what do we hear from the politicians? That this is peaceful? That police are racist? That all that a civilized people hold dear is in danger simply because these miserable fuckers can't get their way by anything but violence?

Labels: un-fucking-fucking-believable

POSTED BY SCC AT 7:01 AM 119 COMMENTS

SecondCityCop.Blogspot.com/

[Dilan Esper]

So now we are protecting cops' mental health? Come on, this is sad.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, that's what you took from it? Not that we're protecting their daughters from being raped?

[Sarcastr0]

protecting their daughters from being raped.

Jesus, Brett, this is some rape-justifies-the-means nonsense.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I hope you are ready to spend the rest of your life getting routed in the culture war and having your preferences stomped by better Americans, Bruce Hayden.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I would normally not opposed any of this in an ideal situation. However, I must also note that the rioters and criminals here are using all of this information to further flaunt or thwart law enforcement efforts. Can't blame the police for not giving information that will be used against them especially when it is not legally or constitutionally obligated.

[Miss Greenparker]

Perhaps it's time for people to vote with their feet, since local (Democratic) government has done nothing, at least successfully, to appease destructive rioters and staunch disruptive protests. Those on the right and left who don't wish to live under siege might leave for elsewhere, while the remaining fighting elements would stay and do what they wouldst, along with the local government.

Federal property could be permanently cordoned off and protected by armed guards, as if it were located in hostile territory, or it could be abandoned in favor of other locations. No matter the best intentions and grievances of leftist, centrist, and conservative elements there, the blame game will dominate headlines in a "he said, she said" kind of conflict in which only the shrillest get heard above the din.

Most of us realize the rule of law is highly imperfect and sometimes really corrupt and thuggish in practice. Now we can see the alternative to it playing out in Portland, a liberally blue city undergoing a leftist attack, that is ill-equipped ideologically and logistically to deal with it, other than yo say "leave us alone."

[KevinP]

I am OK with this, but then no federal funds of any kind for Portland or any local or state institution, or private citizen within the city limits.

But in reality, this is more likely to happen:

10 U.S. Code § 253 - Interference with State and Federal law

Quote:
The President, by using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by any other means, shall take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy, if it—

(1) so hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or

(2) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.

In any situation covered by clause (1), the State shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.

[Longtobefree]

And the next thing you know, there will be Airborne troops in Little Rock.

[NToJ]

The mayor of Little Rock asked President Eisenhower to send troops.

[KevinP]

Oh, how nice of him! And if he hadn't asked, I'm sure President Eisenhower would have not tried to protect the civil rights of Americans in an American city.

[NToJ]

I didn't bring up Little Rock. The distinction is material because in one instance local authorities requested the assistance of the feds, and in the other local authorities specifically asked the feds to fuck off.

But for accuracy, President Eisenhower was not eager to send troops in, because he wasn't particularly sympathetic to the cause. Do I think Mayor Mann's request for the President to intervene was the predominate cause of the latter sending troops? I don't know, I can't see into his mind. What we do know is that Governor Faubus decided he would use the state's national guard to prevent black students from entering the school. Faubus then visited Eisenhower to discuss an amicable solution that didn't involve the feds, something Eisenhower was keen on. The two men agreed that Faubus would keep the state national guard around to protect the students, and that the black students would attend. But Faubus lied, and when he got home he demobilized the state's national guards from the district and left, knowing that without the state's national guard, the Little Rock police would be ineffective at protecting the black students from private mobs. That's when Mayor Mann called for backup from the President. Was it that call, rather than Eisenhower just being immensely pissed off by Faubus's lie, that set them off? Historian John Kirk thought it was more the latter. But in either event, Eisenhower had the cover of a local political authority requesting assistance to enforce that local authority's order to desegregate.

[Miss Greenparker]

Understand, Kevin P, but don't you think the situation in Portland seems like some kind of sticky wicket set-up that likely would only reinforce the leftists' charge of jack-booted police state when the Feds march in and engender all sorts of charges of abuse, no matter the reasonable suggestions and reforms listed above per Olson and Adler?

It may be, acutely, a matter of scale. Since it's mostly one city having a meltdown, the locals should handle it on up to the State level, unless the Feds are invited in by agreement and are cooperated with fully, which is not at all the case, now. Sure, pull back Federal funding where applicable, until the situation is resolved by local officials and their citizenry.

If we start experiencing the same kind of riot tactics and, essentially, non-response from local governments in other major cities, then a more coherent national policy of containment would be in order, along the lines of your U.S. Code excerpt. God forbid we get to that point... to include mandatory vaccines, imo...

[KevinP]

Since it’s mostly one city having a meltdown, the locals should handle it on up to the State level,

At the end of the day, the locals need to handle it. It's their duty to do so. All citizens of Portland, not just the violent left have constitutional rights that the government is bound to protect, including against private threat and intimidation.

[ErictheRed]

I'm a local.
I'm neither in favor of black-ops snatch-n-grabs,

nor tolerating thuggery, vandalism and intimidation by the "peaceful protesters."

What is your suggestion KP?
Sarcastr0?

[Sarcastr0]

Glad to hear it Eric, I agree.
When I visited, I had a good time. Not a beer guy, but y'all consistently found something tart enough for me. Plus West Coast bubble tea technology is still well ahead of us over here.

Quelling riots is a hard and subtle thing. I'm not sure Portland wasn't doing the quickest and cleanest thing by deescalating their use of force. Certainly Portland officials claims things were on a downward slope these past few weeks (but of course they would.) My buddy thought things were handled well, but he's not one to pay attention to things like that.

I'm not an expert, so I can't lay out specifics at all.
But I can tell you that the Fed's methods do more harm than good both to the situation, and to our republic.

Do you have any thoughts youself?

[Ben_]

Shorter: doesn’t know, but absolutely sure whatever the feds did was wrong.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah. Ben, I can argue something is wrong without providing a specific alternate policy.

[ErictheRed]

I do. a lot of thoughts, no simple solutions though.

I think the Donald got suckered into deploying federal troops, and well, you know, cops gotta cop.

You spit on them, they spray pepper.
You throw an m-80, they got flash-bangs.
Light a bonfire? Here's some teargas to suck on.
Paint ball gun vs. Beanbags and Rubber bullets,
and on up the escalation ladder you go.
They'er trained (and rationally I might add) to respond with overwhelming force.

I can't decide who I despise more, Trump/Barr or Brown/Wheeler, but IMO, B/W let this shit get way out of hand.

This has been a pissing contest between Trump and Brown since his day one.. recall the "occupation" of the ICE headquarters in Portland?

Perhaps Trump could have used Barr to at least make a case first that Oregon was not protecting its citizen's rights per;
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/253

Maybe, (but I doubt) Brown would have taken it seriously and done something first.

[Ben_]

You think voters around the country are going to see pictures of rioters starting fires in Portland and the fact that the Feds are defending is going to be _bad_ for Trump?

Rioting will scare voters away from other candidates. Especially white communist rioting in Portland.

Between the virus and the riots, the cities will see a lot of people moving out to suburbs or more friendly states.

[Sarcastr0]

So you do think federal action would be a good idea, if the feds had laid a better factual foundation? Sounds like you don't think it's a helpful action.

Which brings us back to how to quell riots.

[sparkstable]

Protests should never be quelled. Riots, itoh, can be smashed forcefully and it would be just. Using overwhelming force to male a group complete with the idea of NOT violating other people's rights is the VERY FUCKING REASON we have a government. Violence is not evil or bad. It is just a means to an end. And as long as it is an appropriate end that requires this means to be successful, then the use of it is OK.

Otherwise you object to violent self-defense? Which is the right and power "we the people" in part invested in the government on our behalf... so we didn't always have to be the ones doing it so we could spend our time being productive rather than in defense mode.

[Sarcastr0]

'Forcefully smashing' dissent, even when violent, rarely quells dissent.

Violence is not evil or bad. It is just a means to an end.
OK, you just want civil war by another name.

Federal troops are not doing some self-defense action here, that's insane.

[KevinP]

Our country has faced this before. Lawlessness with the tacit acceptance or outright support of local politicians.

If the local and state governments will not act, then the federal government must act to restore civil liberties for all Americans in Portland.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Happened a lot in the Deep South during Civil Rights. Ironic the Left is now endorsing the same tactics used by the Klan and tolerated by local officials there.

[damikesc]

Well, they were all Democrats in both situations...

[Miss Greenparker]

Agree, Kevin P. Not only do all citizens both left and right have constitutional rights that should be protected, they have the responsibility to see that they are protected, using the ballot box wisely, offering solutions and tangible help, and engaging in informed activism, civil pressure, and, finally, peaceful protest when other measures fail. Sometimes, though, it may come down to voting with their feet when authorities and neighbors are not responsive to the need for anti-corruption and abuse measures and for securing an atmosphere conducive to living, schooling, business, and personal and property safety for everyone.

The very last option should be Federal intervention, because the Constitutional plot gets lost in the ensuing mayhem and any forced "peace", then. As someone mentioned below, there is more than talk at the official level, a movement, for assembling a national police force to handle such ginned up civil unrest such as Portland is experiencing.

[KevinP]

I can't really agree that voting with the feet is the solution.

If that was the case, then oppressed black Americans in the Deep South should have just voted with their feet and moved to lily white Portland and other places.

All Americans have a right to have their civil and constitutional liberties protected wherever they may live.

[ErictheRed]

Ok Miss Green,

I beg to differ, the very LAST option is a civilian militia taking back the streets.

Unfortunately, whether some like to admit it or not, that is exactly what was permitted by the mayor of Seattle. That militia just happened to be made up of her base, so it was ok for awhile.

So, how do you think it would play if a few dozen of my fellow vets and I marched down their and set up an autonomous zone in bright blue Portland?

Please tell me, short of that, what evidence is there that we have not worked our way down the checklist to federal intervention?

[Miss Greenparker]

Mr. Red,
You somehow read into what I wrote above that I support the "civilian militia" that was permitted to reign for a while in a sector or two.

Not at all, but the Mayor, the City Council, and even the Governor of the state are responsible for the take-over situation, not the Federal Branch, unless Federal agents are openly called into Portland by local officials.   If they show up and are not welcomed and cooperated with by local gov, then you have exactly what is playing out now--  more (not necessarily unfounded) accusations of authority abuse and police heavy-handedness leveled at the intervening US agents by both protester-rioters and the local government.  

The local municipal and State will to avail themselves of effective help is the point, and they appear not to have it.  Perhaps they can bumble their way through this, with, unfortunately, some damage to infrastructure and public confidence.   But, don't you think Portland should own the situation, first, and then the State of Oregon? 

As to your scenario, even though they've established the precedent for anarchist takings, your band of veterans likely wouldn't be able to pull off the raging social justice fascism that is in favor there, and you'd probably be taken down, immediately.

[Miss Greenparker]

The situation there seems to range between weird to criminal chaos, but if law and order aren't important to your Mayor, Eric, then it should be to your Governor.   If it's not to her, as well, then who are Oregonians voting for?

No one seems to be admitting they called in the Feds.  Perhaps agents are just there to protect Federal property and functions, such as the Federal Courthouse, which would be their right and duty.   Are they restricting their control and detention efforts to just around Federal concerns, or are they entering into the fray?  

This sorta sideways "intervention" and alleged questionable tactics used by federal agents now become part of the angry grievance narrative in which the anarchists' previous lawlessness is now justified by the reaction.  And, of course, this will have political repercussions for the upcoming election.  The optics are that of one giant fiasco.

We might see the far leftists tripling down in their demands and the hapless politicians saying they were against the "secret police" intervention and federal overreach.

[Sheldonius Rex]

There is no such thing as a peaceful arsonist.

[Sarcastr0]

Is that because of the inherent risks for using fire?

What about knocking down statues?

[damikesc]

How is knocking over statues "peaceful"?

Do you know what peaceful means?

[Sarcastr0]

I dunno - was taking down the Saddam statue in Iraq an act of violence?

I don't think all property damage is a violent act.
I do think all damage to a person is a violent act.

[damikesc]

Then you're wrong.

You loot my store and steal most of my goods --- which cannot be insured and were almost guaranteed bought on credit --- and how is that not as harmful to me as a punch in the face?

The flippancy with which people take property rights these days is sad.

[Sarcastr0]

Maybe I am - I'm thinking through it.

Clearly SOME acts against property are violence. But given my Saddam counterexample, it doesn't seem like all acts are.

Property rights are good; the eagerness of some to put them above human life is screwed up.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Last time I checked none of the property that was damaged was done so to save human life.

[sparkstable]

Property is not above life... but it is REQUIRED for life. If I collect enough food to eat but no more each day, and you steal just one item a day, then your acts will inhibit my ability to live.

If I try to gather resources for a future shelter, but you steal then, I can never have enough to build my home.

Property rights are the claims each person has on the real things of this world that are necessary for life and the pursuit of life which makes life worth it. They are equal rights. All rights are equal rights. They have to be or they aren't rights but previlages that under certain circumstances no longer hold up.

[sparkstable]

And unless the owner of the statue of Saddam objected, then it can be assumed contextually that no one claimed a violation of their property rights. I doubt anyone laid claim to it or had a legit claim to it. As such, whose (who's?... whatever) rights were violated?

[Sarcastr0]

So damage against property where the owner's voice cannot be hears is peaceful.

No, that's not right.

Theft is not a crime of violence.

[Ben_]

"Peaceful" has been redefined to excuse anything the totalitarian left does or wants to defend.

Didn't you know?

[damikesc]

CARRYING arms in Michigan for a protest was violence.

Arson and property damage is just mostly peaceful.

[Jimmy the Dane]

And the lockdown protesters only engaged in things that were legal. Or did I miss how all the property crimes they committed during those protests?

[M L]

The nationalization of police (e.g. "national standards") is probably one of the primary aims of the George Soros types that pay to foment these protests and violence through the sorts of "organizations [that] work for justice and organize these legal protests" mentioned here. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/23/i-was-detained-for-protesting-trump-heres-what-the-secret-service-asked-me/

This is wrong. As I comment I saw today from a Mises guy puts it, "The last organization I want to come "save" me from a local tyrant is the largest government and empire in the history of the world."

With that said, I haven't followed this Portland story. Is there something illegal about unmarked cars? I'm trying to figure out why people seem to be shocked and amazed that law enforcement agents are . . . . making arrests. The federal government is an abusive, thuggish, imperialistic enterprise. They just tried to pull a coup with the Russia hoax because an outsider got elected president, but somehow a few rioters getting arrested is news?

[Sarcastr0]

nationalization of police (e.g. “national standards”)
That's not what national standards means. Also, Soros? Really?

Using your right-wing take on the Mueller investigation to minimize this isn't really going to cut it.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The Feds generally rely on local assets to do routine policing. Here we have the locals refusing to do so which fills the void where the Feds have to send in their own. If the locals are complaining about federal intervention they are only getting it because they are the ones inviting it through inaction.

[Sarcastr0]

The Feds are not some backup local police force force.

[sparkstable]

They are when enforcing things like protection of federal property. In fact, they may be the starters rather than back up. The feds don't need permission to protect their stuff even if it exists in a place other than DC. Try breaking into a local fed gov building and tell a fed cop to in hand you because he's not local 5-0.

[Sarcastr0]

Read Jimmy's post again.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Can you read Sarcastro? Seriously? I said the Feds usually rely on local/state assets to do routine policing around federal property. Many have shared services agreements to that effect. But when the locals decide to not perform that role then the Feds have to pick up the slack. The main reason why the Feds are there defending federal property is because the local guys are no where to be seen. So yes perhaps you need to read my post again.

[Sarcastr0]

Looks like I'll have to walk you through your own post, Jimmy.

The Feds generally rely on local assets to do routine policing. Here we have the locals refusing to do so which fills the void where the Feds have to send in their own.

No, the Feds are not some backup local police force force.

[Brett Bellmore]

If by that you mean they shouldn't be pulling people over and handing out traffic tickets, sure. If by that you mean that if rioters attack federal properties and the local police are ordered to leave them to it, no, hell no, they are.

[Sarcastr0]

It's Jimmy's overbroad language Brett.

I have no problem with Feds protecting Fed property, or even investigating federal crimes.

The Feds actions look neither protective not investigative. And they're not bothering to explain themselves. So until they do, I'm going to call this what this looks like - an unjustified crackdown on dissent in the name of law and order.

[AmosArch]

I'm glad covid has once again decided to step aside in the name of social justice in Portland. What a thoughtful virus.

[Sarcastr0]

Could say the same thing about these Federal chuckleheads.

Almost as though it's a collateral issue.

[Jimmy the Dane]

We all know that Covid cannot spread at social justice protests because of the magic of diversity. It is also this magic that makes a rioter a "peaceful protester" and turns law enforcement into evil fascist orcs.

[AmosArch]

If 1/10th of the scaremongering the msm put out before and after covid stopped existing due to BLM is true than Drumpf has an obligation to march the national guard straight into every rioting city and lock up every single antifa goon not to mention the 'peaceful protestors' for jeopardizing global health. Luckily it looks like covid stopped existing again in portland.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Remember when lockdown protesters were anti-American scum who wanted to kill grandma and every healthcare worker? And how the left said all lockdown protesters should be doxxed and denied health insurance if they came down with Covid?

[sparkstable]

And if diversity magic IS real... then we need another hands across the world event to eradicate the 19 once and for all!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If you have read these comments, Prof. Adler, and consequently are ready to depart the Republican Party of Donald Trump, evangelicals, Jim Jordan, militias, Devin Nunes, and these commenters, I will hand-deliver a change-of-voter registration form (with a case or two of excellent beer, long overdue) upon request.

(Ask Prof. Kerr or Prof. Somin about the beer quality)

[Jimmy the Dane]

Is he supposed to object to the fact that law enforcement is seeking to protect the "rule of law" we heard the Democrats dedicate so much gnashing of teeth to back in January? Or that violent protesters are infringing upon the rights of law abiding citizens who feel like prisoners in their own homes?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If you are trying to drive reasonable people from the Republican Party, Jimmy . . . please keep up the good work!

[Michael Ejercito]

How are reasonable people being driven away from the Republican Party?

[sparkstable]

If anyone leaves the GOP because an actual law was enforced to defend innocent people or property... by definition they can not be reasonable.

[Michael Ejercito]

You got that right!

[Rufus The Monocled]

"Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute, toppled a George Washington statue, and allegedly set fire to a Portland Police Association office ."

/looks around the class. Raises hand timidly.

Sarc?

[Jimmy the Dane]

So Democrats don't stand for the "rule of law" anymore? And violent mobs are now part of the platform? Just trying to better understand the current stance of the left.

[Sarcastr0]

How many would still be in favor of this if Trump starts bringing this circus to other cities?

[Michael Ejercito]

You assume this is a circus.

[Sarcastr0]

Object to my tone all you want.

Answer the question.

[Jimmy the Dane]

It is only a circus because the five ring show is being provided by violent looters and thugs.

[Sarcastr0]

Of course you want this expanded to Chicago, Boston, NYC, etc, yes?

Just want to get you on the record.

[Brett Bellmore]

Only to the extent riots occur there, and are enabled by the local governments instead of being shut down.

[Sarcastr0]

Luckily, your definition of riots is quite flexible, and enabling can be constructed largely in your own imagination.

I'll put you down as 'cool with it.'

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, your definition of "not riot" includes attacking people and burning stuff, so I'm not the one with the "flexible" definition.

[Sarcastr0]

Something can be bad and not be a riot.

Your definition encompasses individual acts during or even before/after a protest.

You ignore all differences of degree, which massively inflates the definition.

Which allows you to justify crackdowns on dissent much more easily.

To whit: a shooting in Chicago, and also protests in Chicago? Riot!
Seattle's dumb zone that was largely peaceful? Well, rule of law was broken so riot.

[sparkstable]

If he brought the circus part? I would hate it. I don't want SJW riots in my peaceful town. If the circus were here and he followed with a crackdown I might just vote for the guy. (I currently do not plan on doing do).

[Sarcastr0]

Hard to see how a crackdown doesn't give rise to widespread angry counterprotests in this land of ours.

[Brett Bellmore]

Once you've got the angry riots, I think you've mostly exhausted the potential for angry counter-protests. It's not like we're looking at a popular movement here. Most of the people in these communities will be glad to have the rioters gone.

[Sarcastr0]

You're completely crap at deescalation techniques (despite many nationwide examples over the past few months), and see only state force.

Look at what you've become.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look what YOU'VE become, defending arsonists and vandals. This stuff has been escalating for months, and you're blaming it on the feds finally responding in the last few days?

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not defending arsonist's, a-hole. I'm saying this is not how you deal with them and stay a free society.

And quit saying I condone political violence or consider myself part of Antifa.

Sounds almost like you'd be cool with the Feds swooping down and picking me up.

[damikesc]

If MY city had riots for weeks that were interfering with my rights and my local officials decided to sit back and do nothing?

I'd support the move. Happily.

My rights are not subservient to a bunch of rioters.

[Sarcastr0]

Which cities meet the criteria you've layed out?

i.e. would you support some Feds street action in Chicago, Boston, NYC?

[Allutz]

Personally I don't think we need it in Chicago. So I'm opposed to it here. Our federal buildings are secured and the problem we are having now is run of the mill violence, not organized mobs that are not being policed. IIRC, the National Guard was called in during the height of the riots (and rightfully so, they strategically prevented riots from spreading to residential areas, likely sparing my neighborhood).

[Michael Ejercito]

Unmarked police vehicles are not new. In this case, however, it is alleged that the camo-clad teams are picking persons off the street, bundling them into unmarked vehicles, and driving them away from the scene. In the NPR interview, Cuccinelli basically conceded the essentials of this allegation and defended the use of unmarked vans as a way “to keep both the officers safe and also, when crowds gathered, to move people to a safe location for questioning.”

We should realize that the FBI has done this.

What matters, according to the body of law over arrests and apprehensions, is if there was probable cause. Whgat the arresting officers were wearing, what the vehicle used to transport the arrested person looks like, has no bearing.

Then, after Pettibone refused to answer further questions without a lawyer, he claims he was released after 90 minutes, without charges or paperwork of any kind documenting his detention.

Surely we do not expect them to continue to detain Pettibone even if they came to the conclusion he had not committed any crime.

Cuccinelli said only “We will pick them up in front of the courthouse. If we spot them elsewhere, we will pick them up elsewhere.”

That is unacceptably vague.

Federal agents have the authority to arrest persons for federal crimes anywhere in the U.S.A..

Again, we have a body of law determining the propriety of arrests and apprehensions.

We should also expect law enforcement officers—whatever the agency—to follow probable-cause standards for arrest and announce and document the grounds for and circumstances of the arrest, label vans used to transport arrestees, and so on down the line with all of the other protections we expect of local law enforcement.

Perhaps some jurisdictions require their police to transport prisoners in clearly marked vehicles.

Our Constitution does not require that.

[Sarcastr0]

The Constitution sets a minimum, not a maximum from what we should expect as the land of the free.

[Michael Ejercito]

If you were unlawfully or even just improperly arrested, would it matter if the cops were in dress uniforms, mime outfits, or swimwear?

Would it matter if you were being transported in a clearly-marked police car, a restored '65 Mustang, or what looks like a rust-pitted ice cream truck?

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, law enforcement being able to be identified is a pretty important norm I like, since I'm not a fan of secret police.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, but these aren't secret police, they're just doxing resistant police.

[Sarcastr0]

That's a pretty fine hair you're splitting.

Especially given that the doxing risk is largely speculative on your part.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, sure it is.

[Absaroka]

I'm with Sarcastro here. If nothing else, give officers big velcro number patches. If an actual badge number is a doxxing risk, then swap the numbers around periodically, and write down who is wearing what number on what date.

If someone wants to allege that a certain officer used excessive force or whatever, he should be able to say 'it was the officer wearing a 38272 patch on April 17th', not 'I dunno, it was a guy with a mask dressed like all the others'.

[Sarcastr0]

::thumbs up::

I like a straight shooter, even if we agree rarely.

[Michael Ejercito]

So FBI agents must be in uniform when making arrests?

[Sarcastr0]

Not up on my FBI protocol, but don't they generally present their badges when they arrest people?

[Michael Ejercito]

So they just need badges, then.

It is okay to wear camo (or a bikini, for that matter), just so long as the cops present a badge in a timely manner when making an arrest?

[Absaroka]

You'll be happy to know that seems to be what they are doing. At the press conference they show a patch where each officer has a unique ID (the example was something like 'DVI'). As long as people know that's a standard so they know what to look for, OK.

(although, I sure wish we lived in a world where going after the families of/going to protest at the houses of/bothering at restaurants police/politicians/judges/etc was just considered unacceptable across the board)

[Absaroka]

(BTW, you've been asking for the gov side of things ... that press conference is their side. You may not agree with them, but it's worth a listen)

[Sarcastr0]

Not good enough. Giving them a number and taking away their name is still secret police.

This danger of doxxing has yet to be demonstrated in reality.

I linked to an analysis of the presser below. Long story short: What was caught on tape was an illegal arrest. A flagrantly illegal arrest even, and the deputy on the ground doesn't even know the law well enough to realize it.

[Absaroka]

"This danger of doxxing has yet to be demonstrated in reality."

The gentleman in the press conference said they have experienced a fair number of specific threats, i.e. 'protesters' circulating specific names and addresses and making threats against families. Maybe your view of that is 'hey, kids will be kids, it's just noise, those wives don't actually have anything to worry about'.

OTOH, people tend to take threats against their families pretty seriously. One way to avoid that would be ... to not make such threats, even in jest.

We have had lots of peaceful protests over the years - million man march, million mom march, the 2A thing in Richmond a few months ago, etc, etc. It's amazing how calm things stay all around when people aren't throwing stuff at the police, breaking windows, lighting fires, etc. Your view seems to be that the people throwing/breaking/lighting bear no responsibility for any mistakes that the police might make in the chaos those people deliberately create. I disagree.

A provocateur who stands in a crowd and throws rocks bears part of the responsibility for the innocents in the crowd getting tear gassed.

[Sarcastr0]

Should be easy to show the threats with the doxxing info blurred out. Haven't seen it. 'Trust me, we're concerned' doesn't cut it for sinister stuff like this.

Doxxing isn't cool, but anonymous stormtroopers are even less cool.

And don't intimate I'm kinda-sorta fine with putting these peoples lives in danger. You're above that.

And no, I'm not blaming the rioters for a federal crackdown on protesters. Rioters damage the cause of the protest, but they do not excuse anything the Feds do.

[VinniUSMC]

"Peaceful protesters burned an iconic elk statute, toppled a George Washington statue, and allegedly set fire to a Portland Police Association office."

Words don't seem to have definitions anymore. Speech is violence, but arson and destruction of property are peaceful.

[OtisAH]

For the record, the same POS Volokh commenters who are cheering on and defending the current federal actions in Portland are the same POS Volokh commenters who pissed and shat themselves over the annual military training exercise then-called “Jade Helm.” And who were also pissing and shitting themselves over the then-impending Chinese invasion that was coming by way of the basements of abandoned Walmart stores.

[Sarcastr0]

I dunno if I saw a lot of Jade Helm freaking out. Plenty about Obama's civilian force, though!
They also think Trump was a master of federal restraint leaving the pandemic response to the states. But in this case federalism can suck it.

[Brett Bellmore]

The thing is, if you say, "federalism can suck it", you're saying, "the rule of law can suck it", and the rule of law is actually more important than any one emergency.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, this isn't bringing back rule of law. This is inflaming the situation.

Now, lets talk about 'Rule of Law.'
Invoking 'rule of law' has become quite a right wing thing. Since about the lat 60's when it was used as part of the Southern Strategy to call out blacks and hippies.
Nowadays it has attained no more meaning.
Illegal immigration? Rule of law. Federal crackdown on protests? Gotta respect the rule of law!
But state and local law enforcement's opinion? Not the actual rule of law. Supreme Court rules against Trump? That ain't the REAL law. ICE waives it's visa requirement due to COVID? Rule of law was what they *were* doing, not this waiver they *are* doing!

So yeah, rule of law is meaningless to partisans like you, it's everything you approve of and nothing you don't. It may make you feel righteous, but invoking it is an empty gesture.

Saying I'm for chaos and I basically love Antifa is par for the course. Delegitimize and criminalize my dissent.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, invoking the rule of law has become a right-wing thing, because the left doesn't value procedural rights, it only values winning in the present case.

[Sarcastr0]

This? This is arrests without probable cause. This is not rule of law.

https://twitter.com/AndrewMCrespo/status/1285738001004482561

[Absaroka]

IANAL, but Mr. Crespo seems to be shading things a little bit from what I heard in the press conference. Let's shade the ambiguity in favor of the feds a little:

1)People have been shining lasers at the LEO's eyes. Some of the officers/agents/whatever their title is may not recover their eyesight. You may think 'hey, he's from the govt, so he must be lying about that', but let's take it at face value. If so, that's kind of a big deal (another item, which I have seen corroborated by neutral sources, is that the 'protestors' have been routinely throwing cans at the officers ... while they do have helmets, that still has a pretty high injury potential).

2)The feds observe someone shining a laser (or, alternatively, is seemingly part of a cohesive group that is shining lasers) and have a reasonably specific description (maybe 'mid 20's, beard, red hat, black mask, blue hoodie, jeans, white sneakers'). They don't rush into the crowd to nab him because that will just start a melee. But they keep watching, and later in the night he is walking a couple of blocks away. The feds drive out for a chat.

3)They go up to him for an investigatory stop ('Hey, was that you shining the laser earlier?' or alternatively 'we saw you talking to the guy shining the laser - who was he?').

4)A crowd starts rushing them. They grab the guy and leave. Mr. Crespo thinks this is clearly not allowed. IANAL, but that seems a little fuzzy to me. LEOs can briefly detain suspicious people to verify (or discount) their suspicions, yes? If the place they encounter you isn't safe - because a crowd is attacking, a tsunami is coming, or whatever, is it the case they can't under any circumstances move you to a safer place, no matter what level of suspicion they have? That doesn't sound right to me.

5)They question him for 20 minutes and let him go. We don't know whether that's because he convinces them the guy with the laser was someone else in a blue hoodie, or he denies knowing the identity of the laser-shiner he was talking to ('I never saw him before ... all we talked about was I told him the laser thing wasn't cool'). Maybe they got his ID and are going to the grand jury with the videotapes. We just don't know at this point.

IANAL, but I'm not sure this is a clear cut as Mr. Crespo says. Mr. Crespo seems to think they just picked some random person who happened to be near a laser-shiner and arrested that random person with any reasonable suspicion. ISTM we'd have to know what evidence the feds actually had to be able to say that definitively.

[Sarcastr0]

There was no individualized suspicion. None.

There was an arrest.

That's it; end of story. It's an illegal arrest.

I don't know where you get that this guy fits the description of an actual lawbreaker, but at the presser they admit this guy was, at best, spotting in a crowd where *someone else* was doing laser shenanigans.

And the existence of a crowd does not create individualized suspicion or an exigency that allows arrest in the absence of such.

This is like CrimPro 101 clear cut illegal.

[Absaroka]

"There was no individualized suspicion. None."

ISTM the only people who know exactly what evidence they had are the agents involved. And at the press conference they said they thought they had enough evidence to justify a stop. I don't understand how you can be so sure they are lying at this point.

Have you actually taken time from your busy posting schedule to listen to the press conference, or are you relying on Mr. Crespo's twitter summary?

[Sarcastr0]

The government has admitted as such. In the video I linked.

A stop is not an arrest.

[Absaroka]

"In the video I linked."

I searched your 140 some posts on this thread without finding that link...

[ReaderY]

The allegations here are very serious.

[Absaroka]

Interesting first hand perspective on what's going on in Portland.

[Sarcastr0]

Don't think that's a pogrom, do you?

[Sarcastr0]

I've never seen intimations of violence from RAK. Maybe you can find some and prove me wrong.

[Krychek_2]

You are aware that Senator Scott's bill did not include the abolition of qualified immunity, which is a deal breaker for Democrats, and the Mitch McConnell says that if it does include the abolition of qualified immunity, that's a deal breaker for Republicans?

[Sarcastr0]

I presume it's a metaphor for the policies and cultural changes you're going to have to swallow.

What, do you think he's threatening oral rape every time he posts that?

[Brett Bellmore]

Why exactly are you going to have to swallow them? Maybe because they're not going to be optional, not going to be voluntary?

The left is not good about letting anybody have a separate peace when they win. Imagine cancel culture with a packed Court and control of the federal government.

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, in your opinion, RAK is using oral rape as a "metaphor" for the changes he proposes?

But that's not an intimation of violence?

[NToJ]

RAK is drinking margaritas in a hammock in y'all's heads.

[Sarcastr0]

AL, you brought the penis into this conversation, RAK did not.

Brett, you know what a metaphor is. You've lost this one; best to walk away before it gets worse.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sarcastro....

Your sense of time seems to be mistaken. Let me remind you...

"Sarcastr0 July.20.2020 at 4:36 pm
I presume it’s a metaphor for the policies and cultural changes you’re going to have to swallow. What, do you think he’s threatening oral rape every time he posts that?"

"Armchair Lawyer July.20.2020 at 4:45 pm
So, in your opinion, RAK is using oral rape as a “metaphor” for the changes he proposes? But that’s not an intimation of violence?"

"Sarcastr0 July.20.2020 at 5:22 pm
AL, you brought the penis into this conversation, RAK did not."

So....if anyone brought the penis into the conversation, and it wasn't RAK, it was you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" What do you think “open wider” means, perchance? "

It means this: The liberal-libertarian mainstream has been shaping American progress against the wishes and works of conservatives throughout my lifetime. In other words, the improving mainstream has been shoving reason, education, tolerance, science, inclusiveness, and modernity down right-wingers' throats.

When Democrats regain national power -- by removing tiny, clinger fingers from the levers of executive power; enlarging the Supreme Court; and winning majorities in the Senate and House -- I expect that shoving to accelerate and intensify.

Even more progress is on the way, with Democrats shaping it and Republicans continuing to swallow it.

So . . . open wider, clingers.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"So, in your opinion, RAK is using oral rape as a “metaphor” for the changes he proposes?"

Did you consider it to be oral rape when your parents administered medicine (pills, syrups, etc.)? You swallowed -- even if you didn't like it -- and were better off.

[Sarcastr0]

I said 'you don't think is about penises, do you?'
You said 'sure do!'

[Sarcastr0]

So it'd be irresponsible not to speculate ourselves into pogroms and rape?

Come on, man.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" Don’t forget, that Eugene V. deletes Rev’s worsts diatribes."

That is a falsehood.

Prof. Volokh has deleted the term "c0p succ@r" -- repeatedly.

Prof. Volokh warned me not to use the term "sl@ck-j@w."

Prof. Volokh banned Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob Kirkland for making fun of conservatives (the ostensible objection was 'low signal to noise ratio,' or something similar).

Diatribes -- such as talk of people face-down in landfills, or being marched into Zyklon showers, or shot at their front doors -- are demonstrably no problem in the view of the Volokh Conspiracy censor(s).