Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28 • Hacker News Board

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#391

Post by chillwaves » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

rpiguy wrote: post #371

bosswipe wrote: post #91

I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press have been attacked. For example Rand Paul has not tweeted in a week. Sadly, as always, these kind of principled arguments, on both sides, are a sham to advance whatever the partisan battle of the week is.

Because rioting isn’t free speech. All conservatives support peaceable assembly and protest. They also fiercely believe in property rights as inherently tied to the concept of liberty. It is right in the Declaration of Independence. No conservative worth his or her salt will defend theft, property destruction, etc.

This is such utter fucking bullshit. You can watch hundreds of videos of peaceful protesters being attacked by police. They are not looting. What you are saying is an outright lie.

Conservatives are just practicing the same racist tribalism t hey always have. There is no structural logic to how they behave except "us vs them" and right now the police are hurting the right people. It is not and has never been about principles.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#392

Post by aoeusnth1 » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

99_00 wrote: post #176

xenospn wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without having any sort of insight into police behavior, I'm assuming two likely options: 1. They are given rubber bullets and mace without any form of de-escalation training, so they just use the tools they have at their disposal. 2. Just like any kind of organism, the police force needs to preserve itself and make sure it is necessary. The military doesn't like peace, and the police cannot thrive with peaceful prot…

I can't speak to your experience, but I've been in multiple riots, and you are right, teargas make some peaceful protestors violent and angry. From what I've seen, teargas and mace are used after a small minority of protesters become violent and the crowd is lawfully ordered to disperse. I can't say if these are the right tactics, but I have not seen police use these things for no obvious reason. The one situation wh…

Police do use teargas and mace for no reason. There are dozens (hundreds?) of videos of exactly that from the last week, including an aerial shot of Seattle PD instigating with mace at point blank range on protesters who were behind a barricade.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#393

Post by lostmsu » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

bigfudge wrote: post #335

lostmsu wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing here shows intent to apprehend specifically journalists. Wikipedia shows >5,000 arrests overall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests . Which I bet means journalists were arrested way less, than an average protesting folk.

Are you suggesting > .6% (31/5000) of the protesters were journalists? That seems implausible.

I've been to quite a few (admittedly smaller) protests, where the ratio was 1:2. So yes, 0.6% sounds like a small number.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#394

Post by rpiguy » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #387

rpiguy wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because rioting isn’t free speech. All conservatives support peaceable assembly and protest. They also fiercely believe in property rights as inherently tied to the concept of liberty. It is right in the Declaration of Independence. No conservative worth his or her salt will defend theft, property destruction, etc.

Anybody remember the Clinton administration, when the popular cry was "Charlton Heston is my president!" and "The purpose of the Right to Bear Arms isn't for hunting, it is so that politicians fear the people!" Yeah, I don't either. Yes, rioting isn't free speech. Unfortunately, nothing short of rioting seems to work---the people in question are poor and already at the bottom of the social pile, so their options seem…

But rioting doesn’t work. The first comprehensive study of riots was just done at Princeton and riots are found to result in crackdowns, not reform. Occupy Wallstreet, Ferguson riots, 1968 riots, LA Riots, Camden riots, all had opposite the intended effect.

Democrats already had the African American vote and the cities. Rioting will swing the suburbs back to Republicans, completing the cycle again.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#395

Post by chillwaves » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

pwinnski wrote: post #146

ravenstine wrote: post #139

A reporter at my previous workplace, KPCC, was shot in the neck with a rubber bullet on Saturday. https://laist.com/2020/05/31/reporters_injured_protests_poli... It's unfortunate that it's gotten to this point for people to take police brutality at least somewhat seriously. I'm mistaken for being pro-police and anti-BLM merely because I'm against the looting and rioting. I've always had the stance that the police in…

I recently read that if you tend to think, "it's a shame that black people are being killed by cops like this, but the rioting and looting MUST stop," perhaps you should consider thinking more like, "it's a shame that there is rioting and looting, but black people being killed by cops like this MUST stop."

Seriously. It's really telling how a few people rioting = all protesters bad!

But you see cops being abusive and "It's just a few bad apples!"

Anything to quell the cognitive dissonance.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#396

Post by rpiguy » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #384

rpiguy wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because rioting isn’t free speech. All conservatives support peaceable assembly and protest. They also fiercely believe in property rights as inherently tied to the concept of liberty. It is right in the Declaration of Independence. No conservative worth his or her salt will defend theft, property destruction, etc.

rioting is indeed not free speech, but surely attacking the press, one of the fundamental institutions in any democracy, is a violation of free speech. And not only have the people in question not spoken up in defense of the press, they've actually routinely declare them the enemy of the people.

Fully Agree. The press should not be attacked. There is no excuse for it.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#397

Post by jascii » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #340

jascii wrote: post #133

Disclaimer: I am a bleeding heart liberal and this may filter my observations. I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the…

Well I would hope that many BHLs or similar, I am a Libertarian, as asking themselves, how did blue cities get to this point. The Democratic Party has been pretty much in control of politics in most major US cities for decades; it is only common rebuttal here on many stories that cities are losing out to rural suburban areas at the national level to Republicans. The question they should ask is, why did the party turn…

How did blue cities get to this point? An interesting observation here is that while the police forces are supposed to represent the populations they serve, the police unions (FOP) endorses Trump and so clearly takes a stand against that representation in "blue" cities.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#398

Post by rpiguy » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

chillwaves wrote: post #391

rpiguy wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because rioting isn’t free speech. All conservatives support peaceable assembly and protest. They also fiercely believe in property rights as inherently tied to the concept of liberty. It is right in the Declaration of Independence. No conservative worth his or her salt will defend theft, property destruction, etc.

This is such utter fucking bullshit. You can watch hundreds of videos of peaceful protesters being attacked by police. They are not looting. What you are saying is an outright lie. Conservatives are just practicing the same racist tribalism t hey always have. There is no structural logic to how they behave except "us vs them" and right now the police are hurting the right people. It is not and has never been about pr…

There are videos of people carrying property out of shops en masse. You are delusional. An officer was shot in the back of the head, a black pawn shop owner was killed by looters. The only people practicing tribalism are on the left who encourage everyone to identify with their own tribe (black, gay, etc.) instead of identifying with each other.

You are ridiculous.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#399

Post by chillwaves » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #357

It's a pity that some on the left in the past have been so ready with the word 'fascism'. It's a serious word describing a serious problem, and it should not be used casually for "people on the right I disagree with". I believe that the word is appropriate to describe this administration.

That's your take-away from all this?

You really felt this comment needs to exist?

It's interesting what some people's priorities are.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#400

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

staticassertion wrote: post #355

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just love how everyone hates cops and talks about how every single one of them is worthless yet they expects them to save their store from being looted. You decided you were better off without me, fine, save your own store.

> You decided you were better off without me, fine, save your own store. For what it's worth, this is why people hate cops! No one said anything about all cops being worthless, and you're saying that victims of crimes deserve it for not praising police brutality.

The expectation of the public is that police should prioritize deterrence and investigation of property crimes above assembling a massive show of force to deprive peaceful protesters of their 1st amendment rights to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition government for redress of their grievances.

Cops that are busy kettling up protesters for later official intimidation and violence are not available to respond to crimes happening elsewhere.

Business owners are better off with insurance, alarms, and dedicated private security that won't abandon their protective duties every time they feel like pepper-spraying a liberal in the face for no apparent reason.