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30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

theintercept.com

301–310 of 577 posts

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The different scale of intention was to overturn the results of a federal general election, effectively a coup to seize back control over the government. I can see why you consider the incident in Texas to be terrorism, but you want to ignore the entire point of the J6 event and pretend it was just some normal event where a few participants got a little out of hand? Get real.

Alright, so all of these die hard Republicans had a plan to do a coup...and none of them brought guns to the actual coup? Really? It was stupid for many reasons, but it was a riot, not some preplanned ambush with weapons like is being talked about in the OP.

This is the most stupid refutation, surely you can do better. Besides the fact that several of them did bring guns or have them standing by, the ones focused on trying to derail the transfer of power were aware in advance that DC had very strict gun laws and were worried about getting caught before establishing momentum.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/oath-kee...

Even setting that aside, do you really expect people to believe Donald Trump decided to organize a giant rally, tweeting out 'Be there, will dbe wild!' for that location on January 6 just by chance? Staging the rally at the Ellipse in DC and getting large numbers of diehard MAGA people to attend cost several million dollars, are you seriously asking me to believe that it never occurred to any of the organizers or speakers that the certification of the election just happened to be taking place a short walk away? That when Trump suggested they would all walk up to the Capitol, what he expected was for people to mill around aimlessly for a while and then go home?

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might consider ICE detention centers to be morally equivalent to concentration camps. This sounds like the federal government trying to protect a controversial agency and immigration policy under the current regime, not ordinary citizens. The man who got 30 years wasn't there and didn't fire a gun.

Doesn't matter how they morally equivocate. The reasonable way to address this is through voting and the legal system. If you want to start shooting people, then prepare for a well-deserved, long prison sentence.

Unless you're an ICE agent. Then it's okay to execute citizens who are exercising their Constitutional rights.

There is an inherent tension here in wanting the rule of law and peaceful democracy to prevail instead of political violence. But the reality is that doesn't always happen. Slavery wasn't ended with a vote, neither was the rule of King George over the colonies. Civil Rights weren't granted to black folks without a lot of civil disobedience and violent responses by the local authorities.

Hopefully the next administration will abolish ICE and will seriously reform immigration policies peacefully for the benefit of migrants and citizens alike.

This isn't to defend shooting at a police officer, but the framing by the administration and the right is this was the result of a dangerous left-wing terrorist organization, not a response to lawless actions by ICE spurred on by the administration, and how it's hurting people being ripped away from their lives because officials like Stephen Miller hate non-white immigrants.

And again, it was one person who did the shooting, not the dude who got 30 years for moving some written material.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>your actions didn't amount to a crime >it is still a crime Pardon me, but effin what ? Ah yes. There's a word for it. You're literally calling for prosecuting thoughtcrimes . Good job, making Orwell proud.

If you take an action in the real world it is no longer a thought crime.

>think of a crime

>take an action in the real world (not a crime)

>it's a crime

You're not make it any better, you're just repeating your desire to prosecute thoughtcrimes.

"Your honor, he wanted the President dead and he breathed! That's an action in the real world! Off with his head!"

By your logic putting a pin in a voodoo doll is a crime.

I implore you, abscond and perish promptly with such twisted cognizance of justice.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god why are you so willfully ignorant of the fact that guns were present. Just stop talking if you’re going to play dumb or are dumb.

[flagged]

It's not other people's job to jump through hoops to meet your chosen metric, apparently defined in ignorance of the facts. The crowd left the Capitol because Trump eventually put out a video statement telling his supporters to go home, well after the Senate chamber had been evacuated and taken over by rioters.

Testimony from within the White House indicates a large number of people worked to persuade him to issue such a statement, perhaps convincing him that he would not have the support of many cabinet members of aides otherwise. We can only speculate on what might have happened if he had told his supporters to stand their ground.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#305

The wonderful thing about our current culture is that each side thinks that further empowering the federal government is the solution. And it will only be used by their side against their enemies (other american citizens). No thought at all to the fact that the other side will take power in 4 years. No, no.. short term power is all that matters. The Biden administration started targeting "right-wing terrorists", now…

> The Biden administration started targeting "right-wing terrorists" Where can I read more about this?

https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/splc-financia...

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#306
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Underselling it by omission - was it intentional? Zines related to a shootout and murder by an armed group after retrieving them from the home of one of the parties involved, discussing it on a jail call, and placing them in a third person's apartment.

>murder by an armed group Oh yes, how could we have forgotten the crucial detail that every single person in the group had their hands on the trigger . Wait, that's because it didn't happen. One individual fired their weapon. (And whether that's a murder is very questionable, but let's set that aside). Nobody else should've been facing prosecution in this case.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.41...

I only have the .gov version, but 20-30 rounds were fired, Song was convicted as the attacker apparently and Baumann and Morris were evidently armed as well (the woods gunmen). It wasn’t the whole group but doesn’t appear to be just one individual.

They were successfully tied together by the prosecution as conspirators to the satisfaction of juries by their shared mission, chats, organization, papers, safe houses, and prior meetings among other things.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#307
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chilling effect on demonstrations. If you attend one were someone starts shooting you become an accomplice. And ofcourse this also leaves the door open for a "false flag" incident.

[flagged]

a police officer was shot in the neck by one person.

nineteen people have been criminally charged. including seven people who were not at the scene at the time of the shooting. [0]

you can have whatever subjective opinion about these prosecutions that you want. but at least try to get the underlying objective facts right.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Prairieland_ICE_detention...

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still dont see how people could have watched the videos and not seen a clear self defense angle.

It may have been self defense in the moment, but he also went out there looking for trouble and found it.

That is a far cry from murder and someone shouldnt carry a gun unless they are willing to use it.

Inversely, someone shouldnt attack someone unless they accept the chance of death or harm.

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