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

theintercept.com

371–380 of 577 posts

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

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So in that case, what were they there to do, exactly? Don't forget, an actual noose was erected on the capitol grounds: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/us/politics/jan-6-gallows... . Do I think they intended to literally drag Mike Pence out and physically hang him? No. But damned if that doesn't send a clear message.

I'm not defending them, I'm just pointing out that the two things aren't equivalent.

And yeah, sure, the message was that they thought he was a traitor. I don't agree with them on that and I certainly don't agree that's a good way to send that message. My point is that if a bunch of conservatives want to do an actual coup they would be armed to the damned teeth.

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

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

"I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

"By the way, Pennsylvania has now seen all of this. They didn't know because it was so quick. They had a vote. They voted. But now they see all this stuff, it's all come to light. Doesn't happen that fast. And they want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.

(Audience chants: "Send it back.")"

"

The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country."

What he hoped was that the protest would show that there was a ton of support for his position that the election had been stolen and for the relevant people to take that into account.

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

#373
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shooting a policeman is the "opposite of terrorists"? Nobody is going to agree with you on that, except Reddit-type people.

Shooting a policeman in defence of innocent others said policeman was about to shoot. I thought the second amendment was all about stopping the bad guy with the gun?

Again, I don't understand who you guys are trying to convince here? You're justifying the shooting of a policeman by a group being charged as a terrorist organization. Who on Hacker News is going to agree with you, except those on the extreme-left fring of politics?

Hacker News is a rational fact-based website. There are lots of other populist websites where people react more emotionally to things. Surely you'd have more success posting this on Reddit or TikTok?

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

#374
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I don't disagree, I'm just stating it should be a broader discussion. When you pick and choose individual cases (especially political ones...) people lose the forest for the trees.

I disagree. Time and time again, it's been shown that people are more moved by a single emotional instance, not the broader statistics. Not everyone has a mind for numbers or scale. What can actually inspire change in them if not a single representation of the problem? Classically, effective rhetoric needed pathos in addition to logos. There is no problem in zooming in on this one instance (especially if it's effecti…

As an example, a lot of times when women have a bad experience with a doctor they blame it on misogyny. As a male, I've had a ton of bad experiences with doctors. I've known men (more than one!) that have died because doctors ignored their pain. My dad almost died because he had something that's more common in women.

So, when a woman has a bad experience with a doctor it could be misogyny. It's probably not, though, and if all we ever do is look into doctor's supposed misogyny then we aren't dealing with the root issue.

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

#375
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shooting a policeman in defence of innocent others said policeman was about to shoot. I thought the second amendment was all about stopping the bad guy with the gun?

Again, I don't understand who you guys are trying to convince here? You're justifying the shooting of a policeman by a group being charged as a terrorist organization. Who on Hacker News is going to agree with you, except those on the extreme-left fring of politics? Hacker News is a rational fact-based website. There are lots of other populist websites where people react more emotionally to things. Surely you'd have…

>being charged as a terrorist oganization

Such charges are outright nonsense, for one thing. And I think that's relevant since it's the only possible jutification for the utter forfeiture of rights.

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

#377

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"Terrorist-related crime"? I mean, wouldn't the entire US air force be guilty of "terrorist-related crimes" for recently bombing a school full of children in Iran? Yet you don't see them being charged. Courts and the term "terrorist" are tools applied by the powerful to those without power in society.

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

#378
post #3

Up until now these crazy cases have been rejected by the courts. But this feels like a crack in the dam. A judge actually sentenced someone to 30 years for hiding zines, zines that had been published for years. This was under the pretense hiding those zines was hiding evidence of criminality. And the criminality was worth 75 years. For someone who was at a protest where a federal agent was shot, but was not the shoot…

If you think that this was a protest then yeah it's worrying. The feds case, which they did win convictions based on, was that they were terrorists who set off fireworks to lure police into an ambush, and there weren't more casualties because one of the members shot early and only injured one cop. An accessory to this who hid evidence is also part of the crime in the Feds case Is this embellished by the Feds? I think…

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

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I don't understand who you guys are trying to convince here? You're justifying the shooting of a policeman by a group being charged as a terrorist organization. Who on Hacker News is going to agree with you, except those on the extreme-left fring of politics? Hacker News is a rational fact-based website. There are lots of other populist websites where people react more emotionally to things. Surely you'd have…

>being charged as a terrorist oganization Such charges are outright nonsense, for one thing. And I think that's relevant since it's the only possible jutification for the utter forfeiture of rights.

That's a valid complaint, and I'd understand if that was the thrust of the conversation. But the story is that someone was jailed for "moving zines", which is obvious nonsense. You can argue your other points while still being honest about the facts of the case. Otherwise you look like a populist trying to appeal to emotionally-vulnerable people.

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

#380
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like insisting a butter knife is a knife

People lose limbs all the time with fireworks

OK, July 4 is coming up, get ready to throw hundreds of thousands of people in jail for decades for setting off "explosives", right? Most fireworks, you can literally stand on top of them while they are going off and not be injured. I've seen videos of police doing it while just wearing light body armor, unphased. Stop being ridiculous. These laws about explosives were intended to be used for military-style weapons.
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