Coup-o-meter is right on the line between "preparing for a coup" and "attempted coup" https://isthisacoup.com/
U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
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Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#422Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…
There are climate change deniers and, I'd wager, holocaust deniers here, so why not? I don't understand why people have such a hard time believing that just because you're in tech you're not immune to the cognitive biases shared by the entire human race.
Further, very few information sources are truly factual, and without bias?
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#423I’m not just talking about Russia and China here, I mean all the intelligence agencies.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#424Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…
I do not believe the election was stolen. But I also don't believe we had perfect election integrity either. In my mind any system involving hundreds of millions of people is bound to have some bad actors, mistakes, fraud, etc. It's important to acknowledge when and where it happens, and how to improve. But claiming any given election had near perfect integrity raises some alarm bells with me at least.
I vote in every election. There are problems with many elections, especially ones for US President. Those problems are baked into the system we've established as a nation. States run their own elections. States elect US Presidents and not citizens.
I don't think states could coordinate a conspiracy to change citizen votes to steer elections one way or another. Too many moving parts, too many people. It is fair one state has one set of rules that differ from another? Yes. It is the way the USA is built.
It frustrates me to no end that a group of people say, "The election had no issues" just as it frustrates me when someone says, "The election was stolen." Those thoughts are always perpetuated by those who lead political parties.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#425"Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections" - Przeworski In other words, the core concept of democracy isn't the elections or any of the other trappings, it's the fact that it's possible for one group to lose power, transition to another group and retain the possibility to transition back in a subsequent election to the original group.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385 - this details the penalty for attempts to overthrow the government of the USA.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#426Coup-o-meter is right on the line between "preparing for a coup" and "attempted coup" https://isthisacoup.com/
While I saw that the police is clearly on the side of the maga protesters (making selfis with them etc.) I don't have the impression these are enough people for a coup. And the few people who are there don't seem to motivated to do much more than chanting and standing around.
Still, being saved by the ineptitude of the "protestors" is still a damning indictment of the country.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#427Where's the tear gas and rubber bullets? Where is the national guard? There was more police response for a fscking photo op!
Tear gas was deployed and live fire (not rubber bullets) exchanged within the Capitol.
But, yeah, allowing them to breach the Capitol and open fire within the building is very different than we've seen with protests with a different ideological bent. But it's consistent with how right-wing white protestors have been treated elsewhere in the country recently by law enforcement.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#428Is this a coup?
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#429It's the practical erosion of Free Speech. Liberal (small "l" liberal) democracy and liberal science thrives on members: 1. Being willing to admit they may be wrong 2. Having access to a diverse information diet But the past two decades have shown erosion of not only legal Free Speech, but practical free speech: * Whereas previously they were just ignored (or even rebutted), today employees, students, and professors…
These people who are storming the capital are doing it on the back of a lie, that Trump won the election. That is a lie that is perpetuated by numerous forms of alternative media. How is this the result of an erosion of free speech? If free speech was eroded, these alternative media sources wouldn't be able to incite violence with their lies. Your analysis doesn't make any sense.
You're not seeing the connection because you aren't thinking at a high enough level of abstraction. The entire social media and entertainment edifice is built on the objective of telling you what you want to hear. This basically generates a rapidly polarizing schism with a tendency toward radicalization, anda natural aversion toward established info sources on course correction, because if they didn't get it right the first time, or second, or third time, then why give the benefit of a doubt?
You can argue these people weren't looking for truth in thefirst place, but you're missing out on that the "Truth" is not the same to all people, and as it turns out, you rely on the fluid nature of non-bubbled organization and communication to ground disruptive social energy and disharmony.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#430This is a failure of leadership by the republicans - plain and simple. I don't care if this comment is perceived as partisan, it's a statement of fact. If the republican leadership had unequivocally come out against the narrative that the election was stolen, this wouldn't be happening. Edit: Yes, it's true that the top leader and his acolytes have engineered this outcome, but the majority of the republican leadershi…