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Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

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Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#81

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #80
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this is a forum made up of primarily right wing users.

That's a common misperception. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23807579 . There is a lot more where that came from. People make generalizations about HN based on what they see, but they see what they notice and are far more likely to notice what they dislike and weight it more heavily ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). Basically that means your image of HN is likely t…

[deleted]

Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#82

Post by femiagbabiaka »

dang wrote: post #80
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this is a forum made up of primarily right wing users.

That's a common misperception. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23807579 . There is a lot more where that came from. People make generalizations about HN based on what they see, but they see what they notice and are far more likely to notice what they dislike and weight it more heavily ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). Basically that means your image of HN is likely t…

I wrote out a longer post, but decided to delete it because it wasn't as charitable as I wanted it to be. Simply put I disagree. What is considered to be divisive is also political.

Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#83

Post by dang »

6nf wrote: post #69
mdoms wrote: post #61

This is utterly disturbing, and just as disturbing is the apparent reaction (or lack thereof) in this comment section. I know you guys have a lot to think about right now but, Americans, please understand that this is horrifying and unacceptable.

It’s horrifying that the state police keep releasing rioters without charge. It’s about time the offenders face the music.

Please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#84

Post by dang »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #82
dang wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a common misperception. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23807579 . There is a lot more where that came from. People make generalizations about HN based on what they see, but they see what they notice and are far more likely to notice what they dislike and weight it more heavily ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). Basically that means your image of HN is likely t…

I wrote out a longer post, but decided to delete it because it wasn't as charitable as I wanted it to be. Simply put I disagree. What is considered to be divisive is also political.

Sure, divisive topics are political, almost by definition. No argument there.

This point is a factual one though. People's perceptions of skew on HN are massively distorted by cognitive bias, and that includes your perceptions if you think that HN is "made up of primarily right wing users".

Please don't underestimate this phenomenon. It's probably the most significant one that I observe here and it's incredible how reliable it is.

For example: you're reacting to two police-related submissions getting flagged and seeing that as a sign of right-wing users dominating the site. (Actually, I can tell you for certain that some of the users flagging these are left-wing users who must have other reasons for flagging it.) Meanwhile you're not counting the many major threads that HN has had about police brutality in the last couple months. There was one yesterday, in fact: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23860829.

If you look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962, you'll find an analysis I did a few weeks ago showing how George Floyd-related topics, including police brutality, were by far the most-discussed topics on HN in the previous month. That's a fact—and yet it doesn't stop people from claiming, not just that the topics are underrepresented (which would already be completely mistaken) but that they are being completely suppressed! ("aggressively removed from discussion", one complaint said.)

That is the bias I'm talking about in action. You simply can't go by what you notice and dislike (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). If you do, you may well end up with a picture that it is the exact opposite of what's really going on here. Needless to say, I'm not talking about you personally, but about all of us.

Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#85

Post by mindslight »

cinquemb wrote: post #62
mindslight wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I edited that bit out because it was invoking a generalized "other" that didn't need to be. Just by sheer numbers, surely some who were protesting at state capitols are also protesting unaccountable police and institutionalized racism. More succinctly though, there are many people refusing to wear masks, claiming it is government control rather than reasonable common sense in their own best interest. Meanwhile this i…

> More succinctly though, there are many people refusing to wear masks, claiming it is government control rather than reasonable common sense in their own best interest. Yeah, I don't get that, but I'm not surprised many americans are against stupidly cheap ways to slow spread to any degree. However in response to that, lockdowns (stupidly expensive) seem to just bring on more unintended negative effects while still…

While being generally libertarian, I did support the shutdowns because 1. there are many people who have very little choice whether to keep going to work, due to the rent treadmill the government has created 2. some kind of actual change was/is required to snap most people out of just going about their business as usual.

That expensive course of action should have been used to regroup and implement a sensible containment plan. Instead that time was basically wasted, which is need the real tragedy.

> I'm not surprised many americans are against stupidly cheap ways to slow spread to any degree

I've got to ask specifically why would you expect this? I mean I see the general ignorance and deference to expensive centralized solutions. But I would have thought that a pan-partisan shared threat like a pandemic would have put more people on the same page.

Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#86

Post by dang »

matthberg wrote: post #66

Why was this flagged? There's another thread of this exact same article on the front page at the moment, too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23866926

When you see [flagged] on a story it means users flagged it. We don't know why users flag things, but it's probably not hard to understand in this case. The topic is inflammatory, the threads have both been flamewars, and there's not much information to discuss.

Incidentally, some of the users flagging the story are people who, I know from their usernames, are sympathetic to the cause of the protestors. The flagging is therefore not exclusively ideologically driven. Seasoned Hacker News users often flag threads that they feel are bad for the site (e.g. because the thread is a flamewar), separately from their own views on the topic. That's community stewardship, not ideological suppression.

Edit: also, is it really a mystery what's happening here? The article linked at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23867746 seems to explain it pretty well: the feds have sent police to Portland and there's a strong disagreement between the federal government and the state and local governments about whether they should be doing that. If those are the facts, it's not surprising that the threads are flamewars, because there's really not much for commenters to comment on other than to repeat the political commitment they already have.

Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#87

Post by blisseyGo »

d3nj4l wrote: post #36
blisseyGo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people are not protestors. There were rioters who would mix in with the protestors and then start violence. Protestors don't show up dressed in all black with a helmet and baseball bat. They have also been allowed to throw bricks, molotovs, bats etc on law enforcement and people. They are destroying the peaceful protests to turn them into violence. Local law enforcement hasn't been doing anything to stop it bec…

So you believe the feds should have the right to unilaterally abduct people off the street without reasonable cause, detain them for as long as they please before releasing them without making any record of the arrest or explaining the reason for the arrest?

You have no idea what you are talking about. They were detained for 90 minutes.

Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#88

Post by blisseyGo »

mindslight wrote: post #49
blisseyGo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thugs? They have "POLICE" on their chest.

So can anybody with two minutes and a clothes iron. Actual police announce themselves, state their intentions, follow deliberate procedures, create public reports, answer to bystanders, and generally work to uphold law and order with everybody else. Regardless of how they got the costumes, the aggressors in that video are violent criminals.

They don't just have police badges, they also have patches on their shoulders which is for DHS. This was reported couple days ago that DHS will be coming in to stop the rioting:

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/07/16/acting-secretary-wolf-co...

Media's claim that they are "unidentified" is simply false.

Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#89

Post by blisseyGo »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #56
blisseyGo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kidnapping? Really? The officers have POLICE on their chest in big letters. People getting arrested have helmets, bats and window breaking tools on. They aren't "protestors". They are preventing peaceful protestors. Also there's some claims of some of them being undercover agents who have infiltrated Antifa though I am not sure if that can be confirmed.

I can get my friend who owns a fabric printer to print “POLICE” on to every piece of clothing I own. Does that make me identifiably a law enforcement officer?

They don't just have police badges, they also have patches on their shoulders which is for DHS. This was reported couple days ago that DHS will be coming in to stop the rioting:

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/07/16/acting-secretary-wolf-co...

Media's claim that they are "unidentified" is simply false.

Re: Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation

#90

Post by blisseyGo »

jwilber wrote: post #51
blisseyGo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kidnapping? Really? The officers have POLICE on their chest in big letters. People getting arrested have helmets, bats and window breaking tools on. They aren't "protestors". They are preventing peaceful protestors. Also there's some claims of some of them being undercover agents who have infiltrated Antifa though I am not sure if that can be confirmed.

You claim, “People getting arrested have helmets...” and that, “They aren’t protestors.” - here’s a video of a peaceful protestor getting taken in an unmarked vehicle [0]. Sadly, plenty more exist of similar conduct. But two responses later and you’ve still ignored the question: what difference does it make what they’ve done - why defend unmarked police? I’ve taken the time to show evidence that it’s occurred, it’d b…

They don't just have police badges, they also have patches on their shoulders which is for DHS. This was reported couple days ago that DHS will be coming in to stop the rioting:

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/07/16/acting-secretary-wolf-co...

Media's claim that they are "unidentified" is simply false.

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