To be fare, rebels can be terrorists. I'd say the IRA was rebellious and terroristic in how they operated. They also managed to get what they wanted too.
"Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order." is the first sentence of the Wikipedia page for Rebellion.
Irrespective of the primary intent of the civil unrest [1], failing to disperse after being ordered to is an act of insurrection. I express no opinion as to whether insurrection is called for or not, just that technically it seems to be such.
[1] some people say 'protests', others say 'riots', I'm hoping 'civil unrest' is neutral but I'd happily take correction if it is not.
It's starting to look more like opportunistic looting.[1] In the SF Bay Area, the protests themselves aren't a big problem. They're small. About 100 people at City Hall Plaza in videos.
Both are happening at the same time in similar places. Plenty of people are using the correct term for the group they mean, which others are twisting to conflate into one mass group. Don't fall into the same trap.
>The act was last invoked in 1992 to quell the Los Angeles riots after the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, a black man
I'm not a US citizen, I wasn't aware the Tulsa bombing happened, I thought this was only a fictional event that happened at the beginning of the Watchmen TV series. That's horrifying..
yeah it was pretty damn horrible. We've done some crazy shit to our own people, and those who aren't...and probably more human rights violations from USA and Colonists than all other countries combined. I mean Columbus murdered like 5-10 million native americans alone and sold countless young girls and others as slaves... Hell the whole world could probably end systemic racism if they helped USA (a big culture leader) do it first.
Few know that Andrew Johnson pardoned the conspirators responsible for killing Lincoln. Then, set about rescinding reparations to freed slaves. We still live with the consequences.
No, 1992 was the combined weight of genuine systemic racism in policing combined with the de facto jury nullification by an artificially selected venue and favorable jury pool.
When injustice is systemic and protected, there is no hope of change. That's not the general case anymore.
This case is a freak accident. The method to subdue isn't obviously racially motivated and historically is applied without regard to race. Why nobody in supervision acted after 44 uses resulted in loss of conciousness is the mystery; the 45th turned out fatal. But I don't think this officer is getting any kid glove treatment like Simi Valley provided.
Ultimately, the Bush (41) DOJ successfully prosecuted Koon and Powell on Federal civil rights charges. Justice was delayed but not wholly denied.
The fact that it was used in '92 for riots means it will be hard to challenge.
I feel it is an afront to the Constitution and the founders' intent, though. The Second Amendment is there, in part, to avoid the need for a standing military at all, because standing armies have a tendancy to be turned on the people.
Another reason the Second Amendment exists is so that citizens can remove their local police and protect themselves until they organize a new poloce force. A bit better organization could have put that into effect in Minneapolis.
Where I live we have trouble training enough new police officers to keep the number of officers stable or slightly increasing. I can't imagine that replacing the whole force is possible in the short term.
“ The Camden County Police Department rehired most of the laid-off cops, along with nearly 100 other officers, but at much lower salaries and with fewer benefits than they had received from the city.”
I don't think that the peace comes from guns. Police in my country very rarely use theirs. And "for a while" can be quite long if you need to find and train a complete new police force. Besides, I'd rather have somewhat trained but biased and bad police officers, than a completely untrained mob enforcing the law.
> I don't think that the peace comes from guns. Police in my country very rarely use theirs.
It comes from having them, not from using them. You don't have to shoot at gangs robbing everybody at knifepoint if the threat of getting shot deters them from going around robbing everybody at knifepoint.
> And "for a while" can be quite long if you need to find and train a complete new police force.
In practice most of what the police do is paperwork and interviews. If the general population is armed (so the deterrent is still there) then you could take the guns away from the police and never have them leave the police station and still almost all of the policework would get done.
How would that work in practice? Say I have a traffic accident and the other party is uncooperative. We both threaten to use our guns unless the other party admits fault and then somehow the necessary paperwork for an insurance claim gets done?
Or my neighbors decide that 2am is a great time for some jackhammering. I threaten to shoot them unless they stop? They threaten to shoot me in turn?
Does this depend on righteous mobs of gun owners assembling and holding an impromptu court martial?
> Say I have a traffic accident and the other party is uncooperative.
You take a picture of their license plate number and bring it to a courthouse. They show up in court or the court gives you a default judgement and orders their insurance/bank to give you the money.
> Or my neighbors decide that 2am is a great time for some jackhammering.
You make a timestamped recording of the jackhammering and bring it to a courthouse. Do you see where this is going? You don't need police to have courts.
And most of the time you don't even need to use the courts for the same reason you don't need to use the guns -- the other party can predict what will happen and it's easier for everybody to settle things and not go there.
What happens in that case now? The police show up, they agree to stop and then don't, you call the police again, they agree to stop and then don't. You're still in court if you want them to stop and they won't, and they still actually stop because they don't want to end up in court. (You could also write to your legislators to hire enough judges that you don't have to wait a year for a court date.)
And if they don't show up in court then you win and the court fines them.
People generally don't get arrested or have their stuff stolen over noise complaints. More likely they'd issue a citation, which is really just a piece of paper that leads to a court date, i.e. the same thing you can get by bringing your evidence to a judge/prosecutor.
In theory there’s nothing wrong with jackhammering at 2am. This is just the classical issue of the will of one (or a few) vs. the will of the many. (Imagine yourself being the only one who doesn’t do the jackhammering at 2am.)
You live in a country with civilian political control of the police. Police miss behaving/corruption/brutality/public execution are political problems. A mayor/governor can sack the police and they will hand in their badges and walk away.
The reason it doesn’t happen is because society allows the political to not hold the police accountable.
There is no possibility of sacked police execution a coup , it isn’t an armed confrontation problem
The "replacement" of the RUC with the PSNI was achieved without interruption or total turnover of personnel, but managed to change the ethos and image enough to bring peace enough to Northern Ireland. At the same time, the troops with a record of shooting civilians were withdrawn from the streets.
No. Without the second amendment, you are dependent on police for safety -- so dependent that there is little you won't put up with.
With the second amendment, you can simply fire the police without (as much) worry for your family's safety. It would still be bad, but at least you have an option.
So it's not necessarily a violent confrontation. You just get a mayor in place that will stop paying them. A large group of people can often get a mayor to do something if they have a specific proposal.
> The fact that it was used in '92 for riots means it will be hard to challenge.
I don't think there is any question about the constitutionality of the Act. I don't think there was any question about the constitutionality of the act in 1992 either. There might be a question about a particular application of it, however.
> I feel it is an afront to the Constitution and the founders' intent, though.
Article I, section 8 of the Constitution says Congress gets to deal with insurrection: "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;"
Well, the Insurrection Act, passed a mere 20 years after the Constitution was written, before the last founder President, does exactly what the bit of the Constitution I quoted says. There had been revolts within Washington's presidency, which he himself put down in the field (not from his residence or office).
> Another reason the Second Amendment exists is so that citizens can remove their local police and protect themselves until they organize a new poloce force.
There was no police in 1787, or in 1807 for that matter. There was also no standing army. The militia was all there was, and the militia was just armed citizens. Certainly, many believe that the Second Amendment's purpose is to make feasible a revolt / tyranny difficult to impose, so in that sense you're right, but there was no police in 1807.
Indeed, but when did I say otherwise? You said the militia existed to overthrow a then-unimagined police, but clearly that's not the case (because there was no police).
Armed revolt certainly can be good, though it can also be bad, and the victors will decide. For example, the Founders were traitors to the British, and all then-still-alive ones would have hung if the War had been lost. That means if you're going to have an armed revolt, you'll want to make sure you win. Even now we're far from what you have in mind.
Civil war ideation is probably not productive at this time nor generally -- let it always be a remote possibility, possible, yes, but remote and unwanted. We're seeing a fair bit of legislative and social change right now, and we can expect more; there's no need to start killing people or threatening to or fantasizing about it.
If you can protect yourself, you can simply (along with fellow voters) abolish the police. Once they stop getting paychecks, they will go home peacefully.
Without private gun ownership, abolishing the police would be too painful because you'd be at the mercy of the strongest criminals. Private gun ownership at least affords some protecting while you reform.
I recall there was a rebellion by the veterans of the war for independence. They were poorly supported and after we won independence from Britain they stirred up.
The way the US legal system works is if the US Attorney General tells the US President an act is legal, regardless of if it is, until the Supreme Court or Congress act, the President is free to do as the US Attorney General said.
Under the US Constitution, The President is the Commander in Chief of the military, to not follow a direct order would be a likely be a crime for anyone within the military.
Trumps statements counted as a proclamation, if the US Attorney General said they did.
I would be a bit more tempered regarding the not following an order part. There’s long established cases in US law that doesn’t mean the person obeying the order is free, if the order was not lawful.
United States vs Keenan being one example — soldiers need to obey lawful orders, but obeying unlawful orders puts them at risk of criminal prosecution.
The point is that an order to siege an American city would not be unlawful, under the Insurrection Act, because there are parts of the Act that give a lot of discretion to the President about when to use force. That siege order could be legal.
At that point, disobeying has to be a moral act, and the law isn’t a concern anymore.
I say this living in an apartment about three blocks from a tank in Los Angeles.
By the way, the U.S. armed forces includes in its ranks a small army of lawyers. That doesn't mean they'll necessarily identify unlawful orders as such and refuse to comply. But it's something.
Appears likely Trump’s public statements today were the proclamation, and if it was not, one will be made shortly — after that, it is only matter of time before Trump deploys the military.
Photo in the story, taken late today, is of Trump with the highest-ranking military officer in the US Armed Forces (on the right) - and the US Attorney General (on the left).
Trump intentionally left the White House to force his way through the protesters.
this act and some military involvement is overdue, besides shopping malls and mom & pop shops these "protesters" already started looting trains and fedex trucks and whatnot, and your home might well be next if they are not stopped https://www.reddit.com/r/ActualPublicFreakouts/comments/guq9...
Every situation where the police arrive has become violent. It’s not the protestors that escalate. The presence of the authorities has created this situation. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
I don’t believe the police want to do this, but they are so on edge, and there are so many people taking advantage of the situation to throw sparks on kerosene, that the best thing the authorities can do is pull away and let peaceful protests continue.
But we instead have only the most linear thought directed at this problem. People, crime, force. Understanding the systems involved, the real motivations, is beyond our leaders and many people assessing these situations. Right now, two blocks west and four blocks south from where I am, is a national guard tank. I am less safe than if it weren’t there, because it’s just another bomb that can explode, like every police officer in Los Angeles tonight, tomorrow, the day after.
That’s the situation. It’s not a video game where you right click and apply force. People do things for reasons, and until our leaders understand that and how to work with it to de-escalate, there will only be more blood.
what peaceful protests are you talking about, it's mostly violent mob that uses a thin layer of idealistic youth in front singing kumbaya to divert attention, while the rest are stealing and looting in the back alley, not giving a damn about causes
That was a good article. It answered the question in the title in plain English, without taking any unnecessary detours. It was prefaced by a clear GDPR notice that let me access the website without any fuss.
From what I have seen, peering over from the continent these past 3 years, top US military officers are both less racist[1] than the general populace and more reflective[2] than the current administration.
[1] Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria: "If you can't treat someone with dignity and respect, then you need to get out. If you can't treat someone from another gender, whether that's a man or a woman, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out. If you demean someone in any way, then you need to get out. And if you can't treat someone from another race, or different color skin, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out."
[2] witness the USN response when Trump tweeted they should fire on sight on the NEDAJA: we retain the right to self-defense.
73 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadIrrespective of the primary intent of the civil unrest [1], failing to disperse after being ordered to is an act of insurrection. I express no opinion as to whether insurrection is called for or not, just that technically it seems to be such.
[1] some people say 'protests', others say 'riots', I'm hoping 'civil unrest' is neutral but I'd happily take correction if it is not.
[1] https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/vandalism-map/
Both are happening at the same time in similar places. Plenty of people are using the correct term for the group they mean, which others are twisting to conflate into one mass group. Don't fall into the same trap.
So history is repeating itself?
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/conspirators-cou...
Setting aside of course, the many irregularities involved in the conviction of the conspirators.
When injustice is systemic and protected, there is no hope of change. That's not the general case anymore.
This case is a freak accident. The method to subdue isn't obviously racially motivated and historically is applied without regard to race. Why nobody in supervision acted after 44 uses resulted in loss of conciousness is the mystery; the 45th turned out fatal. But I don't think this officer is getting any kid glove treatment like Simi Valley provided.
Ultimately, the Bush (41) DOJ successfully prosecuted Koon and Powell on Federal civil rights charges. Justice was delayed but not wholly denied.
I feel it is an afront to the Constitution and the founders' intent, though. The Second Amendment is there, in part, to avoid the need for a standing military at all, because standing armies have a tendancy to be turned on the people.
Another reason the Second Amendment exists is so that citizens can remove their local police and protect themselves until they organize a new poloce force. A bit better organization could have put that into effect in Minneapolis.
https://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-c...
“ The Camden County Police Department rehired most of the laid-off cops, along with nearly 100 other officers, but at much lower salaries and with fewer benefits than they had received from the city.”
It comes from having them, not from using them. You don't have to shoot at gangs robbing everybody at knifepoint if the threat of getting shot deters them from going around robbing everybody at knifepoint.
> And "for a while" can be quite long if you need to find and train a complete new police force.
In practice most of what the police do is paperwork and interviews. If the general population is armed (so the deterrent is still there) then you could take the guns away from the police and never have them leave the police station and still almost all of the policework would get done.
Or my neighbors decide that 2am is a great time for some jackhammering. I threaten to shoot them unless they stop? They threaten to shoot me in turn?
Does this depend on righteous mobs of gun owners assembling and holding an impromptu court martial?
You take a picture of their license plate number and bring it to a courthouse. They show up in court or the court gives you a default judgement and orders their insurance/bank to give you the money.
> Or my neighbors decide that 2am is a great time for some jackhammering.
You make a timestamped recording of the jackhammering and bring it to a courthouse. Do you see where this is going? You don't need police to have courts.
And most of the time you don't even need to use the courts for the same reason you don't need to use the guns -- the other party can predict what will happen and it's easier for everybody to settle things and not go there.
And if they don't show up in court then you win and the court fines them.
The reason it doesn’t happen is because society allows the political to not hold the police accountable.
There is no possibility of sacked police execution a coup , it isn’t an armed confrontation problem
The "replacement" of the RUC with the PSNI was achieved without interruption or total turnover of personnel, but managed to change the ethos and image enough to bring peace enough to Northern Ireland. At the same time, the troops with a record of shooting civilians were withdrawn from the streets.
It's not perfect, but it's definitely a success.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)
With the second amendment, you can simply fire the police without (as much) worry for your family's safety. It would still be bad, but at least you have an option.
So it's not necessarily a violent confrontation. You just get a mayor in place that will stop paying them. A large group of people can often get a mayor to do something if they have a specific proposal.
Are you sure about that? I feel like the Whiskey Rebellion does away with that idea.
I don't think there is any question about the constitutionality of the Act. I don't think there was any question about the constitutionality of the act in 1992 either. There might be a question about a particular application of it, however.
> I feel it is an afront to the Constitution and the founders' intent, though.
Article I, section 8 of the Constitution says Congress gets to deal with insurrection: "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;"
Well, the Insurrection Act, passed a mere 20 years after the Constitution was written, before the last founder President, does exactly what the bit of the Constitution I quoted says. There had been revolts within Washington's presidency, which he himself put down in the field (not from his residence or office).
> Another reason the Second Amendment exists is so that citizens can remove their local police and protect themselves until they organize a new poloce force.
There was no police in 1787, or in 1807 for that matter. There was also no standing army. The militia was all there was, and the militia was just armed citizens. Certainly, many believe that the Second Amendment's purpose is to make feasible a revolt / tyranny difficult to impose, so in that sense you're right, but there was no police in 1807.
A long time ago maybe that meant not having police at all, today it means that the police can be fired.
Civil war ideation is probably not productive at this time nor generally -- let it always be a remote possibility, possible, yes, but remote and unwanted. We're seeing a fair bit of legislative and social change right now, and we can expect more; there's no need to start killing people or threatening to or fantasizing about it.
If you can protect yourself, you can simply (along with fellow voters) abolish the police. Once they stop getting paychecks, they will go home peacefully.
Without private gun ownership, abolishing the police would be too painful because you'd be at the mercy of the strongest criminals. Private gun ownership at least affords some protecting while you reform.
In seriousness, does this statement count as the proclamation/warning referred to in the article?
Under the US Constitution, The President is the Commander in Chief of the military, to not follow a direct order would be a likely be a crime for anyone within the military.
Trumps statements counted as a proclamation, if the US Attorney General said they did.
United States vs Keenan being one example — soldiers need to obey lawful orders, but obeying unlawful orders puts them at risk of criminal prosecution.
At that point, disobeying has to be a moral act, and the law isn’t a concern anymore.
I say this living in an apartment about three blocks from a tank in Los Angeles.
* dictatorships
There were many instances when they did. E.g.,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novocherkassk_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_(Lithuania)
Photo in the story, taken late today, is of Trump with the highest-ranking military officer in the US Armed Forces (on the right) - and the US Attorney General (on the left).
Trump intentionally left the White House to force his way through the protesters.
I don’t believe the police want to do this, but they are so on edge, and there are so many people taking advantage of the situation to throw sparks on kerosene, that the best thing the authorities can do is pull away and let peaceful protests continue.
But we instead have only the most linear thought directed at this problem. People, crime, force. Understanding the systems involved, the real motivations, is beyond our leaders and many people assessing these situations. Right now, two blocks west and four blocks south from where I am, is a national guard tank. I am less safe than if it weren’t there, because it’s just another bomb that can explode, like every police officer in Los Angeles tonight, tomorrow, the day after.
That’s the situation. It’s not a video game where you right click and apply force. People do things for reasons, and until our leaders understand that and how to work with it to de-escalate, there will only be more blood.
I wish the internet was always like that.
[1] Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria: "If you can't treat someone with dignity and respect, then you need to get out. If you can't treat someone from another gender, whether that's a man or a woman, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out. If you demean someone in any way, then you need to get out. And if you can't treat someone from another race, or different color skin, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out."
[2] witness the USN response when Trump tweeted they should fire on sight on the NEDAJA: we retain the right to self-defense.
I wish you all the best of luck and hope you all live your lives and do wonderful things. https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2003/04/11/Rumsfeld-Looting...