The article is both hysterical and disingenuous for many reasons:
- the police and prosecutors are not handling downtown riots, at the request of leftist mayors.
- a driver should not have to allow themself to be pulled from their vehicle and possibly killed. There is always a right to self-defense, and in many states, a right to not retreat (California.)
- police cars contain weapons, which cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of rioters.
There's a reason homeowners are leaving cities like SF and Portland, and that reason is lawlessness.
Reading the article it seems that is now allowed to “attack” and drive into a crowd.
That seems to be something entirely different from letting the car roll and trying to get away from a crowd which is the self-defense from your points.
Nope, if a mob surrounds you, that law lets you drive over them.
Watch some of last summer's riots to understand what they're talking about. Police cars had to run over people to escape the rioters after being surrounded.
There is nothing cute or admirable about the BLM and antifa riots.
The Florida law just clarifies that you can affirmatively defend yourself.
It might be that the Florida law allows for the more self defence. But the linked article is speaking of attacking and driving “into” a crowd. Into means that you are not part of it.
So all I’m saying is that I find the article confusing.
A car is a deadly weapon. There are great ways to prevent being 'dragged out and beaten' like for example locking your doors and gently pushing through a crowd slowly should you find yourself, somehow agenda-less, surrounded by protesters. It's a straw-man scenario anyway. These rare incidents are set against the statistics of many injuries and deaths from cars running over innocent people. A car is an incredibly deadly weapon, capable of killing or maiming people as fast as a semi-automatic rifle. Anybody who runs their car over somebody should be prosecuted and liable to be sued penniless, because the immense responsibility of operating a deadly machine lies with them and nobody else.
Homeowners are leaving SF because it's excruciatingly expensive and working remotely has become increasingly viable -- a trend that started before any protests did.
It has nothing to do with the city not being enough like Myanmar.
I think you're talking about home buyers, not owners.
The reality is that people are afraid to walk down the street in SF, and for good reason. Same with Portland.
You may support riots, but I'm guessing you don't have a family. All it takes is one violent incident to upset a family structure, and go from "everything is ok" to "you didn't protect me. I called a divorce attorney."
This is one of the goals of Marxists - to destroy the contentment of the nuclear family so that they can rebuild society structure under their control (this was even previously stated on the BLM organization's web site.)
I haven't read the laws, but I think if you're at a protest and you start banging on the panels/windows you should be charged with manslaughter if the driver steps on the gas and kills someone.
Terrorizing inside places designated for high-safety-risk public conveyances of people is a bad thing.
So we now have laws against that.
I must be overlooking things here. Why is that not a good law?
And how is that not making it safer for public conveyances such as roads, highway, freeway, and parkway.
Young people think the riots are "just" and "getting even" for unspecified historical wrongs. When asked, they have incoherent answers.
Marxists (BLM "leaders", radical feminists, profs) see this as an opportunity to destabilize existing society to usurp power for themselves, at any price. (And in the case of BLM leaders, free houses.)
Blacks define "white supremacy" as "all white people" and use that as an excuse for rioting - which is pure racism (see LeBron James' recent racist tweet.)
Democratic leaders built walls around their offices and homes, while refusing to build a border wall because "got mine."
So you have an intersection of different groups attacking society in the hope that something shakes out in their favor, at any price to other people.
The US is the least racist major country in history, yet if you're a prole, you can be convinced it's "evil".
For those who hate the US, here's a question: what country is better? Which country would you move to?
If there wasn't tons of videos o f protestor being assholes for the "cause" i.e. blocking neighborhood roads to people living there or attacking people in cars then 100% there ought to be some law protecting those drivers.
Running people over? I highly doubt that's the intent of said law.
I think the Florida HB1 provision they're talking about this is:
870.07 Affirmative defense in civil action; party convicted of riot.
(1) In a civil action for damages for personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage, it is an affirmative defense that such action arose from an injury or damage sustained by a participant acting in furtherance of a riot. The affirmative defense authorized by this section shall be established by evidence that the participant has been convicted of a riot or an aggravated riot prohibited under s. 870.01, or by proof of the commission of such crime by a preponderance of the evidence.
And note that committing a riot is defined as:
A person commits a riot if he or she willfully participates in a violent public disturbance involving an assembly of three or more persons, acting with a common intent to assist each other in violent and disorderly conduct, resulting in:
(a) Injury to another person;
(b) Damage to property; or
(c) Imminent danger of injury to another person or damage to property.
A motor vehicle operator who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual shall not be criminally or civilly liable for the injury or death, if:
1. The injury or death of the individual occurred while the motor vehicle operator was fleeing from a riot, as defined in Section 1311 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma Statutes, under a reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect the motor vehicle operator from serious injury or death; and
2. The motor vehicle operator exercised due care at the time of the death or injury.
Right now there are three comments here. One denying the agency of drivers who kill people, one describing protests as "terrorizing" and celebrating the legalization of manslaughter, and one describing Democrat mayors as "leftists" (which they are not by any stretch of the imagination) and implying the mayor of Portland isn't allowing the police to "handle downtown riots" (which is easily disproven by watching even a few seconds of the videos of protests in that city) while asserting that drivers who crashed cars into protestors are justified in believing they would be "pulled from their vehicle and possibly killed" (a thing that hasn't happened) and that SF and Portland are "lawless" cities.
If you don't hear the dogwhistles, maybe you've just gone deaf from the constant exposure. But even without those it should be obvious that there are three things going on here:
1) People are blatantly and knowingly lying about what happened at the various protests over the past year to create a boogeyman to justify the deliberate attacks on protestors using cars (which prior to the Unite the Right rally was exclusively seen as an Islamist terrorist tactic).
2) People are conflating different scenarios involving drivers running over protestors ("innocent" drivers taking a "wrong turn" and being confronted by an "angry mob" and panicking; police officers intentionally crashing through a group of people rather than backing off and taking a detour as a show of force; white supremacists intentionally crashing cars into groups of people as an act of terrorism; etc).
3) People are creating a false narrative of "leftist" officials conspiring with criminals while "concerned citizens" flee the chaos as the police stands idly by doing nothing (suggesting the solution to the "lawlessness" is more enforcement, cracking down harder on protestors, further radicalizing them rather than addressing the underlying injustices that caused the unrests in the first place).
Note that this isn't a matter of opinion. These claims are factually wrong. These lies are knowingly spread. Describing protests where the police routinely shot out protestors' eyes, literally covered parts of the city in tear gas for weeks and arrested and attacked clearly identifiable professional journalists including TV camera teams, as "lawlessness" is not just a misunderstanding, it's a call for violence.
The three users in question are at best parroting white supremacist demagoguery. Their comments still exist and are unflagged. Instead of dealing with them, HN (either a number of users or one of its moderators) has decided that the problem is the article, not the comments, and flagged that as, I presume, irrelevant and off-topic.
We walk away from this patting ourselves on the back, congratulating each other for keeping out politics and embracing a diversity of opinion. Meanwhile users like these will continue injecting casual remarks and "inaccuracies" (like calling Democrat officials who stand by as the police enacts disproportionate violence on protestors and journalists "leftist" to suggest an allegiance that doesn't exist and contradicts what has actually happened) to slowly dismantle any notion of observable reality.
You can tolerate these lies and allow them to spread and infect everything. Or you can call them out for what they are and prevent them from spreading. Time and again HN choses the former by citing the unscientific horseshoe "theory" and celebrating dispassion as "enlightened centrism".
But why do I even bother elaborating. I don't need more than five letters to summarize my point.
I've been on HN for years and created this account after a two year hiatus. Your account is two years old. What's your point and how does it relate to what I said?
As somebody who has seen first hand people dragged out of their cars and nearly killed, I’m cool with this.
“Portland police said they received a report around 10:30 p.m. of protesters chasing a truck a few blocks from the downtown federal courthouse. The driver crashed and was then assaulted, authorities said.
Video posted online of the incident showed the man sitting in the street next to the truck. A crowd gathered around him and repeatedly punched and kicked him in the head until he was bloody and unconscious. It wasn't immediately clear what led to the crash or the confrontation.
I’m having a hard time settling on how I feel about this law. On the one hand, I recall too the images of drivers being dragged from their cars, and the protestors stopping and potentially harming (I.e.late for work) innocent people. I think blocking the roads is bad and creates unnecessary tension and animosity. On the other hand, driving over them is not an option anyone would completely endorse, and I worry this will lead to some idiot assuming he can plow with impunity.
Arresting the protestors is not feasible. There’s no law short of a Berlin style death strip that will prevent protestors from encroaching on roadways. So a law that gives some cover to motorists who, without malice or intention, hit a protestor.
They may not be immune from civil suit, and there should be necessitated to first find if the driver was truly accidental, or, in fear of their life.
28 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 71.1 ms ] thread- the police and prosecutors are not handling downtown riots, at the request of leftist mayors.
- a driver should not have to allow themself to be pulled from their vehicle and possibly killed. There is always a right to self-defense, and in many states, a right to not retreat (California.)
- police cars contain weapons, which cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of rioters.
There's a reason homeowners are leaving cities like SF and Portland, and that reason is lawlessness.
That seems to be something entirely different from letting the car roll and trying to get away from a crowd which is the self-defense from your points.
Watch some of last summer's riots to understand what they're talking about. Police cars had to run over people to escape the rioters after being surrounded.
There is nothing cute or admirable about the BLM and antifa riots.
The Florida law just clarifies that you can affirmatively defend yourself.
So all I’m saying is that I find the article confusing.
No, a mob can turn your car over and kill you. That's the reason for the Florida law.
Why are you apologizing for the behavior of rioters?
It has nothing to do with the city not being enough like Myanmar.
The reality is that people are afraid to walk down the street in SF, and for good reason. Same with Portland.
You may support riots, but I'm guessing you don't have a family. All it takes is one violent incident to upset a family structure, and go from "everything is ok" to "you didn't protect me. I called a divorce attorney."
This is one of the goals of Marxists - to destroy the contentment of the nuclear family so that they can rebuild society structure under their control (this was even previously stated on the BLM organization's web site.)
So we now have laws against that.
I must be overlooking things here. Why is that not a good law? And how is that not making it safer for public conveyances such as roads, highway, freeway, and parkway.
Young people think the riots are "just" and "getting even" for unspecified historical wrongs. When asked, they have incoherent answers.
Marxists (BLM "leaders", radical feminists, profs) see this as an opportunity to destabilize existing society to usurp power for themselves, at any price. (And in the case of BLM leaders, free houses.)
Blacks define "white supremacy" as "all white people" and use that as an excuse for rioting - which is pure racism (see LeBron James' recent racist tweet.)
Democratic leaders built walls around their offices and homes, while refusing to build a border wall because "got mine."
So you have an intersection of different groups attacking society in the hope that something shakes out in their favor, at any price to other people.
The US is the least racist major country in history, yet if you're a prole, you can be convinced it's "evil".
For those who hate the US, here's a question: what country is better? Which country would you move to?
Running people over? I highly doubt that's the intent of said law.
870.07 Affirmative defense in civil action; party convicted of riot. (1) In a civil action for damages for personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage, it is an affirmative defense that such action arose from an injury or damage sustained by a participant acting in furtherance of a riot. The affirmative defense authorized by this section shall be established by evidence that the participant has been convicted of a riot or an aggravated riot prohibited under s. 870.01, or by proof of the commission of such crime by a preponderance of the evidence.
And note that committing a riot is defined as:
A person commits a riot if he or she willfully participates in a violent public disturbance involving an assembly of three or more persons, acting with a common intent to assist each other in violent and disorderly conduct, resulting in:
(a) Injury to another person; (b) Damage to property; or (c) Imminent danger of injury to another person or damage to property.
A motor vehicle operator who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual shall not be criminally or civilly liable for the injury or death, if:
1. The injury or death of the individual occurred while the motor vehicle operator was fleeing from a riot, as defined in Section 1311 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma Statutes, under a reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect the motor vehicle operator from serious injury or death; and
2. The motor vehicle operator exercised due care at the time of the death or injury.
Here's the Florida law, though I'm not sure which part(s) to quote: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/1/BillText/er/PDF
If you don't hear the dogwhistles, maybe you've just gone deaf from the constant exposure. But even without those it should be obvious that there are three things going on here:
1) People are blatantly and knowingly lying about what happened at the various protests over the past year to create a boogeyman to justify the deliberate attacks on protestors using cars (which prior to the Unite the Right rally was exclusively seen as an Islamist terrorist tactic).
2) People are conflating different scenarios involving drivers running over protestors ("innocent" drivers taking a "wrong turn" and being confronted by an "angry mob" and panicking; police officers intentionally crashing through a group of people rather than backing off and taking a detour as a show of force; white supremacists intentionally crashing cars into groups of people as an act of terrorism; etc).
3) People are creating a false narrative of "leftist" officials conspiring with criminals while "concerned citizens" flee the chaos as the police stands idly by doing nothing (suggesting the solution to the "lawlessness" is more enforcement, cracking down harder on protestors, further radicalizing them rather than addressing the underlying injustices that caused the unrests in the first place).
Note that this isn't a matter of opinion. These claims are factually wrong. These lies are knowingly spread. Describing protests where the police routinely shot out protestors' eyes, literally covered parts of the city in tear gas for weeks and arrested and attacked clearly identifiable professional journalists including TV camera teams, as "lawlessness" is not just a misunderstanding, it's a call for violence.
which leads me to think he’s being purposely disingenuous.
We walk away from this patting ourselves on the back, congratulating each other for keeping out politics and embracing a diversity of opinion. Meanwhile users like these will continue injecting casual remarks and "inaccuracies" (like calling Democrat officials who stand by as the police enacts disproportionate violence on protestors and journalists "leftist" to suggest an allegiance that doesn't exist and contradicts what has actually happened) to slowly dismantle any notion of observable reality.
You can tolerate these lies and allow them to spread and infect everything. Or you can call them out for what they are and prevent them from spreading. Time and again HN choses the former by citing the unscientific horseshoe "theory" and celebrating dispassion as "enlightened centrism".
But why do I even bother elaborating. I don't need more than five letters to summarize my point.
“Portland police said they received a report around 10:30 p.m. of protesters chasing a truck a few blocks from the downtown federal courthouse. The driver crashed and was then assaulted, authorities said.
Video posted online of the incident showed the man sitting in the street next to the truck. A crowd gathered around him and repeatedly punched and kicked him in the head until he was bloody and unconscious. It wasn't immediately clear what led to the crash or the confrontation.
Witnesses told police the man had been helping a transgender female who had an item of hers stolen, and he was dragged out of the car and beaten by nine or 10 people.” https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2020/aug/17/portland-proteste...
Arresting the protestors is not feasible. There’s no law short of a Berlin style death strip that will prevent protestors from encroaching on roadways. So a law that gives some cover to motorists who, without malice or intention, hit a protestor.
They may not be immune from civil suit, and there should be necessitated to first find if the driver was truly accidental, or, in fear of their life.
It’s not an easy solution to find.
*Edited for grammar and spelling.