Posted on 07/30/2021 5:30:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
When several hundred extremists mobbed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, they engaged in a deplorably un-American act of criminality. It was an embarrassing day for the nation, and a dangerous one for the many innocent people and officials engulfed in the mayhem.
Here's what Jan. 6 wasn't:
It wasn't the "worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War." Nor did it veer anywhere near the vicinity of being as dangerous as 9/11. Nor was it a "coup" or an "insurrection" -- not in any way we commonly understand those words. It wasn't a "putsch." Nor did it, as the chairman of the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, claimed, come "dangerously close to succeeding" in upending "American democracy." That's all a myth. It was a riot. Or, as Christopher Caldwell more forgivingly called it in The New York Times, perhaps "a political protest that got out of control."
And, contra House Republican Adam Kinzinger's overwrought contention on the first day of the Jan. 6 select committee, there's no evidence that "self-governance" was threatened by the rioters. Only two sets of people gain anything from pretending that these rioters had anything approaching the wherewithal to overthrow the United States government: Democrats and the extremists.
Kinzinger is, of course, correct when he notes that rioters were "rejecting the rule of law." There's a lot of that going on these days. He'd have more credibility on the matter if he, and others who talk about Jan. 6 as if it were a modern-day Gettysburg, showed any genuine concern about the wide-ranging leftist political violence of 2020, which cost billions in damage and numerous lives. But Kinzinger rejects even the notion that BLM/antifa riots should be considered in the same terms, saying "some have concocted a counternarrative" -- which is actually a textbook example of a false dilemma, as both narratives can comfortably coexist.
A lot of genuine anger is caused by the media's and Washington's demanding that we play by two sets of rules. In May 2020, Secret Service agents, for instance, had to stick then-President Donald Trump into a bunker for hours as hundreds of protesters began overwhelming police, some throwing rocks and bottles and trying to break down police barricades. Good thing law enforcement was prepared for that one, I guess. Let's also not forget the attempted firebombing of a federal building in Portland, Oregon, (and other cities) and the killing of five police officers by a self-professed BLM activist in 2016. Cops are being attacked around the country right now. Do we get to blame all progressives for fueling the anger that motivates those extremists to act out?
Kinzinger will tell you there is an important "difference" between "a crime -- even grave crimes -- and a coup." Right. Which is why it's important to stress there was no coup on Jan. 6. The protesters had no plan. There isn't any evidence that Trump, who used grossly irresponsible rhetoric that day, was scheming -- or knew how to scheme or knew anyone who knew how to scheme -- a coup d'etat. Not even Gen. Mark Milley, who was allegedly nervous about such a possibility, makes that claim. The Electoral College had already been counted. Then-Vice President Mike Pence had already spurned Trump's request to reject the results. No court was going to overturn an election or stand with the cretins wandering around vandalizing Congress.
It would be one thing if the commission were principally concerned with figuring out how protesters breached security. But the central purpose of the commission -- whether Republicans cooperate or not -- is to create the impression that the GOP is in the midst of attempting to overturning "democracy." They want to use Jan. 6 to push their unconstitutional efforts to nationalize elections. And they definitely want to use it to make Trump the central topic of the 2022 midterms.
These days, anyone who fails to adopt Kinzinger's hyperbolic tone and obsess over Jan. 6 is accused of "minimizing" the event or being in league with the insurrectionists. For the past five years, we have been engulfed in political hysteria. Sure, a number of conservatives have tried to whitewash the ugliness of that day. Rep. Elise Stefanik's contention that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "bears responsibility, as Speaker of the House, for the tragedy that occurred on Jan. 6" is weak tea. That fact, however, doesn't make the claim that the American republic faced an existential threat on Jan. 6 any less preposterous.
I don’t think it was wise to charge at the police and break windows to access an occupied federal building. The cadre who took those particular actions are certainly getting more than their fair share of punishment, especially when compared to the mobs who attacked other federal buildings all summer long.
The big difference is - It wasn’t your average American, Police or Federal employee who felt threatened or got scared, it was Congress critters. Those same Congress critters were perfectly content to watch innocent citizens losing their businesses by being burnt out, being personally assaulted, and even mocked Trump’s White House being under siege during Washington riots. They still joke about how he had to be rushed to the “bunker”. Hell, our now VP played a role in bailing out the few who did get arrested, so they could terrorize us some more.
Well, it’s all fun and games until the rioters are at your door. They can call it what they want. It shouldn’t have happened, and shouldn’t have been allowed to happen. That said, I really don’t mind that some critters were scared. It was definitely their turn.
The real coup happened on January 20, 2009 when all of our elected and appointed swore in an ineligible non-natural born British subject/Kenyan/Indonesian.
Everything that followed flowed from that fatal error.
They were FBI and ANTIFA. So yeh extremists.
What really pissed me off was hearing Jim Jordan adopting several of the leftist talking points while trying to make his point about Nazi Pilosi being responsible for the lack of security.
With friends like these...
Let's face it Nancy Pelosie is a whiny, spoiled, shortsighted, incompetent, dangerous witch. She has close to a billion dollar budget to protect The Capital and she didn't protect it. Simply said, Madame Speaker failed in her responsibility to protect The Capital. She needs to be impeached! We cannot accept such incompetence from our representatives.
The Antifa/anarchist punks are probably the ones that did not get arrested. /s
And the media was to ensure that it worked. It did.
Completely agree with you on all points. Each individual is responsible for their own actions and decisions and should bear the consequences. This has always, always been a core conservative principle. Even as a child, this is how I was taught.
That defense obviously won't be available to anyone who pushed against police, broke a window, etc.. Nor should it be.
Everyone knows that the Marxist Pelosi secret police set up agents provocateur to lead and trick a few Trump supporters into entering the Capitol. Clearly the shooting of Ashli was a set-up. The communists organized the whole thing and are now protecting thheir own with this Kabuki hearing, while the gullible arrested citizen languish as political prisoners in the DC torture chambers. There are no lawful grounds for the detention of the people tricked into trespassing. The real trial should be the murder trial for the person who shot Ashli.
From the United States Constitution:
Clause 2. The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
There is no Rebellion. There probably should be. There is, however, an Invasion, which is on the Southern Border, not inside the Iron Curtain in Communist Marxist Totalitarian Washington D.C.
We did it correctly in the Tea Party Movement (I attended a few and none were violent and we even picked up the litter afterwards!) so what happened here? Well at the time of the Tea Party movement, Obama was a relatively new president and the deep state apparatus was not yet in place. By 2021 is sure was in place and entrenched. Were there deep state or Antifa/BLM plants in the crowd? Probably but we don't know for sure if they actually stoked the violence. If they were, our protesters need to be better trained on how to spot that and remove themselves from those situations. The left learned how to do this from their protest days in the 60s (Don't be naive and think Hoover and/or Nixon never planted agent provocateurs) We need to learn this now because we sure need more non violent protests along the lines of sit ins and other forms of civil disobedience.
Name what was deplorable.
agreed
The Capital Police
” Jan. 6 Was Deplorable. It Was Not a Coup”
This was another of queen Nazi Pelosi’s attempts to cripple Pres. Trump.
What made it wrong was the entrapment, provocateurs, planted people luring and leading people to the US Capitol building.
Donald Trump did not hold his rally at the Capitol but others encourarged gatherings around the Capitol.
FBI operatives, informants, people planted by political opponents of Trump or just crazy people?
Yes, that was wrong. But "someone convinced me to do it" is an extraordinarily crappy excuse for doing something illegal yourself. Nobody could "lure" me into smashing a window and crawling through it to enter the Capitol. Any actual Trump supporters who did that stuff are fully responsible for any of their own actions that violated the law, regardless of what others did or didn't do.
Again, any Trump supporters who were not using force, and simply were waved through by the Capitol police, have an entirely different defense.
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