Comment by TechBro8615
5 years ago
He is the commander in chief. He has the capability to threaten violence.
This tweet, while in bad taste IMO, was a threat to those who are planning to continue looting and burning buildings in Minneapolis.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen the videos, but there are full scale riots. Rioters completely looted a Target and burned it nearly to the ground.
Is “shooting” the answer to that? Probably not. And hopefully the National Guard is not going to do that.
But at the end of the day, this is the commander in chief making a public statement, and Twitter is editorializing it. Make of that what you will.
> He is the commander in chief. He has the capability to threaten violence.
Actually no, he doesn't have the capability to threaten institutionalised violence against US CITIZENS which might have or maybe want commit a crime which is not capital and don't even lead to to much jail time.
If he would have the right to do so he would be an authoritarian leader and the US no longer a democracy.
Even if the national guard is dispatched they can just arrest people, not shoot them down (except if that people try to shoot down the national guard, which they don't).
My comment originally read "authority," but I changed it to "capability" for precisely the reason you cite. I agree.
As commander in chief he has many ways of communicating with the nation. Threatening violence on Americans on a private platform that explicitly forbids such actions is expressly not allowed and Twitter is well within their rights to “editorialize” it.
What is a realistic solution though? Police == violence, we might want to pretend that's not true, but it is. The threat of greater violence (a.k.a. police attacking you, throwing you into jail or even killing you) is what keeps lesser violence (individuals looting, murdering) at bay in civilized, democratic societies.
For the most part, public shame is a bigger driver of everyday behavior than threat of violence. And threatening to shoot people (and conceivably ask questions later) is very different from announcing a policy whose violation will result in arrest and prosecution. It's called due process, and it's what separates a legitimate government from, e.g. rule by organized crime.
Justice and investigation, due process and responsibility to the public. Exactly what 99.9% of the protesters who are not looting are saying.
> Police == violence, we might want to pretend that's not true, but it is.
I disagree, and point to a distinction that I learned from an essay of Christopher Hitchens. He described this as (paraphrasing) the distinction from the worldview of Hobbes versus the worldview of Locke.
Hobbes was of course the author of Leviathan, which viewed strong government as the barrier between an ordered society and a brutal state of nature ("the war of all against all"). Entrust a monarch with very strong authority, because the alternative is civil war at all levels of society.
Locke, writing somewhat later, advocated for separation of powers and constraints on the power of the state in general. In particular, the need for the entire state, including a possible monarch, to follow the law.
So, I would argue that the function of the police is to enforce laws, which are arrived at by a social negotiation, and that equating police with violence is mistaken. The threat of police violence is not what holds people in check. Rather, people are held in check by their recognition of the value of the system of justice and laws.
This viewpoint can explain why people have such a strong reaction to police who break that social contract.
Proper riot control has non lethal methods of force
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If the threat of violence wasn't there, there would be no police.
The solution is for MPD to do their fucking jobs and arrest the murderer.
This entire thing is happening because they refuse to simply arrest a man that has been caught on camera slowly murdering a man, simply because he is a cop.
Even if they arrested him and let him bond out (which is what would happen to any non-police individual in this scenario) there would have been zero destruction. Zero.
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Violence != Shooting people
Correct, police = violence. Abolish the police.
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So they're going to not allow posts from gangsta rappers then, right? With avid public approval?
This argument lacks so much nuance, yet I see it in every thread where a communication platform dictates who can and can't be heard.
The danger in the idea of "just find another X" is that, if you are willing to believe that the action in question justifies an open platform's prerogative to censor, then it follows that every alternative platform do the same. This creates black holes, if you will, that are incredibly easy for dissenters to fall down.
I'm not saying that I support Trump's message. But, as a society, we have to be nuanced about this and figure out what constitutes a right to use on massive platforms like Twitter. Twitter isn't just some dinky website. If you are worried about Russians/Chinese/Republicans swaying elections on social media, then you'd better be worried about how Twitter itself picks and chooses what you see.
After all, exactly how many levels down will we go?
Twitter: You can pay your own hosting fees.
Namecheap: Your users can find you at your IP address.
AWS: You can run your own server hardware.
Intel: You can build your own CPU.
Electric Co.: You can generate your own electricity.
VISA: You can take payments in cash.
Hospital: You can use your own butterfly strips and an ibuprofen.
United States: You can find your own country.
I see what you're getting at but it's not really a valid comparison.
Advocating violence (or whatever you want to call it) on Twitter directly affects their bottom line, and enjoyment of the site for other users.
More simply: A toxic environment repels advertisers, users and investors.
Using Namepcheap/AWS/Intel/Whatever for the same purpose does not affect those companies bottom line, or otherwise affect the user experience for other customers.
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> it follows that every alternative platform [will] do the same.
No, it does not. Particularly not in the case of Twitter. And the proof of this is self-evident in the alternatives to Twitter that exist today.
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Everyone is on board with each private platforms freedom to choose its content until it goes against their personal opinions: then, all of a sudden, the spaces of privately owned corporations are instead treated as if they belong to the public.
Net neutrality is important, because the digital infrastructure of the Internet is the "streets" of the digital world. Freedom of speech needs to be protected there, but when you're signing up for a free-of-charge social network that survives on advertising, you are literally soapboxing in a Walmart -- and it can't possibly be the civic duty of this metaphorical corporation to allow you to stay in there and disturb their business, rather than redirect you out into the street, or into your own place of business.
Net neutrality was never about the application layer, it was about the ISP layer.
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How about this for neutrality: When Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders end a post with "the shooting starts", they can get flagged for glorifying violence as well.
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Are you honest to god defending the president saying that American citizens should be shot?
American citizens should be shot in the same circumstances any other citizens should be shot, like when all other reasonable countermeasures fail and they are posing a credible treat to other people's lives.
Lethal force is occasionally necessary, and I agree it should be applied in as minimal as a way possible.
That’s pretty orthogonal to whether or not the political leader of the US should publicly say that looters should be shot.
like when all other reasonable countermeasures fail and they are posing a credible treat to other people's lives.
...neither of which is an outcome in this situation, and looting is not a credible treat to people's lives.
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There are better options than killing people. Even shooting legs is better than shooting to kill. I will never advocate violence on your own citizens because that creates a never ending cycle of violence and vendettas. It’s as stupid and fruitless as populist politics
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Credible treats will be met with incredible tricks.
An alternative interpretation is that he was simply observing that violence begets violence, rather than encouraging it. My take is that he was deliberately ambiguous in order to taunt his opponents whilst also giving himself plausible deniability.
Are you honest to god deducing that the president said American citizens should be shot?
How else would you interpret “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”?
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I think he probably meant exactly what everyone thinks, but you can shoot things other than bullets. Rubber bullets and gas canisters are also “shot.” He could have even been referring to the rioters shooting. I’m sure it would have been worded better if it wasn’t on Twitter, but that’s definitely on him.
The point is if you’re going to censor the president (or anyone, IMO) you should give them the full benefit of the doubt first.
I'm not sure how that's the conclusion you drew from my comment.
> This tweet, while in bad taste IMO, was a threat to those who are planning to continue looting and burning buildings in Minneapolis.
Because I read what you said. You are saying it’s okay for the president to say that looters should be shot, it’s just “in bad taste”.
POTUS is not saying they should be shot, no.
This is the same word games that edge lords use to avoid social consequences; there’s no “I was just kidding” excuse when the president of the United States of America discusses the use of lethal force on American citizens.
He is saying exactly that.
If they loot shot then, that's what he is saying.
It would be fine if it's: if they loot arrest them and if they treat to prevent this by using weapons like guns then you can shoot them if there is no other way.
No..he actually can't
The US is a federated country. The governors of the states have the ability to call in the National Guard to protect their state if they can not use Local/State law enforcement.
If and ONLY if that doesn't work can the State Legislature/Gov formally ask the President for help by calling on the Insurrection Act.
It's actually one of the core tenets of federalism.
Target is minor, they blew up a police station. That’s terrorism level attack. Police should have had control of the situation, they allowed it to happen
I kind of see it backwards from that. Police are an understandable target, given the situation. The police killed someone. But Target didn't do anything.
If I'm not mistaken, being commander in chief doesn't mean that you're above the law. No US law that I'm aware of allows you to threaten mass execution of US citizens.
> He is the commander in chief. He has the capability to threaten violence.
Not to Americans nor on American soil he doesn't. Because of the 4th amendment and the Posse Commitus act.
> the National Guard is not going to do that.
Who is controlled by the Minnesota governor. Trump has no legal authority to threaten protestors with the Minnesota national guard.
He may be commander in chief, but even commanders in chief have to follow certain laws / moral rules. Just observing his behavior during speeches and such, it should be obvious to anyone that Trumps mental state is... abnormal, and needs to be corrected.
Twitter isn't owned by the president or the federal government; Trump has many other legally established venues for his public announcements (whitehouse.gov, for instance). If he prefers to use a private company to speak to the public, he has to abide by its rules - in that regard, he is no different from any other Twitter customer.
Shooting people is not even remotely a correct response to looting. It's why someone might be court marshalled, or dishonorably discharged.
The funny thing is...I remember back when we held the US President to a higher standard than say, the worst soldier in the National Guard. Just because he is making a public statement does not remove the ability of the platform to fact check or accompany it with the idea that it's wrong. News broadcasters can freely air Trump speeches and pair them with fact checks. If trump would like to not be editorialized, he should post this statement on the White Houses's site. The fact of the matter is that he uses twitter for the audience, the claps, the viral followers. Twitter is not a public place, he is using their service for their service and to reach their users. They have every right to make statements on this and enforce their rules.
> he should post this statement on the White Houses's site
All "microblog" type posts made by a president should be posted directly through the White House's own web site, and not be communications through a commercial service.
Yes, shooting is the answer. Shooting rubber bullets, that is, and deploying tear gas and fire hoses.
I’m guessing you weren’t alive in the 1960s. Those are most certainly not the answer. Rubber bullets can blind or kill. Tear gas hurts like hell.
The correct action is reform.
> Rubber bullets can blind or kill. Tear gas hurts like hell.
So... don't go looting? It's supposed to be a deterrent. Maybe you'll think twice about burning down your local target and autozone if there is a risk of being blinded. You'll be perfectly fine as long as you don't reach for your molotov cocktail and baseball bat to go join in the "fun".
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Rubber bullets are a emergency tool if normal anti riot told don't work and the police is atacked work thinks like molotophcocktails. They easily cause major permanent damage like blindness and like work gun it's easy to get the wrong person by accident of groups are involved.