That's a lot off opinions in one article. You don't think posting on social media is a right. I don't either but I do think if the media operators decide the content, they should be responsible for the content. You don't think airline travel is a right. I agree to the extreme and think of it as something to be avoided. I'm surprised to hear that a many commercial pilots disagree in this matter.
You think people engaged in civil disobedience should be prepared to accept the consequences. I do too but the laws are not applied equally. Case in point being the relatively inconsequential Capitol riot compared to the arson, looting and killing in Portland, Atlanta, Seattle, Minneapolis and other large cities.
You think history is important but support removal of significant historic names and statuary. So your argument against discomfort is somewhat questionable.
"You think history is important but support removal of significant historic names and statuary. So your argument against discomfort is somewhat questionable."
Why are you so interested in preventing local communities from choosing who they honor in their parks and who they choose to leave to the history books (which ARE NOT being erased every time someone takes down a statue)?
If you're learning you history from a bunch of sculptures, you're doing it wrong.
Except that there's finite space for statues. Why fault a community for replacing or removing a statue of someone they don't feel represents them well with someone who does?
And which statues were removed that were done over the objections of the local community and government? All I've seen is a bunch of out-of-towners second-guessing what what people want to keep in their local parks.
Yeah, that's probably true except that many out-of-towners have an interest in state capitals such as Richmond, Nashville and Atlanta or the national capital or military bases or charming historical cities like Savannah (If you haven't been there, you should go). I don't really care that NYC removes a statue of Teddy Roosevelt or that San Francisco does whatever it is they do to Abe Lincoln or that the Taliban destroys historical artifacts. I just think it is a shame that so many ideologues are idiots.
Maybe. It might be even better if all state and federal capital locations were in unincorporated locations wjth no residents. Same for county seats as it was in Columbia County, Georgia where I lived for about twenty years.
Nowhere close to the thousands who participated. And very few of those arrested were prosecuted. Many were bailed out with the help of our current VP. Nothing like the 750 or so protesters arrested for the Capitol riot. Similarly, the snatch and grab raiders are mostly free and selling their loot on Ebay.
Maybe destroying and looting cities does not justify armed interdiction, but something has to be done.
Here in Chicago, a local blog who covers the Chicago crime beat posted a list of what happened after the 2020 riots here, so I have some personal experience to draw upon:
Given the extent to which downtown Chicago was looted and sacked, it's EMBARRASSING how little CWB was able to pull up in terms of consequences for that violence and of what they did find, how many cases where charges were dropped or plead significantly down.
I'm hoping that other municipalities threw the book harder at the folks who were part of the violence. We have a well-known problem of local Chicago prosecutors (Kim Foxx, et al.) not doing their jobs and prosecuting criminals, which has led to a lot of crime post-2020, which having severe public safety and economic repercussions in parts of the city.
One thing this article does not go into is the reasoning as to why those various cases were dropped or pled down to lesser charges. This may play back to my point: that perhaps the cases weren't strong enough, or a witness backed out of testifying, etc.... This does not remove the possibility of prosecutorial shenanigans/discretion: generally prosecutors want to get cases brought or pled if they can successfully do so, and not if they cannot.
How many of the rioters/looters in various cities recorded or streamed themselves committing those crimes, compared to January 6 rioters/seditionists? Having good evidence (especially provided by the perpetrators themselves) makes it more likely that charges will be brought and tried. And of course it being a Federal issue, rather than a county or State issue.
There's a lot of woke social justice'ing going on:
"The Cook County State's Attorney's office approved a total of 392 cases stemming from the two looting episodes in May and August. But nearly a year after the first looters took to the streets, only 33 cases have made it through the courts. Out of those, 26 individuals received probation and only seven will end up doing time in jail."
"'Most of the cases that have been resolved have been resolved by a plea agreement where someone has agreed to plead guilty versus to have their case go to trial,' Foxx said. 'I think when we look at these cases, we look at not only the offense but what that person's background is.'"[1]
The fact that the total number of people going to jail (1.8% of the original felony charges) is several orders of magnitude lower than the number of business that were sacked and at least one order of magnitude lower than the number of business that left Chicago entirely is a pretty good signal that the prosecutors are NOT sending a message that robbery and looting will be taken seriously in this city. We're seeing that tree bear fruit with the rash of robberies over the past several months (outside a riot context) that's decimated several shopping districts that would draw in out-of-state commerce throughout the summer and holiday months.
To get back to Curtis's original point, I have no problem saying that the city of Chicago is taking the 2020 violence and looting less seriously than the Jan. 6 Commission is going after the insurrections that stormed the Capitol. Unlike Curtis, I think that Chicago prosecutors need to be more like the Jan. 6 Commission than the inverse.
I guess I just wonder, so what? Do you really think sending someone to jail is appropriate for a few hundred to a few thousands of dollars in property damage? I am pretty sure that is what most of these people were charged with.
I don't think those who trespassed at the capitol deserve jail. Pay a fine, do some probation, and some community service and let's save some tax payer money.
Maybe...just maybe...there's better evidence for Jan 6 than others. And maybe...just maybe...Jan 6 gets more eyes, and you just don't see the local charges so often.
Maybe. Maybe with all the violence and destruction that took place in Minneapolis, there weren't that many arrests and the majority of those were charged with curfew violation. Maybe with the continuing violence in Portland there were few arrests. Thirty of those arrests were by federal agents for attempted murder of federal employees who were inside a federal courthouse during attempted arson. Half of those cases were dismissed, and the punishment so far has been community service.
The violence and destruction in Atlanta during the Rayshard Brooks riots has resulted in three charges of arson for burning a Wendy's.
It should be easy enough for LEOs to snatch a few miscreants (at least those destroying police cars and some of the looters) and charge them, but they have orders to stand down. It should be easy for DAs to prosecute but they do not.
If they did not have orders to stand down. I've seen criminals taken down. It's easy enough. The politicians sacrifice public and private property hoping that will appease the criminals. I suppose it's better than burning virgins at the stake or throwing them into a volcano.
The magic political eight ball says "political homelessness" for traditional conservatives for many election cycles on the horizon.
That's a lot off opinions in one article. You don't think posting on social media is a right. I don't either but I do think if the media operators decide the content, they should be responsible for the content. You don't think airline travel is a right. I agree to the extreme and think of it as something to be avoided. I'm surprised to hear that a many commercial pilots disagree in this matter.
You think people engaged in civil disobedience should be prepared to accept the consequences. I do too but the laws are not applied equally. Case in point being the relatively inconsequential Capitol riot compared to the arson, looting and killing in Portland, Atlanta, Seattle, Minneapolis and other large cities.
You think history is important but support removal of significant historic names and statuary. So your argument against discomfort is somewhat questionable.
"You think history is important but support removal of significant historic names and statuary. So your argument against discomfort is somewhat questionable."
Why are you so interested in preventing local communities from choosing who they honor in their parks and who they choose to leave to the history books (which ARE NOT being erased every time someone takes down a statue)?
If you're learning you history from a bunch of sculptures, you're doing it wrong.
Honoring has nothing to do with historical significance. And not all of the foolishness is local.
Except that there's finite space for statues. Why fault a community for replacing or removing a statue of someone they don't feel represents them well with someone who does?
And which statues were removed that were done over the objections of the local community and government? All I've seen is a bunch of out-of-towners second-guessing what what people want to keep in their local parks.
Yeah, that's probably true except that many out-of-towners have an interest in state capitals such as Richmond, Nashville and Atlanta or the national capital or military bases or charming historical cities like Savannah (If you haven't been there, you should go). I don't really care that NYC removes a statue of Teddy Roosevelt or that San Francisco does whatever it is they do to Abe Lincoln or that the Taliban destroys historical artifacts. I just think it is a shame that so many ideologues are idiots.
Tough for the out-of-towners: why should they have a say in what the locals do?
All boils down to ad hominems, eh?
Maybe. It might be even better if all state and federal capital locations were in unincorporated locations wjth no residents. Same for county seats as it was in Columbia County, Georgia where I lived for about twenty years.
There were lots of arrests in the BLM rioting. It's a myth to suggest that rioters weren't charged in those cases.
Nowhere close to the thousands who participated. And very few of those arrested were prosecuted. Many were bailed out with the help of our current VP. Nothing like the 750 or so protesters arrested for the Capitol riot. Similarly, the snatch and grab raiders are mostly free and selling their loot on Ebay.
Maybe destroying and looting cities does not justify armed interdiction, but something has to be done.
I'm going to back you up on this one, Curtis.
Here in Chicago, a local blog who covers the Chicago crime beat posted a list of what happened after the 2020 riots here, so I have some personal experience to draw upon:
https://cwbchicago.com/2022/02/dozens-were-arrested-during-the-riots-protests-and-looting-of-2020-heres-what-happened-in-court.html
Given the extent to which downtown Chicago was looted and sacked, it's EMBARRASSING how little CWB was able to pull up in terms of consequences for that violence and of what they did find, how many cases where charges were dropped or plead significantly down.
I'm hoping that other municipalities threw the book harder at the folks who were part of the violence. We have a well-known problem of local Chicago prosecutors (Kim Foxx, et al.) not doing their jobs and prosecuting criminals, which has led to a lot of crime post-2020, which having severe public safety and economic repercussions in parts of the city.
One thing this article does not go into is the reasoning as to why those various cases were dropped or pled down to lesser charges. This may play back to my point: that perhaps the cases weren't strong enough, or a witness backed out of testifying, etc.... This does not remove the possibility of prosecutorial shenanigans/discretion: generally prosecutors want to get cases brought or pled if they can successfully do so, and not if they cannot.
How many of the rioters/looters in various cities recorded or streamed themselves committing those crimes, compared to January 6 rioters/seditionists? Having good evidence (especially provided by the perpetrators themselves) makes it more likely that charges will be brought and tried. And of course it being a Federal issue, rather than a county or State issue.
There's a lot of woke social justice'ing going on:
"The Cook County State's Attorney's office approved a total of 392 cases stemming from the two looting episodes in May and August. But nearly a year after the first looters took to the streets, only 33 cases have made it through the courts. Out of those, 26 individuals received probation and only seven will end up doing time in jail."
"'Most of the cases that have been resolved have been resolved by a plea agreement where someone has agreed to plead guilty versus to have their case go to trial,' Foxx said. 'I think when we look at these cases, we look at not only the offense but what that person's background is.'"[1]
The fact that the total number of people going to jail (1.8% of the original felony charges) is several orders of magnitude lower than the number of business that were sacked and at least one order of magnitude lower than the number of business that left Chicago entirely is a pretty good signal that the prosecutors are NOT sending a message that robbery and looting will be taken seriously in this city. We're seeing that tree bear fruit with the rash of robberies over the past several months (outside a riot context) that's decimated several shopping districts that would draw in out-of-state commerce throughout the summer and holiday months.
To get back to Curtis's original point, I have no problem saying that the city of Chicago is taking the 2020 violence and looting less seriously than the Jan. 6 Commission is going after the insurrections that stormed the Capitol. Unlike Curtis, I think that Chicago prosecutors need to be more like the Jan. 6 Commission than the inverse.
[1] https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/one-year-after-looting-rampages-in-chicago-few-defendants-are-getting-jail-time/2508748/
I guess I just wonder, so what? Do you really think sending someone to jail is appropriate for a few hundred to a few thousands of dollars in property damage? I am pretty sure that is what most of these people were charged with.
I don't think those who trespassed at the capitol deserve jail. Pay a fine, do some probation, and some community service and let's save some tax payer money.
You do know getting bailed out doesn't let you off the hook right? Jeez.
I do know that. I also know that posting bail indicates the VP supports violent criminals.
Maybe...just maybe...there's better evidence for Jan 6 than others. And maybe...just maybe...Jan 6 gets more eyes, and you just don't see the local charges so often.
Maybe. Maybe with all the violence and destruction that took place in Minneapolis, there weren't that many arrests and the majority of those were charged with curfew violation. Maybe with the continuing violence in Portland there were few arrests. Thirty of those arrests were by federal agents for attempted murder of federal employees who were inside a federal courthouse during attempted arson. Half of those cases were dismissed, and the punishment so far has been community service.
The violence and destruction in Atlanta during the Rayshard Brooks riots has resulted in three charges of arson for burning a Wendy's.
It should be easy enough for LEOs to snatch a few miscreants (at least those destroying police cars and some of the looters) and charge them, but they have orders to stand down. It should be easy for DAs to prosecute but they do not.
And if it was so easy, then they would. It must be harder than you think it is.
If they did not have orders to stand down. I've seen criminals taken down. It's easy enough. The politicians sacrifice public and private property hoping that will appease the criminals. I suppose it's better than burning virgins at the stake or throwing them into a volcano.