alt Hacker NewsMan, this is chilling. Between this and those "anti-ice" protestors that got a collective 450 years of jail time, it seems pretty close to police state levels of power, corruption and control.
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I think we can stop pretending it's "pretty close" and just call it what it is.
Didn't they get 450 years of jail time (spread among nine people IIRC) for attacking a government building with explosives and committing attempted murder?[0] If the start of your pattern of "police state levels of power, corruption and control" is people engaging in organized terrorism, (i.e. using violence for political ends) being convicted of terrorism offenses, then I guess I don't see it. Looks to me like some folks wanted to LARP as revolutionaries but with real bullets & explosives and were surprised the government's tolerance for that was limited.
> it seems pretty close to police state levels of power, corruption and control.
And: which country has the highest incarceration rate in the world?
Go watch the body cam footage of the peaceful protest. Looks a lot like people with guns hid in the woods and shot a cop who responded to what looked like a terrorist attack.
You think a prison sentence for shooting a federal law enforcement officer in the neck is chilling?
Cats always have claws, not just when they're showing.
Just remember that there is a child somewhere who saw their mum for the last time happily dropping them for school only to be shot by an ICE agent seconds after he called her a fucking bitch - and the agent faced no consequences for this. Every time I think about that kid my heart breaks. Every time I think about the cruelty of the system unwilling to at least put this one wrong right and prosecute the agent properly my heart breaks. What a unbelievably cruel world we live in.
Add to that the weaponization of the justice department. Former FBI director Comey charged 3 times as retaliation, Senator Mark Kelly and other senators, even lowly aides such as Cassidy Hutchinson, all facing retaliation.
David Hearn, the former Olympic canoeist was accused and indicted for damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, purely as a scapegoat.
All federal funds to the state of Colorado frozen to force them to release a convicted-and-imprisoned ally of the administration (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOE6DTMjPEc )
All of this happening out in the open, no checks, no balances. Yeah it isn't "pretty close", it is a police state.