Jan. 6th commission

[Remorseless1]

Trust may just be flat inappropriate, eh?

But yeah, the FBI deliberately causing additional crime as its own goal? The police, especially the secret and essentially unaccountable police, would never!

Nice defection. This ain't the Sixties, when the conservative FBI infiltrated student and civil rights group. Nope, these days, the conservative FBI probably secretly approved of getting rid of this democracy stuff. Funny how conservatives always claim they were manipulated into performing their criminal acts yet insist they are the party of strength and invincibility.

 

[Lexicus]

Trust may just be flat inappropriate, eh?

But yeah, the FBI deliberately causing additional crime as its own goal? The police, especially the secret and essentially unaccountable police, would never!

As usual, I am begging you to make an argument instead of just making insinuations.

If you think Jan 6th was an FBI inside job in the sense that:
-there is actually nothing there except FBI provocation/entrapment
-there is something there but it is outweighed by FBI provocation/ entrapment
-there is something there but FBI provocation/entrapment is at least as much of the 'there' as the Trump faithful doing it on their own

Then I disagree with any of those three claims. Trump directed his supporters to try to overthrow the Constitution by lynching Congress so they couldn't certify the election he lost. This is easily the most serious "individual" act of treason in the whole history of the country (since, while it was a collective action, it was done on behalf of one man, unlike the Confederacy). It isn't even close.

 

[JollyRoger]

I find it plausible that folks so easily manipulated as to follow Trump could be easily lead astray by an FBI agent or two.

 

[Farm Boy]

JR made the argument for me, Lex. No sarcasm. Why do you think the provided picture was of a lethal situation the FBI created for purposes for thrill killing? The nation wore hangmen's clothes then, too. We still have idiots that think those kills were necessary or desirable.

Nice defection. This ain't the Sixties, when the conservative FBI infiltrated student and civil rights group. Nope, these days, the conservative FBI probably secretly approved of getting rid of this democracy stuff. Funny how conservatives always claim they were manipulated into performing their criminal acts yet insist they are the party of strength and invincibility.

Can't put that partisan little ax down, eh? Did you graft it onto your arm?

 

[Lexicus]

JR made the argument for me, Lex. No sarcasm. Why do you think the provided picture was of a lethal situation the FBI created for purposes for thrill killing? The nation wore hangmen's clothes then, too. We still have idiots that think those kills were necessary or desirable.

JR's comment is a sarcastic one, not an argument. Take away the sarcasm and it becomes an insinuation, not an argument.

I don't recognize the picture you posted but I assume it's from Ruby Ridge or Waco (probably Ruby Ridge from that terrain in the background)?

 

[Farm Boy]

Naw man. Ability matters. Resources matter, and baiting abusers love their authority. Daniel Knight got caught out in public drunk and less capable for a couple hours. An employee got annoyed and a cop managed to escalate to where you can now watch him die on the internet. No charges! Officers did everything right. And you can see the interaction on that one, the government is constantly deleting evidence on the other. Look, I'm not saying they're innocent of anything on the 6th, but some police definitely love creating situations where they get to hurt people. If you of all people are selectively writing that off here, man, I'm just confused by you.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I don't recognize the picture you posted but I assume it's from Ruby Ridge

It's Ruby Ridge. I just worked with Google Images "find source" function for the first time.

It just feels to me, Farm Boy, that if there's any person on this site who's going to be skeptical of law enforcement (now that tim's gone), it's Lex, and that if he has concluded, in this case, that the crucial incitement came from Trump rather than some LEO agents in the crowd, then we probably ought to go with that as the real story here.

No LEO arranged that a crowd of tens of thousands was present in the first place and encouraged to start marching in anger and purpose toward the Capitol. If I spit into the Mississippi perhaps it increases the velocity of the current in some measurable degree, but it was rolling pretty well on its own before I spit into it.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Trust may just be flat inappropriate, eh?

But yeah, the FBI deliberately causing additional crime as its own goal? The police, especially the secret and essentially unaccountable police, would never!

They get tons of cash when they open investigations into domestic terrorism.

‘FBI managers get bonuses for domestic terrorism cases’ says FBI whistleblower Steve Friend | Sharyl Attkisson

sharylattkisson.com

FBI ramps up spending to fight MAGA terrorism

The Bureau is conducting three times as many domestic terrorism probes as it was five years ago—and spending less on LGBTQ, race, antisemitism.

www.newsweek.com

It is a booming business!


And when demand outstrips supply, well ...

Entrapment is not a crime.

It merely impedes convictions sometimes.

 

[Lexicus]

Naw man. Ability matters. Resources matter, and baiting abusers love their authority. Daniel Knight got caught out in public drunk and less capable for a couple hours. An employee got annoyed and a cop managed to escalate to where you can now watch him die on the internet. No charges! Officers did everything right. And you can see the interaction on that one, the government is constantly deleting evidence on the other. Look, I'm not saying they're innocent of anything on the 6th, but some police definitely love creating situations where they get to hurt people. If you of all people are selectively writing that off here, man, I'm just confused by you.

This is all still just insinuation. And it's insinuation that makes no damn sense given that the cops by and large did not hurt the January 6th protesters the way they killed everyone at Waco, which is a bit weird if the whole thing was actually engineered by sadistic rogue FBI agents in order to give them an excuse to commit mass murder. In fact, they showed such restraint that more cops died than protesters - to my knowledge one protester died and she really had to go to lengths to make it happen. All of this is impossible to square with what it seems you are arguing, though of course since you haven't made an argument, only some insinuations, I'm guessing the response to this post will be something like "I never said that" even though what you're insinuating seems pretty clear to me.

Another key difference here is that at Ruby Ridge people got acquitted of (most of) the charges against them because of the mistakes the government made. To my knowledge people charged in the Jan 6th stuff have largely been taking guilty pleas. I'm not aware of any acquittals.

The background of this as I understand it is that the cops never expected something like this to happen because they figured they and the Trumpers are basically on the same team because most cops are conservative Republicans. I guess maybe that's the confusing part for you?

 

[Farm Boy]

No LEO arranged that a crowd of tens of thousands was present in the first place and encouraged to start marching in anger and purpose toward the Capitol.

These trials aren't about tens of thousands. They're one person at a time. And yeah, LEOs are on film egging things on. Imagine that.

Nobody would have died at Ruby Ridge if they didn't follow him to the ends of the earth that he could get to, then pester pester pester and set him up on firearms charges. So, get this, they could have a servile undercover operative to keep the spice flowing. Methinks we see a pattern of intentional entrapment. But that's not what earned the acquittals that Lex brings up, that was all just business as usual Americans Approve! "Little mountain racists" and "whatevers" get what they have coming.

 

[Lexicus]

Just spitballing here but has anyone considered the possibility that the LEOs could have been "egging things on" because they agreed that Trump actually won the election and that the steal needed to be stopped? Then when they realized the crowd was going to lynch Congress they realized they effed up big time?

 

[Lexicus]

But that's not what earned the acquittals that Lex brings up, that was all just business as usual Americans Approve! "Little mountain racists" and "whatevers" get what they have coming.

As a side note I do sometimes wonder if you'd still be mad 30 years from now if one of these Aryan freaks murdered me for being in an interracial relationship

 

[Farm Boy]

That probably wouldn't be news.

But given how poorly I function much of the time having lost somebody else I knew for between one decade and two, yeah, odds are good I'd be traumatized 30 years from now.

 

[Lexicus]

That probably wouldn't be news.

But given how poorly I function much of the time having lost somebody else I knew for between one decade and two, yeah, odds are good I'd be traumatized 30 years from now.

That's nice of you (and fwiw you have my condolences for the loss to which you are referring). In case it was unclear, I agree with you the government didn't really need to kill anyone at Ruby Ridge (and that applies even moreso at Waco). I don't know if I agree with some of the other things you've said, my understanding is it was more a case of incompetence and to-a-hammer-everything-looks-like-a-nail than some deliberately-executed plan to kill people for fun.

 

[Farm Boy]

Kinda hoping I'm not still bopping around in 30 years tbh.

It was just good old institutional fun. They know what Aryan freaks look like.

 

[Remorseless1]

JR made the argument for me, Lex. No sarcasm. Why do you think the provided picture was of a lethal situation the FBI created for purposes for thrill killing? The nation wore hangmen's clothes then, too. We still have idiots that think those kills were necessary or desirable.


Can't put that partisan little ax down, eh? Did you graft it onto your arm?

If you could offer a shred of proof, I might agree with you. Otherwise, you can stop being a smartass when people don't agree with you.

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't need to offer proof for mistrust. Though two notable examples of previous behavior on part of the institution have been discussed.

The smart-ass part is the fun part. The rest is angry internet dorks talking about horrible things terrible people do. And that sucks.

 

[Joij21]

Nice defection. This ain't the Sixties, when the conservative FBI infiltrated student and civil rights group. Nope, these days, the conservative FBI probably secretly approved of getting rid of this democracy stuff. Funny how conservatives always claim they were manipulated into performing their criminal acts yet insist they are the party of strength and invincibility.

The fact that many leftists are still angry over what happened in the sixties makes me wonder if, if they then were to get a job in Washington they'd try to seek revenge by politicizing enforcement agencies the other way around.

 

[Gori the Grey]

They might well, but they'd be up against the kind of people who go into law enforcement in the first place, who tend to be very right-leaning.

 

[Joij21]

If you could offer a shred of proof, I might agree with you. Otherwise, you can stop being a smartass when people don't agree with you.

But see did the CIA or any of these other enforcement agencies ever leave any proof behind until someone leaked something or a Freedom of Information request happens after it's become irrelevant?

This is the problem with what I see as people who subscribe to a dogmatic empiricism. They need concurrent evidence now, without realizing that in any good conspiracy against the public hardly anything would be left behind as evidence. Even if the few bits of evidence that exist are given, the proclaim in ain't enough, declaring others to be conspiracy theorists.

And yet many of these so called individuals who praise "logic", "the facts", and "empiricism" suddenly throw all of those out the door and just assume the worst whenever their favorite political party is no longer at the helm despite the fact that the security apparatus remains unchanged regardless of what insignificant party's president is in the White House. These people act as though party affiliation is the only thing that matters in the whole world.