200 Trump inauguration protesters face 70 years in prison each over 6 broken windows

That’s the lesson you take from this? I suggest a moment of reconsideration.

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Right on! Just FYI, though: malicious prosecution is a tort, not a crime.

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Other journalists and medics were caught in this as well:

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Also in Alternate-Earth abusing institutional powers is a crime, not a tort.

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“It’s all the fault of those anarchists and socialists. If they hadn’t been making trouble, none of this would have happened.”

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Technically, it is (malfeasance in office, or related federal crimes). But you can literally count on your fingers the number of times in US history that prosecutorial misconduct has been criminally prosecuted (let alone successfully). :angry:

Prosecutors are also shielded from civil liability. It is the municipality that bears the liability, just like with police.

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On Alternate-Earth, cops are also directly held responsible for violations of their sacred oaths and with higher penalties since they are in trusted positions of authority.

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So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Preface to Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo.

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smells like nazis

You’re needed in the Whitehouse; the Prez needs a fluffer to clean off the blood and shit from fucking the country up the arse.

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Kind of brings Broken Windows policing to a whole new level. I mean, Trump did promise to go BIG on everything…

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Black Bloc is comprised of idiots and cops, and controlled by the latter. Any time they have come to my town, their function has been to give the state an excuse to use disproportional force against otherwise lawful protesters.

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Well, it wasn’t JUST the windows… I heard they also did not stand for the anthem…

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Excerpt from “Antifa Isn’t A Hobby Or A Fad”: A Q&A With Mark Bray | The New Republic

But for the perspective of someone else commonly affiliated with people using black bloc tactics:

Not entirely my thing; Scott is of an anarchist tendency, I’m more of a socialist sort. But worth a listen; the transcript is an abridged summary that omits most of the detail.

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Also worth reading is the ACLU’s proposed amicus brief:

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Just a reminder of what happened in Seattle the same day as the inauguration


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And you think that would stop the cops and far right? They don’t need an excuse.

Not that I would recommend breaking random windows as a tactic either.

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Anarchists would point out that they are socialists too, they just don’t think it should be the state that runs things.

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I know. :slight_smile:

How do we talk about these things without requiring constant footnotes or confusing the hell out of centrists, though? Is there a way to make the terminology clearer but still usable?

I suppose I could’ve just said that I’m a bit more statist than Scott. He sees community self-defence as a positive good, I see it as a regrettable necessity in a collapsing society.

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Let’s compare how the second Bush administration handled protesters. The lead up to the war in Iraq was greeted with some of the largest international anti-war protests in recorded history. You’d head out to the march, be impressed with its sheer size and civil behavior. Then, you’d go home and turn on the news to see three of these guys standing by a freeway somewhere:

That’s how a real president handles large street protests. It helps if you don’t spend all your time insulting the media that is literally there to help you broadcast your message.