Cross-posted from “The ultimate centrist” by @[email protected] in [email protected]
These two things are the same 
That isn’t centrist, that’s just dumb
I can also have AI make a picture of a mural of Hitler with a bunch off Jewish people and call it centrism, but that too is just dumb
Centrism, Dumb, what’s the difference? As far as I can tell centrism is just the political position of saying “I don’t know what the difference between any of you are, and I refuse to learn and develop an opinion”
For people who forgot which one Ashli Babbit was:
On January 6, 2021, Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot during the attack on the United States Capitol. She was part of a mob of supporters of then-outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump who stormed the United States Capitol seeking to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. At the time of her killing, Babbitt was a 35-year-old United States Air Force veteran and a supporter of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory.
It’s hard if not impossible to have a more justified killing; she was trying to get into the part of the capital where the lawmakers were hiding. Officer held the line and did what they needed to do to protect themselves, lawmakers, and democracy.
If one had gotten through, more people would have gotten through and a lot more people would have been hurt.
It’s unfortunate she died, and I believe that most of the people there were rubes that only really intended to shit on desks and piss in each other’s mouths, but mobs go nuts.
Look at the case of Marina Abramovic… she did a performance piece where people could do whatever they want to her and she would just stand there. It started out innocently enough by the end she was cut up and someone had pointed a gun to her head.
Anyway, point is, even if you believe people didn’t intend to hurt other people, these things change when mobs realize there will be no repercussions for their actions.
Holding the line was the right thing to do.
It’s unfortunate she died,
honorable folk may differ
Ok there Lt. Worf.
Eh wouldn’t have minded them getting their hands on “lawmakers” maybe then some of them would take this seriously
Nah we would have had Trump 2 four years earlier; or maybe total collapse who knows
This is what AI is good for, something so fucking dumb it actually causes physical damage to your brain. Like for real we could put people under an MRI scan and we could see the brain being damaged in real time.
I’ve read somewhere you can’t actually directly feel the damage to your brain because it doesn’t have pain receptors on the inside. That picture just proved it wrong.
I don’t like when cops kill people, I think they should always be investigated by a third party when someone dies. But also, when a cop is pointing a gun at you and says don’t come closer, continuing to cross the barricade they set up to keep you out is tantamount to suicide. The cops had a duty to protect congress and lethal force was reasonable in that scenario
I don’t know about killing to defend Congress but he has legitimate cause through self defense regardless so… Get clapped, fash trash.
Driving a car is the EXACT same as Trying to Murder Members of Congress!
-Americans!
Eh, the members of Congress deserve to hang.
Babbitt’s crime wasn’t her trying to attack our Imperialist overlords rather that she was doing so in order to enable a fascist regime to take their place. That is the part people should be focusing on. Not the methods but the reasoning they engaged in them.
If we are going to lambast her, we need to do it properly. Because there will come a day when it is us who have to storm the capitol to depose these fascist fucks ourselves.
Those kind are pronounced 'Muricans
We’re reaching critical levels of shitlib with this one 🔥
“Everybody tells me not to do this, because it would make me a revolting asshole of epic proportions. I can’t get anybody to do this for me, because none of them wants to be revolting assholes of epic proportions. Oh, I know! LLMs - they were made for this!”
I wonder what the people in that building feels about what this’ll do to the desirability of living there and the predictable impact on property prices. “So… How much are you willing to pay me for moving into something with that slapped on the side of it? I’m afraid I can’t go lower than $300K.”
What is this? Did the “AI” put that on the wall or is this photoshopped?
It’s rage bait for attention. And it has worked exactly as intended.
Just an image generated with something like nano banana possibly with a real photograph uploaded to overlay the generated mural onto
Its the Twin Cites, couldn’t it not be a play on ‘A Tale of Two Cities’?
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
in that it ends with everyone being executed? (spoilers)
the blurst of times!? you stupid orange monkey
Neither was trying to kill anyone, only to take back the country from the political machine
Babbitt: “I want to stop the certified election so my daddy president can be installed as a dictator”
Good: “I’m protesting the gestapo ICE 🧊 agents from harassing my community”
Dumbest centrist: “these people are literally the same”
Good wasn’t even protesting
Just existing in space. Trying to take herself from one location to another. The continued promotion of her existence as a protestor is actually harmful to trying to get people to understand the true nature of American policing and particularly ICE. If you exist in space in America, you can be killed.
That’s it.
That’s all it takes.
I mean this is stupid but there’s way more stupid forms of enlightened centrism. Like if we’re just mourning victims of police violence, even if they’re reactionary assholes I think that’s a net positive.
What horrible opinion to have.
Babbitt was not a victim of the overall issues with police violence. She was part of a violent insurrection who had to be stopped from physically attacking congress.
I understand that. They still killed her. Being upset about that is a normal human response regardless of her crimes.
Babbitt was not a victim.
Why not?
i describe the issues with the January 6 insurrectionists and the peaceful transfer of power within the republican (government structure, not party) state in similar terms to the paradox of tolerance. it’s a paradox of pacifism, or more accurately, a paradox of anti-violence. in a society that values non-violence, violent threats to pacifism cannot be allowed to stand. the reason this is is that pacifism is a social contract, not a virtue. we can have a long conversation somewhere else about that ashlii babbit and her friends did get one thing right: that the american system of structural violence will only ever be ended with a violent uprising that opposes it.
the problem lies in what ashlii babbitt and her friends were using violence to establish. they wanted to end the tradition of the american non-violent transfer of power in order to give more authority to a central autocracy to strengthen the police state. this central autocracy and strengthened police state would later go on to kill Renee Nicole Good via the hands of jonathan ross.
i can empathize with being saddened at the loss of life of a deluded human being. however i cannot sympathize with being saddened at a man defending the non-violent transfer of power killing a woman who wanted to intensify the structural violence of the system she lived under. ashlii babbit was not the victim of police violence. he death was the result of a desperate effort to keep a violent status quo from getting more violent.
i don’t think the cop that shot her understood that the status quo is violence, but i think he understood that ashlii babbitt represented more violence than a non-violent society can be allowed to tolerate.
Part of an armed mob beating cops and forcibly entering a building where the mob was chanting that they would hang members of the government?
You are right. I’ve got nothing beyond that.
I mean, nothing was wrong with their methods. It’s what needs to happen. What was wrong was the reasons they wanted to engage in those actions.
Cops deserve to eat the curb and the members of our government deserve to hang. I can’t disagree with that. The only thing I disagree with is that they wanted to do so in order to enable fascism.
I mean, nothing was wrong with their methods. It’s what needs to happen. What was wrong was the reasons they wanted to engage in those actions.
I’m confused, are you saying there was nothing wrong with an armed mob invading the capital and trying to hang our government?
Weak.
You asked for a justification. You didn’t provide any additional parameters. This is on you.
The most common definition of a victim is someone who dies from a crime, and the word carries an underlying meaning of the harm coming from something not justified.
She wasn’t killed because the police overreacted or because they are trained to shoot first, she was breaking through a barrier in pursuit of committing violence and had to be stopped. Previous non-lethal attempts to stop the violence were attempted, and she was part of a crowd that could overwhelm the security. Lethal violence was needed to defend lives and therefore she is not a victim.
This is not comparable to police overreacting with disproportionate violence.
I know I used the word crime above but I don’t consider most laws morally legitimate so whether it was a crime or not is barely relevant.
I don’t think it’s wrong to describe someone who was killed by another person as a victim. Even if they were guilty of horrible crimes.
This is a conversation I’ve had several times. I think it’s very strange that so many leftists claim to want to dismantle our justice system but endorse the same punitive logic behind it. Maybe it was necessary to kill Ashlee Babbitt, frankly, I don’t know all the details. But she was killed by the police and that makes her a victim in my mind nonetheless. Killing someone is always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s just the least bad thing you can do.
I think it is, personally, wrong to define someone who died as a result of their own actions as a victim. I think storming a building filled with armed individuals and expecting them to not use them on you places you firmly in the realm of ‘not a victim’. That’s like playing on a railroad, getting hit by a train, then blaming the train.
I would not define someone who commits suicide as a victim. I would describe everyone left behind as a victim, but not the person who kills themselves. * For example, we in the U.S. are victims of the Jan. 6th insurrection due to the downstream effects on our current politics. Disclaimer: I believe everyone should have the right to end their lives however they want.
Beyond that, I also think it’s odd to use terms like ‘good’ and ‘bad (evil)’ when discussing things like this. Is it ‘bad’ to kill a serial rapist? Is it ‘bad’ to kill a child rapist? Am I a ‘bad’ guy for killing a ‘bad’ person?
Death is a natural consequence of life, we do not live forever. I think there are plenty of examples, naturally and fictionally, of why death is necessary.
Edit*: provided an example
Good to see some actual nuanced leftist takes even if they are being heavily downvoted.
I’m not sad about police shooting Babbit like I’m not sad about Hitler shooting himself. She got exactly what she deserved.
Being shot, because you approach security people by climbing through a broken window during an insurrection.
Being shot three times at an arms length because you try to flee from a gang of people that play GeStaPo?
The same thing apparently…
Clearly not. That’s why I said it was stupid.
