Out of the mayhem at the Capitol last week there were reports of people with explosives and weaponry in their cars. That's bad. But ... I'm a little confused. There were, as far as I can tell, two groups of protesters. One group was already at the Capitol ready to protest, waiting for the other, much larger group at the rally down the street. It was this rally down the street at which speakers made inflammatory statements, the worst of which seems to have been Trump's instructions to march peacefully. So this second group at the rally then marched to the Capitol and chaos ensued. So far, so good. We have our facts, such as they are.
The first question I asked myself was, "How many of the rioters came from the rally down the street?" Clearly in the assault on the Capitol building a relatively small number of people actually entered the building. Most protesters remained outside. How many of the actual offenders came from the rally and how many were already there? You see, if it was largely those who were not at the rally, then the speeches at the rally had nothing to do with this group's assault.
Then it occurred to me about those stories of people with weapons, explosives, and incendiary devices in their vehicles. If they showed up with this stuff, this clearly demonstrates that this was all premeditated. They arrived planning mayhem. So these people could not have been merely spurred by anything at a rally moments before. This was planned in advance. And then the FBI reports that they were investigating the possibility of this kind of violence three weeks before. Clearly it wasn't the speeches at that rally that spurred this on despite the certainty that everyone seems to feel that it was.
I know. Unacceptable. The use of logic and facts will not be allowed in this question. I get it. So, go on about your day. Be warm and fed. I'll just sit over here in my quiet corner and be skeptical of the narrative we're being fed.
4 comments:
I've heard some try to put forth the notion that because Trump mentioned this rally prior to it having taken place, then he was involved in organizing the attack on the Capitol building. What you have to realize is that there just has to be some way to tie Trump to the behavior of the rioters, and by golly anything will do.
I think that the key to this is that no one has actually had the opportunity to see what all of the evidence actually is. I've seen some timeline things that indicate that the breach at the capitol started before Trump got to the "incitement" portion of his speech. We've seen at least one far left/BLM affiliated dude get arrested for his role in the riot. Historically this sort of out of control rioting is not the norm for conservatives. When there were protests in MI, they were incredibly peaceful and limited. Even the plot to kidnap the MI governor wasn't came out of a small group of people trying to be secretive, not a raging mob.
While I find the behavior of the rioters despicable and indefensible, I also think that this rush to judgement based on a narrative, without enough time to even evaluate the evidence, doesn't seem right. I'm all for finding, arresting, charging, convicting, and jailing these people as quickly and expeditiously as possible. I hope they get the maximum sentence allowed by law. But, I also want to see free, fair, trials with all of the evidence presented as publicly as possible.
Wow. We are a society quick to convict with minimal (or no) evidence (and ignore evidence when it contradicts our preferred view), but convicting him before the event because they're sure he did it? That's right up there with any QAnon conspiracy theory they despise.
You’re right on target with the desire to convict people without all/any evidence.
Post a Comment