DavidTC: Trying to pretend the protestors are saying ‘No Jews at all’ is just…basically hallucinating,
If they are supporting Hamas, which some of them are, then keep in mind that Hamas' charter says "no Jews at all" and they have the habit of killing or kidnaping every Jew they can.
Every time a protester chants "from the river to the sea" we have the problem that this would involve a 2nd holocaust if they were serious.
Of course the vast bulk of them aren't calling for Israel to be Jew free. They haven't seen a map, don't understand what they're saying, and are not serious.
The Palestinian narrative is the Jews were dropped on the country of Palestine by Western Powers because of guilt over the holocaust.
That Israel is literally a colony; the Jews are foreigners; this state couldn't exist without that support.
This is their grand narrative, and if we believe it then Israel doesn't have any right to exist any more than India-as-English had a right to exist. The moment the West walks away, Israel is gone.
The problems are none of that is true and that narrative causes serious problems in resolving the conflict.
LeeEsq: they have gone somewhat berserk in their response
Have they? We know of lots of dead civilians because Hamas tells us... except Hamas claims all of the dead have been civilians and most women and children.
The local media there are so in bed with Hamas that I watched a local "reporter" get very upset at the suggestion that "both sides" were committing war crimes and not just Israel.
Big picture Israel wants Hamas gone, and any war that is going to attempt that will require them to attack hospitals and other civilian areas because Hamas is there.
The local population strongly supports Hamas and their efforts. Hamas has been running the media, the charities, and the educational system for a long time. Their option is they should be able to commit mass murder without suffering from a war.
Within the (very, very large) margin of error, it is possible Israel is fighting a civilized war to the extent it can. To be fair they also might be needlessly punitive and brutal.
Given Israel has dropped a lot more bombs than they've killed people, they're probably making some effort to avoid civilian deaths.
Hamas and others have spent a lot of time and energy claiming things that fit the Left's worldview nicely. White vs Non-white. Colonialism is bad. Power is bad. Lack of power is virtue.
However these are emotional arguments. There are facts that are really jarring if we pay attention. Hamas targeting and killing civilians. Israel's "colonial backer" keeps changing.
Most damning at the moment, we have the argument that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. They can even present various dead bodies, and they claim there are a lot more.
However, for every dead body in Gaza, Israel has dropped two bombs. That suggests the Israeli army is going out of it's way to not kill civilians.
What Rittenhouse knew at the time was he was being chased down and attacked.
The "protesters" ("rioters" is a better word) knew very little and were in lynch mob territory.
After the fact we found out that Rosenbaum was a lunatic freshly released from a mental hospital with a history of attacking boys, and the media still insisted he was an innocent protester.
We also found out Rittenhouse was a local. The media insisted he was from "out of state" but the state line was very close. He worked there and his dad's house was there.
8% of the adult population conceal carry, or 10% if we exclude California and New York. That's an overcount because it's "active licenses".
We have had protests nationwide.
The number of CC people shooting rival protesters has apparently been zero.
Rittenhouse, the poster child for the out-of-control-gun-carrier, shot an apolitical insane serial pedophile rapist who attacked him. Then the situation got worse when the protesters jumped in to back up the pedophile.
Far as I can tell the behavior of the gun carrying people in all this has been fine. It's the protesters who behave like entitled children.
With Rittenhouse, the first guy he shot had no politics and was a random lunatic there for the chaos. His history of 5x sex crimes against boys probably had something to do with him attacking Rittenhouse.
After that the Protesters wanted to back him up because he was one of their own. Three of them attacked Rittenhouse (all three having a history of violence) and two got shot.
This was all reasonably predictable. Rittenhouse wanting to put out fires and supply medical care are good reasons to be there anyway.
The current protests are going to attract anti-Semites and others who enjoy violence and chaos.
We're also going to have Jewish students there because it's a college.
So... is it acceptable for the college Presidents to force the Jewish students to not be there because they're Jews?
This is Rittenhouse territory. The protesters are "mostly peaceful". The vast bulk of the protesters are crying coeds and the like.
Large protests attract nuts and create intense emotions. They easily step into territory that they shouldn't. They enable behavior that is unacceptable and outright illegal.
If you have a large enough crowd of people upset at Jews, the odds someone will go over the line is decently high.
InMD: The mistake is the belief that anyone needs protection from mere words.
I am not a lawyer, but my impression is it's illegal to tell people that you're going to kill them or otherwise threaten them. When I check the internet I see various protesters being arrested for exactly that.
If you're protesting a cause you're fine. Ditto if you're protesting a country. If you're protesting a people then you're likely evil and getting really close to the edge but you're still fine...
...but if one of those people is walking by and you single them out then we're back to it being illegal to threaten people.
Universities being unable to trust that their Jewish students will be safe because they expect the "peaceful" protesters will attack them suggests multiple lines have been crossed.
The counter argument that "we don't think they're serious" is true. However we still have the issue on what to do about Jewish students and Professors.
Asking Jews to live with terrorism (i.e. threats of violence) seems like a failure. If the protestors are making threats then they should be taken seriously.
InMD: There’s no reason to send in the riot police on that.
We thought that about abortion protesters until they started killing doctors. We thought that about various other people and then discovered they were more serious than expected. We had 911 because we weren't taking AQ seriously or at it's word.
Most of these protesters are LARPing. We still have to take them seriously because they're making serious claims.
Some of those "serious claims" amount to "no Jews".
I'm amazed college administrators don't know this and have it part of "lessons learned" somewhere. Or maybe they do and it only hits the news when one of the thousands of Presidents drops the ball.
On “Campus Insurrections?”
"Got his job back"?
Pike (cop #1 and the guy in the picture) was fired and wasn't taken back.
He wasn't criminally charged. Because of the 17k death threats he received he got some workman's comp.
Lee (cop #2) wasn't on the state database for people employed there a year later. Might have quit before he could be fired but we don't know.
"
Part of it is scale. It's like the big lie, if you repeat something often enough, then it must have some truth to it.
There are hundreds of millions of Muslims who believe Israel shouldn't exist because of reasons.
Israel is a lightning rod. Anything that is wrong in the Middle East and/or any horrible act that someone wants to do gets put onto it existing.
Various other leaders have said they can't stop abusing their own citizens until Israel does whatever.
Saddam invaded a fellow Arabic country and claimed he'd give it back if the Israelis would do whatever.
OBL claimed 911 was because of Israel. The number of Jews his organization attempted to kill was zero.
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DavidTC: Trying to pretend the protestors are saying ‘No Jews at all’ is just…basically hallucinating,
If they are supporting Hamas, which some of them are, then keep in mind that Hamas' charter says "no Jews at all" and they have the habit of killing or kidnaping every Jew they can.
Every time a protester chants "from the river to the sea" we have the problem that this would involve a 2nd holocaust if they were serious.
Of course the vast bulk of them aren't calling for Israel to be Jew free. They haven't seen a map, don't understand what they're saying, and are not serious.
"
Sounds like the Southern narrative were all the slaves were happy.
"
The Palestinian narrative is the Jews were dropped on the country of Palestine by Western Powers because of guilt over the holocaust.
That Israel is literally a colony; the Jews are foreigners; this state couldn't exist without that support.
This is their grand narrative, and if we believe it then Israel doesn't have any right to exist any more than India-as-English had a right to exist. The moment the West walks away, Israel is gone.
The problems are none of that is true and that narrative causes serious problems in resolving the conflict.
"
They're taking the claims of a genocidal terror organization as the black letter truth. "Virtue" isn't the word I'd use.
Further, there will be departments where everyone is involved in the protests and others were none are.
My expectation is the serious students with serious majors are less on the lines and the "is that really a major" departments are more.
"
LeeEsq: they have gone somewhat berserk in their response
Have they? We know of lots of dead civilians because Hamas tells us... except Hamas claims all of the dead have been civilians and most women and children.
The local media there are so in bed with Hamas that I watched a local "reporter" get very upset at the suggestion that "both sides" were committing war crimes and not just Israel.
Big picture Israel wants Hamas gone, and any war that is going to attempt that will require them to attack hospitals and other civilian areas because Hamas is there.
The local population strongly supports Hamas and their efforts. Hamas has been running the media, the charities, and the educational system for a long time. Their option is they should be able to commit mass murder without suffering from a war.
Within the (very, very large) margin of error, it is possible Israel is fighting a civilized war to the extent it can. To be fair they also might be needlessly punitive and brutal.
Given Israel has dropped a lot more bombs than they've killed people, they're probably making some effort to avoid civilian deaths.
"
Hamas and others have spent a lot of time and energy claiming things that fit the Left's worldview nicely. White vs Non-white. Colonialism is bad. Power is bad. Lack of power is virtue.
However these are emotional arguments. There are facts that are really jarring if we pay attention. Hamas targeting and killing civilians. Israel's "colonial backer" keeps changing.
Most damning at the moment, we have the argument that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. They can even present various dead bodies, and they claim there are a lot more.
However, for every dead body in Gaza, Israel has dropped two bombs. That suggests the Israeli army is going out of it's way to not kill civilians.
"
What Rittenhouse knew at the time was he was being chased down and attacked.
The "protesters" ("rioters" is a better word) knew very little and were in lynch mob territory.
After the fact we found out that Rosenbaum was a lunatic freshly released from a mental hospital with a history of attacking boys, and the media still insisted he was an innocent protester.
We also found out Rittenhouse was a local. The media insisted he was from "out of state" but the state line was very close. He worked there and his dad's house was there.
"
My actual position is people should be able to judge for themselves whether having a gun decreases or increases their risk.
It changes your risk(s) profile by a lot.
The bottom line is people have the Right to defend themselves. They should walk away if they can, but that's not always possible or reasonable.
Where it can get really nasty is if the gov refuses to supply order then people will supply it themselves.
"
The part of the society that is armed is polite. The part of the society that isn't polite isn't armed.
If we picture Israel as being unarmed at any point in it's history, the strong expectation should be a second holocaust.
"
Pointing to how things work in the real world is absolutely an answer to a hypothetical.
Now it could be that selecting CC is also selecting for serious people while selecting protesters is also selecting for emotional nonsense.
"
And then Rosenbaum would have attacked someone else.
Why is all of the moral judgement supposed to be on Rittenhouse and not Rosenbaum?
"
8% of the adult population conceal carry, or 10% if we exclude California and New York. That's an overcount because it's "active licenses".
We have had protests nationwide.
The number of CC people shooting rival protesters has apparently been zero.
Rittenhouse, the poster child for the out-of-control-gun-carrier, shot an apolitical insane serial pedophile rapist who attacked him. Then the situation got worse when the protesters jumped in to back up the pedophile.
Far as I can tell the behavior of the gun carrying people in all this has been fine. It's the protesters who behave like entitled children.
"
Chip: You see what I’m driving at here, right?
Sure. You're trying to claim Rittenhouse should have not had a firearm.
That society would be better off if he'd been raped or killed by a random lunatic because it was during a protest.
"
With Rittenhouse, the first guy he shot had no politics and was a random lunatic there for the chaos. His history of 5x sex crimes against boys probably had something to do with him attacking Rittenhouse.
After that the Protesters wanted to back him up because he was one of their own. Three of them attacked Rittenhouse (all three having a history of violence) and two got shot.
This was all reasonably predictable. Rittenhouse wanting to put out fires and supply medical care are good reasons to be there anyway.
The current protests are going to attract anti-Semites and others who enjoy violence and chaos.
We're also going to have Jewish students there because it's a college.
So... is it acceptable for the college Presidents to force the Jewish students to not be there because they're Jews?
"
Good for them.
"
InMD: ...but look how far we’ve narrowed it.
This is Rittenhouse territory. The protesters are "mostly peaceful". The vast bulk of the protesters are crying coeds and the like.
Large protests attract nuts and create intense emotions. They easily step into territory that they shouldn't. They enable behavior that is unacceptable and outright illegal.
If you have a large enough crowd of people upset at Jews, the odds someone will go over the line is decently high.
"
InMD: The mistake is the belief that anyone needs protection from mere words.
I am not a lawyer, but my impression is it's illegal to tell people that you're going to kill them or otherwise threaten them. When I check the internet I see various protesters being arrested for exactly that.
If you're protesting a cause you're fine. Ditto if you're protesting a country. If you're protesting a people then you're likely evil and getting really close to the edge but you're still fine...
...but if one of those people is walking by and you single them out then we're back to it being illegal to threaten people.
"
Universities being unable to trust that their Jewish students will be safe because they expect the "peaceful" protesters will attack them suggests multiple lines have been crossed.
The counter argument that "we don't think they're serious" is true. However we still have the issue on what to do about Jewish students and Professors.
Asking Jews to live with terrorism (i.e. threats of violence) seems like a failure. If the protestors are making threats then they should be taken seriously.
"
InMD: There’s no reason to send in the riot police on that.
We thought that about abortion protesters until they started killing doctors. We thought that about various other people and then discovered they were more serious than expected. We had 911 because we weren't taking AQ seriously or at it's word.
Most of these protesters are LARPing. We still have to take them seriously because they're making serious claims.
Some of those "serious claims" amount to "no Jews".
"
I'm amazed college administrators don't know this and have it part of "lessons learned" somewhere. Or maybe they do and it only hits the news when one of the thousands of Presidents drops the ball.
On “Open Mic for the week of 4/29/2024”
Cops can't go on campus unless they're invited by the administration.
We won't come unless you invite us and say in writing you understand we're going to bust heads.
"
I think we're in "agents of Putin" territory for 6 or so members of the House.
"
Columbia is threatening to expel students who stormed and took over hamilton hall.
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/columbia-university-pro-palestinian-protests-occupy-hamilton-hall/
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.