whYNOT

At least SOMEONE is asking the right questions. By all other reporting the narrative has been fixed and incontrovertible. Ie. The whole country's Trump support and the president himself was involved in this act of 'sedition'. The soft minds and feelings of the many ~know~ this is what happened and won't hear of any contradiction. The latest, CNN breathlessly reports, is the attack was "planned". Well, sure. By a few or some, in all probability. What is so amazing about that? Would it have been better or worse that the invasion was completely spontaneous? Proven: if a few hundred of Trump support are stupid, bad or rotten, all 70+ million must also be. That's their logic and view of people and humanity. But The Leftists have used a method in the past years which is so childishly obvious. "Never let a good crisis go to waste". Work everything to our own advantage. Divide and rule. Foster racial divides and pandemic fears and sedition 'horrors' - Tear the fabric of society apart for ultimate control, no matter at whose sacrifice. It is the Leftists' obviousness, arrogance, overreach, anti-values and hypocritical double standards - and ridiculousness - which I hope will bring their downfall. Most Americans are not blind or permanently subservient as these people assume.

btw I forgot to credit Martin Niemoller for his well known "First they came for..." with my modern twist.

You missed my sarcasm. One individual woman with, l think I heard, a dozen others insurgents in the hallway is not an "insurrection". It is a bunch of nasty hooligans. I still claim it was cold-blooded killing, making an example by executing one rioter. Whom I was quite impressed with were the two officers who stood with backs to the doors facing them, calm under great pressure. But they made no resistance, which is odd. And I don't understand how this half-dozen hooligans we see could have gotten that far. After she fell, the armed men in riot gear were there instantly, so obviously were always very close. Why were they not deployed to prevent access to the doors? Why allow the battering of the doors? Why wasn't she prevented from behind from climbing up in the first place?

From the moment the weapon emerged in view, it never deviated from its aim at the open window where she was. I.e. it was always seen obliquely to the camera view, not once pointing at the main doors and the men hammering on the glass. He did not have to move across the hallway, only angled in slightly closer to make the shot. I reckon at 2-3 meter range. Point blank.

What's clearer is a missing glass pane in this video. And Babbitt lifting herself up. The doors weren't giving way, they were bending with the strain, I think. Yet, the narrow 18 inch window would have been hard enough to enter for a slim woman, never the husky men. She was plainly followed and targeted by the cop who instead could have knocked her back on her ass with one blow. Let's not take away his heroic action to save the Republic. One shot fired against sedition and insurrection by a ragtag handful.

First they came for the Christians but I was not a Christian and remained silent. Then they came for the Conservatives but I was not a Conservative and remained silent, then they came for the Trumpians, but I was not a Trumpian and was silent. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak up. That's a thing I picked up about the Leftist/Socialist, the craving to enact revenge and pay back as well as stifling dissent and to cut off any future (democratic, ideological) challenges to their power. You are going to see a growing witch-hunt, in the work-place, the business community, universities, broader society and by punitive laws and dictates.

"Climbing over" is a fabrication - The glass is seen to be almost impenetrable, after the efforts of the two men to break it. She is clearly seen this side of the window/door, the camera cuts to the gunman's hands and the shot is fired. All within 5-10 seconds. She could not have had the time. Show me the evidence for what you believe you see. Really, with your talk of treason and so forth, and now this, you are rationalizing the facts to fit your narrative.

Because you are being consistent, you would agree that every occasion that riots broke out (in and around official buildings) against the legitimacy of the Trump presidency, or Kavanaugh nomination, or ...etc. - those too qualified as insurrection. You would, right?

"Yes ... shooting them would be justified". Since you are using the passive tense, let us be clear. Would *the police* shooting them, be justified? Bearing in mind, that this is what happened, and must have happened, many hundreds of times. All the stores attacked and with windows broken, sometimes fires set, obviously must have sometimes/often had occupants who ~might~ be in danger. Therefore, you would justify hundreds of rioters getting shot for breaking shop windows? A war zone. Do you have an idea of the outrage and consequences, then?

Ah, please. Now he deserves compliments for only killing one person and with one bullet? Whatever the larger circumstances going on around and inside the Capitol, all he could observe was a handful of people on the other side of a door who did NOT even breech the door. Could he have fired a warning shot? Of course. That would be "self-control" one may admire. But he nominated himself judge, jury and executioner.

One more thing. "A private individual may do anything except that which is legally *forbidden*; a government official may do nothing except that which is legally *permitted*." The Nature of Government The critical distinction is what places tight restraints on the public official's actions. Extraordinary restraints well over that which the private person enjoys as his right. IOW, I conclude their freedoms of action in their own capacity are UN-equal. An idiot citizen might do something stupid in front of a cop, a common recurrence. Tempting fate, so to speak. But he/she does not 'deserve' the maximum punishment meted out. Or else there'd be someone shot dead every minute by police. One can sympathize with a policeman who has to make that final split-second judgment call - is what I observe a threat to others' (or my own) life? What do I choose as proportionate retaliatory force? And if wrong, or even when right, I suffer the consequences. But that's the nature of the profession he chose and why he is thoroughly trained.

Something else, isn't it! Glad you discovered this, Stephen.

And this information you knew, when? After the fact, right? Did the armed policeman know that at the moment he decided to pull the trigger? And even then, he had other choices. "Sacrificed" by her stupidity, should have meant a term in prison. NOT, her life. This is a false causality, presupposing that evil in one's mind must end in evil in one's acts.

That's all or nothing, Don Athos. Presumptions about each individual mind in a crowd/mob/rabble and his motives and intents. You have seen this, too: There were those filmed that day who were desperately trying to stem the others, and stopping them breaking windows. (Some calling out warnings: "Antifa!"- but I won't go into that). A blanket "insurrection" - def; "uprising" - by the whole mob of whatever, some thousand, outside the Capitol is an impossibility. Further - only a few hundred at most entered the Capitol (a few peacefully, I showed). Does that number constitute "an uprising"? An organized "assault on [your] government"? Nonsense. For most, a symbolic act (while not denying the vile minority looking to commit violence). There is the simplest logical fallacy in operation here. All S is P. If one can't discern that *not all S is P*: not all BLM supporters are rioters, not all white cops are systemic racists, not every Trump supporter was out to commit violence, not all that Trump has done is wrong and evil... etc. ... we will get the epistemology (/ethics/politics) that we deserve. One that is hurting yours and other societies. As Objectivists, THIS fallacy is what we should be overturning, not rationalising and taking preconcieved positions and making emotional pre-judgements - which everyone else is doing in lockstep with what they are fed by media propaganda. There was something Giuliani said that caught my attention. "Those at the scene who were violent, were not Trump supporters" (or close to that). "But - the ones who tried to stop them were" (and he was he said proud of them). If one accepts the premise that the majority of Republican Conservatives who support Trump have an intrinsic belief in a God-given Constitution and Rule of Law and the American Way - by definition, he's right. Start at the premise, Trump = Hitler, and anything goes.

Are we watching the same clip? Where does Eiuol see "a person climbing through the unlocked window"? A small and unarmed woman, at that. How was she posing a threat? If she had of got through, she still wasn't a threat. (Unless he knows, with Second Sight that she had a suicide vest on). So if one person gets through, would easily have been subdued by a professional. Or does everyone imagine the entire mob, one by one, climbing through after her? But you guys cavalierly believe that the front person, whomever it may be, must be gunned down as an example to others. This is the cynical sort of policing during extensive mob demonstrations that even Apartheid police were hesitant to implement: "pour decourager les autres". I was at some of those. And there was often a reluctance to use firearms against strikers, etc. carrying clubs. When batons or dogs or tear gas would nearly always suffice. Would you guys have applied the same standard to a BLM/Antifa rioter breaking down a store window with the proprietor inside? I.e. He should be shot down in anticipation of his actions? I trust you do not apply double standards. Also there is a lot of mystical determinism in these arguments: X is there, does that, therefore their intention is Y, therefore must be eliminated.

This was to show that not all the people were in a mob or behaved badly. I have no idea what you are talking about - "possibly arrested for treason". You didn't notice how these orderly people were let in by the guards? Where's the "simply trespassing"? The woman victim was deliberately singled out and taken out, no police force is trained to do this until very present danger to life is detected. You can see a half-dozen insurgents with some policemen on the same side of the door, some shouting and pushing, until two men begin attacking the window with clubs. The cops did nothing to restrain them, weirdly. She merely kicked the door. Then you see the gun aimed at her directly from the other side of the door and fired. The door had still not been breached. Why is this so hard to understand? This was unjustifiable use of force.

I think going back to the fundamentals is revealing, and the explanation of those "constantly shifting definitions". Look at the havoc created by the two different (apparent) camps - "...they [skepticism and mysticism] differ in the form of their inner contradiction--the contradiction, in both cases, between their philosophical doctrine and their psychological motivation. Philosophically, the mystic is usually an exponent of the ~intrinsic~ (revealed) school of epistemology; the skeptic is usually an advocate of epistemological *subjectivism*. But psychologically, the mystic is a subjectivist who uses intrinsicism as a means to claim the primacy of *his* consciousness over that of others. The skeptic is a disillusioned intrinsicist, who, having failed to find automatic, supernatural guidance, seeks a substitute in the collective subjectivism of others". {Consciousness and Identity AR} Both the religious and the disappointed ex-religious then fail to "think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind". For each there is a differing rationale - God or other people - that ultimately revert to the same thing: Muscle mystic and spirit mystic. Without that ethical-psychological individualism, described by Branden, individual rights is a non-starter. What emanates generally from the religious is a "rugged individualism" (alluded to by David Kelley's essay that I haven't read, Unrugged Individualism). From the skeptic-Left, I think is often a type of narcissistic self-indulgence. But altogether, inner contradictions, subjective shape-shifting and unfixed defintions are common to both camps.

There was a mob. There was too, a not-a-mob. This unlikely bunch of "insurrectionists" behaving like sight-seeing tourists: https://www.israelunwired.com/never-before-seen-footage-police-let-crowd-walk-into-the-capitol-building/

Repairman, I think yours is the healthiest, realist attitude I've heard for a while. Which in effect is to keep a close eye on leaders and their predominant positions and acts, without expecting 'perfection' from any. By nature of their profession, they after all are compromisers who couldn't succeed to high office without a majority electorate behind them and many backroom deals made. The best and most principled of them couldn't rise as high. I haven't quite understood the adoration for Trump exactly as I don't get why he should have been instantly loathed by others. (I will say favorably, that I think he was pragmatically smart at playing up or bluffing authoritarian leaders and showing plenty of carrot and just a little stick to any enemies which kept them guessing and quiet. Unprincipled, yes, but his term left the world a little safer and kept Americans out of foreign entanglements). Until his latest exploits he didn't do so badly for the US as a whole unless compared with impossibly ideal standards which no leader has come up to. In your "good doesn't outweigh the bad", that's where I see the rational hierarchy of values at work; that is, first off, one objectively assesses and evaluates each candidate/leader in isolation; only then draws a relational comparison versus the other alternative individual(s); then prioritizes what each personally had done well against what was poor and bad. I didn't know if the "radical Christian conservative agenda" has grown recently larger in the US. You'd know better. If so, contrary to the general world wide trend which sees Christianity lessening in numbers and influence and becoming far more passive. I have put the most recent Conservative revival in the USA down to being caused and preceded by a virulent Leftist onslaught against Christians, especially in the msm. Takes us back to Rand and the "two sides of the same fraudulent coin (primacy of consciousness): "Although skepticism and mysticism are ultimately interchangeable, and the dominance of one always leads to the resurgence of the other..." I think what is very clear, there's now a general resurgence by skepticism over mysticism, and the wave has not crested yet.

"The emergence of “national conservatism” is an ominous trend for American political life. Its advocates often stress the themes of patriotism and love of country and even political freedom. But the substance of their views is a betrayal of America’s founding ideals. Three threads stand out. First, the life and judgment and freedom of the individual must be subordinated to some group: the family, tribe, community, and, ultimately, the nation. Second, reason is overrated. What should steer our own lives? Not our rational judgment, but tradition and faith. Third, despite the rhetoric about providing a foundation for American freedom, there’s an alarming comfort with, and even glamorization of, authoritarianism". Elan Journo ---- These "three threads" of national conservatism which "stand out", briefly: 1. subordination of individualism, 2. overrated reason and rationality, and 3.comfort with/glamorization of authoritarianism - meet their match over on the other side, the Left. And more. Rather like potting at fish in a barrel, Journo has an easy time with Conservatives. Yes, we know, we know - Faith (and family and community and tradition and one nation under God) are the foundation of all "three threads". Obviously- that's the nature of religion and has always been. But if Journo could cast his attention wider, from his select examples, easy targets like Orban of Hungary, a few quotes by one conservative Rich Lowry, excerpts from the author Hazony and some National Conference of Conservatives - all of which he takes as representative of National Conservatism - he could find several dozens of Conservative thinkers I've found, like Hansen and Sowell and Rubin etc.etc. and many young women who reason brilliantly and are firm proponents of rationality and individualism, without the authoritarian impulse, who all cherish the sovereign state of America. (Which Rand did too, Journo should know). And the US Constitution. (Does it actually matter - to them - that most Christians believe that the Founding Fathers were inspired by God? Who does that belief do harm to outside of them?) Are they, and certainly many thousands and more like them, also "National Conservatives" who "betray" the founding ideals?? Not in their conviction and not in action. Only in the formulation of their premises. My over all impression is that mainstream religions and the religious have come a long way into modernity. (How they hold a balance of faith and reason, tradition and modernism is obviously troublesome, but many I've met seem to do well and have successful careers and fulfilling lives and are good-willed to others - even an atheist like me, when you get talking). Over on the other political-ideological side, there's clearly immense and explicit disavowal of reason, rabid anti-individualism, tribalism bar none, and authoritarianism in spades. The neo-faith of leftists in The Society and State is and will be, when in power, manifested as MUCH more intrusive on individual liberties then any conservatives in recent times. The State is their Church, and they observe no separation of the two I often say. The Left's answer to nasty 'Nationalism' is supposedly 'Internationalism', or - globalism. Which only expands the nation into a conglomerate of many states, a one World State, as far as I can make out the intent. The Left, for all its soothing platitudes about USA exceptionalism are destructive of national values and freedoms. With them I think lies the much greater "ominous trend for American political life" [EJ] I think it proper for Journo now to equally lambaste the other side, who might not be as convivial or accepting as Christian Conservatives to criticism.

"Pause for just a moment on this account, and you can see that it is at best tendentious. Notice, for instance, that religion has only grown more salient in American culture, particularly within conservatism, in the last few decades. If our present society is what it looks like to abandon faith, try to picture what Hazony means by making it a focal point. And contrary to Hazony’s cultural diagnosis, we have seen not a flowering of respect for the individual in our society, but precisely the opposite. The pull of tribalism is virulent, including within many “conservative” circles. Everywhere people are seen, not as unique individuals, but as “representatives” of racial, ethnic, gender, national, religious, and still other tribal groups". Well. "More salient"? "...we have not seen not a flowering of respect for the individual in our society, but precisely the opposite". And that's the fault of conservatives - alone?! At the very time that secularist Leftism is taking hold, and faith is being 'abandoned' by more people? "The pull of tribalism is virulent, including within many "conservative" circles" Who, actually, has been overwhelmingly responsible to a virulent degree recently, for tribalism (racial, gender esp.) rearing its head? The Left, obviously. The absolute enemies of individualism. Here I think is some sophistry by Journo.

An Alternate-Reality Version of “America” The advocates of this new species of “conservatism” claim to love this country, but it’s impossible to believe that the Founders would recognize their conception of America. The United States was a child of the Age of Enlightenment. What typified Enlightenment thinking was a questioning, often an outright repudiation, of hidebound tradition and the intrusion of Church upon life and the state. America embodied a revolutionary new idea. It was predicated on the Enlightenment perspective that the value of an individual’s life is sacrosanct; that his rational mind is competent to deal with the world, and that therefore he should be left free politically. [...] I have one thing to suggest about the Age of Enlightenment which will be controversial: The Enlightenment did not happen despite American conservatives of the time, but *because of* them - with their blessing. How else does one explain Enlightenment values taking hold at a time when the whole population, or almost, was religious? In every western country? Without being forced on them there had to be a large degree of agreement with and elevation of the ideas. It is too tempting to view the Age (of anything) as a historical period with fixed boundaries. Before then, this - after, that. That it descended upon millions of minds without their knowledge and consent. That's not realistic. As example, separation of Church from State was, I think, gladly accepted by Christians: As we cannot interfere with State so it can't interfere with us. (Okay, not always adhered to in every department).

I take this back. I watched the video and a clearer case of a cold-blooded killing there can't be. You see the firearm go up, be leveled and fired directly at the woman, through the glass from point blank range.

And reverse the circumstances. A Democrat supporter shot dead while thousands protested at the Capitol against Trump. The media: Of course that was his/her democratic right to be in there! A foul murder caused by Fascist Trump's police state! Defund the Police! And if the victim would have been black, subsequent events would be predictable. Intellectuals have all allowed constant, double standards by the left to prevail.