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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26359 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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How did the feds make J6 look like an attempt to overthrow the government without getting anyone to do anything wrong?

Who decided that Ray Epps was a "lesser offender"?

The Supreme Court of the United States, in 1969, when it decided in Brandenburg v Ohio that the First Amendment protected speech so strongly that it became nearly impossible to convict a person of inciting a riot. Alternatively, the framers of the First Amendment itself.

I agree that the feds are charging people with more for less, but the rules they have to play by say they probably can't convict Epps for inciting a riot. Personally I think the First Amendment should be abolished which would make it much more possible to prosecute the kind of egregious behaviour Epps engaged in. But a lot of Americans disagree with me and it's their country.

  • -17

I'm going to repost the original Revolver News article here, since I posted it in another comment. Ray Epps did a lot more than exercise his First Amendment rights:

https://revolver.news/2021/10/meet-ray-epps-the-fed-protected-provocateur-who-appears-to-have-led-the-very-first-1-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/

Epps orchestrated the breach of the capitol, announced before J6 his intention to breach the Capitol, incited protesters during J6 to join him in breaching the Capitol, and then was put on the FBI's "Capitol Violence Most Wanted List," from which he was quietly dropped as soon as investigative reporters started asking questions. And there's more.

but the rules they have to play by say they probably can't convict Epps for inciting a riot

They are not playing by any rules, a claim I have repeated several times now to which you seem not to have said anything.

Personally I think the First Amendment should be abolished

You're posting on a website that was created to escape censorship. Are you trying to look silly?

This is your reminder that AshLael is literally a paid political operative in meatspace. Any conversations you have with them should be viewed through that light.

In Australia.... He has his biases, which color his responses to this issue, but we all do.

Sure, we all have biases. But I don't literally get paid to further a specific political agenda, and I have a hard time imagining a world where that doesn't drastically affect your biased far beyond normal.

But I don't literally get paid to further a specific political agenda

But that's my point: he's being paid to further a specific political agenda in Australia. Feel free to hold his job against him on literally any other issue, from COVID to gun rights, but J6 is too specific to the US. I could grant something like "if he publicly took the wrong side of this issue, he'd lose his job" like Jiro argued, I could even grant that even though we're anon-posting over here the unconscious fear of ruining his career might bias the opinions he's posting here, but he's not literally getting paid to persuade people J6ers are insurrectionists.

I'm pretty sure that if he went on public record as saying that the January 6 protestors did nothing wrong, he'd lose his job as a political operative, even though it is in Australia.

It is logically possible to hold opinions favoring the Republicans in the US while still holding leftist opinions with respect to Australian political issues. Unfortunately, politics doesn't run on logical possibility.

But he's not going on record while posting here. In any case, I'm not saying he's not biased (since, again, we all are), but bringing up his job makes it sound like he has direct interest in persuading the public J6 was an insurrection. This would make sense if he was and American political operative, but not an Australian one.

Epps orchestrated the breach of the capitol, announced before J6 his intention to breach the Capitol, incited protesters during J6 to join him in breaching the Capitol, and then was put on the FBI's "Capitol Violence Most Wanted List," from which he was quietly dropped as soon as investigative reporters started asking questions. And there's more.

Which crime do you think he could be convicted of, what are the elements of that crime, and what evidence exists to prove all elements beyond a reasonable doubt?

They are not playing by any rules, a claim I have repeated several times now to which you seem not to have said anything.

I think the best way to contest that claim is to talk in detail about the actual rules that are observably being applied, which I am doing.

You're posting on a website that was created to escape censorship. Are you trying to look silly?

I have a longstanding view that the US bill of rights was a big mistake, which I have articulated multiple times. It has put judges in the position of having to effectively make policy decisions about what constitutes due process or equal protection or free speech that are always going to be somewhat arbitrary and politically controversial, and that in turn has made it very important to staff the judiciary with judges that interpret these very vague provisions the way your side wants, which has created a highly politicised judiciary.

I think a much better system is to allow democratically elected governments much more latitude in making the laws they want, for policy choices to be explicitly legislated, and for judges to have a much more restrained and uncontroversial role in applying the law. Sometimes governments will pass bad laws, but there is a much more direct and workable system for the public to rectify those cases than when judges make bad constitutional rulings.

Which crime do you think he could be convicted of, what are the elements of that crime,

If the same standard was being applied to everyone (which is different question from what I think he should be convicted of), I see no reason to not at least try to pin "seditious conspiracy" on him, like the guy that got 20 years without ever being present in Washington.

and what evidence exists to prove all elements beyond a reasonable doubt?

This is not a valid criterion to prove or disprove the point being debated here. The attempt to prove something beyond reasonable doubt happens after the charges are made, in court, not before. Rittenhouse was charged with murder despite exonerating evidence being public before the charges were made, for example.

It's not accurate to suggest that the existence of evidence is irrelevant to the charges that get laid. Yes, sometimes bad charges get laid despite the evidence not supporting a conviction. Rittenhouse was a dramatic example (and rightfully acquitted). But it's not the norm.

The normal process is investigate, then charge. It doesn't always happen that way, but it's the normal process. And particularly for US federal prosecutors (who tend to be both good lawyers and fiercely protective of their reputations as good lawyers), they will very much want to win the cases they bring.

Epps spent a long time without being charged. I don't know why, but it's at least possible that was because there was a lot of time being spent investigating him to see if they could find evidence to make harsher charges stick, and they couldn't. While it's certainly possible that mining a person's history and communications will turn up evidence of lawbreaking, it's also possible that it doesn't.

It's not accurate to suggest that the existence of evidence is irrelevant to the charges that get laid

But it is accurate to suggest people get charged before the charges are proved beyond reasonable doubt, because that's a thing that happens in court, rather than during the investigation. Therefore putting it forward as one of the criteria in this discussion is unreasonable.

But it's not the norm.

The normal process is investigate, then charge. It doesn't always happen that way, but it's the normal process. And particularly for US federal prosecutors (who tend to be both good lawyers and fiercely protective of their reputations as good lawyers), they will very much want to win the cases they bring.

Maybe, but we don't actually have a way to determine whether this portrayal of how the system works is accurate. Taking Rittenhouse as an example again - his prosecutor is on record saying that if it was one of the rioters that killed him, rather than the other way around, he would not have prosecuted. If we lived in that world, how could a member of the public even begin to argue that the BLM rioters are handled with kid gloves? We'd have no access to the internal communications that could shed light on the decision making process, and no evidence to dispute the claim "trust me bro, there just wasn't enough evidence to push for a conviction".

Also, people who believe Epps is a fed are explicitly arguing that this is not a normal case.

Epps spent a long time without being charged. I don't know why, but it's at least possible that was because there was a lot of time being spent investigating him to see if they could find evidence to make harsher charges stick, and they couldn't. While it's certainly possible that mining a person's history and communications will turn up evidence of lawbreaking, it's also possible that it doesn't.

Sure, it's possible. If you have enough trust in the system to believe the rules are applied fairly, it's natural to dismiss any discrepancies in how he was treated as "I guess they were investigating him, but didn't find any evidence". My issue with the discourse around Epps, is that the idea that he's a fed is being treated as unreasonable, when there's more than enough circumstantial evidence to raise eyebrows. While there's no smoking gun that he's a fed, there's no grounds to criticize people for coming to the conclusion that he is.

But it is accurate to suggest people get charged before the charges are proved beyond reasonable doubt, because that's a thing that happens in court, rather than during the investigation. Therefore putting it forward as one of the criteria in this discussion is unreasonable.

Huh? I asked "What evidence exists to prove all elements beyond a reasonable doubt?" I'm not asking for a court determination that has already been made, I'm asking for evidence that can be brought into court to prove the charge. If you don't have it, how can you say that the charge should have been laid?

Maybe, but we don't actually have a way to determine whether this portrayal of how the system works is accurate.

Of course we do. The system is staffed by people. Normal people who openly talk and complain about their jobs. Lots and lots of them. Some of them post on this forum. It's not a mystery.

When you actually talk to people who work in the criminal justice system, they will often have many complaints about how the whole thing operates, but those complaints bear little resemblance to the conspiracy theories. I work in politics, and have many complaints about how the political system operates, but they are completely different complaints to those of my father-in-law who thinks that all the world's governments are run by the Pope who is the Antichrist.

My issue with the discourse around Epps, is that the idea that he's a fed is being treated as unreasonable, when there's more than enough circumstantial evidence to raise eyebrows.

Yeah this is fair. I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to suspect - law enforcement obviously uses undercover cops and other similar techniques on a normal basis, and it wouldn't be weird at all if some of the groups involved in Jan 6 had feds embedded in them. I don't even think this is a bad thing.

I just don't think that the light prosecution of Epps increases the likelihood that he was one such agent. People react to his case because the things he says on video sure sound like they ought to be crimes, and they don't do the homework to figure out that actually they probably aren't.

Huh? I asked "What evidence exists to prove all elements beyond a reasonable doubt?" I'm not asking for a court determination that has already been made

But you are asking me for something that can only be determined in court.

If you don't have it, how can you say that the charge should have been laid?

By comparing the facts of the case to cases where charges have been brought.

Of course we do. The system is staffed by people. Normal people who openly talk and complain about their jobs. Lots and lots of them. Some of them post on this forum. It's not a mystery.

And if normal people can be trusted to do something, it's to rationalize the pathologies they're participating in.

When you actually talk to people who work in the criminal justice system, they will often have many complaints about how the whole thing operates, but those complaints bear little resemblance to the conspiracy theories. I work in politics, and have many complaints about how the political system operates, but they are completely different complaints to those of my father-in-law who thinks that all the world's governments are run by the Pope who is the Antichrist.

Tell your father-in-law that he's based, and knows what's up.

More seriously, this doesn't prove what you think it proves. The majority of people would never notice, if they were following the literal Antichrist's orders, or at least that's what I was always told was the lesson of Nazi Germany. But we don't even need to go full-Godwin here. I too am familiar with normal people who did a lot of grunt work during the Syrian refugee crisis, and they too would insist nothing untoward was happening, even as they're telling you how they were basically re-enacting that scene from Lauren Southern's documentary, where some NGO worker was coaching the refugees on what to say to not get deported. When you can tell yourself you're doing something good like helping refugees, or chasing down insurrectionists, it's trivial to turn a blind eye to all the obviously wrong things you have to do to achieve that goal.

I just don't think that the light prosecution of Epps increases the likelihood that he was one such agent.

I agree it's not a smoking gun, but it's pretty suspicious, and the establishment media protecting him is even more so.

You landed on the angle that resonates most with me. By AshLael's layout, this could very well all be above board and I have to grudgingly accept it. But then I think it's also completely consistent with the kind of 'play' a three-letter agency would make to maximize impact while still maintaining plausible innocence. Make sure 'your guy' intentionally does some scripted rabble-rousing, but let him know there's a threshold he can't cross without burning himself, then wash him through the system with a symbolic punishment with no real consequences.

Yes, I am being conspiratorial. But I'm not wedded to the belief. I'm more curious as to why Ray was treated so sympathetically by media and politicians and spared the 'traitorous insurrectionist' narrative. Why was Ray - singled out from everybody else - allowed to be some dumb guy with a good conscience who's being picked on by Fox News? One of the things I watch for in real life is how long it takes a popular online/mainstream take to funnel down to a friend's mouth, and even some of them readily took this position (despite insisting they don't really follow politics much any more). Im supposed to believe this complete lack of moral judgment is because he didn't touch a gate?

There are things about this story that have all the hallmarks of intentional manufacturing (I care little if it's directed from the Illuminati or mundane uncoordinated political tribalism) - if not the facts themselves, then certainly how to the public is supposed to be viewing them. As long as that exists, I will assume Ray was fed-affiliated.

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