Savant

the fact that he evidently didn't bring a gun on him the last time (since he was tackled to the ground and probably frisked) but he did this time...would have suggested to any reasonable officer that he intended to try to kill them

This premise is dubious at best. If he'd tried to go for the gun, then that would be a sign he intended to use it, but he didn't despite having the opportunity. If he was going to use a long range weapon, why close the distance? Plenty of signs of aggression he could have shown in that encounter but didn't. And once he was thrown on the ground there was little he could do, so was their plan to kill him the moment he walked up to them? Once they were in control of him, I'm skeptical there was no way they could have made sure he wasn't trying to kill them. A lot of people carry guns at protests for self-defense purposes, and a lot of them have broken minor laws, so I think classifying Pretti's actions as effectively a violent threat (based solely on what we've seen so far) is casting a pretty wide net.

But on the day he was shot he did not pull out a gun or kick anything.

Yeah that's my point.

You know what? I've changed my mind about Pretti.

As in the shooting was self-defense, or that the guy was a criminal?

I'm open to new evidence if it comes out, but if the entirety of the new context is him doing bad things days before the shooting, I still don't think it meets the definition of self-defense. Should have been arrested earlier, but that's not enough to justify lethal force on its own.

they recognized him going into the second encounter, and such a man having a gun on him was the final straw.

I don't think they've said yet that they recognized him, though it's possible. Even so, having destroyed property previously isn't enough to make you a lethal threat in the moment.

the entire hagiographical narrative constructed about the man by the media thus far has been proven a lie

I'm not sure it's lying to exclusively report based on the evidence they have at the time of the report. If there was a bigger conspiracy to hide the new video, then it would be lying.

I mentioned both in my initial post.

brandishing an AK style rifle in this context will almost certainly lead to confrontation, which will almost certainly result in him having to use that gun, which will almost certainly lead to someone being killed

Plenty of people open carry guns and don't get attacked, plenty of people without weapons got attacked. This is a bit like saying banks having an armed guard will make robbers want to rob them more because robbers are irrational and the guard will make them mad. Kyle is one data point.

It’s hardly any different from doing 120 on the freeway. Your intent wasn’t to hurt anyone, but you clearly did not think about nor give much weight to the consequences if things don’t go the way you hoped.

Except doing 120 endangers others even if they do everything right; carrying a rifle isn't endangering anyone unless they attack you.

Why? Because he stood out.

I mean, same applies to wearing a bright shirt or a jersey for an unpopular sports team. Or a woman going to clean up graffiti at a place where people have been sexually assaulted, and then killing a rapist in self defense. The aggressor put themselves in danger, she didn't put them in any danger until they attacked her.

his means of doing so was to use deadly force, the very same thing those people were out there protesting in the first place

Carrying a weapon isn't using deadly force. He only used it when he was attacked; the protesters were specifically protesting unnecessary deadly force.

The failure to foresee what would eventually occur is a direct result of a news feed that is totally uninterested in understanding “the other side” because you get much more clicks by just demonizing them instead.

Okay, but you have said the crowd was willing to assault anyone who showed up because they were angry in general and not logical. Is that not demonizing them? Perhaps Kyle was giving the protesters more credit than you. Also my argument isn't that it was a risk averse situation, it's that when given the choice, the crowd should be assumed less likely to attack someone with a visible weapon, hence why it was reasonable to bring one. Just cause they're ready to attack people doesn't mean they are more likely to attack someone who could defend themselves.

But when you’re talking about large crowds of people who are already showing a disregard for life and property because they are fed up with a system that they believe do not care about their lives… it’s frankly stupid to think they will all react that way

Being willing to rob a store and being willing to get yourself killed by attacking someone holding a gun are two different things. If the rioters were protesting gun owners, then yeah they might be expected to target someone with a gun. If they just want to cause chaos or steal things, the path of least resistance (if they have any self-preservation instincts) is to avoid attacking someone armed with a deadly weapon and look for other targets if they are really committed.

I mean, at the end of the day I think we're saying similar things. Now we know that going there with a gun meant Kyle would be attacked, but at the time it was understandable for him not to know that.

The public voted for a known liar and got what they voted for. Hence, votes do count.

Obamacare was not what Obama ran on, though - he ran on a public option

That was a part of his proposal, but he did implement protections for pre-existing conditions, health insurance exchanges, subsidies and tax credits, medicaid expansion, etc.

It shows that people who vote for a strongman who constantly tests the limits of his power will be rewarded for it

Which means that voters do have power.

This is the study which pretty much demonstrated this pattern

Study is behind a paywall, and it's not clear to me how they are measuring influence. The Civil Rights Act, environmental protections, and marijuana legalization passed largely because of public pressure. Support for gay marriage among politicians have largely shifted because of a shift among the public.

The point isn't that the public gets exactly what they ask for, it's that politicians are afraid of ticking off the public too much because they need to get reelected. Basically, they can't stray too far outside the Overton window. Politicians do keep their promises most of the time when they have the power to. And if the politicians voters elect are lousy snakes, then that's kind of the fault of the voters. So they still did get what they voted for.

it's been demonstrated that public support for a particular reform has no positive correlation with it being adopted into law

That hasn't been demonstrated. Voters know what Republicans tend to do and what Democrats tend to do and vote accordingly. We got the tariffs because Trump was elected. We got Obamacare because Obama was elected. They both ran on those things.

Vigilantism happens when people realize that voting will never fix the problem, because they've tried that for years.

Reforms have happened, they've just been gradual because the people protesting all want different things. I'm not sure how violence=reforms when the people cheering the violence can't even agree on what reforms they want. If they could all agree on that and were all willing to accept the consequences of those reforms, politicians would implement them to get more votes. If you overthrow a democracy, what are you going to replace it with? Another democracy? With the same voting base voting for the same things? Trump's "concepts of a plan" got him elected, because apparently that's what voters want right now.

There often comes a point where you have to act irrationally to win - rationality can make you predictable

If the voters want politicians to do what they want, the politicians have to know what they want. Obscuring their motivations isn't helping anyone.

The flooding in a way is also good in the grand scheme of things: it's so horrible that it prompts investment in infrastructure that has other benefits to society like irrigation, recreation, and power generation.

Well, only if the voters recognize the flooding as bad and vote to fix the system, but in this case they seem to be celebrating it. If anything it has made people complacent, since they think they are "fighting back" when they have accomplished very little toward actually fixing the underlying problems. Much of the discussion around healthcare, for example, now revolves around Luigi's cult of personality, not actual feasible reforms. Also I don't think the issue is lack of motivation, it's that people have conflicting interests and healthcare is not an easy thing to solve with simplistic slogans.

Also when people are fired up, they don't tend to act rationally. Radicals celebrating Kirk's death just helped Trump get away with more bad things, but of course they did it anyway.

nobody is going to change their opinion, no matter what the facts demonstrate

Enough moderates have condemned the shooting that I'm not sure this is entirely true.

I support that. Vigilantism is often a release valve.

There's a big difference between saying vigilantism is a result of corruption and saying it is good for society. Copycat shootings are a real thing, and the next ten assassins might have a very different idea from you about which people deserve the bullet.

no one would think that people would actually go up to him and start a fight, but there’s no argument that in that situation it would be reasonable to think people in that state of mind would see the gun and think “oh this is too dangerous, let’s go home”.

They might think twice before committing a crime though. Guards/superior force can and do deter attacks in many cases.

Like you said, his intention was to deter destruction of property, that’s fine and even admirable. But you don’t get to voluntarily walk into that situation brandishing a fully loaded rifle and then act like you’re totally innocent when someone loses their life at the hands of it.

It would depend on the context of why that person lost their life, no? If you do an admirable thing and then get attacked and shoot in self defense, that's about as innocent as you can get.

You say you blame him for putting himself in that situation, but also that his showing up to defend property was admirable. I'm not sure how those can both be true.

He was probably a decent guy caught up in American cult politics and ultimately lost his life defending people he probably never really knew much about at all.

Not saying that the right are the only ones that do this, but it's a shame this dude is gonna be villainized by a good chunk of Republicans because it's seen as politically useful to do so.

he carried an AK style rifle around his chest

His stated goal was to deter crime, so showing a weapon is the most effective way to deter a confrontation without having to fire a bullet. After the fact we know what happened, but before he was attacked, I think it would be reasonable that carrying a large gun should make people less likely to attack you.

to emphasize the fact that he traveled a long distance to engage in these protests...he went to the fight, it didn’t come to him.

Sure, it means he was motivated. But not sure why it signals an interest in "wanting to be involved in a confrontation" as opposed to "wanting to deter destruction of property, clean graffiti, and provide medical aid." If he'd shot some people for shoplifting, we'd be having a very different conversation, but I don't see any indication of him wanting to shoot anyone until he personally was attacked. I also don't think you can blame someone for a fight they didn't instigate just because they went somewhere a fight might happen and someone else attacked them. Rittenhouse putting himself in danger with apparently good intentions might have been unwise, but if anything it was altruistic, and we also have the benefit of hindsight to know that he would be attacked.

his behavior signaled a much greater interest in being directly involved in the confrontation

Maybe to the extent that Pretti showed even less interest in a confrontation, but I don't think either of them was responsible for being attacked or behaved immorally leading to the confrontations. The comparison is relevant in that, insofar as there are differences between Pretti and Rittenhouse, I don't think those differences are big enough to make either of them the aggressor.

Since I haven't seen anyone make a post on this, I'll take a crack at it. Among other thoughts I have, the defenses of the shooting I have seen all seem either blatantly nonfactual or intentionally vague to avoid having to discuss the facts in the first place. What seems to be agreed on is that Alex Pretti was unarmed at the time of the shooting, never attacked the ICE agents who shot him, and had effectively surrendered at the time he was shot. I haven't seen serious disagreement about that, or any other consistent narrative of events.

What I have seen is intentionally vague accusations leveled at Alex Pretti. For example, “He was a domestic terrorist.” How was he a domestic terrorist? Or “he was impeding law enforcement.” How was he impeding them? Or, “he provoked agents.” How was he provoking them? And if “provoking” just means bringing a gun to a protest, I don't think there's anything illegal or immoral about provoking. The other class of accusations seem to be things that wouldn't justify deadly force on their own but are aimed at implying Pretti did something more that did justify deadly force. For example, “he approached the agents with a weapon,” implying that he threatened them with the weapon even though he did not.

I remember the discourse around Kyle Rittenhouse being similar, with equally vague criticisms like “he was provoking people.” (Again, if provoking just means carrying a firearm, then I don't think there's anything illegal or immoral about provoking.) Or “he shouldn't have been there,” which could be said ex-post facto about any assault victim, and they would probably agree that they'd rather not have been there in hindsight, but does not explain what was unjustified about being there in the first place. Or “he crossed state lines,” which I just find confusing as a criticism because it's not like he'd be safer if he'd gone to an equally dangerous place closer to where he lived. Or “he was a vigilante,” when I don't think being a vigilante is automatically bad and it's not illegal. (If you shoot a mass shooter who is killing people, you are a vigilante. Similarly, carrying a gun around to deter crime might be vigilantism, but I'm not sure what's immoral about it.)

Rittenhouse seems to have avoided taking a hard stance on the Pretti shooting, but it just seems weird to me that the people defending Rittenhouse as obvious self-defense haven't recognized that Pretti was also obviously behaving within the bounds of the law. We're seeing all the same media manipulation with Pretti with people just coming out and just saying untrue things about what occurred, and it seems weird to me that anybody is falling for that again. But I guess if you accuse someone of “looking for trouble” and are vague about what that means, then some people will believe that person is a criminal.

I agree that broad principles might be the efficient way to do this, I just don't trust us to be wise enough to apply those principles perfectly. So we pass the buck to all of you.

I worded it based on specific things the other mods were proposing or had disagreements over. At a certain point, interpreting where a broad principle begins and ends becomes too subjective and so we just have people vote on edge cases.

Apologies if these Code of Conduct surveys are getting annoying, but mods were kind of at an impasse with some edge cases and we didn't want to be tyrannical by deciding everything without user input. Vote here to make your voice heard. Issues include how to address repeated misgendering, hate speech, and harassment.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfBFMV8BeOqlIPtyY96xrE_QBXJmTRWT1olRTaKKA4VUWr7dg/viewform

If you want to take the survey, just put your DebateCraft username where it asks for Discord handle, and message me a six letter code and put that code where it asks for one. Literally doesn't matter what it is, just come up with a code and don't tell anyone else.

Mikal doesn't even want to ban Debby so I don't know why you are arguing with him. WF and I were the ones pushing for a ban, and we decided to leave it up to a community vote.

No idea what a discord handle is

Your Discord username

nor what a secret number is.

Just come up with a secret code and send it to me privately so someone else can't pretend to be you.

Plz earn vote badges when you get the chance. You can wait until you got a decent chunk of time cause it will give you three days for each vote and you may need most of that time for decently dense debates.

Cool!

your guy is so "accomplished"

Much more honorable than all those "suckers" and "losers" that went over there and died.

I never said Trump was a great person or defended his comments abut soldiers, literally just said he was justified in dodging the Vietnam war.

Maybe he earned it for his bone spurs injury

There are valid things to criticize Trump for, but getting out of the Vietnam draft was one of the most justified things he's done.

implying that we prop them up not because of their credentials but because they are telling us what we want to hear

Well I don't agree with generalizing everyone on the left that way, but I wouldn't say there's "no such thing" as that happening. If you go far enough left, I think that Karl Marx's level of expertise is commonly exaggerated.

There is, by definition, no such thing as a “fake expert”.

It would just be someone who claims to have a lot of expertise in a field but doesn't. Such as Ryan Jordan, who pretended to be a university professor for years and was elected to top positions on Wikipedia.