1) In Germany after WWII, approximately 200,000 Jews (including my mother's family) were housed in displaced persons camps at any given time. They were treated humanely and housed in family units. In the US today, roughly 70,000 people are in ICE detention facilities at any given time, are subject to inhumane treatment and are routinely separated from family members. Why can't the US treat a relatively small number of illegal immigrants with dignity? Because our government wants to make an example of them? No, they're not concentration camps, but surely we should treat people in unfortunate circumstances with basic humanity. And our congresspeople should be able to monitor the detention centers without undue obstacles UNLESS ICE HAS SOMETHING TO HIDE.
2) For the life of me, I can't understand what Alex Pretti hoped to accomplish by bringing a gun with him to protest ICE. Under what circumstances would he have drawn the weapon? Since he did not draw the weapon and was carrying it legally, it has no bearing on his murder by ICE officers, but I do wonder. He had it in the video taken 11 days earlier as well, so it was not a response to that incident.
3) Yes, murder. He was shot in the back while on all fours on the ground, completely helpless. Then he was shot 4 more times while lying motionless, face up. That is murder in my book. Under normal circumstances, a public trial would offer the officers who shot him an opportunity to explain and defend their actions. Anything less is a miscarriage of justice.
4) Did Pretti really have two extra magazines with him? I have not seen them in any of the bystander video or photos released by the administration. Was that another piece of Trump-era propaganda, or alternative facts, designed to smear a political opponent? If it was true, why not show the evidence?
Thank you Jay. There’s much to think about here. Your thoughtfulness is not only appreciated, it’s what seems to be missing at this time. Reactions, we’ve got ‘em in abundance. Well considered ideas, less so.
Well put as always. There are so many things that are thought to be true that aren't. Ice is not a Gestapo or an illegal army. It is a federal force designed to detain potentially dangerous illegal immigrants. Ice is NOT trained in crowd control. That is not part of its mission. The local governments by withholding police to control the street and keep protesters from the federal officers are derelict in their duty. At this point knowing that the local government will withhold police means the federal government, is also derelict in its duty. It must provide ICE with police protection.
The people who are confronting ICE physically are not protesters. They are not exercising first amendment rights. They are committing criminal acts. Protesting would involve standing 100 yards away and holding signs and chanting. This is most certainly not what is happening. The people they are protecting are not innocent Jews being hounded by Nazis. They are not innocent black people being menaced by the KKK. They are at best people with no legal right to be here and at worst, convicted criminals, some dangerous.
The local governments that are both allowing this kind of potentially violent obstruction both by withholding crowd control and by issuing incendiary rhetoric are morally if not legally complict in all of this. The private radical organizations that are funding these things are looking for violence and they are using potentially well meaning people and in some cases troubled people as bait.
In places where local authorities provide crowd control, nobody is dying.
This is reality and if it is not acknowledged there is no common language to discuss next steps.
Please don't pass your Kool Aid! You obviously do not understand the concept of civil disobedience. Our founders had no legal right to be here and yet they came, saw, and conquered. Our nation was established by a Revolutionary War. So much for our right to be here. The protesters ARE protesters who are trying to block ICE because ICE is scooping up people who are just living peacefully and paying taxes. I, for one, don't care about their "immigration status." We have immigrants all over my city and IDK whether they have papers or not. I don't even know if one of my own grandfathers had papers. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. You are so far off the mark, it isn't funny; it's scary.
Once you are in the possession of a firearm it becomes an option to be used. Without the gun you must think of other less violent, less threating options. Unless you recognize you may really need to use it don't put it in your tool bag. Save your g-d given rights to fight for another day.
When I was vey young I brought a knife to a fight and because I had it with me I tried to use it. As I whipped it out I realized to myself "Holy fuck what did I just do"? Not good thinking on my part bringing it with me. But boy was it ever a powerful lesson for the rest of my life.
Always go for the least violent, peaceful solution if possible! Leave your options open, not backing yourself into a corner even when you are in the right! No. not on the right :-) !
Think the of the "long game'. That's often how you will win!
Walz is such a midwit that he doesn't realize that he's the neo-Confederate here, no different from George Wallace or Orville Faubus, rejecting the supremacy of the federal government when it comes to enforcing the law.
As Prof. Gad Saad has pointed out, empathy can be suicidal. It's a disturbing symptom in society to see mothers put their children at risk to virtue signal on behalf of people who would rob and rape them. See: https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-great-feminization/
"I call for ICE to immediately redraft its evident ineffectual and polarizing strategy."
Ineffectual? DHS and ICE have arrested over 3,000 criminal aliens in Minnesota since the surge began.
It's not ICE that is polarizing the issue. There is an organized network of leftist activists that will obstruct no matter what strategy or tactics ICE uses. "The issue is not the issue, the revolution is always the issue."
Of the thousands of U.S. counties where ICE is currently active, there have only been serious protests and organized violence in fourteen of them, specifically those places where the left has organized opposition. This is not grassroots opposition.
"Anyone who becomes merciful upon the cruel will end by being cruel to the merciful." - R' Eliezer, Midrash Tanchuma, Parshat Metzora
O brother !!! Yikes. Walz is SPOT ON! He is NOT a neo-Confederate. He does not believe in slavery or Jim Crow laws. But, he is correct that Trump is creating a situation that might cause a fracture in our country. I have long wished that MY state would secede because I am so disgusted with Trump and his minions. They are so evil! If Minnesota goes, I think NY and CA would also go in solidarity. We have this poisonous one-third of the country ruling the rest of us and creating havoc.
I'm going to be polite, even though you said I was evil and poisonous (and we're not 1/3rd, more likely a majority, as can be seen by the 2024 elections and Democrats lining up on the short side of 80/20 issues, like mentally ill men in women's bathrooms).
I don't know if you're just not very smart or if you deliberately missed my point. Perhaps you aren't even smart enough to know how to deliberately miss my point. More likely, you are just being reactionary and reflexive. The issue is not slavery or Jim Crow (both of which were supported by Democrats). The issue is federal supremacy. Minnesota has no constitutional right or power to tell the federal government how it can enforce existing immigration law. It has no more right to obstruct federal law enforcement than racist Democratic governors did in the 1950s and early 1960s.
You're like a child throwing a tantrum, willing to upset everything because you don't get your way. You'd be perfectly comfortable living in a one-party state and you'd gladly see me put in a reeducation camp.
IQ well up there. I'm definitely having a MELTDOWN about ICE. I think it is horrendous. What point are you making that is worth even thinking about? You are knocking Gov. Walz for accurately pointing out that Minnesota is being driven toward secession by Trump's minions. If I can't have a tantrum about THAT, then what, pray tell, could I have a tantrum about? Our country is being destroyed by Trump. No, not a one-party state. More like a state governed by parties that are reasonable and compassionate.
Most Americans support deporting illegal immigrants who have committed other crimes. And, I think, most Americans support deporting non-citizen Radical Islamists and their supporters (even if they came in legally). Re others in the US illegally, there appears to be a consensus to require them to return to their country of origin, however, utilize administrative and financial incentives to accomplish this. But no rough tactics or ICE for the last group. And allow legitimate asylum claims, with quick adjudication.
Let's not be blaming the victim. With all the fear generated by ICE, it's no wonder that Pretti carried his gun. I was always for abolishing the 2nd Amendment because I hate it that there are so many shootings in our country. But when people have to defend themselves against terrorist forces (such as ICE), it seems wise to be able to carry a weapon. Now I am no longer against the 2nd Amendment because of what ICE is doing. Will Minnesota secede? And be followed by states such as New York and California? IDK, but it sure looks like Trump is inducing a Civil War. Pretti was disarmed before ICE shot him to death. I'm sorry but ICE does remind me of Hitler's SA--their function was disruption and murder too. If I had to face ICE, I would want a weapon just in case. It's self-defense! ICE is Trump's rogue Gestapo! Sorry, but it's true. We are in such danger of fracturing our country because of Trump and his actions. Trump, Vance, Johnson...etc. They all need to go--NOW! If we don't get them out, they will get US out. New Yorker born and bred in this Sanctuary City.
What I would call for is the end of the Holocaust inversion. It is insulting and it is antisemitic, even if Jews do it. You don't have to like what ICE is doing, but it is so far from being Nazis, ICE is not the gestapo and the people being deported are not equivalent to the 6 million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis. Stop. Just Stop with the bullshit already.
ICE tactics are Gestapo from what I understand Gestapo tactics to be:
1. Bursting into residences with no legal reason/or authorization to do so.
2. Violent arrests include throwing people on the ground, shooting them without cause.
3. Detaining arrestees in "camps."
What am I missing here? The brown people are not being deported; they are being held in subpar conditions. Substitute "brown" for "Jew" and there you have it.
Succinct and logical. Such is your way and cadence. Guess the ole proverb still makes sense: You shouldn't bring a lit match into a fire to extinguish the flame.
A few random thoughts on Minnesota:
1) In Germany after WWII, approximately 200,000 Jews (including my mother's family) were housed in displaced persons camps at any given time. They were treated humanely and housed in family units. In the US today, roughly 70,000 people are in ICE detention facilities at any given time, are subject to inhumane treatment and are routinely separated from family members. Why can't the US treat a relatively small number of illegal immigrants with dignity? Because our government wants to make an example of them? No, they're not concentration camps, but surely we should treat people in unfortunate circumstances with basic humanity. And our congresspeople should be able to monitor the detention centers without undue obstacles UNLESS ICE HAS SOMETHING TO HIDE.
2) For the life of me, I can't understand what Alex Pretti hoped to accomplish by bringing a gun with him to protest ICE. Under what circumstances would he have drawn the weapon? Since he did not draw the weapon and was carrying it legally, it has no bearing on his murder by ICE officers, but I do wonder. He had it in the video taken 11 days earlier as well, so it was not a response to that incident.
3) Yes, murder. He was shot in the back while on all fours on the ground, completely helpless. Then he was shot 4 more times while lying motionless, face up. That is murder in my book. Under normal circumstances, a public trial would offer the officers who shot him an opportunity to explain and defend their actions. Anything less is a miscarriage of justice.
4) Did Pretti really have two extra magazines with him? I have not seen them in any of the bystander video or photos released by the administration. Was that another piece of Trump-era propaganda, or alternative facts, designed to smear a political opponent? If it was true, why not show the evidence?
Thank you Jay. There’s much to think about here. Your thoughtfulness is not only appreciated, it’s what seems to be missing at this time. Reactions, we’ve got ‘em in abundance. Well considered ideas, less so.
THANK YOU! SPOT ON!!!!
Well put as always. There are so many things that are thought to be true that aren't. Ice is not a Gestapo or an illegal army. It is a federal force designed to detain potentially dangerous illegal immigrants. Ice is NOT trained in crowd control. That is not part of its mission. The local governments by withholding police to control the street and keep protesters from the federal officers are derelict in their duty. At this point knowing that the local government will withhold police means the federal government, is also derelict in its duty. It must provide ICE with police protection.
The people who are confronting ICE physically are not protesters. They are not exercising first amendment rights. They are committing criminal acts. Protesting would involve standing 100 yards away and holding signs and chanting. This is most certainly not what is happening. The people they are protecting are not innocent Jews being hounded by Nazis. They are not innocent black people being menaced by the KKK. They are at best people with no legal right to be here and at worst, convicted criminals, some dangerous.
The local governments that are both allowing this kind of potentially violent obstruction both by withholding crowd control and by issuing incendiary rhetoric are morally if not legally complict in all of this. The private radical organizations that are funding these things are looking for violence and they are using potentially well meaning people and in some cases troubled people as bait.
In places where local authorities provide crowd control, nobody is dying.
This is reality and if it is not acknowledged there is no common language to discuss next steps.
Please don't pass your Kool Aid! You obviously do not understand the concept of civil disobedience. Our founders had no legal right to be here and yet they came, saw, and conquered. Our nation was established by a Revolutionary War. So much for our right to be here. The protesters ARE protesters who are trying to block ICE because ICE is scooping up people who are just living peacefully and paying taxes. I, for one, don't care about their "immigration status." We have immigrants all over my city and IDK whether they have papers or not. I don't even know if one of my own grandfathers had papers. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. You are so far off the mark, it isn't funny; it's scary.
Ok comrade.
Once you are in the possession of a firearm it becomes an option to be used. Without the gun you must think of other less violent, less threating options. Unless you recognize you may really need to use it don't put it in your tool bag. Save your g-d given rights to fight for another day.
When I was vey young I brought a knife to a fight and because I had it with me I tried to use it. As I whipped it out I realized to myself "Holy fuck what did I just do"? Not good thinking on my part bringing it with me. But boy was it ever a powerful lesson for the rest of my life.
Always go for the least violent, peaceful solution if possible! Leave your options open, not backing yourself into a corner even when you are in the right! No. not on the right :-) !
Think the of the "long game'. That's often how you will win!
"I mean, is this a Fort Sumter?"
Walz is such a midwit that he doesn't realize that he's the neo-Confederate here, no different from George Wallace or Orville Faubus, rejecting the supremacy of the federal government when it comes to enforcing the law.
As Prof. Gad Saad has pointed out, empathy can be suicidal. It's a disturbing symptom in society to see mothers put their children at risk to virtue signal on behalf of people who would rob and rape them. See: https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-great-feminization/
"I call for ICE to immediately redraft its evident ineffectual and polarizing strategy."
Ineffectual? DHS and ICE have arrested over 3,000 criminal aliens in Minnesota since the surge began.
It's not ICE that is polarizing the issue. There is an organized network of leftist activists that will obstruct no matter what strategy or tactics ICE uses. "The issue is not the issue, the revolution is always the issue."
Of the thousands of U.S. counties where ICE is currently active, there have only been serious protests and organized violence in fourteen of them, specifically those places where the left has organized opposition. This is not grassroots opposition.
"Anyone who becomes merciful upon the cruel will end by being cruel to the merciful." - R' Eliezer, Midrash Tanchuma, Parshat Metzora
O brother !!! Yikes. Walz is SPOT ON! He is NOT a neo-Confederate. He does not believe in slavery or Jim Crow laws. But, he is correct that Trump is creating a situation that might cause a fracture in our country. I have long wished that MY state would secede because I am so disgusted with Trump and his minions. They are so evil! If Minnesota goes, I think NY and CA would also go in solidarity. We have this poisonous one-third of the country ruling the rest of us and creating havoc.
I'm going to be polite, even though you said I was evil and poisonous (and we're not 1/3rd, more likely a majority, as can be seen by the 2024 elections and Democrats lining up on the short side of 80/20 issues, like mentally ill men in women's bathrooms).
I don't know if you're just not very smart or if you deliberately missed my point. Perhaps you aren't even smart enough to know how to deliberately miss my point. More likely, you are just being reactionary and reflexive. The issue is not slavery or Jim Crow (both of which were supported by Democrats). The issue is federal supremacy. Minnesota has no constitutional right or power to tell the federal government how it can enforce existing immigration law. It has no more right to obstruct federal law enforcement than racist Democratic governors did in the 1950s and early 1960s.
You're like a child throwing a tantrum, willing to upset everything because you don't get your way. You'd be perfectly comfortable living in a one-party state and you'd gladly see me put in a reeducation camp.
IQ well up there. I'm definitely having a MELTDOWN about ICE. I think it is horrendous. What point are you making that is worth even thinking about? You are knocking Gov. Walz for accurately pointing out that Minnesota is being driven toward secession by Trump's minions. If I can't have a tantrum about THAT, then what, pray tell, could I have a tantrum about? Our country is being destroyed by Trump. No, not a one-party state. More like a state governed by parties that are reasonable and compassionate.
Most Americans support deporting illegal immigrants who have committed other crimes. And, I think, most Americans support deporting non-citizen Radical Islamists and their supporters (even if they came in legally). Re others in the US illegally, there appears to be a consensus to require them to return to their country of origin, however, utilize administrative and financial incentives to accomplish this. But no rough tactics or ICE for the last group. And allow legitimate asylum claims, with quick adjudication.
I pretty much agree. We are living with a LOT of immigrants here in my city. They are not a problem for the most part.
Let's not be blaming the victim. With all the fear generated by ICE, it's no wonder that Pretti carried his gun. I was always for abolishing the 2nd Amendment because I hate it that there are so many shootings in our country. But when people have to defend themselves against terrorist forces (such as ICE), it seems wise to be able to carry a weapon. Now I am no longer against the 2nd Amendment because of what ICE is doing. Will Minnesota secede? And be followed by states such as New York and California? IDK, but it sure looks like Trump is inducing a Civil War. Pretti was disarmed before ICE shot him to death. I'm sorry but ICE does remind me of Hitler's SA--their function was disruption and murder too. If I had to face ICE, I would want a weapon just in case. It's self-defense! ICE is Trump's rogue Gestapo! Sorry, but it's true. We are in such danger of fracturing our country because of Trump and his actions. Trump, Vance, Johnson...etc. They all need to go--NOW! If we don't get them out, they will get US out. New Yorker born and bred in this Sanctuary City.
It is not "Holocaust inversion" which refers to people referring to Jewish people or Israel as Nazis.
My comment refers to that of "EKB" who spoke of "Holocaust inversion" in this context.
What I would call for is the end of the Holocaust inversion. It is insulting and it is antisemitic, even if Jews do it. You don't have to like what ICE is doing, but it is so far from being Nazis, ICE is not the gestapo and the people being deported are not equivalent to the 6 million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis. Stop. Just Stop with the bullshit already.
ICE tactics are Gestapo from what I understand Gestapo tactics to be:
1. Bursting into residences with no legal reason/or authorization to do so.
2. Violent arrests include throwing people on the ground, shooting them without cause.
3. Detaining arrestees in "camps."
What am I missing here? The brown people are not being deported; they are being held in subpar conditions. Substitute "brown" for "Jew" and there you have it.
Succinct and logical. Such is your way and cadence. Guess the ole proverb still makes sense: You shouldn't bring a lit match into a fire to extinguish the flame.