Explosions At Boston Marathon

[Venant]

I can say with confidence that the ppl were searched were happy to comply with the request. All I saw last night was the feeling of relief in their eyes from my perspective. I think your really focused on something that really is pretty strange considering the consequence of not being cooperative and vigilant citizens may have indangering their own lives.

The problem with everyone merely beein a 'cooperative and vigilant citizen' is that while it sounds good in concept it leads people to stop questioning those who really do have power, ie the gigantic police state. I believe that the media and the government want to have the narrative that nobody is safe from terrorism, because then it justifies more infringement upon individual liberties. In reality you probably have an exponentially greater chance of being killed because you drive too fast than you have from dying in a terrorist attack; does this mean it would be reasonable for the government to lock up every motorist who drives in excess of 25mph?

The point is, lots of stupid and bad BS was pushed through by the government after 9/11 because people were scared. Nowadays most of this BS doesn't even go through the normal legislature, it is instead decided by secret memorandum and other ridiculous un-constitutional methods. The police just do things and everyone goes along with it, and there are fewer checks and balances because the most important check on power is a population that is constantly skeptical and questioning of authority. They are supposed to work for you, they are supposed to serve the public not be some sort of kevlar covered daddy figure 'protecting' you from all the boogeymen of the world.

[PickleballAce]

https://twitter.com/J_tsar/status/236345246567526400

The value of human life ain't shit nowadays that's #tragic

[eschatological]

The last thing you will see from me is jumping on the anti immigration wagon. I'm an immigrant too. I'd consider that enormously hypocrite. I don't defend criminal immigrants though, they are just hurting all immigrants. I defend the legal procedures, that apply to everyone living here. I think we are in agreement.

I'm an immigrant, and I also work with legal resident immigrants trying to get permanent citizenship. A few things to note:

1) Once you are a naturalized citizen, you have the same rights as a natural born citizen, with one exception: You cannot be President. That means anything that would strip citizenship rights of a naturalized citizen would also be enough to strip the rights of a natural born citizen. Currently, only treason and acts of war qualify. There is no evidence of either in this case yet. To insinuate that we should be able to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship for "violent crime" is ridiculous and, in my opinion, a dangerous/stupid and possibly bigoted view to have.

2) Any legal alien in this country can be deported and stripped of residency status for any felony, already. It doesn't have to be violent. You can be deported for a DUI. You can also be deported for a bunch of misdemeanors as well, depending on the intent shown in those misdemeanors. As someone who works with legal aliens, I can tell you about 75%-85% of all legal aliens who commit crimes are deported. I'd say 99.9999% of aliens who commit felonies are deported, and I only say that because I try to not speak in absolutes, but I've yet to hear of a case where a legal alien wasn't deported for committing a felony. The ones who aren't deported commit really minor misdemeanors.

3) Any illegal alien in this country can be deported simply by being found.

The point of all this is that we have the systems in place, and in this particular case, we saw two refugees who sought asylum and were granted it, and one eventually given citizenship. They had, until last Monday, not committed any crimes at all.

[Wells]

Why are you folks defending this guy? He doesn't have the right to be a citizen of the Earth or the United States. He shouldn't even damn well get a trial. There are times when you kill a person and be done with it. Bombings/murder should fall under this.

At what point do citizens not get trials anymore? When do we throw out due process?

Trials aren't a service we do for the accused, they're how we determine guilt.

[Venant]

Yes, it could be entirely possible that the brothers are stooges and everyone involved from the Law Enforcement to the Media to anyone who interacted recently with the brothers one way or another are plants.

Or maybe there's actually some decent evidence that these two are guilty or at least strongly related to the bombing and that everything that occured in the past 36 hours actually happened.

I mean, fuck, I've never been to Africa. At this point I guess I'm only accepting that it exists based on good faith. I've no actual proof of my own that says it exists.

I'm not arguing that the evidence, at face value, is not compelling. My problem is that it has been portrayed as a tidy little narrative as if it was presented in the form of an NCIS episode. The reason why there is a delay between what you might read as first or second hand accounts on twitter and when it is presented through the media, is because there is a ton of editing that takes place on the way to anything being presented to the public. Often times any accounts that might put the narrative into question are conveniently left out, and we end up with a general public that smugly thinks it knows what is going on. I am not stating that you should question any one story specifically, instead there needs to be skepticism applied to the whole system(the media) in general.

[Grizzly Willy]

Why are you folks defending this guy? He doesn't have the right to be a citizen of the Earth or the United States. He shouldn't even damn well get a trial. There are times when you kill a person and be done with it. Bombings/murder should fall under this.

Because we persecute to the full extent of the law, and the law demands certain measures be taken. Whether he does or doesn't deserve death is to be determined by the courts. No matter what the decision, he will never be a free man again. That is our legal system. If you wish a more barbaric system, I welcome you to push for one.

[PickleballAce]

I'm not arguing that the evidence, at face value, is not compelling. My problem is that it has been portrayed as a tidy little narrative as if it was presented in the form of an NCIS episode. The reason why there is a delay between what you might read as first or second hand accounts on twitter and when it is presented through the media, is because there is a ton of editing that takes place on the way to anything being presented to the public. Often times any accounts that might put the narrative into question are conveniently left out, and we end up with a general public that smugly thinks it knows what is going on. I am not stating that you should question any one story specifically, instead there needs to be skepticism applied to the whole system(the media) in general.

Hey, a healthy amount of skepticism can be welcome. I loved Carlin and that seemed to be a pretty key tenet for him. "Don't just teach your children to read, teach them to question what they read." You can draw your own line on that one.

Point about the media though, I think it deserves mention that in this particular case a lot of us actually skipped the middle man and largely bypassed media accounts anyway by listening directly to police scanners and being minutes (or hours?) ahead of the press. Unless you suppose those aren't reliable either.

And in the media's defense, there are reasons why they're sometimes behind, including some amount of fact-checking and being more accountable than someone on twitter. They get shit for being slow but they also get shit for hastily rushing out inaccurate news.

[eschatological]

Hey, a healthy amount of skepticism can be welcome. I loved Carlin and that seemed to be a pretty key tenet for him. You can draw your own line on that one.

Point about the media though, I think it deserves mention that in this particular case a lot of us actually skipped the middle man and largely bypassed media accounts anyway by listening directly to police scanners and being minutes (or hours?) ahead of the press. Unless you suppose those aren't reliable either.

Except the scanner was largely unreliable.

Remember the two names of the guys who turned out not to be the guys?

Remember the "rocket" found in a basement?

Remember the 70 year old guy who took 4 bomb robots to disarm of...nothing?

All just inane bullshit. For once, I was rather glad for the news media's delay on reporting such things, because those things were all just conjecture on a police scanner. The Reddit thread which was supposedly the be-all, end-all of information that "bypassed the middle man" claimed the 2nd suspect was dead, at 5:21 AM. Believe me, I was following it.

I think it's hilarious to fault the news media for delaying information which is just conjecture at this point, when most of the fault of the media in the past has been rushing to push out unverified info before their competitors.

Sure, now a lot of them are in professional "theorize out my ass" mode, but I don't have any issue with how they covered the event itself as it was unfolding.

[PickleballAce]

Except the scanner was largely unreliable.

That's not the point though. The point is that, unless you want to make a claim that the scanner feeds were intentionally misleading "fake" ones, that those of us listening to them aren't subject to this supposed media fairytale. Reliable as in "not tainted by media twisting it to fit a narrative".

[Themius]

Salam aleikum is his twitter title thing or whatever so I am going to assume this as some confirmation of his being a muslim

[PickleballAce]

I've said gesundheit before, but that doesn't mean I speak German.

(I'm kidding, don't take this seriously).

[eschatological]

His aunt already said the family is (moderate) Muslim. As-salamu alaykum is a standard greeting for a billion Muslims around the world

The question is whether or not they became radicalized. The aunt told NPR a very interesting story about how the older brother even married a Christian woman, how they were moderate Muslims and then how the older brother started "doing the 5 prayers a day" thing Muslims about 4 or 5 years ago. Even keeping the fard as-salat isn't a sign of extremism, any practicing Muslim does them just as any practicing Catholic goes to Mass on Sundays and holy days. But it certainly shows an increase in activity in Islam for the older brother.

[mvaliz]

Salam aleikum is his twitter title thing or whatever so I am going to assume this as some confirmation of his being a muslim

Tell me, which religious order did Timothy McVeigh blow up the Oklahoma building for?

Which deity did the Columbine kids murder a ton of high-school students over?

This bomber's religion doesn't mean squat at this point. Maybe he (gasp!) was just seriously pissed off at life and wanted to hurt people for the hell of it because of any number of stupid reasons - ranging from "they're useless sheeple" to "in the end, their lives mean nothing in the cosmic grand scheme of whatever bullshit I'm believing in right now"

[PickleballAce]

@j_tsar

ooh baby i love your way, everyday.

I almost want someone to blame his actions on "rap music" (has some quotes in his twitter feed), just so someone else can ask if Peter Frampton inspires terrorists too.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Because we persecute to the full extent of the law, and the law demands certain measures be taken. Whether he does or doesn't deserve death is to be determined by the courts. No matter what the decision, he will never be a free man again. That is our legal system. If you wish a more barbaric system, I welcome you to push for one.

Or move to a place like Saudi Arabia, where the saying "an eye for an eye" is taken literally when punishing criminals.

He is (still) a US citizen. He has the same right to a fair and unbiased trial as any of you, regardless of the crimes of which he is accused.

[eschatological]

I almost want someone to blame his actions on "rap music" (has some quotes in his twitter feed), just so someone else can ask if Peter Frampton inspires terrorists too.

I knew there was something wrong about listening to Peter Frampton as a young man.

[Otaka]

What happens when you give 4chan images of the boston?

They might actually find the guys responsible:

http://weather-underground.tumblr.co...-of-the-boston

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

What happens when you give 4chan images of the boston?

They might actually find the guys responsible:

http://weather-underground.tumblr.co...-of-the-boston

I thought 4Chan definitely got the wrong guy?

[PickleballAce]

What happens when you give 4chan images of the boston?

They might actually find the guys responsible:

http://weather-underground.tumblr.co...-of-the-boston

Unless I'm missing something, that's not the guy.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

And that is why we do not allow people to practise vigilante justice.