- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/42161854
In a heated interview with CNN‘s Dana Bash on Sunday, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said his agents were the real “victims” in the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis protestor.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse, was killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday. In videos of the deadly altercation between Pretti and several agents, he can be seen placing himself between an agent and several women that he was shoving. Pretti is sprayed with a chemical irritant and then wrestled to the ground, where one agent repeatedly hit him in the head with the irritant’s metal canister. Pretti, who was legally carrying a firearm, was fatally shot by agents while on the ground.
DHS immediately painted Pretti as a threat, saying that officers feared for their lives because Pretti was legally carrying a firearm. Multiple videos of the shooting contradicted the official line that Pretti was threatening agents. On Sunday, Bash pressed Bovino for evidence “that he was intending to massacre law enforcement.”
When Bash repeatedly asserted Pretti’s right to carry his firearm, Bovino made the bold claim that Pretti forfeited his Second Amendment rights via his actions.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. -TJ
I saw an analysis recently where someone went through the grievances of the Declaration of Independence and fully like 2/3rds of them applied to the Trump admin.
Remember when NPR tweeted the declaration and Republicans thought it was an attack?
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-supporters-react-to-npr-declaration-of-independence-tweets-2017-7
Yeah, if you feel attacked by that, you’re the bad guy.
Archive link, with images of tweets intact.
I hadn’t seen this, that’s hilarious.
Paywall.
Still hilarious though.
the fact that “amendments” exist and were won by bloody fights and protests tells one that the founding of the US was never, ever, about equality or rights endowed by a creator.
“All men are created equal”
Slave state!
1: the quote is from the declaration of independence, not the US Constitution that was written 13 years later after the initial weak federal government was found to be too weak.
2: 11 of the ratified amendments were essentially part of the bargain to get said Constitution passed. And absent the civil war amendments, none of the subsequent amendments were passed due to violence. (Maybe you’re thinking of the VRA?)
3: that SCOTUS has devolved into a creative writing exercise in “how can we pretend the Constitution doesn’t say what it says”, apparently Jefferson was right and enumerated rights were a mistake. (Given the benefit of hindsight, an equally difficult process for removing rights recognized by Congress or SCOTUS would have been better.)
I mean there needed to be a rule that SCOTUS couldn’t grant immunity to lawsuits or exempt the government from lawsuits.
One obvious sign the constitution was not designed with much thought is that the Supreme Court and the Electoral College are both examples of what people in the 1700s thought would create apolitical processes with diametrically opposing theories (permanent = apolitical, temporary = apolitical) and the electoral college is definitely more successful so far in achieving its stated goals.
The point of the electoral college isn’t to be apolitical, it’s to guarantee that the president is elected by the states and not the people. That was part of the compromise between the national and federal sides of the government. Though since the capping of the number in the House the government has been lopsided toward federal.
They had no mandate to write the thing. Technically, if they failed to get popular support, they could have been considered guilty of treason. So, in short, it was propaganda to get people to just go ahead and sign on to what they were doing
and my position is that it never truly meant “all men” when it referred to equality, etc. we all know that anyway. i just wanted to remind folks that the existence of things like amendments means the document and mindset is not immutable and depending on the folks in charge can be changed. sometimes even reversing prior amendments!
in short: stop pretending the declaration and constitution mean anything. at all. in this day and age most critically.
Man, it gets tiring, doesn’t it? The way people basically worship the existence of certain documents, in spite of having no clue what the authors were actually talking about. Obviously this goes for religion as well as politics, cause they’re fundamentally the exact same thing.
Oh, and speaking of the founding documents not being immutable, I heard that Jefferson actually made some quote to the effect that he expected us to completely rewrite everything every 20 to 30 years or so… Implies that the so-called founding fathers did not intend for the Constitution to be set in stone in any way. But instead everybody swears oaths to a goddamn piece of paper, giving it a quasi-holy status in our culture.
So basically all I’m saying is I’m right there with ya!
The list of grievances. See any parallels?
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
"All men are created equally…just uh, ya know, please forget the families of slaves that we, the founding fathers, keep in our control.