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Just my perspective:
What ICE is doing is terrible and there’s no reason to pretend it isn’t or to obfuscate by talking about illegal immigration in the abstract.
There’s also no particular reason why you have to feel like this is worse than the authoritarian hellscape Kamala was representing. Her administration locked down and forcibly “medicated” hundreds of millions of people while gaslighting everyone constantly.
It’s not at all obvious that Trump has more carnage on his hands than the heads of the Covid regime.
Fair, I think that comparison is useful.
another reason I appreciated this episode was the accounting done, taking in the hopeful reasons two years ago to vote, and what has played out since then. The summary I would agree with: we hoped the administration would move apolitically but instead the power gravitated toward political gain
The state is always ugly and violent. There’s nothing wrong with trying to point it away from yourself.
The focus on "the state" is mindless as the state is just the label du jour for human organization. If you do not like human organization that's fine, but organization is, and if you are human than the only thing worse than participation is abdication.
Abdication is to be acquiescent, it is a lazy, dishonest, most cowardly form of consent. Textbook slacktivism.
The same people do the same things throughout history no matter what it's called. We had a very weak federal government, no "gestapo", and the scenes were no different.
No state pictured here. Just a labor union mob fighting a private agency (Pinkerton). Funny how many anarchists would cry about Pinkerton just as they cry about the State despite it fitting squarely into the sovereign property rights framework. The same people bemoaning the state today would have created it mere generations ago for exactly the same reasons.
The distinction is around whether the organization uses market means or political (violent) means. You may not care about the distinction but that doesn't make it mindless.
Some people have a strong preference for peaceful relations.
How did the Kerensky preferences work out?
Preferences are nice, but don't mean anything when the choices are bad and worse.
Cherry picked examples aren't substitutes for arguments.
There are plenty of theoretical arguments for a stateless society and all the evidence we have suggests that less state intervention increases prosperity.
Contending with either of those points in a serious manner would constitute an argument.
Thousands of years of emergent behavior isn't a cherry-picked example. Lots of things sound good in theory, but that's no different than the 20 year old college indoctrinated Marxist shouting from their parents safety net.
It's not brave or insightful to say violence is bad, and needn't exist in an ideal world, there's nothing to argue with there... so the squeamish acquiescent abdicator argues only in the abstract with himself, with nothing at stake, an even more feckless reflection of his Marxist analogue.
less state intervention increases prosperity
Obviously, and history shows that the state intervention increases when people make the choice not to choose the bad over the worse. Abdication is still choosing.
Abstaining from voting is definitely frowned upon socially. I think it's obvious that people shouldn't vote and often tell them so.
This ^^
Its one thing to deny the state is violent and pointing it at people will result in death. It's quite another to only seem to care when it's under the control by people you don't align with.
I have a problem with the state killing people. I also have a problem when people that desire a massive increase in state power to make things right in the world complaining about it when they aren't in charge.
Covid was not that long ago and I am sure many appalled by ICE were begging government agents to punish those not willing to get stuck with a drug or daring to gather with others voluntarily.
Also, this whole mess is why people talk about states rights. Let each state regulate itself and keep the feds out. But most lefties want the feds forcing states to do things they like.
We can't have it both ways. I'm tired of pointing this out. Objectively looking at conflicts seems too boring for most people.
there's some ever so slight (and maybe more internal) pressure to offer regret for the way I voted ? The conflict is nudged by the violence on display by immigration officers ... I'm just trying to digest a bit of it, but not too much, and make meaning of it.
Which really means I'm fishing for a narrative to affix to my perception, and I want namely bret and heather to give it to me.
'normies' are still going to protests and calling senators