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>The danger is unreal not because it failed, but because it was obviously going to fail. We're talking about a bunch of delusional LARPers. If some foreign intelligence unit tries and fails to overthrow your country's government, that's insurrection. If it's the doofus who stole the podium or the guy with face paint and a horned fur hat, not so much.

What are you basing the obviousness of the failure on? The mob was seemingly a few dozen feet away from numerous politicians with the only thigs between them being a barricaded door and seemingly less than a half dozen security people.

>There were murderers and arsonists at BLM riots as well; that doesn't impugn the legitimate protesters. Similarly, these few actual insurrectionists don't make the MAGA trespassers, rioters, even murderers into insurrectionists.

How many murders were committed by the millions of BLM protester in the dozens of cities they protested in over the months they protested? Because these thousands of people in DC were able to murder one and get multiple of their own killed? The violence rate of the two isn't comparable.

>There is a danger to our democracy in that a sitting president undermining democracy by spreading lies about election fraud. More generally, the media and tech companies are deliberately cultivating division and mistrust among the American people. These are real, credible dangers to democracy. The MAGA LARPers were not a credible threat to our democracy.

What happened on 1/6 was a direct result of those first two. This is part of the danger to democracy manifesting itself.

> We're talking about a bunch of delusional LARPers.

There were lots of LARPers. There were also some groups moving in organised fashion with less expensive and more useful equipment. There were people with bombs. There were some people ready to inflict harm on LE and luckily they didn't carry on to other people.

It was not a homogeneous group with same ideas and goals. That idea is just distracting from what happened.

Can we get some number or range for "lots of"? I imagine those words mean wildly different things (1-2 orders of magnitude) to different people.

I mean pipe bombs were found at both political party headquarters, so how many bombs is enough to be serious?

You're ascribing intent to my words where there is none. I have no interest in arguing my opinion here.

I am interested in reading other people's thoughtfully formed opinions. Using words like "lots of" without clarifying further seems likely to lead to people talking past each other. That's why I commented.

Hundreds, at least.

https://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/

puerto rican nationalists stormed the capitol and shot congressmen in 1954; leftists literally bombed the senate chamber in 1983; we somehow managed to persist without restricting civil liberties both times. have you ever even heard of these events? i would wager most of us haven't. this time though, they had a 10,000 page anti-terror bill waiting in the wings and ready to push through, a dark reminder of the patriot act and the post-9/11 expansion of the security state. and just like telecoms and media companies after 9/11, the corporations line up to kiss the ring.

Violence against the institutions isn't great, but can you honestly not see the difference between; - 1983, goal: end war in Grenada via terror/threat, action: set bomb off at 11pm (0 deaths, 0 injuries) - 2021, goal: keep former President in office after losing election, kill VP, kill Speaker of House, action: storm capitol (5 deaths, over 100 injuries), bonus: incited by sitting President

> storm capitol (5 deaths, over 100 injuries)

This 5 deaths stat is one of the most mealy mouthed details being repeated. 1 police officer was killed, 1 rioter was killed. 2 people died of health related issues (1 stroke, 1 heart attack) while standing around. 1 died in the press of the crowd when people started panicking.

2 deaths were medical issues. 1 was a sad accident. 1 was a tragedy of someone being killed in the line of duty, and 1 was a trespasser paying the price for their actions. Playing it up like 5 innocent people were murdered by violent rioters is disrespectful to the one person who actually was, and is blatant politically motivated propaganda.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/who-died-in-capitol-bu...

yes, i can see the difference -- who, whom

> puerto rican nationalists stormed the capitol and shot congressmen in 1954;... we somehow managed to persist without restricting civil liberties both times.

Because Puerto Rico already had the Ley de la Mordaza since 1948. Also Pedro Albizu Campos had his pardoned revoked.

I agree with the sentiment that this thing was blown out of proportion. I watched the videos and the police could easily stop them by using deadly force. They decided not to and the protestors took advantage of it. There was only one woman who got shot from my understanding. I think the police should get a lot of credit here. That's the police we want to see - officers who use common sense and don't apply deadly force unless someone is in serious danger (I didn't see the xx ç video of the shooting yet). Unfortunately a lot of people including many celbreties decided to ignore that and instead focus on white privilege and if those were black people the result was different. Some people don't want peace, just wars.

With that being said, you cannot take it lightly. The FBI should take it very seriously. We all remember Timothy Mcveigh. I really hope the next few weeks will pass quietly.

> Unfortunately a lot of people including many celbreties decided to ignore that and instead focus on white privilege and if those were black people the result was different.

It also seems to me that "race" isn't the only pertinent difference with respect to the differing police response between the two riots. Even if the police simply leaned right, that would provide a non-racial explanation. Of course, we can't have a politicized police force, but that's a non-racial explanation. Similarly, BLM spent the entire summer campaigning aggressively against the police (whether or not their campaign was righteous is immaterial for this conversation) while MAGA was consistently "Back The Blue" right up until the Capitol Hill riots. Again, it's not acceptable for police to act on such biases, but it's a very different problem with a very different solution than a racial motive.

> Some people don't want peace, just wars.

Sadly, I agree. I get the distinct feeling that people want to crush their political opponents these days, and they're happy to use any post-facto reasoning to rationalize their anger, hatred, etc. It seems like we as a society no longer value peace, mercy, forgiveness, or grace; there is only vindictiveness masquerading as "justice".

> The danger is unreal not because it failed, but because it was obviously going to fail

They came very close to having members in the hands of the mob; I think you very much overestimate what was required for this to succeed. Even if the mob itself was disavowed, simply getting a presiding officer more that would be more sympathetic to the President’s interests int he circumstances (which probably would have taken at least one more removal than “Hang Mike Pence”, but may not have been impractical) would potentially have provided a sufficient pretext for a process in which the Congress would have ended up declaring Trump the winner.

But even if it was “obviously going to fail”, that doesn’t make it not-dangerous (even if the intended violence didn’t have the intended political effects, it still would have been horrific) or not-insurrection.

> If some foreign intelligence unit tries and fails to overthrow your country’s government, that’s insurrection.

No, its a (covert) invasion.

> If it’s the doofus who stole the podium or the guy with face paint and a horned fur hat, not so much.

How about if it is the retired Air Force Lt. Col. with zip ties who was directing action, including efforts at intelligence gathering on members, in the Senate chamber?

Just because the unusual outfits get disproportionate media attention doesn’t mean they were the dominant factor in the insurrection.

> The danger is unreal not because it failed, but because it was obviously going to fail.

Being 1 door away from where they were hiding seems a pretty close call imo