Comment by mindslight | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mindslight | Hacker News Reader

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So to be clear, you haven't actually seen any definitive evidence that her goal was to physically impede ICE, yet you're jumping to that strong conclusion based on how she stopped the car? Why wouldn't you assume she was merely turning her car for a better filming/viewing angle, sparing us all from having to view one more video with an A-pillar smack in the middle?

> Renee and her wife were positioning their car

What do you mean they both were? Was it a drivers' ed car with pedals and steering wheel on both sides? Is co-driving some kind of lesbian thing I don't know about?

Listen, I assumed good faith here. I use some pretty strong language to condemn this regime and its cheerleaders, but I personally had been steelmanning Trump up through June of 2020 (when it had fully set in for me that he was dividing rather than leading us through Covid). I really want to be mistaken here - it would be fantastic to find out that my country actually isn't being taken over by fascists, right? I welcome anybody that convinces me this isn't the case!

But trying to discuss these events in an intellectual manner, it seems I always end up seeing these telltale signs of motivated reasoning - in this case casually mentioning a detail ("her wife") that has seemingly zero bearing on the situation, yet what it does do is emphasize her identity as part of an outgroup. Now like everything, I could be misjudging here. Perhaps I've jumped the gun and you've got some very valid reason why that little detail, and only that little detail, is relevant. Please do enlighten me.

Sorry, had a sentence mangled due to some editing, should have read “due to Renee’s positioning of the car, and her wife’s interaction with the officers”.

As for my biases: I don’t care for Trump, I like some things he does, I hate others, but I do think illegal immigrants are a problem.

Did her wife leave the car at any time? Or are you talking about verbal interaction, which is most likely Constitutionally-protected criticism of government agents? (such verbal interaction would also indicate a clear reason for the positioning of the car)

Or is there something specific in the verbal interaction that establishes a mens rea to physically impede? If so, please quote it. (not that her wife's words establish a mens rea for Renee, but it might be a stepping stone)

FWIW I'm ambivalent on illegal immigration itself. But I will say that people who think they are finally getting somewhere on illegal immigration are being taken for a ride, just as they have been for the past few decades.

Specifically in the officer POV video (2nd link in my original post), with how the car was positioned, and that Renee’s partner was walking around outside and was not in the car, and the style of the back and forth dialog between, Renee, her partner, and the officers, all served to give me the impression Renee and her partner were there for a while, and weren’t just “passing through”. Again, I am willing to admit I might be wrong, it’s possible they were in the middle of an awkward, u-turn. I think we will know the clear truth of at least this aspect of the situation sometime soon, seems like a thing that would be easy to verify or disprove with how many videos must have been recorded.

We had been talking about whether they were physically impeding ICE agents, but now you're framing things as if being "there for a while" would be a problem in and of itself. Meanwhile in America it is every citizen's right, and perhaps even duty, to observe and criticize government agents. To be very clear: stayed stopped on the street [0], observing, filming, and heckling government agents is all Constitutionally-protected activity.

Moving the goalposts to unsupportable standards ("middle of an awkward u-turn" ?!?) makes it hard to assume good faith.

And furthermore, ICE has body cameras. Surely if there was footage of ICE agents actually being impeded, it would have been widely publicized by now. Instead, we've only heard wild assertions claiming they were. And with the reputation of this administration, it's only reasonable to assume those are bald-faced lies.

[0] when done in furtherance of other Constitutionally-protected activity and not being policed in line with normal traffic enforcement

I never said the U-turn was the only acceptable reason that they could be there, I only mentioned it because it was the most innocent possible reason for Renee to be there that I can think of.

In these cases, isn’t it usual for evidence to be kept out of the public eye until after all relevant court trials are done?

Also, just to be very clear, I am not saying ICE shot Renee because she was being a nuisance. I am saying she got shot because she made an intentional and almost lethal maneuver at the ICE agent with her car.

Sorry, I shouldn't have referenced the u-turn as the changed goalpost when my real qualm was the other end of characterizing "being there for a while" as a problem.

> In these cases, isn’t it usual for evidence to be kept out of the public eye until after all relevant court trials are done?

Do you actually think that is what is being done here in any sense, what with the release of the body cam footage and the immediate assertive statements by the government?

> Also, just to be very clear, I am not saying ICE shot Renee because she was being a nuisance. I am saying she got shot because she made an intentional and almost lethal maneuver at the ICE agent with her car.

This is just restating where we started our argument. There are many instances of because here, so the only way to sort through them is to make a clear distinction between what is and what ought:

If we're talking about what is, then yes I think we can all agree that Renee would have been better off if she had not tried to drive away. Renee would have also been better off if she had remained quiet, passively observed, not mouthed off to violent men with guns, and if she still somehow ended up drawing aggro, the moment that started happening she should have driven off before she was anywhere close to boxed in. Even if you are right, you can still be dead.

But if we're talking about what ought, as in, what should a citizen in a free society based around individual liberty and limited government ought to have the right to do, without suffering repercussions (especially high-stakes escalation summary judgement repercussions) from the government? I would say that's a pretty high bar centered on physical aggression. No amount of exercising your first amendment right to criticize the government by heckling its individual agents, nor just generally being a verbal nuisance, justifies a high-stakes escalation by "public servants" (being surrounded and assaulted) whereby one imprudent move results in death.

And as far as our argument here, you haven't really presented anything showing that her actions were in the aggressively violent camp, as opposed to the Constitutionally-protected nuisance camp. I'm open to evidence of violent aggression, but all I have generally seen about this situation consists of naked assertions and innuendo.

I have nothing specific to add, but just wanted to thank both of you for trying hard to have a productive conversation about a contentious topic despite disagreeing. It's nice to see people leading by providing positive examples rather than screaming at each other.

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