Still not shutting up about the Capital Riots

1. We know the attack was planned. Some of the rioters had body armor, weapons, zipties, and other items that you don't normally bring to a peaceful protest. The peaceful protest actually started over a mile away from the Capitol. Most of the protesters were peaceful, but the rioters used them as cover.
2. We know that this was not Antifa's doing. Antifa goons wear masks because they don't want to go to jail. Bank robbers wear masks because they don't want to go to jail. Many of these rioters did not wear masks, they livestreamed what they were doing, and some even showed ID. They smiled and waved at photojournalists. They were proud of what they were doing. They expected to be honored and celebrated for this. They probably did not expect a lengthy prison sentence. They should all go to prison for a long time or something like this will happen again.
3. I think Donald Trump was part of the planning. I think the rioters wanted to kidnap Congress and force them to Donald Trump's will, and Donald Trump was aware of it and kept enough of a distance to maintain what he thought would be plausible deniability if the coup failed. Some of you think that Trump had nothing to do with the riot and that is fine. All of us can hope that the truth comes out in the impeachment trial.
4. Sometimes when I talk about the riot, some will hint that it's about stopping communism or socialism. Folks, civil unrest is bad for capitalism. Dead customers don't buy things. Dead employees can't come to work. Infrastructure and supply chains experience major disruptions during conflict. All this nonsense about war being good for the economy: was WW2 good for Germany's economy to bombed, invaded, and divided in two for decades? Was the Blitz good for the UK's economy? Was the Siege of Leningrad good for Soviet civilians? Was WW2 good for Nagasaki and Hiroshima? This is why corporations are cutting off donations for any politician that they even think had any thing to do with treason. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos would rather have a stable socialist (disclaimer: Biden is not a socialist) than an unhinged lunatic running the country.

Donald Trump should be arrested for murder.

Donald Trump should be arrested and charged with the murder of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. He knew the crowd was headed to the Capitol. He knew the Capitol Police would be obligated to protect the lives of the Representatives and Senators inside. He took no action as Commander in Chief to keep the crowd safe or Congress safe.

I believe that he knew what the plan was all along: The mob was trying to seize as many Representatives and Senators as they can, along with Vice President Pence. They were going to force them to recognize Trump as the winner of the 2020 election, and then receive a full pardon from Trump.

Do not believe the theory that Antifa was responsible. Antifa thugs almost always wear masks to hide their identity because they don't want to face the legal consequences. The Capitol rioters were not wearing masks. They gleefully committed major federal felonies in front of dozens of cameras. The rioters included off-duty police and military veterans. They knew what they were doing was illegal and they were not trying to hide it. They even advertised what they were doing by livestreaming it. All of these rioters had to have been promised a pardon, and President Trump is still the only one who can pardon them, as of this writing.

Let me be clear that I don't think all Trump supporters are bad. Brian Sicknick was a Trump supporter himself. He might have been tempted to escort the rioters to the Chamber of the House of Representatives so they could complete their mission. He would still be alive right now if he did that. Instead, he did his duty and died a hero.

Trump gets banned from Twitter and Facebook.

This was going to happen. Trump did advocate for violence. If I were to take Trump's side, I could point out that all living US Presidents have advocated for violence while in office. I could say that Trump didn't specifically say "Go into the Capital building, break stuff, and see if you can kidnap some Congressmen." What he did say is that the election had been stolen from him. He said this even though Biden was polling way ahead of him prior to Election Day. He claimed that the mail in ballots were fraudulent because they were mostly for Biden. 

Now, some people are more concerned than I am about the pandemic, and some people are less concerned than me. I wear a mask in public, I've avoided any meatspace political meetings, but I've also had close friends come over to visit. I really wanted my vote to count, so I voted in person. I would guess that people who are more concerned about the pandemic would be more likely to vote by mail in 2020, and would have been more likely to vote against a President who hasn't been taking the pandemic seriously.

Perhaps Trump sincerely believed something fishy was going on. If that were the case, he was correct to file lawsuits so to get at the heart of the matter. However, he didn't have enough proof for the courts. The preponderance of evidence as it stands now is that Joe Biden had more popular votes, and also won in enough states to win the Electoral College.

Part of democracy and due process is accepting the results even when they don't go your way. The hope is that when things do go your way, the other side will accept those results. To be sure, the results are never even close to fair, but the idea is to produce an outcome that is acceptable to enough people that life can go on. You can still go to work, you can still buy food at the store, and trash still gets picked up every week. If more people voted against you than voted for you, that's a huge sign that you probably don't have the numbers to win a civil war. Trump supporters might have expected the support of the military, but the military gets their funding from Congress. All those cool tanks and planes need spare parts and fuel, so the US military can be expected to try to stay on good terms with the US Congress.

Can we all agree that elections are more pleasant than wars? In an election, you get to wear cool shirts and buttons. In war, you have to wear camo. In elections, you can talk to your friends and try to get them to join your side. In war, you're not going to get much of a chance to hear from anyone who joined the other side. Most elections, you can go to rallies if the weather is nice, or just stay home if you don't feel like it. In wars, you go out on patrol in shitty weather whether you feel like it or not. You'll never learn from Call of Duty what MRE's taste like, what latrines smell like, or what it really feels like to get shot. I personally would rather lose the worst election than win the best war.

So when a President denounces the outcome of an election, that puts the country at risk of a war that's not even going to make the Top 50 of wars. He has already gotten people killed. Everyone who died at the Capital riot had voted for Trump, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. Sicknick might very well have been tempted to join the mob and help them round up members of Congress so that they do their bidding. He might still be alive if he had done that. Instead he did his duty and was beaten to death for it.

Sicknick also no longer has access to Twitter or Facebook.

Like all private companies and public traded corporations, Twitter and Facebook have an interest in having customers who are still alive and able to buy products from their advertisers. If lots of people die, this will run counter to their interests. This is as basic as economics gets: dead consumers stop consuming. Banning Trump from their platforms was the right thing to do, from both a financial and moral stand point.

That riot at the Capitol

1. I do think it is foolish for fiscal conservatives to intentionally damage public property. Tax money will be used to repair the Capitol. Even more tax money will be spent on increased security measures to make sure that the nice folks in Congress are safe from the maniacs who elected them. 

2. Trump has an amazing ability to get people to believe in absolute bullshit. Remember when he acted like Obama was actually born in Kenya? Obama let Trump do it too, because it was a useful distraction. Trump never had an endgame for his birther fantasies. Nothing he said was going to stop Obama from being President. He didn't have an endgame for the stolen election narrative either. Judges that he appointed himself kept throwing out his cases. 

3. Trump lost because he's obnoxious and he inspired millions to vote against him. Most successful leaders try not to inspire the opposition. Good politics is boring politics. But Trump doesn't like being bored. 

4. Folks, violence is like sex in that it is lots of fun but the consequences can be unpredictable. You should only resort to violence to protect people, you should only go bareback when you are trying to make more people. Fools literally fuck around and find out everyday. 

The consequences of sex and violence are arbitrary, random, and unfair. There is no way to make them fair. A woman might try to conceive a child within the bounds of marriage, then die from an ectopic pregnancy. A President can cheat on his wife and watch his polls numbers go up. A teen can throw a plastic bottle at someone then get shot in the face. A President can start a pointless bloody war then retire in comfort. 

I don't expect any of you to become celibate pacifists after reading that. We weigh the potential risks and consequences of sex and violence every day. A frizzy haired woman in a tube top might ask me to buy her cigarettes at the gas station with the implication that I might enjoy what comes next. A frizzy haired man in a suit might ask me to donate to his campaign with the implication that my quality of life might be improved when he pushes policies that put my neighbors in jail. Right now I'm feeling like strange women in tube tops are more trustworthy than famous men in suits. 

I'm not here to talk about the morality of sex and violence. People might tell you to stay away from riots and orgies. You might go to one anyway, have the time of your life, and have a nice story for your friends. Or you might get caught on camera, and your spouse or boss will find out that you fucked around.