House of Eratosthenes

I’m seeing a lot of confrontation both on & off social media, in the wake of this thing that happened a month ago that we’re supposed to think of as an “insurrection.” The problem with using that word is that it presumes motive. If we stick to the facts, and define exactly what was out of the ordinary about it, it’s a penetration. Opinions vary on how much it was forced.

It’s clear there is an effort underway to associate any residual Trump support with domestic terrorism. How organized is this? It doesn’t really matter because it doesn’t have to be organized. A lot of people who voted against Donald Trump want their new world, or their old world, of no-fighting, no conflict, nobody calls anybody “losers,” soothing pastel colors, puppies, rainbows, unicorns, etc….but they still want to be able to call their Trump supporting parents, children, colleagues and fellow citizens fringe-kooky whackadoodles and worse. So they confront us with the QAnon theories — which, if you’re like me, you hadn’t heard spelled out clearly before this year started. Maybe you’re being asked “Do you support this stuff?” or “Are you trying to overthrow the government?”

This coming week Trump is tried in the Senate. We could debate the constitutionality of that, but that’s rather useless as the Senate is gonna go ahead and do it.

This is a good thing. It means we get to ask some questions back to the confronters, who are asking their questions of us.

1. How do you incite a riot, or insurrection, or whatever, to be carried out by people who already brought equipment for doing the rioting? I am of the opinion that this exonerates Trump immediately. You’re ready to do some breaking and some hurting, or else you’re not. If you’re not, but you decided to go ahead and do it because the guy standing next you wanted to do it, it isn’t going to matter what some elected official is saying in a speech. And if you are ready because you brought your pipe bombs with you, again, the speech isn’t going to matter.

2. How do you define the dangerous speech that incites this behavior? If you want to prosecute something, you have to define what it is. I like to make this point by replying to the critic (it really doesn’t matter what they said just before) “This latest thing you said makes me want to grab a brick and throw it through a window. When I do it, it’s on you. Seriously though…do you see the problem now?”

3. Have you been compelled to change your mind about anything since those flawed early reports? There have been some twists & turns in the running narratives. Any zealots who can’t entertain doubts about what they think…the rest of us will have to entertain those doubts for them.

4. Since there is less than full culpability to be placed on those who did the rioting, is this not a referendum against the electoral reforms that the states made just before the election? It’s hard to think of a more scathing indictment to be made against Vote By Mail, than this: The end result was violent rioting due to historically low confidence in the electoral results. So how should a reasonable person view this. As a success?

5. Don’t you think it’s deceptive to use phrases like “a violent protest in which five people died” without disclosing the rioters weren’t directly responsible for hurting anyone? And all of the dead were Trump supporters?

6. Do you agree there was fraud but not enough to change the outcome of the election? How and why? How do you quantify the fraud? Are you comparing it to the national popular vote?

7. Should Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez be censured or punished in any way for lying? She certainly does have her defenders, but everyone arguing honestly about it would have to concede she was at least highly deceptive.

8. Is it dangerous to voice doubts about Biden’s victory, or about election integrity, even when those doubts are sincere? It wasn’t so long ago liberals wanted us to “question authority.”

9. How confident should we be about the integrity of our elections?

10. Would you say there were significant problems with integrity or foreign influence in the 2016 elections? Has anything been fixed since then? It seems to me like it’s a lot more reasonable to think the 2016 elections were trustworthy and the 2020 elections were not, as opposed to the other way around. We didn’t pick Vote By Mail because it made the best sense or yielded the most trustworthy results; we were cornered into it by the Chinese Virus.

11. Do you agree with Congresswoman Maxine Waters that Trump should be charged with premeditated murder? After all, these “Do you support this?” questions should be a two-way street if they’re going to be asked at all. And charging someone with premeditated murder would necessitate proving the existence of a plan. This seems like a rather dicey plan.

12. Do you think Waters should be held responsible for calling for confrontations against Trump supporters and harassment of administration officials? Pot, meet kettle.

13. Is there a danger here that one major political party will be allowed to call for confrontations and harassment, and the other won’t? I think most Americans agree with me: There ought to be free speech, there ought to be accountability for those who are abusing this right (just like any other right can be abused)…but the playing field should be level. But just as there are people willing to break things and hurt people, there are people who don’t want a level playing field.

14. What do you suppose the democrats are trying to hide with these repeated efforts to get rid of Trump? After all, it’s not like Washington DC is a Mount Olympus with cerebral ideas and harmony and congeniality with Trump gone.

15. Should we allow people to talk in public about vote count anomalies, voting machine problems, etc.? Should we allow people to speculate that maybe Trump won the election after all? Don’t people have the right to speak freely? If they don’t, how do we prosecute them? Gets back to the point made earlier about defining this dangerous speech. Prosecuting it without defining it would be a lot more dangerous than not prosecuting it.

16. Why do you think the BLM riots turned violent last year? If they were infiltrated by outside groups, why should we not think the Trump supporting crowd was not similarly infiltrated? There is some evidence suggesting this was exactly the case.

17. What do you have to say about the many Trump events that did not turn violent? There have been quite a few of them.

18. Do you agree with the idea that if destructive individuals in the BLM protests had been more consistently punished the Capitol Penetration would not have happened? There is a name for this: Broken Windows theory. It is, as the young people say, “a thing.”

19. Does Vice President Kamala Harris bear any responsibility for her bail fund? If this is all about cause and effect, I have some sincere trouble envisioning her skating free on this thing if Trump is supposed to be convicted. How do you square that circle?

20. Is it more serious when unproductive politicians are deterred from their activities, than when businesses are deterred from doing the things that pay the politicians’ salaries? But I suppose we should all be elated that our friends, the liberals, have finally figured out destructive rioting is a bad thing. Baby steps!

Fantastic questions, that will never be asked by anyone in power. However, it’s nice to let these things roll around in people’s heads in the hopes that someone will slip up and accidentally ask one of these some day. As Calonne said, “If it is possible, it is done. If it is impossible, it will be done.”
- P_Ang | 02/07/2021 @ 07:44
[…] Much Fake Stuff Should I Even Bother Watching I’m a Man What’s Most Convincing Capitol Penetration Questions You Can Reopen Now Showstopper Questions Constitutional Ungaslightable Memo For File CCXVI Wounded, […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/20/2021 @ 11:06
[…] lingering questions of “Isn’t The Right just as bad as The Left” in the aftermath of the Capitol Penetration, are all fake. The premise is fake. There is no position on the ideological spectrum that will […]
- House of Eratosthenes – Pokemon Go Guide | 06/27/2021 @ 07:31

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Capitol Penetration QuestionsSaturday, February 6th, 2021

Capitol Penetration Questions
Saturday, February 6th, 2021