I appreciate you reflecting on it, but please try to continue reflecting -- saying you get a "sad trombone" reaction is incredibly frustrating to read. You're making light humor around very horrific things as if it's some comedy. These are our friends and families being taken away from us.
You’ve gravely misunderstood. I’m saying I don’t sympathize with employees of ICE when something like this occurs. They’ve made their decision to continue working at and supporting an agency that disregards the rights of citizens and non-citizens. They have no room to complain when their work numbers and emails get published considering how much worse they’ve treated people.
It absolutely is related. People in this thread are alright abusing DEA agents who are willingly doing work that they are instructed to do from their employer while the big tech employees are doing what their evil employer instructs them to do. If DEA is bad therefore DEA agents are bad. If big tech is bad therefore big tech employees are bad.
Keyword being IF. There are plenty of people that think DEA is good and I bet there are plenty of people who think big tech is good. Point being is that plenty of bad is happening all over the place by employees following instructions.
What have I gravely misread? I'm telling you that it's fucked up to minimize a situation by making a "sad trombone sound". There's really nothing else to my post.
To be explicit, I guess: fuck CBP and fuck the assholes who think it's okay to "whomp whomp" when peoples loved ones are taken away from them. Giminey...
Once sat in a coffee shop in downtown Chicago and overheard two ICE attorneys chatting about why they joined ICE. The gist of it was that they were both very, very aware of the appearances of their work. But they both agreed that it was worth it for their careers to work there for long enough to build a reputation and then move on.
They know that they're working for an evil org and they don't care because it gives them nourishment. If my friends were doing that, I'd have an intervention with them. I hope you do too.
For ICE I certainly would. I don’t know anybody at HSI but I’d be torn given the recent revelations of spying on left-leaning citizen groups. If you’re relying on violating citizen’s rights to accomplish your job then you really need to rethink your position.
For context, I often hang out with self-identifying Mexicans. I eat at their clandestine trailer-park restaurants. I’ve helped friends navigate car crashes while on another legal friend’s insurance.
I think the locale matters. I’m in a rural small town on the outskirts of a small metro.
ICE has only ever been involved when my impoverished, close friend was repeatedly beaten by her boyfriend. Fuck that guy all the way back to Mexico.
Remind me to not be anywhere near you in a crowd. It'd piss me off to no end if the last thing I saw and had to waste my last seconds of life thinking about was "They're just going to stare until it blows u....."
If you have something that looks like it explodes land next to you in a crowd, and you do nothing simply because you think you deserve it (not talking about freezing up or just ignorant to what it is), you're a morally bankrupt coward that also deserves a share of the blame for harm done to anyone around you.
I certainly wouldn't stare at it until it exploded. I would run away as fast as I could.
It's odd that you think the exclusive options are 1) do nothing; 2) pick up and throw away
Of course, it's extremely unlikely I'd be in any crowd with you. Because we are likely very far apart geographically. And I work to avoid any crowds that may involve flash bang grenades thrown into them. So far, I have an excellent success ratio and expect it to stay steady.
I think kids are seeing videos of people throwing these and, of course, only the successful videos make it to their feeds. As the unsuccessful ones are bloody enough to get filtered out.
Your comment seems a bit hostile and ill willed as there are many who become shell shocked in these situations and freeze up. This doesn't make it "morally bankrupt." It just makes them human.
Good luck with your moral high horse and being so superior. I hope you retain all your digits.
I certainly may be. It doesn't seem ridiculous to me. I've read through all the follow on comments and aside from people saying it's ridiculous, I don't get why others think it so.
Yes, I think I would react pretty rationally- run away or duck and cover. Zero chance I pick it up. And I was a super stupid and irrational teen. (And am still rather stupid and irrational)
When I was 14 I used to think I could shoot a kamehameha if I tried hard enough. Even then I would have made fun of people thinking they'd know what to do when a fucking grenade was thrown at them.
Are you still 14? When I was 14 there were situations where tear gas grenades were thrown in the city where I went to school (Amsterdam) in the context of squatter riots. I did my best to avoid these, never felt the need to play edge lord and join the mob, don a keffiyeh and shout inane phrases. I did do plenty of 'stupid' things but picking up live grenades was just too damn stupid. The Darwin Award was still decades away but had I known the term I'd have applied it to those who do such things whether they're 14 or 41. If you really need to get rid of the thing you at most kick it away - also risky - but best just to move away from it until it detonates. I knew that at 14 and I still know it. Didn't you? Don't you?
The conversation is about rioters and those who confront them. Whether it is tear gas grenades, flashbangs, smoke grenades, stun grenades or any other non-lethal weapon is besides the point. It is about suffering the consequences when you pick up a live piece of ordnance.
SPOILERs kinda: Notably, it's all in the presentation and form of everything that went on. There were about ten different moments in the packed theater where something was said or happened where the entire audience was... silent. tense. I've never felt that sort of palpable and shared tension anywhere in my life like that.
I think I would have had this position prior to seeing the movie. After seeing it last night, I'm 100% inclined to do everything in my power to not spoil the experience. It's truly, truly that wild.
To others out there wondering, I offer the counter-perspective that this “twist” is not nearly as profound or even unexpected as folk are making it seem.
