For a long time I've noticed (as many have) the disconnect between the seriousness of people's rhetoric (expressed desire for violence etc) and the non-seriousness/flippancy/casualness with which it is expressed (calling for assassinations at the work brunch or whatever.
This seems like a similar phenomenon, but extended from rhetoric to action---still treated like a tribe signaling game. They dont expect to face violent consequences for the same reason they dont expect you to press them on their views at the work brunch.
You're parroting dangerous lies. ICE absolutely has the authority to arrest people interfering with their enforcement efforts. Anybody claiming differently wants more bodies on the ground.
Only in the strict legal sense of “interfere” or “obstruct”.
Beat cops, by contrast, have broad authority to just use the various public nuisance laws to create the result. This is fundamentally why you don’t see ICE doing what, say, LAPD does despite them having plenty of people available.
For example, ICE can arrest me for blocking a street if they have probable cause to believe that I’m targeting them. But a cop can just arrest me for blocking the street simpliciter.
Not sure what you're replying to---by "disconnect" i am referring to dissonance between the external/objective "seriousness" of a persons statements/actions and the persons (apparent) internal perception of those statements/actions as being essentially "casual/playful/etc".
Whether or not ICE abstractly has the legal authority to do any given thing has no bearing on whether or not physical confrontations of the sort discussed in the article are "serious" (in the sense that they are obviously and objectively dangerous etc).
Because their perception of its seriousness comes down to ICE’s ability to arrest them, which is both limited and unlocks the vast majority of police brutality possible.
That’s why this disconnect reflects something real in the world.
Of course it does, you're a partisan and you still think poor innocent cuddly teddy boy George was heckin' murdered by totally racist KKK nazi white supremacist police for no reason but their seething hatred of brown people. Thus the inherent entertainment in dismissively calling him ''Saint Floyd of Fentanyl'' for instance, to poke a hole in that overinflated luxury belief balloon.
If I had instead made a mocking comment about the ''fat retarded fascist orange cheetoh'' you'd be cackling like a pack of well-fed geese.
TDS makes for shit humor though, no transgressive edge to it. It's just roiling bitterness masquerading as ''comedy''. (I've seen good, biting mockery of the Trumpinator a few times online, but it always comes from the naughty, naughty ''far right'', make of that what you will...)
Clearly you've failed to even provide the merest denial or counterargument. Touched a nerve, have I? And see, as predicted, the response is poor-quality, toothless, imaginationless mockery again. Not even funny, nor clever. Simple concern trolling. The perennial tool of the catty leftist wishing to abort and escape an unfavorable situation without losing face.
These are Saul Alinsky tactics, honed and perfected in the 1960s. "The action is in the reaction" "goad and guide your enemy to get the reaction you need" "make me enemy live up to its own set of rules" and so on.
There's an essay to be written here about how Rules for Radicals has shifted in importance in the age of social media. The protests of the 1960s were much more extreme than what we see today with the possible exception of 2020. I think part of that is that the rioters of the 1960s needed to make a much bigger splash to get sympathetic media coverage. You can think of that as a good thing: political violence today is much more ritualized, with a much smaller level of violence and mayhem necessary to accomplish the goals outlined in Rules for Radicals.
ICE isn’t seen as a legitimate law enforcement agency because it kinda isn’t: it’s a special purpose agency with limited authority to enforce the law. Congress set it up that way because Congress has studiously avoided creating a national police force for 200 years. All this is made worse by the fact that, because they’re not a real law enforcement agency, they don’t have real uniforms or anything. They’re plainclothes with identifying markers at best.
It’s not very zeitgeist-y, but I think a huge amount of ICE’s problems comes down to not looking like they enforce laws and instead just looking like a doofus from the local range.
Three thing to add: 1) this isn't new, their mothers/grandmothers were putting flower in the barrels of National Guard rifles in the 60s (another reminder that current levels of unrest are a shadow of what used to be) 2) this isn't limited to the left - would it surprise anyone that read this that the only person shot by law enforcement on Jan 6 was a *drumroll* white woman? 3) this is certainly better than the alternative, which is Americans cowering in fear of a vast internal police force.
I think part of this is that the administration has been deeply dishonest about the tradeoffs of enforcing what is obviously a deeply unpopular policy. Like, okay, you can kick out all illegal immigrants but you're deluded if you assume there are no costs or collateral to do this. If you support this policy, I really think you need to ask yourself how many deaths you're willing to accept in enforcing it. In blaming the activists you're evading responsibility for your own political commitments.
I realize I asserted ICE is not popular without evidence: I wanted to highlight this recent poll showing a majority of Americans find ICE tactics inappropriate and think ICE makes cities less safe: https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/politics/ice-minnesota-cnn-poll
1) These opinion polls closely track partisan affiliation and Trump approval and have to be discounted a great deal for that reason alone. A majority of democrats supporting defunding police during the summer of 2020 but have since reformed their views. Emotions are high and it's a mistake to over-correct based on moment-to-moment swings in polling data.
2) It's disingenuous to cast violent opposition to law enforcement as a force of nature while calling enforcement of black-and-white immigration law a "political commitment". It's not, by and large, the people being deported who are harassing and impeding ICE officers, it's their radicalized white allies. Surely the decision to violently oppose immigration enforcement is itself also a "political commitment".
> Activist networks encourage their members to engage in behavior that they know will result in martyr production
I find this phenomena especially interesting among politicians and political candidates. Back during the NYC mayoral election, Brad Lander was arrested by ICE for trying to escort an illegal immigrant out of court while trying to stop ICE from arresting them. A big deal was made of this at the time, but it left an extremely bad taste in my mouth.
Successful politicians aren’t stupid enough to not see the inevitable consequences of their actions, so this whole game (like the woman who blocked ICE said, this is a sort of game) is simply an effort to conjure political capital out of thing air.
There is definitely something very different about a sort of intentional, calculated martyrdom, and a spontaneous martyrdom that results from truly unjust actions by an authority. One seems like the mass manipulation of public emotion to support your favored political cause, the other at least can be called a natural behavior of large groups, so amoral at worst.
I suspect it is settled. The agitators and criminals in question failed to broach public consciousness with their narrative. The news cycle is too full, too fast, for this to gain traction outside the left's walled gardens.
It's not close to settled. ICE has the advantage of bad weather on their side. If this were happening in July things would be escalating much faster. My guess is they will still be busy deporting illegal aliens in July.
Only generic american blacks have license to riot in the US. Instinct and reaso conjoined make me doubt we will see another summer of Floyd during Trump's remaining term.
The goal of the tactics described in this post is to prevent ICE from taking people. Provoking violence from armed men is definitely not. The fact that the most recent person shot was in the leg not the face suggests that the armed trained men have dialled down their violent response.
In most democratic countries protesting government policy including confronting or trying to prevent is does not result in protestors getting shot. Not even some of the time. It's not acceptable that people will get shot. It's due to bad training that tells armed officers to empty their clips if they feel under threat while in Europe officers are trained to de-escalate.
Was shooting Rebecca Good justified under the law?
Has the administration been lying, obviously, blatantly lying about what happened ever since it happened? Are you ok with that?
Is the administration refusing to investigate what happened? Are you ok with that?
Is the administration trying to block Minnesota from investigating too? Are you ok with that?
What about hiring men with white nationalist appeals, undertraining them, giving them guns, and then sending them into blue enclaves where they are bound to get into confrontations with locals? How predictable is it that violence will result? I guess you’re ok with that?
I’m real glad that you’re on top of the threat of stochastic soccer moms. There are some more serious threats you might want to look into.
You can just say that the laws ICE is enforcing with deportations are illegitimate. If that's your stance then yes, of course you're going to blame law enforcement for the violence that results from pursuing their mission. But understand that a very substantial portion of your fellow citizens see it differently.
I think the chances that it was legally justified are small. But the chances that there will ever be a proper inquiry into that question are even smaller as long as this administration is in power.
You don’t know me, but already I’m “you people.” Deploy the Leninist-Sailerism, stat!
I’ll tell you one thing about you — not “you people,” but your own self. On present evidence, you’ll do anything, say anything rather than honestly analyze what happened in Minneapolis, how it happened, and how the administration is dealing with it. No deflection is too absurd, no whatabout is too extreme. And there is a whole lot of that going around.
Might I interest you in the theory that, actually, a very large percentage of the population is actually p-zombies? You will find evidence abounds for the proposition.
For a long time I've noticed (as many have) the disconnect between the seriousness of people's rhetoric (expressed desire for violence etc) and the non-seriousness/flippancy/casualness with which it is expressed (calling for assassinations at the work brunch or whatever.
This seems like a similar phenomenon, but extended from rhetoric to action---still treated like a tribe signaling game. They dont expect to face violent consequences for the same reason they dont expect you to press them on their views at the work brunch.
There actually is a disconnect.
ICE’s law enforcement powers really are quite limited, that’s why we don’t have stories about mass arrests of “protesters”.
If you’re an immigrant, however, they have powers far beyond what justice system generally allows.
So there really is a difference between what ICE means in their jurisdiction and what they mean for anyone outside it.
You're parroting dangerous lies. ICE absolutely has the authority to arrest people interfering with their enforcement efforts. Anybody claiming differently wants more bodies on the ground.
Only in the strict legal sense of “interfere” or “obstruct”.
Beat cops, by contrast, have broad authority to just use the various public nuisance laws to create the result. This is fundamentally why you don’t see ICE doing what, say, LAPD does despite them having plenty of people available.
For example, ICE can arrest me for blocking a street if they have probable cause to believe that I’m targeting them. But a cop can just arrest me for blocking the street simpliciter.
Not sure what you're replying to---by "disconnect" i am referring to dissonance between the external/objective "seriousness" of a persons statements/actions and the persons (apparent) internal perception of those statements/actions as being essentially "casual/playful/etc".
Whether or not ICE abstractly has the legal authority to do any given thing has no bearing on whether or not physical confrontations of the sort discussed in the article are "serious" (in the sense that they are obviously and objectively dangerous etc).
Because their perception of its seriousness comes down to ICE’s ability to arrest them, which is both limited and unlocks the vast majority of police brutality possible.
That’s why this disconnect reflects something real in the world.
partial to "stochastic floydism" myself
Why
Because it’s hilarious?
It is? Just sounds like standard conservative cant stuff to me.
Of course it does, you're a partisan and you still think poor innocent cuddly teddy boy George was heckin' murdered by totally racist KKK nazi white supremacist police for no reason but their seething hatred of brown people. Thus the inherent entertainment in dismissively calling him ''Saint Floyd of Fentanyl'' for instance, to poke a hole in that overinflated luxury belief balloon.
If I had instead made a mocking comment about the ''fat retarded fascist orange cheetoh'' you'd be cackling like a pack of well-fed geese.
TDS makes for shit humor though, no transgressive edge to it. It's just roiling bitterness masquerading as ''comedy''. (I've seen good, biting mockery of the Trumpinator a few times online, but it always comes from the naughty, naughty ''far right'', make of that what you will...)
Clearly you’ve got some issues you need to work through. May I suggest ChatGPT?
Clearly you've failed to even provide the merest denial or counterargument. Touched a nerve, have I? And see, as predicted, the response is poor-quality, toothless, imaginationless mockery again. Not even funny, nor clever. Simple concern trolling. The perennial tool of the catty leftist wishing to abort and escape an unfavorable situation without losing face.
Touch grass/not a good look/big yikes homie.
These are Saul Alinsky tactics, honed and perfected in the 1960s. "The action is in the reaction" "goad and guide your enemy to get the reaction you need" "make me enemy live up to its own set of rules" and so on.
There's an essay to be written here about how Rules for Radicals has shifted in importance in the age of social media. The protests of the 1960s were much more extreme than what we see today with the possible exception of 2020. I think part of that is that the rioters of the 1960s needed to make a much bigger splash to get sympathetic media coverage. You can think of that as a good thing: political violence today is much more ritualized, with a much smaller level of violence and mayhem necessary to accomplish the goals outlined in Rules for Radicals.
ICE isn’t seen as a legitimate law enforcement agency because it kinda isn’t: it’s a special purpose agency with limited authority to enforce the law. Congress set it up that way because Congress has studiously avoided creating a national police force for 200 years. All this is made worse by the fact that, because they’re not a real law enforcement agency, they don’t have real uniforms or anything. They’re plainclothes with identifying markers at best.
It’s not very zeitgeist-y, but I think a huge amount of ICE’s problems comes down to not looking like they enforce laws and instead just looking like a doofus from the local range.
Three thing to add: 1) this isn't new, their mothers/grandmothers were putting flower in the barrels of National Guard rifles in the 60s (another reminder that current levels of unrest are a shadow of what used to be) 2) this isn't limited to the left - would it surprise anyone that read this that the only person shot by law enforcement on Jan 6 was a *drumroll* white woman? 3) this is certainly better than the alternative, which is Americans cowering in fear of a vast internal police force.
Great read. Thanks.
I think part of this is that the administration has been deeply dishonest about the tradeoffs of enforcing what is obviously a deeply unpopular policy. Like, okay, you can kick out all illegal immigrants but you're deluded if you assume there are no costs or collateral to do this. If you support this policy, I really think you need to ask yourself how many deaths you're willing to accept in enforcing it. In blaming the activists you're evading responsibility for your own political commitments.
I realize I asserted ICE is not popular without evidence: I wanted to highlight this recent poll showing a majority of Americans find ICE tactics inappropriate and think ICE makes cities less safe: https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/politics/ice-minnesota-cnn-poll
Two things:
1) These opinion polls closely track partisan affiliation and Trump approval and have to be discounted a great deal for that reason alone. A majority of democrats supporting defunding police during the summer of 2020 but have since reformed their views. Emotions are high and it's a mistake to over-correct based on moment-to-moment swings in polling data.
2) It's disingenuous to cast violent opposition to law enforcement as a force of nature while calling enforcement of black-and-white immigration law a "political commitment". It's not, by and large, the people being deported who are harassing and impeding ICE officers, it's their radicalized white allies. Surely the decision to violently oppose immigration enforcement is itself also a "political commitment".
> Activist networks encourage their members to engage in behavior that they know will result in martyr production
I find this phenomena especially interesting among politicians and political candidates. Back during the NYC mayoral election, Brad Lander was arrested by ICE for trying to escort an illegal immigrant out of court while trying to stop ICE from arresting them. A big deal was made of this at the time, but it left an extremely bad taste in my mouth.
Successful politicians aren’t stupid enough to not see the inevitable consequences of their actions, so this whole game (like the woman who blocked ICE said, this is a sort of game) is simply an effort to conjure political capital out of thing air.
There is definitely something very different about a sort of intentional, calculated martyrdom, and a spontaneous martyrdom that results from truly unjust actions by an authority. One seems like the mass manipulation of public emotion to support your favored political cause, the other at least can be called a natural behavior of large groups, so amoral at worst.
I suspect it is settled. The agitators and criminals in question failed to broach public consciousness with their narrative. The news cycle is too full, too fast, for this to gain traction outside the left's walled gardens.
It's not close to settled. ICE has the advantage of bad weather on their side. If this were happening in July things would be escalating much faster. My guess is they will still be busy deporting illegal aliens in July.
Only generic american blacks have license to riot in the US. Instinct and reaso conjoined make me doubt we will see another summer of Floyd during Trump's remaining term.
The goal of the tactics described in this post is to prevent ICE from taking people. Provoking violence from armed men is definitely not. The fact that the most recent person shot was in the leg not the face suggests that the armed trained men have dialled down their violent response.
It doesn’t suggest anything at all.
If you constantly create confrontations, a minority of them will go badly and a minority of those will go so badly someone dies.
No behavior needs to change for the situation to revert to the mean, which is no one died today.
In most democratic countries protesting government policy including confronting or trying to prevent is does not result in protestors getting shot. Not even some of the time. It's not acceptable that people will get shot. It's due to bad training that tells armed officers to empty their clips if they feel under threat while in Europe officers are trained to de-escalate.
The STATED goal is to prevent ICE from arresting people.
Was shooting Rebecca Good justified under the law?
Has the administration been lying, obviously, blatantly lying about what happened ever since it happened? Are you ok with that?
Is the administration refusing to investigate what happened? Are you ok with that?
Is the administration trying to block Minnesota from investigating too? Are you ok with that?
What about hiring men with white nationalist appeals, undertraining them, giving them guns, and then sending them into blue enclaves where they are bound to get into confrontations with locals? How predictable is it that violence will result? I guess you’re ok with that?
I’m real glad that you’re on top of the threat of stochastic soccer moms. There are some more serious threats you might want to look into.
You can just say that the laws ICE is enforcing with deportations are illegitimate. If that's your stance then yes, of course you're going to blame law enforcement for the violence that results from pursuing their mission. But understand that a very substantial portion of your fellow citizens see it differently.
It probably was. This is likely to turn into another case of “the scandal is what’s legal”, a long-running problem in our society.
I think the chances that it was legally justified are small. But the chances that there will ever be a proper inquiry into that question are even smaller as long as this administration is in power.
Were you ok with the treatment of J6 protestors?
Were you ok when the government blatantly lied about J6?
Were you ok with midnight raids on pro-life figures?
It’s always who/whom with you people.
You don’t know me, but already I’m “you people.” Deploy the Leninist-Sailerism, stat!
I’ll tell you one thing about you — not “you people,” but your own self. On present evidence, you’ll do anything, say anything rather than honestly analyze what happened in Minneapolis, how it happened, and how the administration is dealing with it. No deflection is too absurd, no whatabout is too extreme. And there is a whole lot of that going around.
Might I interest you in the theory that, actually, a very large percentage of the population is actually p-zombies? You will find evidence abounds for the proposition.
Says the person who parrots the leftist narrative.