
What Is The Insurrection Act? - billme
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867467714/what-is-the-insurrection-act-that-trump-is-threatening-to-invoke#umm
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jeffdavis
The fact that it was used in '92 for riots means it will be hard to challenge.

I feel it is an afront to the Constitution and the founders' intent, though.
The Second Amendment is there, in part, to avoid the need for a standing
military at all, because standing armies have a tendancy to be turned on the
people.

Another reason the Second Amendment exists is so that citizens can remove
their local police and protect themselves until they organize a new poloce
force. A bit better organization could have put that into effect in
Minneapolis.

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pjc50
Just to be clear, you're advocating at best the Black Panther strategy? Or
just straight up shooting at police?

~~~
billme
Disbanding the existing police force is possible without conflict, though it
would require the local government taking action, having a plan, etc.

~~~
adrianN
Where I live we have trouble training enough new police officers to keep the
number of officers stable or slightly increasing. I can't imagine that
replacing the whole force is possible in the short term.

~~~
jeffdavis
The point is, if citizens are armed, they can keep the peace (more or less)
without police for a while.

~~~
adrianN
I don't think that the peace comes from guns. Police in my country very rarely
use theirs. And "for a while" can be quite long if you need to find and train
a complete new police force. Besides, I'd rather have somewhat trained but
biased and bad police officers, than a completely untrained mob enforcing the
law.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> I don't think that the peace comes from guns. Police in my country very
> rarely use theirs.

It comes from having them, not from using them. You don't have to shoot at
gangs robbing everybody at knifepoint if the threat of getting shot deters
them from going around robbing everybody at knifepoint.

> And "for a while" can be quite long if you need to find and train a complete
> new police force.

In practice most of what the police do is paperwork and interviews. If the
general population is armed (so the deterrent is still there) then you could
take the guns away from the police and never have them leave the police
station and still almost all of the policework would get done.

~~~
adrianN
How would that work in practice? Say I have a traffic accident and the other
party is uncooperative. We both threaten to use our guns unless the other
party admits fault and then somehow the necessary paperwork for an insurance
claim gets done?

Or my neighbors decide that 2am is a great time for some jackhammering. I
threaten to shoot them unless they stop? They threaten to shoot me in turn?

Does this depend on righteous mobs of gun owners assembling and holding an
impromptu court martial?

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Say I have a traffic accident and the other party is uncooperative.

You take a picture of their license plate number and bring it to a courthouse.
They show up in court or the court gives you a default judgement and orders
their insurance/bank to give you the money.

> Or my neighbors decide that 2am is a great time for some jackhammering.

You make a timestamped recording of the jackhammering and bring it to a
courthouse. Do you see where this is going? You don't need police to have
courts.

And most of the time you don't even need to use the courts for the same reason
you don't need to use the guns -- the other party can predict what will happen
and it's easier for everybody to settle things and not go there.

~~~
adrianN
What if I don't want the jackhammering to continue for a year until I have my
court date? What if my neighbors don't give a fuck about court dates?

~~~
AnthonyMouse
What happens in that case now? The police show up, they agree to stop and then
don't, you call the police again, they agree to stop and then don't. You're
still in court if you want them to stop and they won't, and they still
actually stop because they don't want to end up in court. (You could also
write to your legislators to hire enough judges that you don't have to wait a
year for a court date.)

And if they don't show up in court then you win and the court fines them.

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adrianN
I'm reasonably sure that the police would take away their jackhammer and/or
arrest them after repeated calls.

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AnthonyMouse
People generally don't get arrested or have their stuff stolen over noise
complaints. More likely they'd issue a citation, which is really just a piece
of paper that leads to a court date, i.e. the same thing you can get by
bringing your evidence to a judge/prosecutor.

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voiper1
>The act was last invoked in 1992 to quell the Los Angeles riots after the
acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, a black
man

So history is repeating itself?

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pjc50
It's a continuous line from slavery to the KKK to MLK to Rodney King to the
present day.

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ncmncm
Few know that Andrew Johnson pardoned the conspirators responsible for killing
Lincoln. Then, set about rescinding reparations to freed slaves. We still live
with the consequences.

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agapon
Your source?

[https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/conspirators-
cou...](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/conspirators-court-
martialed-for-plotting-to-kill-lincoln-grant-and-andrew-johnson)

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082349872349872
From what I have seen, peering over from the continent these past 3 years, top
US military officers are both less racist[1] than the general populace and
more reflective[2] than the current administration.

[1] Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria: "If you can't treat someone with dignity and
respect, then you need to get out. If you can't treat someone from another
gender, whether that's a man or a woman, with dignity and respect, then you
need to get out. If you demean someone in any way, then you need to get out.
And if you can't treat someone from another race, or different color skin,
with dignity and respect, then you need to get out."

[2] witness the USN response when Trump tweeted they should fire on sight on
the NEDAJA: we retain the right to self-defense.

I wish you all the best of luck and hope you all live your lives and do
wonderful things. [https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2003/04/11/Rumsfeld-
Looting...](https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2003/04/11/Rumsfeld-Looting-is-
transition-to-freedom/63821050097983/)

~~~
082349872349872
in further evidence for [2]: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-
police-protes...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-
protests-pentagon/u-s-defense-secretary-says-he-doesnt-support-invoking-
insurrection-act-idUSKBN23A2BD)

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yalogin
I will not be surprised if he didn't know anything about the Insurrection Act
and was saying all of this as act of bravado without any thought.

In seriousness, does this statement count as the proclamation/warning referred
to in the article?

~~~
billme
The way the US legal system works is if the US Attorney General tells the US
President an act is legal, regardless of if it is, until the Supreme Court or
Congress act, the President is free to do as the US Attorney General said.

Under the US Constitution, The President is the Commander in Chief of the
military, to not follow a direct order would be a likely be a crime for anyone
within the military.

Trumps statements counted as a proclamation, if the US Attorney General said
they did.

~~~
alextheparrot
I would be a bit more tempered regarding the not following an order part.
There’s long established cases in US law that doesn’t mean the person obeying
the order is free, if the order was not lawful.

United States vs Keenan being one example — soldiers need to obey lawful
orders, but obeying unlawful orders puts them at risk of criminal prosecution.

~~~
montagg
The point is that an order to siege an American city would not be unlawful,
under the Insurrection Act, because there are parts of the Act that give a lot
of discretion to the President about when to use force. That siege order could
be legal.

At that point, disobeying has to be a moral act, and the law isn’t a concern
anymore.

I say this living in an apartment about three blocks from a tank in Los
Angeles.

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billme
Appears likely Trump’s public statements today were the proclamation, and if
it was not, one will be made shortly — after that, it is only matter of time
before Trump deploys the military.

Photo in the story, taken late today, is of Trump with the highest-ranking
military officer in the US Armed Forces (on the right) - and the US Attorney
General (on the left).

Trump intentionally left the White House to force his way through the
protesters.

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nicbou
That was a good article. It answered the question in the title in plain
English, without taking any unnecessary detours. It was prefaced by a clear
GDPR notice that let me access the website without any fuss.

I wish the internet was always like that.

~~~
jimbob45
NPR, while often blatantly biased, usually has the best _______ 101 stories in
my experience.

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kyuudou
It's a fancier way of saying "read you the Riot act" which will take a while

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ghouse
So, Trump now believes this is a rebellion? Didn't he say just yesterday it
was a terrorist organization?

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mikedilger
"Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order." is
the first sentence of the Wikipedia page for Rebellion.

Irrespective of the primary intent of the civil unrest [1], failing to
disperse after being ordered to is an act of insurrection. I express no
opinion as to whether insurrection is called for or not, just that technically
it seems to be such.

[1] some people say 'protests', others say 'riots', I'm hoping 'civil unrest'
is neutral but I'd happily take correction if it is not.

~~~
asplake
Hmmm. Insurrection: a violent uprising against an authority or government. Not
sure “failing to disperse” really qualifies

