>Was a survey performed as people were entering the grounds?
No. But an inventory of some of those who left the grounds in handcuffs was performed. And various types of weapons, police-style zip ties and molotov cocktails were found.
Dozens were injured, five people are dead, one of them beaten to death.
Offices were trashed, items stolen and the seat of our government was vandalized.
You don't need a crystal ball to draw conclusions from that.
You need a crystal ball to draw correct conclusions about the future though. What's happening in threads like this is that people have completely lost control of their minds. I estimate that 90%+ of comments are people mistaking their imagination for reality - reality is mostly unknown, but you'd never know it from the way people talk.
It's almost as if people have been hypnotized or something. No one has the slightest concern for what is actually true. I hope it's only people on internet forums that are like this.
>You need a crystal ball to draw correct conclusions about the future though.
I don't know about that.
I'll prognosticate that the close compatriots of the violent insurrectionists who are currently enjoying three hots and a cot courtesy of the US Government will almost certainly engage in more violent acts. Probably fairly soon.
History is generally a pretty good guide to the future.
Will every single person who smashed windows, beat on people with pipes and bats and went looking for Congresscritters to take hostage show up at the inauguration with RPGs to kill as many people as they can? I don't know.
I can't say for sure, but since they've already shown themselves to be angry, violent and willing to harm/kill others, it's a pretty good bet that a significant number of those people will attempt violent action against their perceived enemies in the future.
>I'll prognosticate that the close compatriots of the violent insurrectionists who are currently enjoying three hots and a cot courtesy of the US Government will almost certainly engage in more violent acts. Probably fairly soon.
I hear most people on the left support reforming criminals, and finding underlying root-causes. Do you?
>I hear most people on the left support reforming criminals, and finding underlying root-causes. Do you?
I do, for root-causes such as poverty, lack of economic opportunity, lack of education, being victims of racist policies, etc... sure, reform is possible.
When the root causes are massive delusion, indulging in ridiculous conspiracy theories, general resentment that other people want to be treated fairly, cult-of-personality-like worship of a dictator, etc. Then unfortunately the root-cause is ignorance and the problem is unfixable.
>When the root causes are massive delusion, indulging in ridiculous conspiracy theories, general resentment that other people want to be treated fairly, cult-of-personality-like worship of a dictator, etc. Then unfortunately the root-cause is ignorance and the problem is unfixable.
And how do you know all this? You're pretty quick at finding root causes.
>However people seem reluctant to grant this to Trump supporters. They seem to be always lumped together as evil racists.
I find it more than a little ironic that you choose to paint others with a very broad brush while making the claim that those people paint others with a broad brush.
Personally, I try to treat others based on their individual actions. Perhaps you should try it sometime.
Your statements are fairly reasonable, and you have awareness of when you are speculating. If more people were like this, perhaps this tailspin could be averted. But look through threads like this and judge for yourself how many people are as reasonable as you.
Do you need a crystal ball to draw such confident conclusions about how other people think? It seems pretty unlikely that everyone who disagrees with you does so because they've lost control of their minds and don't care about the truth.
Then when I mention the notion of the truth, why is it received with hostility, and downvoted, universally?
Here, I'll give you a chance to see if you care about the truth:
SpicyLemonZest says:
> The people that stormed the capital have been pretty clear about their position here: they plan to continue escalating unless Trump is installed into power for a second term.
Can you come up with a plausible explanation for how this can be known?
> There's nothing we can do to meet people who think like that halfway; the only course of action which might avert further tragedies is to convince them that they aren't very powerful and won't be able to achieve their goals.
Can you come up with a plausible explanation for how this can be known?
There was a survey! Many news reporters were on site, interviewing people who entered the grounds. They talked about how they were taking the government back, how they'd like to get their hands on Congressional leaders, and how they'd be back with rifles on January 20th if Congress didn't do the right thing. Without random sampling, there's no easy way to know if it was 20% or 80% of the insurrectionaries thinking that way, but even 20% of such a big crowd leaves enough people to do some serious damage 2 weeks from now.
Is there any specific reason to believe the media accounts are false, or just a general principle? I feel like this is starting to approach the level of skepticism where it's impossible to be convinced of anything.
Who said they were false? Click bait is rarely false just misleading.
My local news runs a promo every night that they have some super important message that you need to hear "what you could be doing wrong with kids". When they finally share it's something like 'yoga is good for your health'.
Journalism is a business. All news orgs are judged by selling papers to driving clicks.
Seeing a few people saying something means a few people said something. Assuming it applies to all and skepticism sets in.
Some people may follow through with that, or they may not.
The media tells stories, social media tells stories, our friends and family tell stories, and our own mind tells stories. But they are just stories. Some of them will surely come true, some of them will not.
It feels like you know, just as it feels to the people at this riot like they know - it is the very same underlying phenomenon: human consciousness, with its ability to see into the future, to read the minds of millions of people, to know the fine details of what happened at an event even though no one who was actually there may have witnessed it with clarity. It is the most powerful device on the planet, but if it isn't kept under control: watch out (as we saw at the Capitol).
Also, how does one learn how to see the future with such certainty? It's like there was a sale on crystal balls and everyone but me got one. :(