Comment on Texas National Guard arriving in Chicago
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day agoThese are evil people arriving to do evil things.
They’re members of the national guard. The typical enlistment period for the National Guard is 8 years. Many would have joined under Biden, and are probably still required to serve out a number of years. If they don’t, then they might have to suddenly pay back the tuition benefits or something. The military, Guard included, isn’t normally something you can just quit if you don’t like how things are going.
ICE employees? That’s another matter. You had to voluntarily join ICE, and many of them have joined in just the last few months. They knew what they were getting into. They’re wearing masks to hide their identities, and all the bad incidents I’ve heard of (people being shot by rubber bullets, being thrown down and injured, etc.) have been ICE not Guard.
Aljernon@lemmy.today 1 day ago
They have no choice about their lawful orders. These guardsmen were ordered to deploy against America and didn’t refuse. Maybe evil is a strong term but it sure sounds like Treason to me.
merc@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
No, they were ordered to deploy in America, and ordered to protect federal buildings and “maintain order”. There’s nothing illegal about that order, or treasonous about following it. They’ve been used that way plenty of times before. Generally when they’re deployed following a natural disaster, one of the things they’re there fore is to deter looting. The whole “natural disaster” bit seems the main thing that the National Guard does these days. Then there are other times where they’re deployed to maintain law and order: the 1992 LA riots, the 1968 riots after the assassination of MLK, etc.
There’s nothing treasonous about that. And the orders authorizing those deployments aren’t illegal orders. If you were one of the racists who wanted to attack MLK’s march from Selma to Montgomery, you might have felt that the national guard preventing you from attacking the marchers were “race traitors” or evil, but history would have shown you were wrong.
In this case, history will probably show that the guard stood around looking tough, maybe made a few arrests. Some of those arrests will historically be seen as violating the first amendment, but some will be seen as normal, boring legitimate arrests. There will probably be some protesters beaten up, but that’s almost certainly going to be the cops rather than the national guard.
Maybe, at some point, an order will come down to load live ammunition and start shooting protesters. If that happens the soldiers who follow those orders might be considered “evil”, but I imagine many won’t follow that order because they’ll see that as stepping over the line.
Also, you really need to read up on the actual definition of treason.
Aljernon@lemmy.today 4 hours ago
That was a wild amount of mental gymnastics to lick boot.