Thread by @Doc_0

The thing about the Ashli Babbitt case is that we just spent the past year, and much of the previous decade, establishing that cops are not automatically justified in using lethal force against someone committing a crime - not even if they resist arrest or attack the cops.

There is a vast disconnect between the white-hot debate over police use of force in 2020, and post-Ferguson, and shrugging off Babbitt's death with "eh, she was involved in a riot, clean shoot, we don't even have to know who shot her or exactly why."

Before Jan. 6, we left off our Great National Debate on the use of force with the Abolish the Police Party insisting it scarcely matters what a suspect was doing when the police used force against them. The biography of the suspect and records of the cops are more important.

It doesn't matter if that guy jumped a cop and tried to take his gun after attempting a robbery. It matters that he was a gentle giant with big dreams, and his community has grievances. The police are guilty until proven innocent, and maybe not even then.

Those who expressed sympathy for cops in tough situations, acting under intense pressure, never knowing if their lives or the lives of bystanders could be in danger, were hooted down. By the end of 2020, we were told cops should all be replaced by unarmed social workers.

But strangely enough, nobody in the Abolish the Police Party thinks their seat of political power should be protected by unarmed social workers. They don't hesitate to call in military forces to protect themselves, but it's literally unspeakable for YOU to even discuss the idea.

When the seat of power is threatened, there is absolutely zero concern for the biography of those who threaten it. Nobody cares about their grievances. They are given no "space to destroy." Their lives were forfeit the moment they crossed a certain line, no questions asked.

We were told for years that we just have to sit there and take it when aggrieved groups destroy our cities, loot our businesses, injure and kill us. It's OUR fault they did those things, because we're systemically guilty. We just need to shut up and pay the reconstruction bills.

But suddenly in the Babbitt case, all that goes out the window. You can hear the tires screeching as the ideological vehicles slew around in a 180. Not a shred of concern for her history, record of service, hopes and dreams, beliefs, or grievances. No need to know who killed her.

It's not just that the questions have different answers in this particular case of police using lethal force. The questions weren't even asked. That's an astounding shift from the narrative around police use of force that was pushed on us with tsunami force all through 2020.

Those who sympathized with the police in tough situations, especially in riots, might also understand the Babbitt shooting if it were explained to them - but no one is even trying to explain it. Political and media elites don't think it needs to be explained.

It is inconceivable that our elites would take that attitude if Babbitt's skin was a different color, or if she died in a riot anywhere else. They would never say it was all her fault for committing an infraction. That argument was comprehensively rejected in other cases.

And there is no way that our elites would be willing to let the officer who used lethal force against someone from a preferred racial or ideological group remain anonymous, not a single question asked IN PUBLIC about their actions or record.

Personally, I think riots are exceedingly dangerous situations and the people who create them must bear some responsibility for the outcome when police must bring them under control. I expect no one to tolerate violent chaos that I would not tolerate on my front lawn.

I'm sympathetic to police officers acting with limited information in dangerous high-pressure situations. It shouldn't give them carte blanche, but people who carelessly provoke tense encounters with police must bear some responsibility for the outcome.

Court is not held on the streets, nor is legislation written there. Police have a duty to exercise care, and so do citizens. Everyone has civic responsibilities to discharge, and if every adult accepts them, even the most passionate demonstrations will not degenerate into riots.

But all of that said, it's flabbergasting that we're supposed to accept violent anarchy everywhere except where the elites are gathered, and on that hallowed ground, the rules of engagement suddenly reverse. It doesn't matter who you are, and we won't even ask who the cop was.

"The police investigated themselves and said it was a good shoot. That's good enough for us!" Where else is that the final answer? Where else is nothing investigated in public or disclosed through the media? Iron law in the Capitol and anarchy in the Districts, is that it? /end