I generally think it's not very useful (and frankly kind of annoying) when people resort to harping on moments real or imagined hypocrisy among their political adversaries, but the US far right has spent literally decades droning on about the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. They've used it to justify all kinds of heavily armed organizing in opposition to the "tyrannical" federal government up to the point of attacking the US Capitol. It's become such a fundamental building block of their rhetoric and their ideology since the Clinton administration that it wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to argue that, if "Waco" had never happened, we might not be experiencing the kind of fashy upsurge in the US that we've seen over the past decade or so. It really is just that important to their worldview.
So if federal prosecution of an "antifa cell" relies on barring defendants from claiming self-defense using the Branch Davidians as a precedent (which it apparently does) and the right doesn't respond with outrage (which it inevitably won't), then it's almost like they were only ever interested in power in the first place. Weird, I know.
At any rate, yeah, it's just blunt hypocrisy, which by itself doesn't get us very far (and is also about the least surprising thing in the world), but it's also possibly of use when arguing with certain relatives. Your call.
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In remarks from the bench, [US District Judge Mark] Pittman echoed the government’s citation of a legal precedent set in the prosecution of members of the Branch Davidian sect during the deadly 1993 siege by the FBI at Waco, Texas, according to the support committee.
The government motion cited a 1996 decision by a panel of judges in the Fifth Circuit finding that a Branch Davidian sect member could not claim self-defense when officers of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) came to the group’s compound to serve arrest warrants for stockpiling weapons.
“A member of a conspiracy to murder federal agents, who dresses for combat, retrieves an assault rifle, and proceeds to the front door to confront government agents executing a lawful warrant, is not entitled to claim the benefit of self-defense when the hoped-for confrontation with the agents occurs,” the judges wrote.
Xavier de Janon, the director of mass defense at the National Lawyers Guild, said the new order could weaken the rights of people attempting to protect themselves against law enforcement aggression.
“I am concerned that the ability to defend oneself against law enforcement when they draw their weapon at you has been placed in danger,” de Janon told Raw Story.
“And some people would say you should not have the ability to self-defend against law enforcement. But there is case law that says people have the right to resist unlawful arrest and unlawful law enforcement conduct.”
De Janon represents Elizabeth Soto, one of the federal defendants, in a separate state prosecution.
https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/antifa-2675550168/?ICID=ref_fark
#Prairieland #ICE #FuckICE #SelfDefence
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