this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025
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It's perfectly reasonable to think that at least some of these could be false flag opperations orchestrated by the Trump administration to give them cover to arrest innocent people and eventually declare martial law. The more that possibility is part of the mainstream conversation, the more wind it takes out of their sails towards accomplishing those goals.
Imagine invoking Martian law (pun intended, because of the Alien act) due to someone bullying a billionaire by burning their cars.
I wish the stock price would just collapse already along with organic consumer demand for the cars themselves evaporating into nothing so it could whither and die a natural death.
As much as I hate Musk, I'm not a fan of seeing property damaged. Not because I love the property, but because it's too easy to leverage it as terrorism by a regime that has a hard-on for labeling anything it doesn't like as such. Consumer collapse and bankruptcy would be beautiful to behold.
lol ok, bet doing nothing will work. Maybe try appeasement?
Pretty sure property damage is one of the options to attack a tyrannical government. Assassinations too. At least its options people have used, not sure exactly how effective it was but the nazis lost in the end.
I'm having trouble thinking of an example where a tyrant dictator was assassinated and displaced by a democratic leader and not just another dictator. I don't think Hitler is a great example. Maybe Hussein? I'm apologetically ignorant on the current state of Iraq's political system.
Democratic norms seem to be more successfully implemented when a ruler is facing bankruptcy and has no easy source of funds (e.g. natural resource extraction, sponsorship from foreign sources), and therefore has no other option but to expand freedoms and public goods to empower citizens to be more educated to work more profitably (and be reliable tax payers). A fairly recent example is the shift Jerry John Rawlings performed in Ghana in the 90s, which is explained succinctly in The Dictator's Handbook (Bueno de Mesquita and Smith).
A general strike could be an effective means to force the hand of a ruler dependent on national productivity to keep his coalition's insiders/influentials happy enough to retain their support.
Strategic dissent is what matters. I doubt things would have been improved if targeted groups in Germany had violently rioted and smashed Mercedes, Benzs, and Volkswagens (or whatever the main rides were at the time). I mean, the Reichstag Fire was the perfect excuse to accelerate the tyranny (and it was probably an inside job!). Just the same, smashing cars probably won't endear the generally-docile public to the cause. I would say most people (i.e. the support force necessary for widespread change) don't want to be associated with violence. It might win some over, but it'll polarize others, exacerbating the situation and possibly creating Rittenhouse militias to evolve into gestapos.
Sure, once the ruling evil exists in earnest and the rule of law is declared fully dead, clandestine resistance saboteurs may be necessary, but they'll aim for strategic targets with a high gain of hurt laid upon the tyrannical regime. They won't expose themselves to frivolous targets like individual electric cars. If anything, they'll target infrastructure and try to make it look like government incompetence to incite people against those in power.
This gray time is confusing and scary, by design. Extreme action just probably won't elicit the desired effect right now. Figuring out a way to inceptually make The People attribute their various pains and grievances to the actions and personalities in power should be the goal.
Which is why we should be considering the real possibility that these are false flag attacks. Want to turn the general populace against peaceful protesters? Engineer false flag attacks that make the protesters appear violent. Now you can arrest peaceful protesters and the general populace will turn and look the other way.
Maybe we can all give Trump all our money and he’ll just go away! Yay!
Damaging property is not terrorism. This is so tired.
I have a feeling, even if the World Trade Center had been completely depopulated on the morning of September 11th and the hijacked aircraft only had jihadists aboard, the event would have probably still been declared an act of terrorism.
The determination of what constitutes terrorism isn't for us normies to make. The people in power get to have that particular privilege, regardless of what we feel.
Peeaonally, I think terrorism requires a certain scale of either malice or destruction. Flying jetliners into an empty icon of the country? Definitely terrorism. Crashing a little Cessna into a National Forest? Probably not terrorism.
It has to be organized for one. One random person going out and doing something regardless of what they do, isn't terrorism domestic or otherwise.
And it doesn't matter, Pam bondy isn't really charging anyone under the domestic terrorism act. She's charging folks for malicious destruction of government property. And the reason she can charge them this way, is because Tesla receives financial assistance from the federal government. So this puts them under a clause in the law that allows the Pam to charge them as though they had set fire to Air Force One or something similar.
All of the domestic terrorism stuff, that's just political propaganda. It doesn't actually reflect what she is charging people with.
I disagree. Consider racist mass shootings by lone perpetrators. It's clearly an act attempting to incite terror and tension, many of them make it clear in their manifestos that they're trying to spark a 'race war'. But it's not organized, beyond being the result of stochastic terrorism.
I meant the legal definition. But I apparently misread it the other day when I was looking at it.
Ah, right. I'm not familiar enough with US law to realize.
I double checked my info above when you made your comment, I was wrong about it as far as the legal definition too. Your definition would fall under domestic terrorism legally too.
It seems like so far though Pam Bondi is using the malicious destruction of property charge.
Thanks for checking, it's refreshing to see that attitude and care online.
That's reasonable.
The definition of terrorism usually runs along the lines of, engaging in acts to cause fear for the purpose of achieving political goals. So, stalking someone isn't terrorism, but sending pictures of a politician in various locations with crosshairs drawn on them saying you will follow through unless/if they do x would be.
Now, the question becomes, are these arsonists setting fire to Tesla vehicles and showrooms because they want Musk to stop his political antics or because Musk is a giant asshole? I honestly think you could get reasonable doubt on that, provided you actually had a fair trial and weren't dropped in a deep, dark hole somewhere.
Very accommodating terrorists. I don't think setting fire to things can be considered an act of terrorism. At worst it's arson.
It's not like anyone's even been injured.
nothing stopping them now, its just merely propaganda for the republican voters consumption. they dont need an excuse to do it.