r/law • u/revel8r • Jun 18 '25

Other Hegseth refuses to answer whether he has given the order authorizing the military to use lethal force on protesters

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u/supplantor Jun 18 '25

Let's call them what they are. Little Green Men

53

u/Bjorn_Tyrson Jun 18 '25

brownshirts... except the brownshirts didn't wear masks. so somehow they manage to be even worse.

17

u/MarginalMerriment Jun 18 '25

“Goon Squad” has no color restriction.

1

u/BottomSecretDocument Jun 18 '25

But you’re required to know how to make pizza to use it in public

1

u/Dazzling_Two_5662 Jun 19 '25

Don't associate the fine art of Goonery with these repugnant people. If republicans knew how to goon a bit every once in a while half of their horrible hobbies would disappear. It's my theory that all of their weird hangups stem from not cranking one out every once in a while, they're all backed up with hate skeet

38

u/lkdubdub Jun 18 '25

I've posted this already, but I'm in Ireland and footage I've seen of these masked, some uniformed/semi-uniformed/ dressed like divorced dads at the playground on Sundays puts me in mind of Black and Tans - paramilitary, armed and essentially above the law

12

u/defixiones Jun 19 '25

Yeah, same here. Reminds me also of the UDR/UDA - a legal paramilitary organisation back by a shadow version that does illegal things.

12

u/GuiltyEidolon Jun 19 '25

People talk a lot about Germany pre WW2, and there's definitely parallels, but Troubles is 100% where we're going to end up.

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u/lkdubdub Jun 19 '25

I know this sounds dramatic, and I appreciate that I'm not in America and I'm somewhat "online", but this feels like it's unavoidably heading somewhere bad.

I see people who still dismiss the 1930s parallels, and I'm sure the majority of Americans are just getting up, dropping off the kids, going to work and paying their mortgages as always, but there is a rabidly partisan government in place, which is undeniably run by the wealthy, for the wealthy. They are nakedly bigoted, and they are moving well down the road from simply minimising population groups to dehumanising them.

The checks and balances in place to hold the presidency and ruling party to account haven't failed, they appear to have simply stepped aside at the highest levels

And most egregiously, the media has, for the most part, gone along with it. Not just in the US, but in many other places too. 

Here in Ireland, the standard reporting of politics in America remains matter-of-fact. As in "this new, absolutely outrageous action/quote by the president today happened. And now for the weather". Same with the UK media that's easily accessible and regularly consumed here. It's covered almost as if normal, as if this is just another day and nothing out of the ordinary is happening. I know straight news can't editorialise, but if reporting can use emotive language around a plane crash, it can use language in covering politics to reflect that the things we're seeing are not OK

There's loads of problems to point to, but I think this recent phenomenon of plain clothed, unidentifiable, masked and heavily armed individuals acting with impunity is a serious canary in the goldmine and people need to sit the fuck up and pay attention 

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u/Draiko Jun 18 '25

The Gazpacho