I hear you that violence is not speech. But is this much different than the denial of due process and inhumane treatment of nonviolent J6 protestors, rationalized because there was also, true, authentic, footage of (some) of the J6ers, including a few non-FBI provocateurs, doing things that did deserve jail time, like breaking windows an…
I hear you that violence is not speech. But is this much different than the denial of due process and inhumane treatment of nonviolent J6 protestors, rationalized because there was also, true, authentic, footage of (some) of the J6ers, including a few non-FBI provocateurs, doing things that did deserve jail time, like breaking windows and assaulting police officers?
The left used the violence on J6 to demonize everyone there, and everything they believe in.
I know there are lots of unhinged folks on the far left. That chant about burn Tel Aviv and we love Hamas and their rockets too is appalling (as is the rationalization by Israel that because Muslims have been violent towards Jews, Isreal is entitled to continue a cycle of violence until it expands as big as it wants to and exterminates anyone it wants to.)
Was Khalil chanting that? Did he write the chant? Or was he not there?
Most / everyone who came to DC on J6 to support Trump believed in the same thing - the election was stolen, Trump is the rightful president. Some with those beliefs assaulted cops, and (while they hated cops until the minute before), that was used by the left to condemn everyone who was at J6.
OK, Khalil is more than a protestor, he was a liaison, an organizer (but did he direct the protests to become violent?). Glenn Greenwald says he was a liaison because he was trusted by various sides, and has not shown disrespect towards Jewish students.
Yes Jewish students at Columbia were scared - and if Khalil was personally threatening them, then I agree, this is beyond speech and he should go. Congresspeople in the Capitol on J6 were scared, but can that be blamed on anyone besides the people who threatened violence and went inside the building, not to walk around like tourists through open doors, but to supposedly find and hurt the people inside?
But even if it can be honestly said - and maybe it can - that Khalil was inciting violence / supportive of Hamas, tactics and all, not just supportive of bringing attention to the horrific murders of Palestinians with American paid for bombs ... even if in his case he should be deported ...
**The larger issue is the slippery slope and vague language - and letting groups with agendas and AI give the administration lists of names to target. What if that was the other way around? What if we were now in the hell of President Harris, and pharma connected groups gave lists of foreign born students organizing against vaccine mandates? Perhaps some of their protests turned violent, with different students so angry that they were forced to play heart disease/cancer/autoimmune roulette, or angry their recently vax'd partner just died, and broke some windows or refused to leave the protest?
As of now, I agree with Matt Taibbi on this .. both what he says here, and the title of his article, "If Trump Blows it on Speech, the World is Screwed."
From Taibbi -
"Forget Khalil. He’s not the issue. The problem is Trump officials pledging to throw masses of people out of the country for offenses not yet committed and on vague pretexts like being “aligned with Hamas.” As Coward put it (see accompanying interview), “What does that mean?” Similarly, what does it mean to be a “Hamas sympathizer,” and what constitutes “aiding and abetting violations [of] immigration laws,” a standard Trump just decided to employ to deny relief to some federal student loan holders?
This use of vague language mixed with speech-code concepts is similar to the techniques employed by the politicians Trump and Vance ran against or criticized last year, like Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, Britain’s Keir Starmer or the censorship zealots at the Barack Obama-created Global Engagement Center. The cultural targets are different, but both sides would be embarrassed to realize how nearly identical their arguments justifying their crackdowns are.
Take the new administration’s “Catch-and-Deport” program, which among other things will use AI to analyze social media accounts in a “whole of government” effort to locate and kick out aliens for Minority Report violations, i.e. because they “intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes.”
Weren’t conservatives outraged last August when Starmer pledged to use “shared intelligence” and “facial recognition technology” to capture alleged speech criminals “before they even board a train”? Didn’t Elon Musk ask, “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?” And if Trump planned on turning around and immediately deploying the State Department and the DHS to use computerized scanning of social media as a punishment mechanism, why were we supposed to care about State Department funded blacklists, the DHS’s moronic Disinformation Governance Board, or suppression of figures like Bhattacharya or Tucker Carlson. . ."
The J6 protestors were charged with crimes that did not occur. There was no sedition, there was no insurrection.
There was a riot and there was violence. Breaking into the Capitol building was riotous behavior and it was violence.
The free speech aspects of J6 ended the moment the protestors violently broke into the Capitol building—which they unquestionably did do. Even so, the nature of that riot was far short of sedition or insurrection, and even the FBI conceded that as no one was ever charged with insurrection (the FBI never even charged anyone with rioting).
In Khalil’s case, the question of criminality need not enter into the discussion. He participated in activities which were clearly and unequivocally in support of Hamas, a known terrorist group. The statements made during the demonstrations are explicit support for Hamas. Khalil unquestionably participated in the demonstrations and involved himself with the groups who ere demonstrating in support of Hamas (not “Palestinians”, but Hamas).
A non-citizen does not have the luxury of such miscreant behavior if he wishes to remain in this country.
A Green Card is a privilege, not a right.
A visa is a privilege, not a right.
Every non-citizen who is in this country legally is so at the sufferance of the United States government. 8 USC §1182(a)(3) specifies that said sufferance ends when a person shows support for a terrorist group—which includes endorsing or espousing such a group, and the Columbia University protests are unequivocally an endorsement of Hamas.
Khalil knew the protests were in violation of the conditions of a visa. He chose to get involved in them anyway.
I hear you that violence is not speech. But is this much different than the denial of due process and inhumane treatment of nonviolent J6 protestors, rationalized because there was also, true, authentic, footage of (some) of the J6ers, including a few non-FBI provocateurs, doing things that did deserve jail time, like breaking windows and assaulting police officers?
The left used the violence on J6 to demonize everyone there, and everything they believe in.
I know there are lots of unhinged folks on the far left. That chant about burn Tel Aviv and we love Hamas and their rockets too is appalling (as is the rationalization by Israel that because Muslims have been violent towards Jews, Isreal is entitled to continue a cycle of violence until it expands as big as it wants to and exterminates anyone it wants to.)
Was Khalil chanting that? Did he write the chant? Or was he not there?
Most / everyone who came to DC on J6 to support Trump believed in the same thing - the election was stolen, Trump is the rightful president. Some with those beliefs assaulted cops, and (while they hated cops until the minute before), that was used by the left to condemn everyone who was at J6.
OK, Khalil is more than a protestor, he was a liaison, an organizer (but did he direct the protests to become violent?). Glenn Greenwald says he was a liaison because he was trusted by various sides, and has not shown disrespect towards Jewish students.
Yes Jewish students at Columbia were scared - and if Khalil was personally threatening them, then I agree, this is beyond speech and he should go. Congresspeople in the Capitol on J6 were scared, but can that be blamed on anyone besides the people who threatened violence and went inside the building, not to walk around like tourists through open doors, but to supposedly find and hurt the people inside?
But even if it can be honestly said - and maybe it can - that Khalil was inciting violence / supportive of Hamas, tactics and all, not just supportive of bringing attention to the horrific murders of Palestinians with American paid for bombs ... even if in his case he should be deported ...
**The larger issue is the slippery slope and vague language - and letting groups with agendas and AI give the administration lists of names to target. What if that was the other way around? What if we were now in the hell of President Harris, and pharma connected groups gave lists of foreign born students organizing against vaccine mandates? Perhaps some of their protests turned violent, with different students so angry that they were forced to play heart disease/cancer/autoimmune roulette, or angry their recently vax'd partner just died, and broke some windows or refused to leave the protest?
As of now, I agree with Matt Taibbi on this .. both what he says here, and the title of his article, "If Trump Blows it on Speech, the World is Screwed."
From Taibbi -
"Forget Khalil. He’s not the issue. The problem is Trump officials pledging to throw masses of people out of the country for offenses not yet committed and on vague pretexts like being “aligned with Hamas.” As Coward put it (see accompanying interview), “What does that mean?” Similarly, what does it mean to be a “Hamas sympathizer,” and what constitutes “aiding and abetting violations [of] immigration laws,” a standard Trump just decided to employ to deny relief to some federal student loan holders?
This use of vague language mixed with speech-code concepts is similar to the techniques employed by the politicians Trump and Vance ran against or criticized last year, like Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, Britain’s Keir Starmer or the censorship zealots at the Barack Obama-created Global Engagement Center. The cultural targets are different, but both sides would be embarrassed to realize how nearly identical their arguments justifying their crackdowns are.
Take the new administration’s “Catch-and-Deport” program, which among other things will use AI to analyze social media accounts in a “whole of government” effort to locate and kick out aliens for Minority Report violations, i.e. because they “intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes.”
Weren’t conservatives outraged last August when Starmer pledged to use “shared intelligence” and “facial recognition technology” to capture alleged speech criminals “before they even board a train”? Didn’t Elon Musk ask, “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?” And if Trump planned on turning around and immediately deploying the State Department and the DHS to use computerized scanning of social media as a punishment mechanism, why were we supposed to care about State Department funded blacklists, the DHS’s moronic Disinformation Governance Board, or suppression of figures like Bhattacharya or Tucker Carlson. . ."
https://www.racket.news/p/if-trump-blows-it-on-speech-the-world
Megyn Kelly / Glenn Greenwald debate - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owl_j2u78jw
Yes, it is different.
The J6 protestors were charged with crimes that did not occur. There was no sedition, there was no insurrection.
There was a riot and there was violence. Breaking into the Capitol building was riotous behavior and it was violence.
The free speech aspects of J6 ended the moment the protestors violently broke into the Capitol building—which they unquestionably did do. Even so, the nature of that riot was far short of sedition or insurrection, and even the FBI conceded that as no one was ever charged with insurrection (the FBI never even charged anyone with rioting).
https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/is-trump-an-insurrectionist
In Khalil’s case, the question of criminality need not enter into the discussion. He participated in activities which were clearly and unequivocally in support of Hamas, a known terrorist group. The statements made during the demonstrations are explicit support for Hamas. Khalil unquestionably participated in the demonstrations and involved himself with the groups who ere demonstrating in support of Hamas (not “Palestinians”, but Hamas).
A non-citizen does not have the luxury of such miscreant behavior if he wishes to remain in this country.
A Green Card is a privilege, not a right.
A visa is a privilege, not a right.
Every non-citizen who is in this country legally is so at the sufferance of the United States government. 8 USC §1182(a)(3) specifies that said sufferance ends when a person shows support for a terrorist group—which includes endorsing or espousing such a group, and the Columbia University protests are unequivocally an endorsement of Hamas.
Khalil knew the protests were in violation of the conditions of a visa. He chose to get involved in them anyway.
He chose badly.
Time for him to leave.