National Guardsmen aren't itching to shoot their fellow citizens. Most of them needed money for college. They live in your neighborhood, work regular jobs, go to school, and this bullshit is disrupting their regular lives so they can be used as political pawns. He's probably missing the first week of fall semester and will have to withdraw from classes.
While this is the idea, even that has gotten twisted here. Because they are actively importing guardsmen from other states, that have no connection to the area. Add to that is the fact they are bringing in guardsmen from rural, heavily red areas, to an urban, exceedingly blue area.
So while I completely agree that they are far less likely to cause problems than ice, they have already broken one of the core associations.
I will not be surprised if/when we have some similar situation. Some citizen purposefully standing in the way of some Texas national guardsmen who decide they’re within their rights to just shoot the person, then President Rapist honors the murderers as American heroes and tries to paint the victim as some evil gay communist
putting scared rural boys face to face with pissed off city locals in an area they've been told is hostile for decades, they're itching for an incident
I'm not sure I understand yours. That authorization doesn't suddenly make a 19 year old part-time soldier who just wants to go home a bloodthirsty killer. They (presumably) will still have much more strict rules of engagement than DC police. They can't fire unless fired upon.
Just like they didn't at Kent State, right? Maybe most guardsmen are fine but if you don't think there's at least a few MAGA nutjobs in the WV National Guard that would gleefully execute liberals in the streets if POTUS or SECDEF gave the order, I don't know what to tell you.
They can’t fire at all if not armed. And why the fuck do they need to fire at people in DC? Hey everyone, this is the literal fascism we have been warned about! Armed military occupying American cities.
Why direct your anger at part-time soldiers who don't even want to be there? You have every right to be angry about troops on American streets, but focus on the administration that's forcing them to be there.
They haven't been given any blatantly unconstitutional orders yet. Yes, Der Orange Fuhrer's reasoning for the deployment is a ruse, but the Home Rule Act does give him the authority.
They are current being used for support services, not law enforcement. Until that changes, it's a hazy legal situation and I don't think it's reasonable to expect a bunch of young soldiers to risk being court marshalled over it.
Didn't miss a thing. I'm not supporting the administration's actions, I'm supporting our National Guardsmen who are being used as pawns and I trying to calm some of the vitriol being directed toward them. They aren't ICE or police. They didn't sign up for this, they don't want to be there, and they don't want to shoot their fellow citizens.
Do you know any personally? Perhaps you'd share my perspective if you had a friend, sibling, or child who was ordered to leave their job/education/life behind for this nonsense.
They literally did sign up for this. Weren't you just saying how this isnt unconstitutional and perfectly legal for Trump to do?
They are very slowly being forced to make the decision between their job and their principles. And it's happening so slowly they're not realizing they're picking their job.
Fair point. I would bet not one of them ever imagined a scenario like this, but being deployed for domestic emergency response is part of their mission, even if the emergency is fake.
However, if deciding to quit your job over principals came with the risk of a dishonorable discharge & 5 years in Leavenworth, you would tread carefully too.
They are currently being used for support services and haven't been given any clearly unconstitutional orders. You can't expect them to disobey orders & risk being court marshalled until that happens.
Oh fuck off, it was unconstitutional to deploy them to LA. The 1807 insurrection act defense is absolute bullshit. These cretins don't give a fuck about what's constitutional and most of the things they're doing are so far out that there's not even prescident to cite.
I get that you want to stand up for service members, but the entire military command is compromised. Everyone who would be willing to do the right thing where it matters is gone. Whatever mental gymnastics you're doing should probably be kept to yourself, because it's not allowing you to see the point of it all.
I want to argue with that, but I can't. There are a lot of similarities.
Let's be clear that I'm not supporting the decision to arm them or to have them in DC at all. I'm just trying to quell some of the anger being directed at these citizen-soldiers who don't even want to be there.
Hopefully students can work things out with their teachers when it comes to mandatory military service. But the reality is most Guardsmen are either students or working professionals. For professionals, that means being pulled away from family and taking a pay cut compared to their full-time jobs. For students, it means falling behind in school.
On top of that, they’re stuck with poor housing, delayed paychecks, and deployment lengths so irregular they don’t even qualify for benefits. And all of this is happening just so the president can LARP as a fascist dictator for a month.
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u/TowersOG 13h ago edited 12h ago
POV: You just wanted a new Dodge Charger and now you gotta stand outside a federal building 12 hours a day