You are assuming a level of omniscience to our police and military that they only dream of actually having. And if you think the US population will put up with their own military, turning their own cities into Gaza, you would be very mistaken.
You are assuming a level of omniscience to our police and military that they only dream of actually having
They already have it. “AI powered surveillance” is already a thing offered by many companies. And anyone with a bit of python skills can rig up something similar using a laptop and publicly available traffic cameras (ten or so years back it took us an afternoon to hook a few packages together and “stalk” a friend’s Toyota Camry over the course of a week)
The only thing holding back these efforts is that, in the past, the government tended to care about overreach (or, more specifically, negative press during reelection campaigns…) and orgs like the ACLU fought tooth and nail to limit stuff like this. But Enemy Of The State and Person of Interest are both a lot more true than anyone wants to admit. And trivially easy to automate these days so you don’t even need Jack Black in a van to track someone carrying a green shopping bag to their car, look up the license plate registration, and guesstimate if that black guy is Big Willy Style.
And if you think the US population will put up with their own military, turning their own cities into Gaza, you would be very mistaken.
Oh, okay. Just so long as the US population says we don’t like it that will stop the rapist in chief and his armies that have, historically, “just followed orders”.
But, just to drill down on this
, turning their own cities into Gaza,
There is already a history of doing this. Not razed to the same degree as Gaza but the idea of using the media to push cities like Detroit or NYC/The Bronx as “dens of crime and danger”. Hell, we saw it with Katrina and New Orleans where there was a strong media push to argue that the reason rescue efforts were increasingly half assed is because of roving gangs (and ignore stuff like cops unloading on innocent families because they were bored…). There was an increasing push to do this with the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle a few years back.
Hell, we had multiple people get away with murder because the BLM protests were clearly violent armies attacking our precious Targets.
This is why actual activists (as opposed to people who want to play real life Call of Duty) are so adamant about NOT bringing firearms to protests and focusing so heavily on defensive measures. Even something as simple as spraypainting a mountain bike helmet so it isn’t black goes a long way toward making it clear this is a peaceful protest. Because the moment They see you have a gun? Suddenly this protest is an armed militia and the cops have no hesitation in unloading with lethal ammunition (rather than just causing permanent blindness and life threatening injuries with indiscriminate use of “less than lethal” rubber bullets). Or the national guard gets called in because of “riots”. Oh, and don’t worry. By the time the press is allowed to investigate there will be plenty of guns and fentanyl on all the protesters.
Or… if you DO require razing to the level of Gaza, maybe educate yourself on a little place called Tulsa.
Also: Congrats on ignoring every single point about why your fantasy wouldn’t work anyway. Or are we back to needing the second amendment to get, still illegal, access to fertilizer bombs and having no resistance whatsoever to taking out every single bridge in the continental US AND attacking police garages so that you can safely run back to your house in the suburbs?
And then the US government will be so impressed by your chaditude that they will give up and send themselves into exile because it is just too hard to keep the national guard deployed.
You are assuming a level of omniscience to our police and military that they only dream of actually having. And if you think the US population will put up with their own military, turning their own cities into Gaza, you would be very mistaken.
They already have it. “AI powered surveillance” is already a thing offered by many companies. And anyone with a bit of python skills can rig up something similar using a laptop and publicly available traffic cameras (ten or so years back it took us an afternoon to hook a few packages together and “stalk” a friend’s Toyota Camry over the course of a week)
The only thing holding back these efforts is that, in the past, the government tended to care about overreach (or, more specifically, negative press during reelection campaigns…) and orgs like the ACLU fought tooth and nail to limit stuff like this. But Enemy Of The State and Person of Interest are both a lot more true than anyone wants to admit. And trivially easy to automate these days so you don’t even need Jack Black in a van to track someone carrying a green shopping bag to their car, look up the license plate registration, and guesstimate if that black guy is Big Willy Style.
Oh, okay. Just so long as the US population says we don’t like it that will stop the rapist in chief and his armies that have, historically, “just followed orders”.
But, just to drill down on this
There is already a history of doing this. Not razed to the same degree as Gaza but the idea of using the media to push cities like Detroit or NYC/The Bronx as “dens of crime and danger”. Hell, we saw it with Katrina and New Orleans where there was a strong media push to argue that the reason rescue efforts were increasingly half assed is because of roving gangs (and ignore stuff like cops unloading on innocent families because they were bored…). There was an increasing push to do this with the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle a few years back.
Hell, we had multiple people get away with murder because the BLM protests were clearly violent armies attacking our precious Targets.
This is why actual activists (as opposed to people who want to play real life Call of Duty) are so adamant about NOT bringing firearms to protests and focusing so heavily on defensive measures. Even something as simple as spraypainting a mountain bike helmet so it isn’t black goes a long way toward making it clear this is a peaceful protest. Because the moment They see you have a gun? Suddenly this protest is an armed militia and the cops have no hesitation in unloading with lethal ammunition (rather than just causing permanent blindness and life threatening injuries with indiscriminate use of “less than lethal” rubber bullets). Or the national guard gets called in because of “riots”. Oh, and don’t worry. By the time the press is allowed to investigate there will be plenty of guns and fentanyl on all the protesters.
Or… if you DO require razing to the level of Gaza, maybe educate yourself on a little place called Tulsa.
Also: Congrats on ignoring every single point about why your fantasy wouldn’t work anyway. Or are we back to needing the second amendment to get, still illegal, access to fertilizer bombs and having no resistance whatsoever to taking out every single bridge in the continental US AND attacking police garages so that you can safely run back to your house in the suburbs?
And then the US government will be so impressed by your chaditude that they will give up and send themselves into exile because it is just too hard to keep the national guard deployed.