You are probably well aware that determining blame, responsibility, guilt, causation, and so on is not always straight-forward. It can be a very complex problem.

Was Donald Trump "guilty", "blame-worthy", or "responsible" for the capitol riot? His role was clearly provocative, without being literally responsible--the way a general may be responsible for a failed defense. Provocation, though, establishes a connection between the provocateur and the agents. While DT didn't lead the charge into the capitol building, he also did nothing (at the critical time) to prevent continued rioting. So yes, he is blame worthy.

The individuals who rioted in the capitol building are likely to be found guilty of illegal acts for which each of them is responsible.

We are both self-responsible agents and can often be swayed to act against our better judgment. There is, after all, a large industry (marketing) bent on swaying our behavior toward buying stuff we do not need or even want. Some people tend to be highly influenced by other people. Others are not.

Charles Manson was blamed and imprisoned for actions he himself did not commit. — Pinprick

Charlie got railroaded by a country hysterical about the crimes of his followers. Not unlike Derek Chauvin. When the mob bays for blood they usually get it.

Truth is I'm not all that familiar with the case. I Googled around and found an on-point article.

Did Charles Manson kill anyone? No. Who said he ordered any killings? Only the killers themselves. So, in truth, what did Charles Manson do?

https://allthatsinteresting.com/who-did-charles-manson-kill

An adult male generally has.. less room to pass the buck than say a vulnerable young woman or troubled youth does. Especially in the absence of a more dominant or controlling authority figure ie. political leader or international record label promoting songs which genres are known to have a young and reckless demographic.

Apportioning blame is often a power strategy, and when used that way has nothing to do with actual causation. If one can successfully pin the blame on others, then one gets the upper hand.

There was a case a few years back where a woman was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for texting her suicidal boyfriend that he should just get on with it. After her seemingly loving encouragement he killed himself with carbon monoxide in a Kmart parking lot. Though he died by his own hand, by his own volition, the court deemed her guilty of homicide as if a person could kill another by text message.

This is an age-old, superstitious problem that few have spoken about: an overestimation of the power of words. One can see it everywhere once one notices it.

This is an age-old, superstitious problem that few have spoken about: an overestimation of the power of words. One can see it everywhere once one notices it. — NOS4A2

And then there's that striking similarity between a zombie and an individualist ...

And then there's that striking similarity between a zombie and an individualist ...

Zombies are not real, friend.

So which is it? Are we agents that act of our own volition, or are we helplessly swayed to act under certain, very specific circumstances? — Pinprick

Both. That should be obvious, right? No-one seriously believes people are either 100% in control all the time, or never in control.

The basic principle here isn't very difficult. You are responsible for your own voluntary actions, and you are to blame for the foreseeable consequences of said actions. One implication of this is that blame is not a zero-sum game. More than one person can bear the blame for a result, it isn't split between actors.

Charlie got railroaded by a country hysterical about the crimes of his followers. Not unlike Derek Chauvin — fishfry

And here I was thinking it was Derek Chauvin himself who knelt on that neck, and not some "follower" of his.

This is an age-old, superstitious problem that few have spoken about: an overestimation of the power of words. One can see it everywhere once one notices it. — NOS4A2

I think the superstition is to treat words as if they were not physical phenomena like any other.

I think the superstition is to treat words as if they were not physical phenomena like any other.

That’s one aspect. Another is to treat words as poison, drugs, or pollution, capable of manipulating matter in fantastic ways.

I think that we are all inclined to blame others, whether it is our parents, the government, the church or atheists. Of course, there are many sources of fault external to us, but it is also involves psychological processes of projection. It is so much easier to see faults in others and blame them rather to see our own. I am not saying that we should simply try to blame ourselves, but I do think that it is useful to be able to see the way blaming others can be about avoiding personal responsibility and can even contribute to a sense of victimhood and lack of empowerment.

. I would like you to understand this basic truth ...

. "Your Life is your Karma" ...

. You are 100 per cent responsible for what happened ... happens ... and will hapen in your Life ... One who do that ... is truly responsible ... Why is it so? ...

. Because ... unless you're in a tremendous conscious state of being ... you cannot and will never conceive yourself as the doer of your Life ... to this ... I call ... Ignorance ... an ignorant man ... a blind being ... trying to put his responsability on the society ... on politicians ... on the state ... on the government ... on the social structure ... and so on so forth ...

. The mediocre being ... therefore ... the ordinary mind ... the mass population ... always ... throws the responsibility on somebody else. It is always the other who is making you suffer. Your wife is making you suffer, your husband is making you suffer, your parents are making you suffer, your children are making you suffer, or the financial system of the society, capitalism, communism, fascism, the prevalent political ideology, the social structure, or fate, karma, God ... you name it!

. One is full of bull**** ... and one want others to be responsible for one misery ...

. People have millions of ways to shirk responsibility. But the moment you say somebody else – X, Y, Z – is making you suffer, then you cannot do anything to change it. What can you do? When the society changes and communism comes and there is a classless world, then everybody will be happy. Before it, it is not possible. How can you be happy in a society which is poor? And how can you be happy in a society which is dominated by the capitalists? How can you be happy with a society which is bureaucratic? How can you be happy with a society which does not allow you freedom?

. Excuses and excuses and excuses – excuses just to avoid one single insight that “I am responsible for myself. Nobody else is responsible for me; it is absolutely and utterly my responsibility. Whatsoever I am, I am my own creation.”

Charles Manson was blamed and imprisoned for actions he himself did not commit. He’s actually quoted as saying “… you are as much responsible for the Vietnam war as I am for killing these people,” at his trial.

Now, although not so in the past, it is deemed unreasonable to blame music/musicians for things like suicides and school shootings. However, video games have become a substitute scapegoat in recent times.

Trump was blamed for the Capital riots. — Pinprick

There is a difference between being personally culpable for a crime or being led by others to commit a crime and being blamed for a crime that you haven't committed.

In Trump's case, no criminal culpability can be found for the Capitol riots. Politicians use terms like "fight" all the time. Political speeches may in some cases, be deemed "inflamatory", but it's very difficult to infer criminal culpability from that alone. We can't tell beyond reasonable doubt what Trump's intentions were on that day. Therefore, no criminal culpability can be established on the available evidence. Fresh incriminating evidence may still surface at some point in the future, but right now the evidence seems insufficient for successful prosecution and conviction. And in the Western justice system you're innocent until proven guilty.

It's also the way the media reported the riot as having left a "trail of blood", or "killed five people", etc. In fact it wasn't any more "bloody" than other violent riots. One victim (a rioter) was shot by the police, one or two police officers committed suicide, one rioter died as a result of some medical emergency and I'm not sure if they found a precise death cause or culprit for the death of the fifth (a police officer), in which case only one fatality can be directly linked to rioter action if at all. and even that may not have been intentional.

Personally, I'm not condoning either Trump or the rioters. But the fact is that we perceive everything through the lens of the media and the media can be very influential in forming public opinion. Each case needs to be judged on its own merits and after examining all the evidence, both pro and against.

Having said that, I've heard people say that America was founded through revolution and that people should have the right to launch an insurrection. After all, insurrection is just a large-scale riot. I'm sure even a regular riot in the right conditions might lead to insurrection and maybe people should have the right to rebel when they think that their rights are being taken away from them.

The question is, On what criteria do we decide when or when not a riot or insurrection is legitimate? What makes it legitimate, majority support, objective, or what?

If we say objective then we say that the ends justify the means. If we say majority support, then we say that the majority is always right. But none of these statements are absolute rules and both of them can be problematic. So, who decides and how? There's a problem for philosophy to solve.

And here I was thinking it was Derek Chauvin himself who knelt on that neck, and not some "follower" of his. — Echarmion

Not the place to discuss this case, but I see you didn't actually follow the details of the trial. I suggest you do so.

And by the way, Chauvin did not kneel on Floyd's neck; only on his upper back, in accord with officially approved Minneapolis police procedure for restraining a combative arrestee, as eventually admitted by the prosecution at trial. Like I say, study the actual trial.

Not the place to discuss this case, but I see you didn't actually follow the details of the trial. I suggest you do so. — fishfry

Unfortunately, I didn't follow the trial either. Would you care to clarify that a bit for those of us who haven't?

Unfortunately, I didn't follow the trial either. Would you care to clarify that a bit for those of us who haven't? — Apollodorus

If I did, I'd become embroiled in an endless political argument about the case. I have no interest in that. If you don't know, for example, that Floyd swallowed drugs for his buddy in the car, his drug dealer who wanted to avoid arrest; and that the drug dealer then invoked his 5th Amendment privilege to not testify; and that obviously this information would have been exculpatory to Chauvin, what is the point of my enumerating a dozen other similarly exculpatory facts? If you remember the death of John Belushi years ago, the woman he was with at the time who supplied him with drugs was arrested, convicted, and spent time in jail for his death. Likewise Floyd's drug dealer buddy in the car with him at the time would have been legally culpable for Floyd's death, so he used his Constitutional privilege to not testify. Do you know this? Probably not, if you only watched the hysterical MSM reporting.

Floyd's already fatal blood level of fentanyl in him. The medical examiner said that if they'd found Floyd dead in his living room with that level of fentanyl in him, the medical examiner would have no problem calling it an overdose death. I know CNN didn't mention that, but it was recorded into evidence at the trial.

Floyd said he couldn't breathe long before the cops put their hands on him. Was that in the MSM coverage? No. But it's in the record of the trial, and it's in the news articles that didn't make it to the MSM.

Do your own homework or go along with a lynch mob. Not my problem and not my purpose in using Chauvin to illustrate what a modern day lynch mob looks like. There are as I say another dozen points I could make. If you prefer to be educated, everything's online. https://www.powerlineblog.com/ did fantastic day-by-day coverage direct from the courtroom but unfortunately they don't seem to have everything organized in one place anymore.

Here's Dershowitz on the Chauvin case. But why do I need to be the one who Googles things for you? You have a choice to mindlessly join the lynch mob or spend an hour Googling and reading. Even the fact that the judge refused to move the trial to a different city or sequester the jury will be grounds for appeal. One of the jurors tweeted earlier that he wanted to get on the jury to get justice for Floyd, lied to the court during jury selection about attending a rally wearing a BLM t-shirt that he was photographed in. This was a kangaroo court. That doesn't make Chauvin cop of the year, he was a bad cop in many respects. That doesn't make him guilty of all the counts against him, some of which logically contradict the others. I truly haven't the time or the interest to write you an essay about this case.

That's OK. No problem. As I said, I didn't follow the trial. But from I've heard there were a few inconsistencies in the prosecution case. For example, at least before the trial, they were saying that Floyd started experiencing breathing difficulties after the police officer kneeled on him. But there was a video in which Floyd was already agitated and kept saying "I can't breathe" even before the police even touched him. And he ended up on the street after the officers put him in the car because he got out and that was when they pinned him down. Obviously, he shouldn't have ended up dead but I can't say I'm on either side because I don't know enough details, I just remember thinking that the video didn't match what the news presenter was saying and I thought that was a bit odd.

That's OK. No problem. As I said, I didn't follow the trial. But from I've heard there were a few inconsistencies in the prosecution case. For example, at least before the trial, they were saying that Floyd started experiencing breathing difficulties after the police officer kneeled on him. But there was a video in which Floyd was already agitated and kept saying "I can't breathe" even before the police even touched him. And he ended up on the street after the officers put him in the car because he got out and that was when they pinned him him down. Obviously, he shouldn't have ended up dead but I can't say I'm on either side because I don't know enough details, I just remember thinking that the video didn't match what the news presenter was saying and I thought that was a bit odd. — Apollodorus

Thanks, you probably know more about the case than most. I probably shouldn't have name-checked Chauvin if I didn't want to get into a back-and-forth about it. But I said that Charlie didn't kill anyone and nobody batted an eye. If I'd written the same thing in 1969 I'd have been public enemy #1. Everyone in the country hated Charles Manson. Just like everyone in the country hates Derek Chauvin, who, as I've said, is no prince.

I really don't want to have hijacked another thread into some irrelevant political issue. Maybe I shouldn't mention the case of Tony Timpa, a white guy cruelly choked to death by cops in a case far more egregious than that of George Floyd. "Dallas police officers kneeled on Tony Timpa’s neck for 13 minutes while he yelled, “You’re gonna kill me!” He died, handcuffed and face down, while officers joked about his mental illness. A district court granted qualified immunity to the police officers."

Early in the Floyd story I vaguely remembered the Timpa case but couldn't remember his name. I Googled, "White guy choked to death by cops," and found page after page of Floyd links and not a single link about Tony Timpa. I put the same search into Bing and Timpa's name immediately came up. I don't think people realize the extent to which web search is censored and politicized by Google. And as of right now, Wikipedia has no article on his case. (There is an outline of the case on the Wiki page for the Dallas PD). That's how the Internet works. It's 1984 in our daily lives, and we don't even see it.

There is an fact an epidemic of bad policing in the US. Some of it is racial but most of it isn't. Cops kill defenseless and undeserving whites more than they do blacks; although on a per capita basis, they kill more blacks. You can make a case either way. The racialization of bad policing makes it impossible to effectively address the problem.

There is an fact an epidemic of bad policing in the US. Some of it is racial but most of it isn't. Cops kill defenseless and undeserving whites more than they do blacks; although on a per capita basis, they kill more blacks. You can make a case either way. The racialization of bad policing makes it impossible to effectively address the problem. — fishfry

I definitely agree with that. It's a shame that in the 21st century people aren't rational enough to solve policing problems peacefully and without bringing culture and race wars into it. Plus I hear that BLM is being funded by Chinese organizations linked to the Communist Party of China on top of having links to Nation of Islam and other extremist groups.

It's a shame that in the 21st century people aren't rational enough to solve policing problems peacefully and without bringing culture and race wars into it. Plus I hear that BLM is being funded by Chinese organizations linked to the Communist Party of China.... — Apollodorus

...said with an apparently straight face...?

Again, is this satire? It seems not.

...said with an apparently straight face...?

Again, is this satire? It seems not. — Banno

Imarn Ayton, one of the organizers of BLM rallies in the UK, has admitted that the BLM movement has been hijacked by far-left activists who believe in "smashing capitalism and abolishing the police".

BLM is not only being used by domestic extremists but also by foreign powers like China who share the agenda of the British and American Far Left. BLM activism is being backed by foreign powers such as Communist China.

China’s intelligence apparatus United Front Work Department a.k.a. “United Front”, that runs interference in Western countries, has been running a large-scale social media campaign and other covert operations in support of Black Lives Matter and similar movements as part of its efforts to amplify racial unrest and destabilize target countries.

- "The New China Syndrome", Newsweek, 06.10.11.2020

A report of 10 March released by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) shows that China's ally Iran, a major sponsor of Islamic terrorism, is another foreign power exploiting racial unrest in Western countries, "using overt and covert messaging and cyber operations" to "sow division and exacerbate societal tensions".

Black Lives Matter co-founder is being funded by group linked to the Chinese Communist Part – Daily Mail

Sure, all that might well be true. And yet BLM not be a communist plot.

I'm not saying it is a communist movement. I've been on their demos myself, not anymore though. Most participants are just decent ordinary folk, lots of gullible and (understandably) frustrated students but the leadership and some file and rank elements are really dodgy. Plus all these movements can and do get infiltrated by interests with the means and knowledge how to use them for their own agendas, unfortunately.

I'm not saying it is a communist movement. — Apollodorus

I hear that BLM is being funded by Chinese organizations linked to the Communist Party of China — Apollodorus

But you are implying it.

No. I'm saying they have links to Communist China according to the reports. That doesn't make the whole movement communist. Only that it is being used by Communist governments and groups.

Only that it is being used by Communist governments and groups. — Apollodorus

...and your conclusion? Is BLM now unworthy because of that funding? Does Chinese money mean black lives no longer matter?

Does Chinese money mean black lives no longer matter? — Banno

All lives matter. And it isn't a black movement. Most people that get involved are white at least where I live. It isn't only Chinese money. It isn't my type of movement, that's all.

All lives matter. — Apollodorus

Sad, to see you quote this reactionary meme.

How is that "reactionary" ?

How is it not??

Well, you need to explain what you mean by "reactionary". If you mean "reactionary" in the Marxist sense of "counterrevolutionary", i.e. someone who is to be eliminated by revolutionaries, then I must object to that label.

"If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence will already have been destroyed” Marx & Engels, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, May 1850