This seems to be a pattern in most non democratic countries...
There is a parallel authoritarian system being built up, starting with the creation of DHS in 2001 and ending god knows where. The massive expansion of ICE should ring alarm bells for everyone. This power grab does not end. It will expand and continue.
Why are the right libertarians and 2A folks not speaking up right now? We have masked feds rolling up and barging in without warrants...?
I would be absolutely elated if the end result of all this crap is a judicial president that eviscerates the many parallel systems that the feds/state/local governments run in all sorts of specialty areas of law.
>Why are the right libertarians and 2A folks not speaking up right now? We have masked feds rolling up and barging in without warrants...?
Right now you're making the same complaints about immigration process that hardcore libertarians made decades ago about traffic court and code enforcement and were brushed off for various reasons. They're keeping their mouths shut so as to not interfere with the learning process.
Can you point me to some examples of people a decade ago running afoul of traffic or code enforcement, and being sent to an extrajudicial concentration camp for it?
But seriously, stop trying to be edgy with needlessly contrarian points. Stop gloating because us libertarians were talking about the trend of unaccountable government processes before it was popular. The dam breaking is not something to be celebrated, you're just adding fuel to the fire.
It's time to circle the wagons and defend our country together. True libertarians are not "keeping our mouths shut", but rather speaking out against the rapidly increasing government power. One cause, which we have to be mature and acknowledge, is the destruction of bureaucracy (which we've always disliked, but at least it moderated) in favor of unrestrained autocracy.
[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-el-salvador-deporte...
If I'm correctly interpreting what you said - yes, I agree that presently some people end up running afoul of traffic enforcement, which causes them to run afoul of immigration, which causes them to end up in the concentration camp.
But the larger argument is contrasting the longer-existing authoritarian/autocratic dynamics of code/traffic enforcers versus the more recent development of autocratic immigration enforcers.
> I would be absolutely elated if the end result of all this crap is a judicial president that eviscerates the many parallel systems that the feds/state/local governments run in all sorts of specialty areas of law.
I think we saw what giving power to the "right guy" in the executive branch lead us. The thing that will stop us going down this road is, at this point, active resistance from local and state governments, private businesses and government contractors, and large multi-national corporations.
You need a lot of ICE, an absolutely staggering number of cops and jails, to deport twenty million people. It should be crystal clear by now that they will attempt to follow through with this promise, by whatever means necessary.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” - Lyndon B. Johnson
Clearly we're not meant to be upset that fed-cops can behave this way generally, we're meant to be upset that they dared treat another agent of the state, a more equal animal, the way they'd treat a common peasant who got similarly uppity. Caring about these generalities is outside our lane.
I'm upset because a US citizen was arrested for asking a reasonable question to some government officials before complying with the government officials.
Maybe he was right to do so, maybe not, but it had nothing to do with "asking a question".
"what they were doing" is attempting to illegally abduct someone. The comptroller's "impeding" was a demand to see the one thing that would make their request a legal arrest.
Instead, they arrested the comptroller without even a pretense of the law.
He was refusing to unlink his arm from the person ICE wanted to detain until ICE presented documentation establishing the legality of what they were doing. It was a perfectly reasonable request.
> New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer.
[1] https://x.com/dhsgov/status/1935040871717916825?s=61
EDIT: Video here: https://x.com/courtneycgross/status/1935010369077915990?s=61
A little more than asking for a warrant.
(You can also easily imagine why it wouldn't be ideal to publish the name of someone who is actively being harassed by masked thugs.)
If I were being mistreated by enforcers I would want my name anywhere and everywhere. Public scrutiny is one's only hope when government seeks to mistreat you.
Sometimes, criticism is poised to cause reform. Currently, it's poised to support the fascist takeover in progress. Having to circle the wagons sucks as it further empowers the authoritarians on our side, but at this point it is what it is - traditional American governance (with all of its warts and flaws) versus autocratic fascism red in tooth and claw.
This applies more to other kidnappings and less here, because this happened in a fascist-controlled building. But the point is we need to start drawing these types of hard dividing lines based on state authority following the law in good faith, rather than deferring to an autocratic federal executive that increasingly interprets it in bad faith.
[0] sorry fascism-cheerleaders - without uniforms, legal documentation of their authority, accountability to bystanders, and duly-issued arrest warrants, this is what they are.
They need probable cause to arrest just like any other law enforcement. If they just arrest you because you're annoying or fake charges. You can sue them for deprivation of rights.
Also, you are going to have a hard time suing if you are an El Salvadorian prison.
https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/06/17/brad-lander-arrest-ice-im...
If someone unidentified, masked, showing no warrant, no legal justification of anything, kidnaps/attempts to kidnap someone, how are (organised) citizens not in their legitimate right to retaliate, according to what their local state allows them to?
Similarly, why/how are the law enforcement units not taking side against those kidnapping?
I mean, in my country, this would obviously call for immediate intervention of the police, but maybe that's because I'm still in a country where administrative enforcement is still ultimately under the control of the judiciary branch.
I do think there's precedent that it's self defense to fire on an unidentified stranger who knocks on your door or tries to arrest you without showing ID, but you need to make it to court to press that defense and I can't say it's a great strategy for that reason
Contrary to the current title here on HN, Lander was not arrested for asking to see a warrant; TFA states the opposite, "It wasn’t immediately clear what charges, if any, the mayoral candidate will face. A spokesperson for ICE didn’t immediately return a request for comment."
If an event is so important to know about, why fabricate such an important aspect of the event in this way?
Clickbait, Incitement, Selling something, or Bad Journalism
It happens all the time, but your point is absolutely correct. Media fabrication undermines confidence in the reporting.
Baudrilliard was careful to point out that simulation isn't a matter of fabrication; to simulate is to obscure the absence of facts, not to create false facts. A simulacrum is a symbol that obscures the fact that it refers to nothing; whereas a symbol, in centuries past, invariably referred to something, real or imagined. The resulting reality (or maybe "mindspace"?) is a construct on top of the real world -- a hyper-reality -- in which every symbol is a simulacrum; the only thing real in hyper-reality is that the symbols hide the absence of facts. This is why, again as the other commenter mentions, we appear to live in a post-truth society; we are fully living in hyper-reality.
>Bad Journalism
The guy who created the Pullitzer prize also co-invented Yellow Journalism.[0][1] There is neither good journalism or bad journalism; it's all simulation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer#Pulitzer_Prize
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Origins:_Pul...
A lot of us doesn't come here to read about US internal politics
Poltical stories that show "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon" are not against the guidelines. A few years back someone said nearly half the YC batch was non-US. I think stories about city comptrollers and mayoral candidates getting arrested at immigration court would have some bearing on whether someone would want to base a company in the US.
A user who has enough karma to flag stories has flagged it for whatever reason, maybe they think the story is flamebait or without merit, who knows. It is not possible for a user with equal or higher karma to unflag it I believe. Only a moderator can unflag it, and if you want them to do that you have to email them (address in guidelines, no guarentee of success).
This is actually what happened, not the headline. He tried to forcibly remove someone there for court. It's all a a show, to make the Trump administration look bad.
sjsdaiuasgdia•3h ago
We do not have to sit back and let this happen.
deadbabe•3h ago
distortionfield•3h ago
lesuorac•3h ago
None of these individuals are the president.
It's the effect of qualified immunity for non-presidents.
blooalien•2h ago
lesuorac•1h ago
ICE isn't inheriting the president's qualified immunity; they have it because they're government employees. It doesn't matter if they're acting in the presidents interests or not and for state employees if they're acting in the governors interests or not.
Pardon is a very clearly enumerated power of the president so any usage of it is very clearly legal (although typically undesirable).
RHSeeger•2h ago
dttze•1h ago
bigyabai•3h ago
sjsdaiuasgdia•3h ago
Yes, that's risky. Some people might get hurt. A lot of people are being hurt, and will continue to be hurt, by the current situation. We all have to make our own choices about when principles and long-term outcomes outweigh our instinct for self preservation.
jbm•3h ago
I have never seen this work for something this politicized.
sjsdaiuasgdia•3h ago
nemomarx•3h ago
potato3732842•3h ago
garciasn•3h ago
I don't support what the current administration is doing; not by a long shot. But to say, "they did just shoot two elected representatives," is disingenuous at best.
orwin•3h ago
I don't remember the exact sentence but it was something like that: "That's the issue with pandering to violent conspiracy theorists, if they feel betrayed they will aim that violence at you".
Do you disagree with this characterization?
sculper•3h ago
haswell•3h ago
I don’t see a connection between their efficacy and what happened in Minnesota, which was an event that is arguably all the more reason to protest.
nemomarx•3h ago
The scale of the protests is encouraging, but I remember the mass protests under Bush were about as large, and the war continued and he stayed in power. Organization needs to do something with the mass of people who are out in the streets to direct them.
abeppu•3h ago
I think largely they have not yet been effective at protecting immigrants.
> They’re as much about spreading awareness and mobilizing the voting public as they are about current events.
Right, so to some degree they "work" as tools for existing political groups in attracting attention, resources and possibly votes. But does it better enable those groups to actually help immigrants? Or does it just give political organizations a powerful talking point in the midterms?
jkestner•3h ago
Sure would help if the media would cover them to the extent that they did for George Floyd/Women's March/etc.
Simulacra•3h ago