The Capital Riot (Understanding why and how things happened)

 I've been seeing a lot of crazy posts about the big DC riot where a horde of Trump cultists decided to storm the capital building. A lot of theories and statements are flying back and forth. 

Getty Images

First of all, let's lay one of them to rest right from the start. This was not Antifa people in disguise. Don't even try that with me. It's bullshit. There are now enough people positively identified to throw that crap right out the window. And crying "fake news" won't help anything either or make Trumpsters regain face (like they had any in the first place). So let's just toss all that  in the trash where it belongs and get onto the real deal.

Comparisons are being made to BLM protests/riots. 

People are also criticizing the authorities for not arresting everyone, not holding everyone, or letting them out or in or whatever. 

First let's take a look at how BLM is being compared to and used. I says 'used' because some people think deflecting to things that happened in the protests and riots of BLM actually justify the attack on the capital. But it doesn't. It just doesn't. Nothing in any of these events justify violence and destruction. Let's set that straight right now. You can point out similarities all day long and you still won't have a valid point. You also cannot just ignore all the things that make those events different. 

First of all there are several points ignored about the BLM events. Let me list a few for you..

- Google "bricks on protest routes" and see all the reports of mystery pallets of bricks pre-delivered to protests routes in more than one state to instigate violence (what else could they have been for). 

- The claim that people weren't being arrested in the BLM events is completely false. Not only that, several arrests turned out to be Trump supporters causing damage to blame on BLM. 

-The majority of protestors were peaceful and even then were met with near military force. That is the one major difference worth taking into consideration; not to justify the BLM events, but recognize the racial difference for what it is beyond this.

-In none of the BLM events were government buildings stormed and internally ransacked. I will also point out that it wasn't BLM who decided to strap on rifles and take up state capital building to "protest covid shut downs" (because for some reason that requires guns). 

-BLM protestors did not storm city parks to beat up every non-black person they could find like the Proud Boys did on more than one occasion. 

-Finally, BLM protests by size and numbers make Trumpsters look like a corner street gang in a small town. BLM protests numbered participants in the hundred thousands in 2000 American cities and 60 other countries. That means that law enforcement could no more hope to "stop" the protests in any of those cities than they could hold back the mob at the capital. 

And dead last but arguably more important, BLM had more reason to protest. Real reasons to protest. Trumpsters keep claiming they've lost their rights but have no evidence to compare. Either they refuse to acknowledge they are in the same boat as the rest of us (covid) or can't handle that they lost the election no matter how many investigations fail to find any wrong doing. Meanwhile there is 400 years of historical evidence that black people have been the most trod up on people in our country over any other. The only people who had it worse were the Jews from the Holocaust and that didn't last 400 years with new ways to destroy them at every turn and didn't happen in America. I may not have all of Jewish history on the button here, so give me a break. I'm not diminishing their pain. It's an example.

Now let's take a realistic look at the DC riot. First, yes, what they planned to do they have been forecasting for weeks. We all know this. I think, for some reason, they weren't taken seriously. Yeah, that's still a screw up because we know they are willing to strap on rifles and take up state capital space, so why not DC? We know factions of Trump supporters are willing to beat up black and gay people in city parks. We know they are capable of being violent. That being said, the decision to not beef up response was not made by the ground security forces already on duty. Please realize that is well above their pay grade. Those poor saps, for whatever excuse you'd like to enter were left to face down what turned out to be 3000 plus people forcing their way in a human tidal wave into a single building. But there is more to it than that.

What did they really know about this gathering? They knew there would be a gathering and likely didn't think anyone would actually take it further than that, because no one has before. Think about that for a second. If all they did was gather and wave their flags (as was likely assumed) nothing would have happened. Yes, I said they took up state capitals, but even then with their display of guns, they didn't do anything like this time. This was very different from all the other Trumpist gatherings, violence recognized. So this gathering started out like all the others, and then shifted gears. 

That left the base security force so outnumbered that there was literally nothing else they could do. Yeah, they shot someone and beat up a few others, but they had no chance of stopping this event. Zero. This mob abandoned all sanity and reason except for one purpose, destruction. They could no more hope to keep everyone there to arrest them on the same point. One officer might have two pairs of cuffs on him and while some were arrested on the spot, the safest thing to do was exactly what they did. Let them leave. As it turned out, so many posted to their social media, waved at security cameras, posed for additional pictures, that arrests are slowly snowballing. And to once again compare that to BLM, don't even try. Over 300 arrests were made at the height of the BLM protests and they were all over the country, this is just one location. So lets stay realistic in our comparisons.

So far, almost 70 arrests have been made and nearly as many people have lost their jobs over the DC event. So I would say that the wheels of justice are definitely moving and would even go so far as to say that if you took the arrests in BLM to their separate locations, you would see comparable numbers per incident. So would the result have been different if it were BLM?

Well, BLM did protest at the capital building. But they they DID NOT try to overtake the building and were not all shot dead. Was there more security? Maybe, but I submit that, had they wanted to do what the MAGA crowd did, they could have with just as destructive results. 

So, in closing I make a suggestion. Let's stop comparing in order to villainize and deflect and work on stopping ALL the violence? How about that? 

Autism and Violence

In my last posting, I discussed the deadly crime of Adam Lanza. I discussed that having autism by itself does not indicate a tendency to become homicidal. Anyone who does become a murderer has a list of factors that led to their actions. That's not to condone those actions, rather to show that there is no single factor that makes one a homicidal maniac.

Today I want to talk about violence that does occur with autism and other inhibiting conditions similar to autism. Just like anything, there is a spectrum or scale of violent tendencies that can occur and they are not what you would normally expect.

Involuntary Stress Reactions: Consider a young man heavily affected by autism. He needs assistance in practically every facet of life. In each step of his day, a great deal of patience is required to work with him. If pressed too hard or if someone gets in a hurry, they risk a violent outburst. This could be flailing, kicking, biting, and even throwing things. It comes from severe difficulty relating to the world around them. This is a person who lives under constant stress in trying to function each day. He requires consistency in all things, from how he brushes his teeth to how he puts his shoes on. Everything has a delicate routine and he is so sensitive to it, that the slightest variation risks an overload to his stress limits and senses. With consistent therapy and support, some people's outbursts can be controlled. Some can even learn a limited sense of self control.

Why does this happen: Imagine all your senses and your limitations on stress at their near maximum just because you woke up today. You live on a proverbial balance beam where a hair out of place means a long fall. And that's what it feels like. I feels like your world just fell apart because someone move your alarm clock one inch out of place. That's giving you the most extreme possibility, but it does exist.

Involuntary stress reactions are not always violent either. What I am talking about is an automatic response to stressors, like tapping a nerve in your knee. It can be as simple as an odor that always makes you gag. You may not be able to control it without years of practice, if ever. When ever you come across that odor, you gag uncontrollably. Phobias are involuntary without treatment. It's an uncontrolled and severe fear. It's an uncontrolled response to that fear.

Young autistic children, even if high functioning, struggle in social development. This, as you might imagine, has to be very stressful. Our high functioning kids can learn not to be violent however and that is usually what is required. No, not all are violent. But it stands to reason that kids do go through phase where they will hit or kick other kids because they don't know how to react to the situation at hand. From what I have personally seen in autistic youth, it seems this phase can be drawn out.

Take a kindergartner who bites another student because he is angry. It could be for anything. They could have just bumped into each other. If this kindergartner has autism, that could be a sensory issue. He could have misunderstood and thought the other child did it on purpose. Maybe he reacts to being touched by surprise. Clearly, many factors could take place to the involuntary response. Regardless of them, it's a response from a sudden stress. In most cases, the behavior is correctable and treatable over time. This is involuntary because you combine a sudden stress with lack of developed impulse control.

This is the kind of violence that can be found in autism. It is not calculated or homicidal. It's not meant to be cruel either. It's nothing more than an automatic response to stress. So, when someone wants to talk about violence and autism in the media; it's time to get more of an education on just what kind of violence really happens in autism alone. Autism, by itself, is not a contributor to homicidal or psychopathic tendencies.