Everyone could just start wearing these.
I find it amusing this comes out of Chicago, a town that is famously one of the more violent in terms of firearm related offences and in spite of its tighter gun control laws. Also that the TYT would flag 3D printers as "the end of the world" for the fact that you could manufacture masks and weapons. I guess they never heard of home workshops, plaster of paris or papier mâché. Or maybe they have and they're simply indulging in the usual round of scaring the shit our of people for ratings, the media excels at that.
I did see a rather interesting potential use for 3D printers flagged recently - fudging forensic evidence. Not possible to do yet? Heh, perhaps not easily, but with technology being what it is I imagine a few of us might well see it in our lifetimes and the proof of concept already exists with scientists "printing" various biological components. And what was that story recently out of California where police solved a cold case involving a serial killer by dipping into the ancestry.com styled databases? What is to stop a less than scrupulous person with the right connections obtaining the DNA fingerprint of someone they didn't like very much and producing a few strands of hair... some blood maybe, whatever... to plant at the scene of a crime for Mr Plod to collect. Couple that to the sort of argument that "if you have nothing to hide, then you won't mind us unmasking you" mentality? Most people who submitted their DNA to private companies did so without ever considering that it might be used in evidence against them later or that the hacker culture might collect it as one might collect a bunch of PI en masse from organisations whose security was less than stellar. Suddenly you're in the dock for some crime you know full well you didn't commit and your alibi is getting dismissed "because the DNA evidence doesn't lie"... the coming years sure do promise to be interesting.
I do understand why you think it's a good idea on the face of it, don't get me wrong. I personally think Antifa is riddled with easily led hypocrites myself, many of whom should be prosecuted for the stuff they've done. I just don't see why any of us should see them used as an excuse to enact further laws which might potentially be misused against others further down the line, possibly even ourselves.
Where I am, it is illegal to turn up to a rally in a Guy Fawkes mask, doesn't matter what you happen to be doing. It's bullshit.
I think the point of it is to deter these cowardly little cretins from showing up for the "anonymous riot mob" antics in the first place. They're using identity concealment to embolden themselves for domestic terrorism; I'm okay with a law that takes some of that gusto out of them.
I think the point of it is to augment an already too nosey surveillance state's ability to poke its nose into people's private affairs. If the legislators were about "deterring the cowardly little cretins", they'd admit that stringent gun control laws are counterproductive in your nation and relax them accordingly. Instead you have a situation where your enumerated constitutional right to bear arms for the purposes of protecting you and yours is being chiseled away at, as is your right to privacy. Do the math.
What about the people who want to just conceal their identity for fear of repercussions for protesting peacefully? When it comes down to it police don't give a shit about sorting out who's really causing an issue, most just want the glory of a big bust. I realize it's for the courts to sort out but police are out of control. I rarely see officers acting as they should, they resort to violence too quickly without attempting to de-escalate situations first.
Which is precisely my point. The police in many jurisdictions now function more or less as the private militia of the wealthiest class, a class which enjoys its status and chattels by virtue of the fact they can yoke the serfs and peasant classes and keep them bickering among themselves while dangling the odd carrot of an illusion of safety and protection here and there which in the end only tightens the fist around your neck more. You never see them advocating for the removal of those constraints, only for more and more control over what you do and say and now apparently what they'll allow you to wear while you're doing it.
America is less and less the land of the free. You are free only to do as they tell you.
Unfortunately we don't always know who is going to come out as antifa.
Well, the "hillbilly ninja suit" look is usually a pretty solid indicator. Maybe now that penalties come with that, we'll see a drop in the thuggery. As for people innocently walking around with their identities concealed like that... I don't buy it. That "Central Casting teenaged bank robber" look isn't exactly grocery shopping attire, is it?
You won't see a drop in the thuggery though. Rebellion is an idea; suppress it and it hides away and festers, only to surface somewhere else. You already have what amounts to a nanny state operating within your borders and it's not working.
I invite you to revisit the TYT video Bear posted above and pay particularly close attention to Cenk's demeanour across the entire video... see how he goes from the "nyah nyah, we've beat you" to the "fuck it, we're going to tear you down and kill you" across the course of the election coverage. There were a lot of people who were exactly like Cenk on election night... all smarmy and secure in their supremacy... until the shit hit the fan of course, at which point it became more of a "HULK SMASH" arrangement because they found themselves on the losing side.
Ask yourself this; why in fucks name should someone like Cenk care? I mean he sure as shit doesn't look like he's worried where his next meal is coming from. A responsible person imbued with the reach he has ought not be using such inflammatory rhetoric when a decision does not go his way. And he's not wearing a mask. Doesn't appear to have stopped him from advocating unruly behaviour from the sorts of people prepared to pick up his banner, now does it? And if it were just Cenk then I'd be tempted to say "fuck it, he's just a fat bigmouthed blowhard anyway" and ignore the prick, but the charge is also being led by others "on many sides". That was the one major takeaway that I got from Charlottesville when I saw the smiling pigs herding a peaceful protest directly into hordes of counter protesters who had already been pelting people with paint and urine bombs and were waiting for them with fists and clubs.
Make no mistake, this unmask legislation that is being marketed to you as a cure for violence is intended to to anything but. You are being herded into relinquishing yet more of a your peoples fundamental rights which your forebears left England centuries ago simply so they and their countrymen could enjoy them. Far better that you beef up your own rights to self administer your own protections than plaster increasing amounts of laws and pretend that's going to get the pooflingers in your public square to meekly fall into line... because they won't.
