Ashli Babbitt A Martyr? Her Past Tells A More Complex Story

[RandySF]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first time Celeste Norris laid eyes on Ashli Babbitt, the future insurrectionist had just rammed her vehicle three times with an SUV and was pounding on the window, challenging her to a fight.

Norris says the bad blood between them began in 2015, when Babbitt engaged in a monthslong extramarital affair with Norris’ longtime live-in boyfriend. When she learned of the relationship, Norris called Babbitt’s husband and told him she was cheating.

“She pulls up yelling and screaming,” Norris said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, recounting the July 29, 2016, road-rage incident in Prince Frederick, Maryland. “It took me a good 30 seconds to figure out who she was. … Just all sorts of expletives, telling me to get out of the car, that she was going to beat my ass.”

Terrified and confused, Norris dialed 911 and waited for law enforcement. Babbitt was later charged with numerous misdemeanors.

The attack on Norris is an example of erratic and sometimes threatening behavior by Babbitt, who was shot by a police officer while at the vanguard of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Former President Donald Trump and his supporters have sought to portray her as a righteous martyr who was unjustly killed.




https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ashli-babbitt-violence-road-rage-extramarital-affair_n_61d2ff37e4b0c7d8b8a640b3

[Walleye]

1. I'd say amphetamine has a lot to answer for

[gratuitous]

2. This is useful information to counter the Ashli as martyr nonsense

It doesn't come up very often, but when it does, I like to have a response. In this case, maybe "She was no angel." That seems to work for the bigots in other situations.

[JustAnotherGen]

4. It sure does

[doc03]

3. She sounds like a real sweetheart

[MyOwnPeace]

5. Amazing what things happen

to 'peaceful tourists.....'

[Efilroft Sul]

6. Babbitt's addiction to anger was going to get herself killed one way or another.

January 6, 2021 just happened to be the earliest possible date for Lady Horst Wessel's premature demise.

[Caliman73]

7. Her being belligerent and erratic would not necessarily negate her being a "martyr"...

The fact that she was part of a coordinated (if poorly) attack on the government for the purpose of trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power would negate that status. She was there, trying to climb through a window that had been broken by the insurrectionists. She was told to stand down and warned repeatedly. She failed to comply and the officer had no other recourse than to fire or allow the insurrectionists into the chamber.

Certainly the incident and other details of her life and behavior, show a person who was more susceptible to becoming a right wing fanatic. Prone to anger and impulsively violent, fits within the spectrum of behavior fo someone susceptible to right wing ideas.

Saul of Tarsus persecuted Christians zealously as a Roman citizen he ruthlessly hunted down and killed them. Supposedly, he received a vision of Christ and became Paul the Apostle, zealously spreading Christianity until he was killed by the Romans. He was a bad man, who became one of the most important martyrs of Christianity. It isn't the character of the person that makes them a martyr, it is what they died for.

Ashli Babbitt died trying to violently overthrow the government because the person who lost, and others, convinced her that the election was stolen, when it clearly was not. She may in fact be a martyr to the cause of White Supremacist insurrection, but that is not a worthy or acceptable cause. Much like there have been martyrs for the Nazi cause in the 1920's and 1930's. They are forgotten or reviled because the cause they died for was evil. Babbitt is not a martyr for any worthy or noble cause regardless of whether she was an entirely decent woman or she is the complex, seemingly erratic, impulsive and potentially violent person we are beginning to see.

The problem that we have in our society, is that we seem to need our heroes to be "purely good" and our villains to be "purely evil". People are complex. The information about Babbitt, makes sense based on what we know of her end. We would figure that someone like her, might be more prone to join right wing circles and end up in a violent attack on the government. Though, there are other people out there who have similar experiences in life and did not join right wing groups, did not attack the Capitol, and lead decent lives.

The reason people are trying to portray her as a martyr is so that they can continue to push the lie that their cause is just and correct. We can push back on that narrative without necessarily having to assassinate Babbitt's character in the process.

[Solly Mack]

8. What still blows my mind is that the insurrectionists all thought they could storm

one of the three branches of a country's primary government and there would be no repercussions. No consequences.

And not just a symbol of government but against government in the literal sense.

Open and armed hostilities against its elected leaders, to include the Vice-President, and the Constitutional processes of the government.

They treated their choice to engage in a violent attack against the government with such a cavalier attitude. Full of themselves, bloated with the delusions that sustained them, they waged a savage assault on Congress - and such was their fantastical belief in the rightness of their mendacious cause that between violent and deadly skirmishes, they laughed, joked, and recorded themselves for "Likes" on social media.

The insurrectionists left the bloody and injured bodies of the Capitol police in their wake as they fought their way inside, one step closer to their goal - a physical assault on members of Congress and the disruption of a legal election.

Now they cry "Foul" when one of their fellow insurrectionists is - finally - stopped cold.

Finally

Hours into the brutal assault against the government, after hours of violence that had already seen hundreds injured in defense of the elected members of government, a shot was finally fired.

But only after the insurrectionists stood just outside their ultimate goal; a door with glass to hold them back.

Hastily barricaded with whatever was available, a few - very few - armed defenders stood on the other side of that door, doing something they never thought they would have to do - defend members of Congress against crazed citizens whipped into a frenzy by the lies of a thug President.

Someone, please, name another government - be they a democracy or a dictatorship - that would have waited hours before firing the first shot. (under non-Trumpian lead conditions)

That would have waited hours after multiple injuries of the men and women sworn to protect members of government?

What happened on January 6, 2021, was an armed assault against the government of the United States.

And because of a thug President that encouraged and supported the attack, hoping to gain from it, the rapid response that would have taken place at any other time became the last ditch, no other choice effort to stop the murder of Congress members, a Vice President, and to prevent a coup.

Ashli Babbitt was no hero. She was an insurrectionist.

If her family wants to blame anyone - blame Trump. Blame all those involved in the "Big Lie" - to include Ashli herself.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

10. K&R for truth. Blind cult behavior, in my view.

The fact that some of them drove or flew all the way across the U.S. to support a movement based on an easily debunked lie can be seen as nothing but a brainwashed cult, all of whom need to spend a few months swabbing jail and prison toilets while being force-fed middle school level civics, American Government and social studies.

I suppose these tRumpsters never bothered to read up on what happened to cults in Jonestown and Waco....

[Solly Mack]

13. Definitely a cult.

Scary delusional.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. They Thought They'd Succeed!

So, consequences were a non-issue.
They'd be heroes & patriots.
How they thought they'd actually achieve long term success is still the open question.
But, the answer to your question is that consequences were never part of the equation so certain they were of success.

[Solly Mack]

12. Yes, they did believe they would win the day. Evidenced by their, "but we're on your side" - the

reality-bending go-to for their disbelief that law enforcement didn't see what was happening the same way the insurrectionists did.

Along with their delusional cries of "We're doing this for you".

They were completely convinced of their justness.

And that is part of what blows my mind - to be so detached from reality that you believe the very people you are beating down with flagpoles and fire extinguishers should see you as friend and not foe.

To reach that level of derangement - it simply boggles the mind.

Which to me is more evidence that they had supporters in government they were relying on to have their backs.

To reach that conclusion, that you could get away with it, they had to be convinced that Trump and the rest would save them from the consequences, if any.

[kairos12]

9. MAGA family values.