Seattle area claims for be independent from USA.

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This isn’t necessarily related to CHAZ, but if one is a political moderate/centrist, what type of reception can they expect in places like Seattle, the Bay Area or NYC?

I absolutely thing CHAZ should be allowed to run its course if the citizens of Seattle, the mayor and city council, etc are fine with it as well as the citizenry in general. I also think the best thing Trump could do for this situation is stay out of it and let it happen. If it continues as a community where the residents of CHAZ want it that way and it's able to sustain itself, leave it alone. If it goes bad and becomes a dangerous place full of squalor, Trump should still do nothing unless Seattle, the mayor and the governor of Washington publicly beg for help in no uncertain terms. Prior to any assistance, the media should do it's job of being impartial and have full access to CHAZ to the rest of the U.S. could see the dire situation and form a solid opinion on the situation. Unless those things happen (ie the begging for help and media coverage of the actual situation), then there should be no help whatsoever from the federal government. This is Seattle/Washington's issue and should be handled by them.

As Goldfish said in another thread about another topic: "You can't have it both ways". You can't decide inaction is the tactic you'll take with CHAZ and then criticize the federal government for either/both acting or not acting on the situation. Seattle/Washington would first need to "bust a move."

Deciding that you're a sovereign nation by fiat with no other measures is fine for a first step, but it's ridiculous over the long term. CHAZ would have to be legally recognized for it to have any level of permanence.

I do wonder what recourse, if any, both private and commercial property owners may have if property values in CHAZ go down to next to nothing, which they very likely will. Running a municipality isn't easy. Here's a FACT: Insurance companies would NOT continue to insure property within CHAZ without legitimate fire and police. It's preposterous to think that they would/should continue to do so. CHAZ would have to form its own legitimate fire and police departments which perhaps they could if there are regular massive cash infusions from outside of CHAZ to keep it running.

Probably none.

Being a political moderate/centrist doesn’t seem like something that would warrant a reception the same way as being a returning member of the armed forces after a popular battle or a just married couple should expect.

Seceding from the nation is a federal offense not state or city.
If it’s allowed to continue then why can’t other separatist movements do the same?
Why can’t Texas just be allowed to leave if they want? Why can’t eastern Oregon secede from Oregon?
Laws can’t just be arbitrary applied depending one what group is doing it? It’s either illegal for all or legal for all.

Seceding from the nation is a federal offense not state or city.
If it’s allowed to continue then why can’t other separatist movements do the same?
Why can’t Texas just be allowed to leave if they want? Why can’t eastern Oregon secede from Oregon?
Laws can’t just be arbitrary applied depending one what group is doing it? It’s either illegal for all or legal for all.

Sly has a good point. A vote for CHAZ is a vote for other communities to be able to do the same.

Exactly. If one group can do it, then others should be able to as well. You can't have it both ways.

There are large areas of California where the residents want nothing to do with the coastal cities, their uber-regulations and extremely high taxes to fund their social projects, etc. There's been talk about breaking California into two parts. Do it. I think both the "blue" areas of California would feel better about being so blue they'd be indigo and the "red" area of California would breathe a huge sigh of liberating relief. "Blues" kick out the "Reds"...."Reds" kick out the "Blues". Perhaps it's an experiment worth trying?

Question: Would a community or even a state that is predominantly "blue" but meets with constant opposition from a "red" faction in lawmaking be happier if there was no opposition and most everyone fully supported it's ideas and laws? Yes.

Would a community or even a state that is predominantly "red" but meets with constant opposition from a "blue" faction in lawmaking be happier if there was no opposition and most everyone fully supported it's ideas and laws? Yes.

To be able to peacefully protest? Right on.

Last I checked CHAZ was never a part of the Union and this cannot secede from it in the first place.

Sly has a good point. A vote for CHAZ is a vote for other communities to be able to do the same.

The confederacy said the same thing. So you now supoort the confederacy legitimately was able to leave the union and the USA was wrong to stop them?

Last week, the area resembled a warzone, as Seattle police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd and choked out the neighborhood. Now, there is a community garden, a harm reduction clinic, a free food co-op, and artwork everywhere—and local businesses are on board. As Vixen, a Seattle resident who has been participating in the protests and declined to give a last name, told The Daily Beast from a quiet spot behind the barricades, “This place has gone from being filled with explosions and tear gas to being a place of healing.”

Comparisons have predictably been drawn between CHAZ and the Occupy movement, but in the place also known as Free Capitol Hill, there is one crucial distance: this time, some of the protesters are armed.

Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (PSJBGC)—a leftist community defense and firearms education organization that gained a spate of notoriety last year when a former member, Willem van Spronsen, set fire to an ICE parking lot—have been a constant presence. The club is often asked to provide security for protests and rallies around the Seattle area, and while their involvement in CHAZ is structured more loosely, the presence of armed civilians has raised a few eyebrows.

Leftist gun clubs have been on the rise, and organizations like the Socialist Rifle Association—of which, full disclosure, I am a member—Huey P. Newton Gun Club, Trigger Warning Queer & Trans Gun Club, and other chapters of the John Brown Gun Club have successfully introduced the issue of gun rights and firearms education into the broader leftist discourse. In Seattle, John Brown members have generally been showing up on an individual basis, rather than as part of a coordinated campaign. But as Nick—the group’s towering spokesperson, who like other members requested his full name be withheld given law enforcement’s fixation on left-wing activists—told The Daily Beast, the group was also tapped to provide a security escort for “some very prominent black voices who were doing speeches here at the Autonomous Zone” following the events of last Sunday evening.

That was when a white man armed with a Glock (with taped-on extended magazines) drove into a crowd of protesters, and shot a civilian named Daniel Gregory in the arm. According to Nick and local news reports, the driver then ran over to the police, where he was taken into custody.

Though a suspect has since been charged with first-degree assault, Vixen told the Daily Beast, “We have to rely on each other to protect each other.”

So right now, while police mostly steer clear of the Zone, that’s what they say they’re doing. Right-wing media has worked itself into a lather over the specter of armed leftists patrolling the area’s makeshift borders, but that hysteria only underlines what activists see as their profound misunderstanding of both leftist gun culture and what exactly these people are defending themselves against. As Nick explains, they’re there to discourage white supremacist groups, accelerationist boogaloo bois, and violent gangs like the Proud Boys from trying to harm the people inside.

It’s not like our club is going force-to-force against the police; that's not what we do,” he told The Daily Beast.

Their second, and arguably more important, goal, they say, is to ensure that everyone who is carrying inside CHAZ is doing so safely and responsibly, and ideally with community buy-in. According to Nick, members have been joined out on patrol by other armed locals, a hodgepodge of “random community members, affinity groups, [and] antifa that aren’t labeled with a specific group” who have reportedly been helping to fill in gaps in the barricades. The PSJBC’s approach, as they describe it, is heavily focused on de-escalation, and they’ve been leaning on that training as various tensions have surfaced.

“That’s kind of the world we live in, right? We have people who are disciplined with firearms, and people who get into firearms who don't have that discipline, so when we see it, we’re not policing people; the best we can do is educate people,” Nick said. “Other people are carrying and we want to make sure that people are carrying safely, so we’re also discussing whether we can do trainings for people here.”

It’s worth noting that Seattle’s Mayor, Jenny Durkan, set a ban on weapons on May 30. In a Saturday statement, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office told The Daily Beast of the Zone, “There have been individuals with weapons—open carrying is legal in Washington State. While the CHAZ is within the area of the City currently under a weapons ban, the Emergency Order establishing the weapons ban does not mandate enforcement. It gives officers the option to take certain actions (i.e., confiscate weapons) if they deem it necessary”

The City will continue to assess the area on a regular basis and work with community and other stakeholders on a path forward that allows individuals to demonstrate, businesses to continue their operations, and preserves public safety for local residents,” the spokesperson added. “Officers in the East Precinct have continued to respond to calls. [Seattle Police] Chief [Carmen] Best and Command Staff have been on site at the East Precinct including yesterday, and some personnel are now staffing the precinct.”

The Seattle PD did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. However, Chief Best told KIRO 7 on Friday, of the Zone, “We don’t want to exacerbate or intensify or incite problems that are going to lead to harm to the officers or the people who are standing by. We know that several are armed. We want to make sure that we are being very thoughtful about how we respond.”

As is unsurprising for an evolving occupation composed of numerous organizations and political tendencies, not everyone is on the same page. Reports of “warlords” trying to fill the vacuum left by the Seattle cops with their own police stylings have been highly exaggerated, but it is true that an activist was seen appearing to hand out a firearm from the back of a car (an action streamed on Facebook), drawing Twitter accolades from an unlikely source: neo-Nazi Richard Spencer.

“Sure, there are occasionally people open carrying, and usually they’re people of color, but all that they're doing is exercising the same Second Amendment rights that the 3%ers and right wingers never shut up about,” Vixen, who is also a PSJBC member, told The Daily Beast. “But because they’re afraid of the c-word, ‘communist’, [right wingers] lose their minds over it. And unlike whatever’s happening in their own personal fantasyland—all this talk of the boogaloo, without the rule of law—the threats of violence against these communities are actually credible.”

And while a more liberal project would undoubtedly balk at the mere thought of armed community members strolling through its midst, the explicitly leftist bent of the CHAZ itself allows for a diversity of opinions on firearms and their use. Nick said that everyone he’s spoken to has appreciated their presence, save for one older white man who spotted a black man open carrying and fretted, “I thought this was a peaceful protest!” By all accounts on the ground, it is. The protestors themselves say they are just not taking any chances on what—or who—may be lurking beyond their makeshift borders

Ultimately, the CHAZ is a new stab at an ancient idea. As scott crow, Anarchist Agency spokesperson and author of Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense, told The Daily Beast, it’s important to remember that picking up guns “doesn’t make you more badass.” He added that taking an explicitly liberatory approach and focusing on safety and strategy, as PSJBC members say they’ve done, is paramount.

“[Guns] are not automatically the most protective thing that you can have; only in certain situations do they work,” he explained. “In my analysis, this is the time when it’s needed; this is the time when you can go forth and protect the people who are there from random gunshots or anything, without escalating the situation further.”

And also a little historical reminder: