Protestors right to free speech: "Death to Leftists"

All summer the left tore up America. And where were you? No one sane supports either side acting afool. I can you playing the grievance card for pity points to spread your side's cause.

 

This is inexcusable on the part of the LEO.

The protesters were peaceful and also on the sidewalk yet that LEO still shot the protester at close distance. I've seen first hand what rubber rounds can do to people and at that range they can do a lot of damage.

 

How many leftists write manifestos of how they hate certain groups online and then proceed to go to a place where a lot of people of that group exist such as a synagogue or a Latino majority Walmart and shoot up those places indiscriminately killing many people at a time?

Or are those crisis actors?

 

There was the guy that shot the two cops in their squad car in NYC, the Dallas shooter that shot 5 cops, the guy that attacked the ICE facility in Seattle. All of them posted online about their hatred of the groups they attacked.

 

Do you want to compare the death numbers. And quite frankly, I would hope you would understand as someone who isn't a white christian, I'm going to be rationally more fearful of the group that murders because they don't like races and ethnicities that aren't like them over people disgruntled with authority and government institutions that detain and round up humans because they crossed a man made border illegally.

One if those groups had their targets set on people like me. So in my self interest, I'm going to be more concerned with the group that believes white christian hegimony is their ultimate goal.

 

Not really. I am fine saying there should be no riots from any group and that murdering people is wrong regardless of ideology.

Sure. I don't have any issue with your feelings. You asked for examples and I provided them. From my perspective, I was just answering your question, not making an argument.

 

I think this is a bad faith take that tried to write motivations and context of different types of riots as all the same.

As MLK said "riots are the language of the unheard". That basically means there are certain socioeconomic conditions that usually result in groups of people rioting. That isn't a moral claim about rioting. It's merely describing the human condition.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/fiscal-fact/median-value-wealth-race-ff03112019

When the median white family has 10x the wealth if a median black family, except a cause and effect relationship of that data point.

Now is there an element of socioeconomics at okay for violent white nationalists? I'm sure the past few decades of outsourced labor, rising cost of living etc has caused disgruntlement and ostracization of some white males who don't have much in the means of valuable skills and thus require an identity and a sense of purpose and fall down that rabbit hole.

 

Had the leaders of BLM or whatever left wing group had been the cleric of any of the violent characters I promise you that nobody on the left would stand for that person instigating violence. We certainly would not be advocating for that cleric to be put into the presidency, and sure as well would not be advocating for that cleric to be put into the presidency undemocratically.

That's the difference here. The clerics of right wing nationalism and hate are continually supported, and in Trumps case worshiped as a fascistic false prophet. I see your posts, and I'm 99% positive that you are someone who is still supportive of Trump and the right wing figures who are organizing hate, and radicalizing a large chunk of the country.

MLK was far more radical that any leader of BLM that I have seen. BLM is not advocating and certainly not organizing and radicalizing people are risks for violence in the same way that the Proud Boys, QAnon, and other Trump worshiping groups are, and it's just not even close.

It's sad that anyone would think that the answer to police violence, or other Republican led anti democratic actions is violence. There's no excuse and all of these instances should be met with Justice.

Meanwhile.... what is your post history condemning January 6th, and all the other acts of violence done in the name of right wing fueled propaganda organized at the highest levels?? When have you ever condemned Trump and advocated for pushing him out of the party??

Exactly.

 

Not only do I not think all riots have the same motivation, I don't even think every rioter at any individual riot necessarily has the same motivation. In fact, I would guess that many people just get caught up in a mob mentality, they are out peacefully protesting, they see others vandalizing or pushing through barricades, or fighting cops, and they join in. Human psychology is weird.

I am sure economics is one motivation for riots, sure. Look at the WTO riots in Seattle from '99, certainly there was economic motivation there. Union riots from the late 19th and early 20th century as well. As you say, the existence of an economic motivation is not you making a moral claim. I would go further and say most riots do not serve a real purpose and hurt innocents through injury and/or vandalism and thus are immoral, even if motivated by a righteous indignation.

There are far better means of addressing this, primarily through changes in behavior and education.

I think widespread violent white nationalism is far less prevalent than you believe. I doubt there are a large number of people that are willing to attack you because you are not white.

We agree that Trump is not good and that he should not be President, democratically or otherwise.

Not only am I not still supportive of Trump, I have never been supportive of Trump. I think like most politicians he did things in office that I agreed with and that I disagreed with, but I didn't vote for him (Libertarian candidate both times he ran) and would not in the future.

I disagree, we have seen people leading BLM protests that were advocating extreme violence, like chanting, "What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now." or "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon." or "Burn this mother down." It is more difficult to pin them down because they are organized differently than a national political party.

I agree.

I have maintained from the very day it happened that the January 6th riot was an act of insanity and that it was not how we should act as Americans. I have tried to correct some of the claims I have seen that I viewed as incorrect, but have never supported the riot or the rioters. As I am not a Republican (and have not been for years) and never supported Trump, I don't know that it is my place to call for him being removed from the party, but I certainly would prefer he just go away.

I think all of them are crazy, left, right, or otherwise. Being a mass shooter is not something a normal sane person would do. Do you think Dylan Roof is a sane individual? Do you think Micah Xavier Johnson is? Stephon Paddock? Omar Mateen? Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik? Adam Lanza? The Tsarnaev brothers?

 

Ask him what he thinks about people who plow vehicles into rioters.

 

I take you at your word that you don't support Trump and I think there is a difference between being Right Leaning and Conservative and supporting Trump. While it may often seem the same as Trump dominates the current Right / Conservative movement there are still Conservatives who don't support.

While we disagree on the severity of the what happened on Jan. 6th I don't see any indication that your supported it.

I think on this though there are some other issues which you may not be considering.

I don't think most white people are racist and certainly aren't members or even sympathetic to white nationalism. I feel they are a relatively small when compared to the rest of the country but that doesn't mean they aren't a danger that should be ignored or downplayed. We know that these groups are stockpiling weapons and ammunitions, that many are former or even current military with experience fighting insurgencies and as such know insurgent tactics. The second worst terrorist attack on the US soil was carried out by a white nationalist extremist in Oklahoma City. I have yet to see BLM, Antifa or any of the other "Leftist" movements that we worry about comparably armed, trained or as organized.

As someone who saw first hand what have claimed to be Leftist violence during the protests following George Floyd's killing those appeared to be very disorganized and unfocused as compared to what we saw on Jan. 6th where by what yourself have said they were very goal focused on storming the Capital. While the destruction of the 3rd Precinct and several businesses was a very hard blow to my city and neighborhood it didn't have the same significance as storming the seat of the US Legislative branch during an official exercise to transfer power.

On top of that we know for a fact that the George Floyd protests were riddled with Boogaloo Boys and White Nationalists looking to incite a race war.

So we shouldn't excuse or rationalize violence and destruction from either Left or Right the threats aren't the same. Given the capabilities and what has been done by those on the Right that threat should be taken very seriously.

 

How would you know? How’s your Turkish coffee btw?

 

I think most people have preconceived biases regarding other races but I don't think those rise to the level of "racism" as in biases so strong as to not want to interact or suppress with other races. I think there is a such a thing as "implicit bias" driven by systemic factors but I don't believe that most white people believe that blacks or others are inherently inferior and deserve less rights or justice.

What we are talking about here though is a group of people who's biases are strong enough that believe it is necessary to take action and possibly violent action to prevent what they see as their culture and identity overrun.

 

I think they are largely morons, some of them probably crazy to boot, some of them probably just caught up in the mob mentality when they intended to be at a protest and followed others into the Capitol. I think the danger they represented was overblown, that they killed zero people, injured only the cops that were fighting them (and from various videos it seems that some of the cops realized fighting them was not necessary), and were no danger at all to democracy, our government, or whatever other hyperbole people throw around. They should each be arrested and charged with whatever crimes are appropriate (in most cases trespassing or illegal entry, or whatever the federal charge is for being in the Capitol when they are not supposed to be, in others battery on a police officer, assault with a deadly weapon, battery with great bodily injury, etc.) I noticed you didn't answer any of my points or questions, just replied with another question though.

I wouldn't even really consider myself a conservative. I am right libertarian (meaning I am in favor of free market capitalism and oppose government interference in our lives. I wouldn't say I am at the level of anarcho-capitalist, as I think there are limited areas where government plays and important role (military, law enforcement, the courts, general protection of rights) but I am far from the bible thumping, anti-gay marriage, drug warring, teach creationism in schools conservative. If anything, I probably want far more radical changes than you do.

Right on both counts.

I like to think I consider everything, but anything is possible.

I just am not really afraid of those types of things. Even our reaction domestically to 9/11 was way overblown. There are going to be crazies. We should try to intercept them before they cause harm, and we should use our normal law enforcement and intelligence tools to do that. I don't think we should sacrifice our liberty in the name of security (I believe Ben Franklin said something similar) because even 9/11 which is worse than all white nationalist violence combined, was statistically insignificant. We lose more people to urban gang wars than that every year. What we shouldn't do is ignore billions of dollars in damages from riots on the left and pretend that the one riot on the riot was on the verge of wiping out the American government.

I think you are partially right. Everyone has some degree of in group/out group bias. I wouldn't call it racist, because I think it cheapens the word racist. The solution is to have neutral rules that apply the same to everyone. Don't worry about what people think about other people, you can't change it anyway except through individual experiences. Just have the law apply the same to everyone, and other than that let people shake out as they will. Morgan Freeman was right on this one. There is no need to talk about race (outside of describing someone, and in that way no different that height, weight, hair color, or eye color). Gender either, for that matter. Treat people as individuals, not populations, and we will all get along better.

 

I don't think anyone is ignoring damage from riots and again those riots were riddled with people who weren't there on the Left and even people who had no ideological motivation but just wanted to "F^(% Sh^t Up!". Downplaying though the danger from the Right given how well armed and organized many of these groups are. Again it only took a couple of people to kill 168 at Oklahoma City. It took hundreds to take out the 3rd Precinct and that was only because the Minneapolis Government let it fall and no one died.

Obviously freedoms with security have to balanced and I can agree that overrreaction is dangerous. What we shouldn't be doing though is downplaying or dismissing threats ideologically.