Violent thugs and hooligans brutally attack police officers in D.C.

More people getting fired or suspended from the jobs for taking part. Some were stupid enough to post photos of themselves doing it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...2A_icJlLVv7jzRMnO1C7aK5paPn_9jKFP7tBN31bN_PaU

 

Disagree.

 

I think people forget the Clinton years. Talk radio was preaching the same nonsense and the militia homeboy ranks were swelling. NATO was going to occupy the US and take everyones guns away.

Nonsense then, nonsense now, but repeated over decades it becomes true

Edit: somehow I didn’t get the right quote.... freakin oldtimers...

 

Let’s discuss the core problem here. We now have legislators quoting unverified reporting as fact on the floor. We can’t have useful conversations without a common set of facts. When either side is in such a hurry that they rush unsubstantiated information to the official dialogue they are doing everyone a disservice.

So much of how our country has succeeded has depended on people following norms. The rapid proliferation of misinformation would be less harmful if public figures didn’t amplify it. It used to be that was, mostly, a norm. It’s barely an exception now.

 

Disagree.

 

How deep does mental illness run. Qarens abound, everywhere.

 

Having been alive happily for a good amount of years there are many moments of imperfection I can own up to. Calling out ones historical or personal thoughts really has nothing to do with ones current thoughts unless you cannot see your own constant opinion changes. There is no honor in ignoring societal change or occurrences by holding on to opinions in an effort to remain predictable.
In other words, whether you condemn a previous act of lawlessness or not is irrelevant to the latest observation of lawlessness. Does it matter if one didn't express outrage over a police station being burned but can now voice outrage over an iconic Federal Building with members of both the House and Senate inside? I suggest both are different based on history, intent and expected outcome. Each event deserves its own individual assessment. That is where the term "voice of reason" comes from.

 

Matt Gaetz is in office only because of his dad, Don Gaetz, who served for far too many years in office but, although his political view sucked, is 10x the man his son is. This is the traditional voter apathy thing where intelligence is bypassed to vote for a family name. Matt Gaetz is very much nothing but a me me me politician and needs his fathers advice just make his own breakfast each day.

 

Trump is a political David Koresh,' said Billy Piper, a former chief of staff to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, 'He sees the end coming and wants to burn it all down and take as many with him as possible.'”

 

Hurt. Sums it up perfectly - just listen to the music/lyrics and watch the montage.

 

Moral relativism is part of the human condition. Not every similar act does, nor should invoke the same feelings of empathy and sympathy. Here are some examples. Person A is an out-of-work father who steals a loaf of bread from the local bakery. Person B is a wealthy white guy who steals a loaf of bread from the local bakery because said bakery is minority owned, and Person B is racist, and wants the business to suffer. Should we have the same feelings towards A and B?

Or how about this example. Person A is a middle-aged woman doing 20 mph over the speed limit because she is rushing to the hospital to try and get there in time to say goodbye to a dying parent. Person B is a punk, teenager doing 20 mph just because he likes going fast, and he's just going to a buddy's house to drink a few and play video games. Do we not have a lot more sympathy and empathy for person A?

Now, just because we have more empathy and sympathy for Person A in both examples, doesn't mean they didn't do something wrong. They did. Nor does our feelings absolve either Person A from facing punishment. But if Person A gets off lighter in both instances than Persons B, who is going to lose sleep over it?

All acts of violence and destruction of property should be condemned except actions in true self defense. But I'm not going to feel guilty or apologize about feeling more empathy and sympathy towards BLM protesters who were protesting centuries of racial oppression over the MAGAts, who were attempting a coup to prevent Biden, the duly elected President Elect, from being inaugurated. Especially since the MAGAts are being gas lit and egged on by the President himself, as Trump feeds them false information and whips the crowd into a frenzy!

 

I certainly agree that we should allow for growth and change among ourselves and others.

However, seeing the same patterns among all of us over and over, I don’t think that 0607 and Bluke are necessarily off the mark with their criticism here. It’s just, as is the case with all of us really, they ignore their own examples of the same act.

Prediction that I’ll bet anyone on: In the next four years, Biden is going to do something for which Trump was criticized during the last four. Biden supporters will defend it, and Trump supporters will criticize it (both examples of hypocrisy). But then something amazing will happen with few acknowledging it: Trump supporters will then criticize Biden supporters for defending him, and Biden supporters will then criticize Trump supporters for attacking him (hyper-hypocrisy). And it’s good that won’t most acknowledge it, because it would likely only add another confusing layer of hypocrisy, where one side criticizes the other for criticizing the first about criticizing the second.

I don’t think these are examples of people changing. It’s just the situations changing.

 

Apparently someone still wants conflict

 

Good discussion. First, we agree that violence on the left or right is deplorable. We also seem to agree that both need deeper looks, so let's do it.

- You ask about mission/purpose of Antifa and right wing fascists. Let's start with BLM and Trump supporters first. The BLM website very clearly lays out its mission of racial justice (go to the web site). The vast majority of Trump supporters, led by Trump, believe despite all facts, lawsuits, and investigations that Trump won the election. Almost HALF of Republicans believe storming the capital was justified!!! 45 percent of Republican voters support storming of Capitol building: poll

- The right and left wing idiots (Proud Boys, etc and antifa) are just small groups of wing nuts that want to brawl. There are NO national leaders, like say the President, who are urging Antifa to attack our country. Can't say that for the right.

So there is your difference. In one group you have inmates who are like your crazy uncle - you try to hide them but definitely keep them on the sidelines when decisions are made. On the other side, you have inmates running the show.

And while your "feeling may be" that those who broke into the capital are right wing extremists, the fact is Trump urged them to march on the capital with force. He called them "great people" and just asked them to "stay peaceful" as they ransacked the capital. Even now he is lying about the election so that almost half of republicans are so ginned up they believe attacking the capital, sedition, is ok.

We do not need to "wait longer", as you ask, to know who did this. Republicans like Ben Sasse condemned Mr. Trump stating that "lies have consequences." Republican majority leader McConnell warned that lies and stoking violence to undermine our election "would damage our Republic forever". As Mitt Romney stated, Mr. Trump and all those politicians repeating his lies "are complicit in an unprecedented attack on our democracy." And while the rioters were misled by lies, the elected representatives attacked our country not because any fact or principle was at stake, but for political advantage.

 

He wants donations.

 

If I reacted exactly as the vast majority on this board has, I would say, "Of course I reject violence, vandalism, looting, etc. BUT I can empathize where the rioters who stormed the Capitol are coming from. They've been ostracized by our culture for too long, and this is what happens after years of slaps to the face. I think we need to be asking why this happened to prevent it from happening again. People who don't understand how we got here are just incapable of empathy.

Unlike the rioters who stormed the Capitol, BLM protests are based on a false premise, that America is systemically racist and that every African American killing from George Floyd to Jacob Blake has an element of racism, conscious or subconscious in it. Considering that this election was actually stolen from Donald Trump, at least those who stormed the Capitol are seeking to preserve our Democracy."

That would be the right-wing equivalent for how Democrats have acted throughout 2020 and years prior. And none of you would accept that response, nor should you, because it's disgusting. It's bad faith. It's evil. But that's exactly how people have responded with the shoe on the other foot. If you wouldn't accept that response as a legitimate condemnation of the violence, I'm not going to accept the reverse responses as legitimate condemnations.

 

I hate to speak so harshly . . . but this is bullcrap! Black people would never storm the US Capitol building and try to assault legislators while they were in session. Why? Because we know better. History (and the present) has taught us better. We understand that we would have been shot down. The carnage would have been devastating, and the same people storming the capitol today and their millions of Confederacy-sympathizing adulators and supporters would be claiming we got what we deserved. Then they would use it as further evidence that they were right about us the whole time.

Attacking a police station in your home town, when there has been a 100-year history of racial mistreatment, incongruent enforcement and sentencing, and constant refusal to acknowledge ongoing complaints, WHILE WRONG, is completely different. COMPLETELY! 715, I know you are the ultimate whatabouttism type guy, but there is a reason why there are different penalties for different crimes and even different degrees of murder that take into account intent and circumstances. White people who are mad that Trump's lying (behind) didn't win an election and then travel to our nation's capital and scale the walls and bust down the doors of our capitol building because our reality-show-entertaining president told them the only way he could possibly lose is if the election was stolen, have committed the most heinous of crimes and should be ashamed of themselves.

Black people know better. Downtowns of small towns, or liberal west coast cities who sympathize with our plight, or large cities where blacks are the majority in several neighborhoods, there might be some property destruction and violence. We've seen that in the past, and quite frankly, without some effort at real police reform we will unfortunately see it in the future. But African-Americans will not attack the capitol, I can assure you. F-22's and F-35's would probably rain down. So you don't have to make up any bullcrap scenarios about apocalyptic riots throughout the country if a BLM was killed inside of the capitol building during the confirmation of the electoral college votes. It will never happen.

And don't rebut by finding some pictures of the Black Panthers standing outside the capitol building in California 50 years ago. (Which actually ended open-carry in the state, quite ironically. And was, of course, initially sparked by claims of police brutality and disparate treatment by law enforcement.) That does not compare to this garbage.

 

Obama never supported violence on the left while in office or afterwards. Barack Obama applauds activists, condemns violence in blog post on George Floyd protests. Biden has likewise condemned all the violence.

Neither has called for overturning a lawful election, invited people to beat up protestors at their speeches, told radicals to "stand by", or called for a mob to march on the capital and to show strength. You are not a domestic terrorist for supporting Trump, but you are supporting a guy who promotes domestic terrorists and violence when you support Trump.

 

Dont disagree with you at all. There will always be tiny examples of those that feel the need to remain steadfast in their opinions which clearly explains why some feel certain racial issues out of the norm or political identities that pass along with generations. However, most people are very capable of taking one set of circumstances and identify the differences between each especially when the topic is of a major one and not expecting continuity of how it's viewed. I find that comparing BLM with Trump cultists is disingenuous because of the reasons they both exist.

Yes the criminal acts that happened with the BLM movement were bad and I and many others scratch our heads as to why any black involved protest begins with burning and looting and then ends with excuses and forgiveness. As I can give life examples since the 60's and the repetive cycle then I can understand how people take on a negative approach to BLM. I look at the reason for the movement and not the outlying issues to make my decision on that subject.

However, the Trump movement isn't based on real infringement, inequality etc. It is simply based on misinformation, brainwashing and the desire to support something and in this case, as is with the case of many autocratic leaders, the people are sucked into a non reality and feel compelled to follow with loyalty. It is their favorite sports team, its their favorite actor etc. Those that have bought into the movement will swear they are doing something to save America from something but none can state anything tangible that would suggest the country needs saving. It is simply a false narrative enhanced by constant repetition.

So just as I wrote, some of us are very capable of identifying situations and noting differences that simply allows us to be able to comprehend without attachment. You are very correct that Biden will error and he should if he is human and some will make apologies but Trump has forced the errors and demanded apologies never accepting his part in the error. That is the big difference.

 

New tone, right?

Told you it was a 25th Amendment hostage video.