This is perhaps the silliest thing I've ever read.
"not as willing to go full racist and equate all BLM protesting to rioting"
Every Republican I have seen speak on this issue draws a distinction between peaceful protest (a good thing) and rioting/looting/arson (a bad thing). They encourage peaceful protest, and condemn the rioters as havi…
This is perhaps the silliest thing I've ever read.
"not as willing to go full racist and equate all BLM protesting to rioting"
Every Republican I have seen speak on this issue draws a distinction between peaceful protest (a good thing) and rioting/looting/arson (a bad thing). They encourage peaceful protest, and condemn the rioters as having hijacked those protests.
They have also almost universally condemned what happened to George Floyd. Trey Gowdy even said he could make the case for murder 1, given there's plenty of opportunity in the space of 8 minutes to for a murderer to develop malice aforethought.
I don't know how they could be any clearer on this. George Floyd was a victim of police brutality. Protesting good. Rioting bad. The rioters are hijacking the protests. The peaceful protesters are not to blame for the actions of rioters who hijack their protests.
"Trump at the RNC made a clear self-interest argument to business owners: we won't tax or regulate or lock down your business, and we'll scare looters away with a big show of force. If Democrats had Bernie or similar as a candidate they'd be making a clear self-interest argument to working people: we'll give you free healthcare and free college education and a well-paying "green" job."
What if I don't want free college and a green job? What if I just want to own a hair salon or a restaurant or a convenience store or a used car dealership and not see it burned to the ground? Also, who's going to pay for all these freebies?
"Post-pandemic, they could have used the DNC to talk about Medicare for all or a national eviction moratorium or a federal aid program for small businesses hurt by the lockdowns."
Or the riots. You know. They could have talked about that. Instead, they pretended the riots weren't happening.
"Instead, their only argument is that Trump and his supporters are awful and crazy."
We can agree on that.
"How the hell does any of that help the average person? Trump's idea of using military to crush the riots is an economic argument: now they won't break your store windows and steal your stuff."
It's not just an economic argument. It's a safety argument. It's a peace argument. It's a freedom argument. You think the people in CHOP, you know, the residents and business owners who lived and operated there before it was taken over, were only concerned about money? You think they weren't lying awake at night listening to gunfire? You think they weren't worried about getting hit by a stray bullet? You think they weren't scared to leave their homes after dark?
Come on.
"BLM's idea to defund the police is an economic argument: now we can use that money on better schools, community centers, job training, arts funding etc."
Here in Canada, we've been embracing that moronic suggestion. My son just graduated this spring, and he heard on the radio they're getting rid of the resource officer at his high school this fall. He was like, "WTF? Everyone liked the constable. Even my dipshit friends who like to get in trouble got along with the constable."
The reason we have better schools where I am than almost anywhere (Edmonton Public School System) is because we have school choice. You know, a Trump proposition. Let the funding follow the student, and schools will have to work harder to attract students. I've lived in two shitty, low income neighborhoods here, and the schools in our catchment areas were excellent. Why? It isn't because they get extra money. It's because if they weren't, I could send my kids somewhere else.
Biden's campaign is a train wreck, but I'm sorry. I can't support the "Bernie/BLM" agenda you describe.
Hey Karen I've been enjoying reading your responses in this thread and appreciate that you are fired up about this subject. I may not agree with all your points, but you make it clear where you're coming from and I respect that. However, I winced at you referring to Universal Healthcare and free community college as "freebies", which made it all the more confusing when you revealed that you're from Canada??
I'm just trying to understand how someone who lives in a country that provides universal healthcare to their people by way of taxes can laugh off the notion of Americans wanting the same for our people as us "just wanting freebies". In fact, you being from Canada paints all your responses in a completely different light. You can't understand why young people in the US are angry? This wildly out-of-touch author advocating for looting aside, I guess it is easier to paint all the people protesting as a bunch of spoiled crybabies who don't know what hardship really is instead of acknowledging the stark differences in opportunities in the US vs opportunities in Canada, which I'm sure you, your husband, and your son and daughter benefit from and enjoy. There are so many I don't even know where to begin- from college being way more affordable, higher quality education, 9% of the population living below the poverty line compared to the US's 15%, a more stable banking system, paid maternity leave (which I'm sure you enjoyed when you had your son and daughter but sadly mothers here don't get that luxury, including my own mother), paid sick leave, lower obesity rate, better work-life balance, overall higher quality of life, and fucking HEALTHCARE. Canada reacted to the covid pandemic responsibly? Cool, our politicians turned it into a wedge issue for political gain, sent mixed messages to the people, now 190,000 of my fellow Americans are dead. You guys have sensible gun laws? That's nice; deaths from gun violence are 4 times higher in the US than in Canada. On average, around 1,000 people die here at the hands of police per year vs around 20 in Canada. I'm sorry you and your son were incensed at the friendly high school constable getting dismissed (could not help busting up laughing at this)- he should try going to high school here where we have metal detectors, armed security guards, and school shooter drills starting as early as elementary school, which totally aren't traumatizing our kids-just kidding, they are! Seriously, your family should move down here for a trial, though I can't guarantee you'll be allowed back into Canada with how abysmally we've handled covid-19 here.
I am in no way stating all this to defend the violence and destruction that has ignited from these protests. I went to some marches in the first few weeks after Floyd's death and saw the clear difference in people peacefully and loudly protesting to make their voices heard, and the opportunists who showed up to cause havoc and benefit from the looting that ensued. I saw protestors actively trying to stop people hijacking the message by blocking store entrances they were attempting to break into and sometimes physically shoving them away from the march because they wanted no association with them. The anger and condemnation towards the destructive looters is justified. But the anger felt by a good number of the people protesting is as well. America looks great on the surface, our prosperity measured ultimately through the GDP, and by your measure of whether our young people can afford iPhones or not. If so, we have nothing to complain about! But our system is broken and wrought with corruption, our police are over militarized, our government is apathetic, the wealth divide grows as opportunities shrink, and people are rightfully fed up.
As you said in a previous comment, it's not that there aren't problems, there will never not be problems. I'm sure Canada has its fair share of problems. But you talk like you know what it feels like to be an American right now, and I'm sorry, but you fucking don't. Our problems aren't the local Organic Planet running out of gluten-free pizza- it's losing our job and our health insurance all at once. It's suffering a major traumatic injury and insisting on taking a lyft to the hospital in fear of the price of an ambulance ride. It's over half of all Americans unable to put away enough money for even a $500 emergency and living paycheck to paycheck, barely hovering above the poverty line. It's our politicians and media pitting us against each other to distract us from how badly they're screwing us over. It's the horror of watching our people gunning each other down daily. It's our politicians addressing poverty and despair with more aggressive, militarized policing instead addressing the root causes of crime. It's people having to resort to sites like GoFundMe to help pay for hospital bills and funerals. Do you know what it feels like to be so worried about the prospect of drowning in medical debt that you avoid going to get treated for an illness or an injury? I shutter thinking of how many Americans have died this way even before the pandemic. Did you ever have to have a special talk with your son on how to behave around the police because doing the wrong thing could put his life at risk? This is the reality for countless parents in the US. Do you know what it feels like to watch other countries handle this pandemic responsibly and protect their citizens by providing social and economic safety nets, while the death toll in your country continues to skyrocket, millions lose their jobs along with their healthcare, and the threat of eviction looms over them? Do you know what it feels like to know your country doesn't give a fuck about you and certainly doesn't care if hundreds of thousands of its people die? Because let me tell you: it feels hollowing. You're choosing to focus on a vocal minority of privileged twitter warriors engaging in woke olympics, while disregarding the generational hopelessness Americans are living through right now.
On a final note, your own family's experiences are completely anecdotal and are not pillars of inarguable truth. While I'm delighted you treated us to a rose-colored view of your fiscally-responsible children's lives loading Walmart trucks and making waffles while still being able to save for the future, this is NOT the reality for this young generation of Americans. Your kids can go to college without worrying about being shackled with tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when they leave, only to be met with an ever-shrinking job market and limited prospects. They can work minimum wage jobs while still afford the luxury of a decent place to live and nice consumer products. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere in the US, this is laughably unattainable here without having 100 roommates. I will absolutely agree with you that a lot of the more vocal participants in these protests are Extremely Online sheltered dipshits larping as socialists. But in painting all the protestors with this broad brush, you're actively ignoring the majority working class young and middle-aged Americans who are rightfully angry and taking to the streets to voice their frustration. You're ignoring the pain of parents who continue to watch their sons killed by the people who are supposed to protect us. You and I can both agree that no one deserves to have their business and livelihood destroyed by senseless violence and destruction. But with all due respect, don't act like you know what it's like to be an American right now while you and your family benefit from so many things we are actively denied, because you don't know.
Yes, someone who is for liberty, individual sovereignty, the rule of law, civil rights and low taxation would totally be against the Boston Tea Party.
Hey, you know a protest I could get behind? The lockdown protest in Lansing. All those guns, and no on got shot. The only person hurt was a protester unlawfully removed from the public gallery. Hell, all the armed "terrorists" submitted to security and temperature screening before entering the building.
A good cause, a good crowd. Kind of like the Boson Tea Party. They destroyed tea owned by a major multinational, left the ships undamaged, physically harmed no one and replaced the other property they destroyed. Some of their members tried to loot, and the others did not allow them to.
It was a focused act against a specific target and did not devolve into looting or violence.
But hey, did you hear about that body found in a burned pawn shop in Minneapolis? You know, because people are angry at the police? So they burned down a pawn shop? Probably after looting it? Because reasons?
This is perhaps the silliest thing I've ever read.
"not as willing to go full racist and equate all BLM protesting to rioting"
Every Republican I have seen speak on this issue draws a distinction between peaceful protest (a good thing) and rioting/looting/arson (a bad thing). They encourage peaceful protest, and condemn the rioters as having hijacked those protests.
They have also almost universally condemned what happened to George Floyd. Trey Gowdy even said he could make the case for murder 1, given there's plenty of opportunity in the space of 8 minutes to for a murderer to develop malice aforethought.
I don't know how they could be any clearer on this. George Floyd was a victim of police brutality. Protesting good. Rioting bad. The rioters are hijacking the protests. The peaceful protesters are not to blame for the actions of rioters who hijack their protests.
"Trump at the RNC made a clear self-interest argument to business owners: we won't tax or regulate or lock down your business, and we'll scare looters away with a big show of force. If Democrats had Bernie or similar as a candidate they'd be making a clear self-interest argument to working people: we'll give you free healthcare and free college education and a well-paying "green" job."
What if I don't want free college and a green job? What if I just want to own a hair salon or a restaurant or a convenience store or a used car dealership and not see it burned to the ground? Also, who's going to pay for all these freebies?
"Post-pandemic, they could have used the DNC to talk about Medicare for all or a national eviction moratorium or a federal aid program for small businesses hurt by the lockdowns."
Or the riots. You know. They could have talked about that. Instead, they pretended the riots weren't happening.
"Instead, their only argument is that Trump and his supporters are awful and crazy."
We can agree on that.
"How the hell does any of that help the average person? Trump's idea of using military to crush the riots is an economic argument: now they won't break your store windows and steal your stuff."
It's not just an economic argument. It's a safety argument. It's a peace argument. It's a freedom argument. You think the people in CHOP, you know, the residents and business owners who lived and operated there before it was taken over, were only concerned about money? You think they weren't lying awake at night listening to gunfire? You think they weren't worried about getting hit by a stray bullet? You think they weren't scared to leave their homes after dark?
Come on.
"BLM's idea to defund the police is an economic argument: now we can use that money on better schools, community centers, job training, arts funding etc."
Here in Canada, we've been embracing that moronic suggestion. My son just graduated this spring, and he heard on the radio they're getting rid of the resource officer at his high school this fall. He was like, "WTF? Everyone liked the constable. Even my dipshit friends who like to get in trouble got along with the constable."
The reason we have better schools where I am than almost anywhere (Edmonton Public School System) is because we have school choice. You know, a Trump proposition. Let the funding follow the student, and schools will have to work harder to attract students. I've lived in two shitty, low income neighborhoods here, and the schools in our catchment areas were excellent. Why? It isn't because they get extra money. It's because if they weren't, I could send my kids somewhere else.
Biden's campaign is a train wreck, but I'm sorry. I can't support the "Bernie/BLM" agenda you describe.
Hey Karen I've been enjoying reading your responses in this thread and appreciate that you are fired up about this subject. I may not agree with all your points, but you make it clear where you're coming from and I respect that. However, I winced at you referring to Universal Healthcare and free community college as "freebies", which made it all the more confusing when you revealed that you're from Canada??
I'm just trying to understand how someone who lives in a country that provides universal healthcare to their people by way of taxes can laugh off the notion of Americans wanting the same for our people as us "just wanting freebies". In fact, you being from Canada paints all your responses in a completely different light. You can't understand why young people in the US are angry? This wildly out-of-touch author advocating for looting aside, I guess it is easier to paint all the people protesting as a bunch of spoiled crybabies who don't know what hardship really is instead of acknowledging the stark differences in opportunities in the US vs opportunities in Canada, which I'm sure you, your husband, and your son and daughter benefit from and enjoy. There are so many I don't even know where to begin- from college being way more affordable, higher quality education, 9% of the population living below the poverty line compared to the US's 15%, a more stable banking system, paid maternity leave (which I'm sure you enjoyed when you had your son and daughter but sadly mothers here don't get that luxury, including my own mother), paid sick leave, lower obesity rate, better work-life balance, overall higher quality of life, and fucking HEALTHCARE. Canada reacted to the covid pandemic responsibly? Cool, our politicians turned it into a wedge issue for political gain, sent mixed messages to the people, now 190,000 of my fellow Americans are dead. You guys have sensible gun laws? That's nice; deaths from gun violence are 4 times higher in the US than in Canada. On average, around 1,000 people die here at the hands of police per year vs around 20 in Canada. I'm sorry you and your son were incensed at the friendly high school constable getting dismissed (could not help busting up laughing at this)- he should try going to high school here where we have metal detectors, armed security guards, and school shooter drills starting as early as elementary school, which totally aren't traumatizing our kids-just kidding, they are! Seriously, your family should move down here for a trial, though I can't guarantee you'll be allowed back into Canada with how abysmally we've handled covid-19 here.
I am in no way stating all this to defend the violence and destruction that has ignited from these protests. I went to some marches in the first few weeks after Floyd's death and saw the clear difference in people peacefully and loudly protesting to make their voices heard, and the opportunists who showed up to cause havoc and benefit from the looting that ensued. I saw protestors actively trying to stop people hijacking the message by blocking store entrances they were attempting to break into and sometimes physically shoving them away from the march because they wanted no association with them. The anger and condemnation towards the destructive looters is justified. But the anger felt by a good number of the people protesting is as well. America looks great on the surface, our prosperity measured ultimately through the GDP, and by your measure of whether our young people can afford iPhones or not. If so, we have nothing to complain about! But our system is broken and wrought with corruption, our police are over militarized, our government is apathetic, the wealth divide grows as opportunities shrink, and people are rightfully fed up.
As you said in a previous comment, it's not that there aren't problems, there will never not be problems. I'm sure Canada has its fair share of problems. But you talk like you know what it feels like to be an American right now, and I'm sorry, but you fucking don't. Our problems aren't the local Organic Planet running out of gluten-free pizza- it's losing our job and our health insurance all at once. It's suffering a major traumatic injury and insisting on taking a lyft to the hospital in fear of the price of an ambulance ride. It's over half of all Americans unable to put away enough money for even a $500 emergency and living paycheck to paycheck, barely hovering above the poverty line. It's our politicians and media pitting us against each other to distract us from how badly they're screwing us over. It's the horror of watching our people gunning each other down daily. It's our politicians addressing poverty and despair with more aggressive, militarized policing instead addressing the root causes of crime. It's people having to resort to sites like GoFundMe to help pay for hospital bills and funerals. Do you know what it feels like to be so worried about the prospect of drowning in medical debt that you avoid going to get treated for an illness or an injury? I shutter thinking of how many Americans have died this way even before the pandemic. Did you ever have to have a special talk with your son on how to behave around the police because doing the wrong thing could put his life at risk? This is the reality for countless parents in the US. Do you know what it feels like to watch other countries handle this pandemic responsibly and protect their citizens by providing social and economic safety nets, while the death toll in your country continues to skyrocket, millions lose their jobs along with their healthcare, and the threat of eviction looms over them? Do you know what it feels like to know your country doesn't give a fuck about you and certainly doesn't care if hundreds of thousands of its people die? Because let me tell you: it feels hollowing. You're choosing to focus on a vocal minority of privileged twitter warriors engaging in woke olympics, while disregarding the generational hopelessness Americans are living through right now.
On a final note, your own family's experiences are completely anecdotal and are not pillars of inarguable truth. While I'm delighted you treated us to a rose-colored view of your fiscally-responsible children's lives loading Walmart trucks and making waffles while still being able to save for the future, this is NOT the reality for this young generation of Americans. Your kids can go to college without worrying about being shackled with tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when they leave, only to be met with an ever-shrinking job market and limited prospects. They can work minimum wage jobs while still afford the luxury of a decent place to live and nice consumer products. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere in the US, this is laughably unattainable here without having 100 roommates. I will absolutely agree with you that a lot of the more vocal participants in these protests are Extremely Online sheltered dipshits larping as socialists. But in painting all the protestors with this broad brush, you're actively ignoring the majority working class young and middle-aged Americans who are rightfully angry and taking to the streets to voice their frustration. You're ignoring the pain of parents who continue to watch their sons killed by the people who are supposed to protect us. You and I can both agree that no one deserves to have their business and livelihood destroyed by senseless violence and destruction. But with all due respect, don't act like you know what it's like to be an American right now while you and your family benefit from so many things we are actively denied, because you don't know.
You'd have been against the Boston Tea party. You're such a tribal thinker it's hilarious.
Yes, someone who is for liberty, individual sovereignty, the rule of law, civil rights and low taxation would totally be against the Boston Tea Party.
Hey, you know a protest I could get behind? The lockdown protest in Lansing. All those guns, and no on got shot. The only person hurt was a protester unlawfully removed from the public gallery. Hell, all the armed "terrorists" submitted to security and temperature screening before entering the building.
A good cause, a good crowd. Kind of like the Boson Tea Party. They destroyed tea owned by a major multinational, left the ships undamaged, physically harmed no one and replaced the other property they destroyed. Some of their members tried to loot, and the others did not allow them to.
It was a focused act against a specific target and did not devolve into looting or violence.
But hey, did you hear about that body found in a burned pawn shop in Minneapolis? You know, because people are angry at the police? So they burned down a pawn shop? Probably after looting it? Because reasons?