Unit2Sucks said:
BearGoggles said:
Unit2Sucks said:
concordtom said:
BearGoggles said:
I'm going to ask you to join me in condemning all political violence, including the property damage caused by rioters and antifa in places like Minnesota, Portland and Seattle. Do you condemn those people and their tactics unconditionally even if you are perhaps sympathetic to their cause?
Yes or no. I'll wait.
Absolutely. I CONDEMN ALL POLITICAL VIOLENCE!!! I have always said as much
I think EVERYONE here condemns ALL political violence.
I'm sure Dajo and everyone else will agree - nobody wants buildings damaged in MN, Portland, Seattle.
I think the only reason you are trying to claim that the Anti-Trumpists, Anti-Jan6'ers on here are Pro-violence is because you are misled by FoxNews and the RWNJ media who asserts as much.
It's all part of their misdirection "what about" campaign.
Don't be so inept as to be led by con artists. They turn the entire dialogue into something it's not. And you follow by simply asking the questions. I've never heard anyone here say "yeah, go burn that stuff down."
His request was preposterous. The vast majority of the violence he's talking about was from petty rioters and looters with no connection to any political cause or movement. They were opportunistic violence-seekers. He is buying into the propaganda repeatedly pushed by Fox News that all or a majority of the violence arose out of some progressive cause. The Patagonia store in Santa Monica looted by surfers was not in response to George Floyd's murder or retributive justice - it was people taking advantage of the situation. There were obviously exceptions - I won't say that none of the violence was politically motivated - but Fox played stock footage for weeks of not months to overstate the situation. No one here supported the attacks on the courthouse in Portland last summer (even if we did criticize the government response) and no one defended the looters or rioters. I do believe that many conservatives defended the excessive government force used on peaceful protesters. Imagine if CNN kept playing January 6 footage and saying that cities across the US are under constant attack from radical whitists. That's what Fox News did all last summer. January 6 happened because Donald Trump lit the match and because right wing media poured gasoline on the fire. Not because people took advantage of protests in the wake of the George Floyd murder.
So yea, I see no reason to play BG's dumb game. Just because a bunch of dumb people, spurred on by the Republican Party and their propaganda outlets, tried to prevent the peaceful transition of power does not mean that we have to pretend like what happened last summer is related or just as concerning. They are independent and BG is just trying to gaslight us so that he can justify the conservative insurrection. No dice.
You're the best. Don't ever change. Thank you for so eloquently making my point by claiming that left wing violence is "petty rioters and looters with no connection to any political cause." No way are you by any means minimizing left wing violence. How could anyone even think you're doing that . . .
*** is antifa or BLM if not a political movement? Remind me what all those statues were defaced and torn down during protests? Just for fun or perhaps a political motivation?
You're right, absolutely no one defended the mostly peaceful looting and riots protests. LOLZ
Your words "not supporting, not defending" are far short of condemning. Again, all political violence (really all violence) should be condemned. And despite your claim that I'm trying to "justify conservative insurrection" - I will once again unequivocally condemn Jane 6. One of us here is justifying bad behavior - claiming acts of violence/crimes were petty and important. It is not me.
Only a simpleton or partisan would claim violence doesn't beget violence.
There is one person here who is intentionally conflating "left wing violence" with other violence. The looting that occurred was not "left wing violence" in any sense. Antifa is not left wing. Other than sharing a common opposition to fascism, which I would hope mainstream right wingers would agree with, Antifa is just not a part of progressive politics. Whatever happened in Seattle with the weird collective was not connected to progressive politics. They don't support the democratic party or Joe Biden and they are not supported by the democratic party or Joe Biden. Democrats and progressives don't promote Antifa. Was some amount of the violence last summer caused by or participated by progressives? Sure, I don't think anyone denies that. But for you to demand a blanket acceptance that everything that happened was part of the progressive movement is classic BG disingenuity. It's categorically false and no reasonable person would hold that view.
On top of those ridiculous claims, you make the claims that the capitol riot and insurrection was somehow related to looting and rioting from last summer which is unsupported in the evidence. As we've seen from the court cases, the capitol criminals defendants all seem to reference Trump - not the looting of the patagonia store or the toppling of confederate statues. But, again, no one really doubts that and I don't even think you do - you are just playing your typical partisan games. Trump and other prominent republicans, amplified by right wing media including the number one cable news channel and one of the most powerful media organizations in the country, spent months pushing a false and completely unsupported election fraud narrative which directly led to the insurrection. There is no equivalence with democrats. There is no both sides to this issue, despite your desperate and pathetic claims to the contrary.
BearGoggles said:
Unit2Sucks said:
concordtom said:
Yeah, so shove it in his face and make the statement that you condemn ALL political violence.
Then demand that he do the same by keeping the GOP leadership accountable of the same.
Tom if someone tells you they won't condemn child abuse unless you condemn some other bad thing, what would you say?
I don't need other people to condemn bad things in order for me to do so. BG demanding other people condemn unrelated things (which he mischaracterized, as is his wont) is a stupid rhetorical device. He is attempting to have us adopt and confirm stupid right wing talking points that don't deserve to be elevated.
Actually, I'm just trying to find a principle in your arguments when, sadly, there is none because your partisanships trumps (pun intended) any principle. It is obvious to everyone that left wing political violence is related to right wing political violence - even if they have very different intentions/motivations.
The principle is quite simple. Own your opinions and don't allow disingenuous arguments to warp the narrative. If you were genuinely condemning the insurrection, you wouldn't care or demand that anyone else condemn anything else.
Your last statement shows the depth of the rot of your partisanship. The only thing that is obvious is that you fail, or choose not to, see the true predicate of the January 6 insurrection. If you were paying attention you would see that it was far more closely related to the right wing extremism and protests from last summer - including anti-lockdown and anti-mask protests and the plot to kidnap and kill Whitmer - than it was to anything that progressives were involved in. The participants in the insurrection also participated in the right wing protests and outbursts and the same organizations (proud boys, oathkeepers, etc.) were involved.
I originally thought you stopped posting in OT last fall because you realized how wrong you were about the pandemic (and you were very wrong - including your typical misunderstanding of how modeling works) but now that you're back I'm beginning to think that it was completely unrelated.
Antifa is not a leftist group? Ok. And you conveniently left out BLM. Are they right wing too? What about the Bernie supporter who shot all the republican congressman? Or the mob that invaded the capital for the Kavanaugh hearing? A left wing mob literally set a church on fire across from the white house and destroy public property they didn't like (and eventually the white supremacists will no doubt do the same to the MLK memorial)
And, as usual, you completely missed the point. I'm not saying one group reacts directly to the ideology of another. I'm not saying that the Jan 6 rioters had one thought of BLM or Patagonia (or whatever). Clearly they were spun up by Trump and others and had a variety of grievances, both real and imagined.
The question is - WHY DID THEY THINK STORMING THE CAPITAL TO DISRUPT CONGRESS WAS OK? Why was the
violence deemed an acceptable option? I already posted on it above, but last years antifa actions/riots/property damage further normalized and escalated these activities (continuing an arc that traces back).
And for the record, I post infrequently around here because I actually have a life off the internet and, quite frankly, its boring in this echo chamber. A few people have fairly consistent principles (Dajo and Sycasey being two that come to mind but their are others) and nuanced thoughts, even though I disagree with them most of the time. Others, like you, just spout talking points, with every third word being Trump, fox news, racist, whitist, or some other woke buzzword you heard/read on Young Turks, Slate or Rachel Maddow.
You are so partisan and self righteous that you refuse to admit the obvious or condemn left wing violence simply because you can't stand to let the other side win on even one issue (and with you, as a partisan, it is zero sum with even the smallest or most obvious thing being win/loss). I'm right center conservative, and I've been on here for years criticizing people you think (often wrongly) are on "my side." I've criticized, among others, Trump ( A LOT), Bush II, Steve King, republican hypocrisy when I perceive it, and bad governance. Yet you never do the same - other than perhaps to criticize people for not being left enough.
Maybe I'm wrong, I invite you to offer any real criticism of Pelosi (hypocrisy in masking), AOC (lots of dumb things she says to chose from), Talib (dumb and anti Semitic), Omar (anti semetic), or Maxine Waters (one of the worst grifters of all time). I'll invite you to criticize and condemn the mobs that targeted for harassment republican politicians while dining (as Waters suggested). Or the financial corruption of people like Pelosi, Feinstein, Ted Lieu and Patrisse Cullors. And offer the criticism without a "but trump" or some other deflection.
I dropped in this week because I was curious who would be defending Biden indefensible policy and clear decline. You and some others did not disappoint.