The FBI released the latest data on police officer safety today.
2015 was one of the safest years on record in terms of both injurious assaults and deaths, and significantly safer than 2014, which was safer than 2013.
My comparison is based on my opinion and understanding of these various groups. The vast majority of BLM leaders have condemned violence without reservation; Trump and surrogates have encouraged or excused violence. I would feel much, much safer at a BLM protest (and have felt entirely safe at the 1 protest I did attend) then at a Trump rally (I’m a very bad liar, and I would undoubtedly be “exposed” as a Trump opponent).
Here are a couple of examples of Tea Party violence. There are more and they are rather easily found (along with many threats of violence). Funny how the Tea Party movement wasn’t tarred as violent based on these examples, huh?
I’m talking just from memory about all the different protests, rallies, and the like I’ve seen in DC and the surrounding area, in person and on the news, over the last few years. I don’t recall any violence. But I don’t have a cite.
She was wrong. Various Tea Party leaders, and Trump himself (along with surrogates), have made threats or advocated/excused violence. They were wrong too.
Some more examples of Tea Party threats and actual violence.
To be clear, I’m not saying that the Tea Party is a violent movement – just that there’s no more reason to slander the wider BLM movement as violent than there is for the Tea Party.
Do the tea party members chant death threats while marching ?..NO
Do the tea party members beat up people who disagree with them ?..NO
Do the tea party members pull motorists from their car and beat them up ?.NO
Did the leader of the tea party tell a prosecutor…" if the city burns, it’s on you "…NO
No comparison between the racist hate group ( Black Lives Matter) and the tea party!
Some tea party people have engaged in violence and threats of violence, but that doesn’t mean the whole movement is at fault. Some small number of BLM (or others pretending to be with BLM) have done bad things, but that doesn’t mean the whole movement is at fault. Trump has explicitly advocated for violence against protesters, and he is at fault for that, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on those supporters of his who reject violence.
The vast majority of BLM protests and events and supporters are and have been non-violent.
This first link was an EPIC fail.
You didn’t read even read through your own cite, did you? If you had, you would have read this:
I haven’t gotten to your other cites yet, but maybe I ought to give you a chance to review them yourself first. What do you think?
I read through it – I’ve also read many accounts of supposed BLM violence blamed on counter-protesters or the police. I cited several examples to show that, just like BLM, the tea party has been blamed for several instances of violent behavior. Not all of those instances were definitely, in fact, due to BLM protesters or tea partiers. Some may have been started by others. But both groups have been blamed for violence multiple times, even though the vast majority of their events have been peaceful.
But if you don’t like that cite, check the others.
For your next post, we need bigger letters. Like, the hugest, classiest letters ever. 
HurricaneDitka, I do applaud your vigilance in checking my cites. If I had to do it over again, I would have better explained that first cite.
I don’t know if you consider Baltimore part of the area surrounding DC. I do. Here’s what Wikipedia says about their BlackLivesMatter protest last year:
Did you miss all the news reports on the protest? It was widely-reported, particularly the “space to destroy” comment.
Huh? You would have “better explained that first cite”? What’s their to explain? The actual violence was from left-wing union activists. There was no Tea Party violence in the first cite. It was a satirical post (that you got duped by). How would you “better explain” that?
Let me give you a hint: if you had it to do over again, you shouldn’t use a cite of fictional Tea Party violence that was actually satirizing left-wing union activist violence AT ALL.
No, I was just talking about DC and the DC metro area.
It may have been satire, but it was also a real violent incident in Michigan in which a reporter was injured.
But I wholly retract this cite as an example, since there are several others that serve my purpose without this. I’ll also apologize for wasting your time with that cite, and I will no longer use it as such an example in any way whatsoever. Thank you for calling me out on a poor cite that sidetracked rather than supported my argument, and I hope you’ll look at the other cites which serve as examples of my point.
Here are those other examples of tea party violence and threats again. And my point is that this violence doesn’t mean that the movement as a whole is violent, and the few instances of violence compared to the vast majority of peaceful protests don’t mean that the BLM movement is violent as a whole either.
These cites have problems as well.
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It didn’t happen at a rally / protest event.
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It’s not clear who made the threats or vandalized the homes. Without some convictions, or arrests, or at least suspects, we don’t know WHO did it.
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These are three news stories describing the same events. Why don’t you try picking the best one(s) and let’s focus on that. It would help if you read all the way through it before posting it, rather than you just Google-dumping stuff in this thread?
There were 4 cites (reposted in my last post), and they weren’t all the same. Here’s another one that was at a rally. And another. As to your second point, it’s not clear who acted violently at the rare instances of BLM violence either.
We can get in depth into any of these examples if you like, but my point doesn’t require it. My point is only that BLM has been accused of violence, as has the tea party. The very rare (and unspecified as to whether the individuals were part of the movement) incidents of violence related to BLM events or activities reflects no more poorly on the movement as a whole than these examples related to the tea party does on them.
The only cites I’ve seen of actual violence at Tea Party rallies are these:
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the time SEIU thugs beat up Kenneth Gladney (August 2009 in St. Louis, MO) video link
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a fight between a couple of Tea Party activists and ANSWER protesters (November 2009 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL) video link
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a “scuffle” when Tea Party activists tried to exclude neo-Nazis from joining their protest (May 2011 in Phoenix, AZ) (not sure if video of this one exists)
MY point, as given in post #72 is “BlackLivesMatter is the movement behind the most violent protests in the country in recent years. They’ve featured, at their worst, looting, arson, and a shooting spree. Nothing else is remotely close.” A few fistfights at Trump rallies or Tea Party protesters scuffling with Neo-Nazis and SEUI folks doesn’t undermine that. If anything, it underscores it.
There is no equivalency here with events that leave downtown Baltimore looking like this: https://flavorwire.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/black-lives-matter.jpg?w=1600
ETA: I think this image will be my new picture-worth-a-thousand-words response to whether BLM is a violent movement or not. It really sums it all up nicely.
A few incidents don’t define a movement. I’ll admit I might be biased, because I agree with the message of BLM and disagree with the tea party. Can you admit that you might be biased against BLM, and inclined to focus on the few related incidents of violence, rather than the many more peaceful protests, and the positive changes like body cameras (and more) in many police departments that have occurred due to advocacy by BLM?
biased?
When I see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears the Minnesota …LEADER…of the Black Lives Matter standing next to a BLM woman who says to Hennepin Count Atty Freeman…" if the city burns, it’s on you "…that is NOT bias !
I think I already acknowledged that many BlackLivesMatter protests are violence-free, but if that’s unclear, let me do so again: I agree that there are many more peaceful BLM protests than violent ones. And you’re probably right that there are more body cameras worn by more cops today due to their efforts (and I consider that a good thing).
Personally, I’m very skeptical of police power. It’s probably my biggest break with conservative orthodoxy: I’d like to see more accountability and transparency by the police, more restraint on their part and less use-of-force. I should be one of BLM’s “white allies”, but I don’t think of myself as one because I’m appalled by the violence that has marred some of their events. It has completely turned me off to them. I’d NEVER go to one of their rallies or donate to one of their organizations.
I suppose there’s also the occasional “white people get out, this is a black event / safe space” incident that I don’t want to find myself awkwardly in the middle of either, but it’s mostly the violence that I find repugnant.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I don’t know if it helps, but white Americans in the 60s had about the same opinion of the civil rights movement, IIRC (I’ll look for the poll I’m thinking of later) as they do now for BLM, with very similar criticism. A small number of violent assholes have hurt the movement, but I don’t think their actions should dominate our view, especially when they’ve accomplished some good things and we agree on much of their message.