I went to google “fight turns into shooting”, and I only got to “fight tu” before I had “shooting”, “deadly” “double homicide”. I trust you can probably do the same.
I don’t think that it’s reasonable to respond with a shooting, but I don’t think that everyone is reasonable either, especially not an anti-masker. It happens, and an even worse epitaph is, “The other guy wasn’t being reasonable.”
Sure, but I’m not saying anything about American society not being fairly dysfunctional, quite the contrary, in fact.
The same people that claimed that Rittenhouse was shooting in self defense would probably watch anti-mask guy pull out a gun and shoot the guy who punched him and claim it to be self defense as well.
Those of you that claim that both sides are equally guilty, could you explain how this works? Is it a “Natural Law”? Is it magic? What mysterious force is stopping one side from being worse than the other?
Exceedingly insightful! This is the problem with the far left. They are willing to act as Robespierre did in order to have a nation of so-called virtue and equity. Unfortunately proper, classical liberalism is now considered a problem instead of a shared cultural foundation.
I am a 54yo white man. You are goddamned straight that I use my privilege of looking, sounding, and talking like an educated 6-foot white executive to constantly denounce Trumpism, the various culture war idiocies, support universal health care coverage, argue against income inequality, a whole helluva lot more topics - I am ready to go at it, any time, any where.
For example, was talking to a typical conservative housewife two weeks ago. Conversation effectively went like this:
“I can’t understand why people don’t want to work.”
“Well, COVID did kill 700,000 people, most of them the very people who work in restaurants and other low-paying jobs.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s smart, I didn’t think about that!”
“And then, there’s this: Say you work at Walmart, stocking shelves. You get paid $8 an hour for 40 weeks, $320 - and that is pre-tax, meaning you’re taking home about $270. Let me ask… how hard do you think it is to use your cell phone to replace a measly $270 a week? And when Walmart calls saying they have your old job for you, do you go back to having a time clock and a boss, or do you sit at home, making money on your phone when you want to?”
“I didn’t think about that either! There’s no way I would work at Walmart for $300, hee-hee.”
“Well, the people who aren’t coming back to hourly jobs, if they’re not dead, they just learned how to earn a crappy $10 an hour in ways not covered by W-2 employment. Or they may, in fact, be making far more!”
I’m sure many of y’all have seen my thread about how I blew up a Toastmasters group because the host was expressing fascistic, authoritarian thoughts, and I had no problem standing up, looking at the man, pointing towards him, and telling him that he is damning his soul to Hell. In the very same thread I talk about how I just trashed Trump and Trumpism to a typical bunch of white and Hispanic conservatives. And, again, as I like to do, I stood up, looked them in the eye, and just held fucking forth.
I am heavily involved in a public debate group. Last week, the group moderator… an economically conservative African-American ex serviceman, came to me and said “Man, I really was 100% pro-capitalism, and then you started coming and hell… I looked into it and there’s a lot to what you say.” And we discussed this, me clarifying that I’m not anti-capitalism, I’m anti-Reaganomics and that I hate the turn capitalism has taken since 1975, etc.
I was featured yesterday in an anti-Trump article on Chron.com (for the Houston Chronicle):
Fuck, I mean, the other day I found myself driving past this place…
I had no choice but to stop. I went in, up to the counter, and ordered a Trump burger w/ fries, to-go, no tomato. The woman at the counter, who apparently was featured in the article above, asked me if I was a fan. Looking her in the eye I said “I absolutely detest the malignant son of a bitch, but I’m willing to reach across the aisle for a good burger.” And the burger was fantastic… this is Texas, after all, you better not be selling crappy beef… and the fries were perfectly hot.
This is America, guys. You have to speak out. Even if you’re the only Blue dot in a seeming sea of Red, you owe it to yourself, to us, and to the ideals of the country to swallow your fear and speak truth to Power.
And, especially for us Dopers, who come here to practice our rhetoric, hone our arguments… what good is it if you don’t take the goal of fighting ignorance out among the ignorant? And triply so if you’re white, and even more so if you’re a white male.
Lastly, personal safety: I was first doxxed in 1990, 1991, on some local BBS in Atlanta… “Hey, I know you… isn’t your sister <my sister’s name>?” I get at least 2-3 Twitter accounts every year who find out my address and then say “I know where you live”, whereupon my response is “And now @SAPD knows you know where I live, and so does my lawyer @JohnTAttorney. Thanks for the evidence of premeditation.”
Again. White privilege. I have an attorney. Even if I didn’t have an attorney, to look at me, you would not disbelieve me if I said I had an attorney.
Frankly, my likely death is some heart attack or lung disease offing me when I’m 82. If I somehow find myself in a historical context where I end up dying for my beliefs… as an American, I can think of no better ending.
I, honestly, don’t think white male liberals can sit this one out. Fuckin’ speak up if you have the privilege.
In what context are you asking this question; is it from the standpoint of claims made that if the left resorts to acts of violence in response to the right, there will be no meaningful difference between the two?
There will be quite a number of people who will not be able to distinguish between them, that’s for sure. There will be those who will equate any slight bit of violence on the left to be the same as the violence on the right.
Anecdotally, Rev. Sharpton tells a story of the Charlottesville protests and being surrounded by white supremist/nazi protesters when a group of antifa showed up and put themselves between the nazis and the group of peaceful protesters he was with. Some fighting broke out but most peaceful protesters remained unhurt. Now, who still thinks it’s difficult to distinguish between the two?
Yeah, I know. Like the anti-masker in that video who was the first to start the fight but after getting himself up off the floor accused the hoodie guy of “assault”.
I guessed the Marquis de Condorcet, who I know was arrested and died in 1794 while (I think) awaiting execution, but then I looked him up and it turns out he was a former member of the Committee himself. I haven’t been able to figure out if it was the Committee who condemned him or if he would count as a “victim” of it even if it did.
Are you looking for me to call people out here, or what? We do have at least one poster in this thread who seems to have difficulties in distinguishing them. We have an entire news network dedicated to confusing the difference between them.
Some don’t see shoving as violence, but do see being punched in the face as violence. Hard to say who started the fight, if you consider shoving to be fighting, then sure, anti-mask guy started it, but punch in the face guy certainly escalated it.
Like I said, I don’t know that he was “wrong” but I’m sure that someone will come along and say that he got his teeth knocked in for just exercising his rights or waving the flag or something.
“Don’t fight hate with hate” is an example of subtle gaslighting where our legitimate hurt and anger at the injustices we suffer is being equated to the bigotry and abuses of our oppressors. Being angry doesn’t mean you are being hateful, it means you love yourself enough to get upset at your own mistreatment.
JohnT I feel like you haven’t read all of MethidmanTMA’s posts in this thread. You are advocating standing up proudly for what you believe in. He seems to be gleefully anticipating civil war.
Nah. I just don’t think we should hesitate or reserve judgement about who is clearly the good guy vs bad guy when it’s very obvious from the context. I certainly won’t suffer those who equivocate or insist on blurring the distinction.
