It always was an “answer” to the black lives matter movement, blue lives don’t exist btw, the whole movement is a joke.

This post was edited by BasedGoff on Jan 10 2021 10:40am

Jesus fucking christ

Brought on specifically by law enforcement
There would have been no heart attack had officer piece of shit acted like a professional. So when you say heart attack you need to include the extra bits because otherwise you're just saying he died from only a heart attack and you know that's just fucking stupid. I shouldn't have to explain this on January 10th to you two. Fucking morons

This post was edited by MizzouFTW on Jan 10 2021 10:48am

https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/george-floyd/new-court-docs-say-george-floyd-had-fatal-level-of-fentanyl-in-his-system/89-ed69d09d-a9ec-481c-90fe-7acd4ead3d04

A fatal level of fentanyl in his system. Heavy artery blockage. He specifically asked to be placed on the ground because he "couldn't breathe" getting into the cop car.

He was a ticking time bomb. Being placed on the ground and restrained didn't help, but Floyd refused to get into the car, asked to be put on the ground, and was thrashing around hitting his head on glass the entire time.

"I'm not saying this killed him" - DR that wrote that report

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9125107/Portland-Mayor-Ted-Wheeler-punched-dining-outside-protesters-frustrations-boil-over.html

violent rioters/insurrectionists aka “protestors” physically assault, harass and attack elected official

Attacking elected officials is just another form of mostly peaceful protest. Ted Wheeler committed the real violence by not giving these heroes the change they deserve.

well he does let people burn his city to the ground on a weekly basis
maybe he should get a different job

That's where I have to disagree. The way I see it, and the way I read Weiss' op-ed, is that there had been a long trend of norm erosion and gradually losing contact with reality on both sides, a trend which had been going on for many many years. The iconic CNN screenshot with the reporter in front of a burning building and the "fiery but mostly peaceful protests"-chyron was just the temporary climax of this long-standing development.

My argument is not that BLM and the Capitol storming should be compared directly. What happened at the Capitol was batshit insane and a huuuuuge escalation. It was a quantum leap of norm breaking, delusion and intellectual abandoning of democracy. And like you said, the symbolism couldnt be any worse. The point is not that the storming of the Capitol is equivalent in any way, shape or form to the BLM protests. No, the point is that both types of riots share a common genesis once we look at the greater picture. Wednesday's escalation did not come completely out of the blue, and neither was it the sad end point of a radicalization limited exclusively to the political right.

Simply put, the "Cold Civil War" in America had been festering, brewing and heating up for a long time, and on Wednesday, it finally boiled over in an openly violent, undemocratic episode.


Well said, and that's what's so disillusioning about it all: the attack on the Capitol indicates that this Cold Civil War might indeed be impossible to resolve peacefully and democratically. Until this week, I, for my part, remained fairly confident that these tensions could be reduced and ultimately disarmed with better politics and better policy. Not anymore.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jan 10 2021 11:49am

Very well said, but I think your conclusion doesnt actually go deep enough. America does not just have a problem with the normalization of political violence. The reason violence is normalized and that people are turning their backs on democracy itself is that democratic elections in America are increasingly failing to resolve political tensions. Polarization and antagonism have increased for over 25 years, and neither side has been able to achieve a lasting victory in this conflict via sustained electoral success. The political power in the country keeps being balanced on a knife's edge while people feel like the consequences of either side winning keep going up all the time. Just to remind everyone: flip 35k votes in the right places from Trump to Clinton in 2016, and she becomes president. Flip just 20k votes in the right places from Biden to Trump, and Trump remains president.

The problem America is facing is not just one of the means of conflict escalating - the true problem is that the conflict itself is getting increasingly fundamental. The country is breaking apart into two sides whose views, ideologies and ideas of the future are increasingly disparate and irreconcilable. Meaningful compromise might no longer be possible, and, as Wednesday shows, democratic elections themselves might also have lost their ability to resolve this conflict. It seems like, if forced to choose between their political beliefs and democracy, an increasing share of the population would ditch democracy. If electoral defeat is not an option anymore, civil war is the only remaining exit.

Violence is justified when it's carried out by people i agree with and not justified when it's carried out by people i disagree with - most of pard

Sadly there aren't many centrists around these parts