Speech is speech, when that speech begets action then we have a problem.
But, burning and looting is in a different category to the Capitol stuff, I think.
If it was done for some other cause, there would be no end of celebratory articles on the same outlets that now condemn it...
I think it would be condemned equally no matter who tried it. It’s the beginning of an end game scenario of democracy... so it makes sense it is viewed so harshly
The vast majority of participants in the protests following the Floyd murder did not take part in any violence. It is all but certain that the fraction who did is much smaller than the fraction of 1/6/21 protestors who illegally entered the Capitol.
Comparing the one to the other is not justified.
That's neither here nor there. I didn't say "burning for months" (e.g. the same fires keep burning for months), I said "burning and looting for months", that is incidents of burnings and lootings occuring for months. There have been dozens, if not hundreds, and have lasted (not each individual, the case of them popping has lasted) for months...
>The vast majority of participants in the protests following the Floyd murder did not take part in any violence. It is all but certain that the fraction who did is much smaller than the fraction of 1/6/21 protestors who illegally entered the Capitol.
That's not certain at all. The videos show a totally different story.
>Looting is not well-documented but my friends in Portland didn't seem very concerned.
Many of those in favor aren't, especially if they live outside of the affected radius.
Weasel words, then. The continuous presence of fire for months was of course not implied.
>Many of those in favor aren't, especially if they live outside of the affected radius.
In favor of what, precisely?
Use of violent tactics is not particlarly novel on either side
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/us/politics/homeland-secu...
Tankie leftists that support violence have the political weight as furry enthusiasts afaik.
Chris Cuomo on CNN "And please, show me where it says that protests have to be polite, or peaceful"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter "The whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable."
I would also say that there are leftist politicians who are encouraging and inciting criminal acts. See this recent tweet from AOC (https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1334184644707758080), where she excuses activists acting illegally because the "polite language policy game" (her words) didn't work for them. This is no less an act of incitement than Trump, since Trump never called for violence or encouraged acts of violence.
I also think there is a great deal of hypocrisy from the left on this point given the events of this last year. There have been numerous riots, arrests, deaths, and illegal occupation of public places recorded. All the politicians, activists, organizations involved in those criminal acts have been given a pass and have faced very little accountability and virtually no censorship from big tech.
Even before George Floyd, we have incidents from left-leaning activists where they literally invade federal buildings. Here's an example documented by the Associated Press (https://youtu.be/B_kxyacaAF4). What was the response from the far left elements? Rashida Tlaib and AOC actually joined some of their events and encouraged them (https://theintercept.com/2018/11/13/alexandria-ocasio-cortez...). And yet, these two continue to be allowed their platforms.
Let's be honest, the tech platforms are using this ridiculously inept protest at the Capitol as an enabling excuse to further censorship and erode free speech, aligning with the interests of their left-biased employee bases. The precedent it sets is dark, as it will be employed to discriminate against viewpoints that disagree with the progressive agenda.
Did they break into the offices and steal things?
Unfortunately that would probably put me in the "radical leftist" bracket according to current US discourse.
Come to think of it I can't think of any policies on which the (mainstream) Democrats are to the left of the Conservatives, but maybe I'm not thinking hard enough.