I, for one, believe that taking over a city block and declaring it an autonomous zone is significantly less concerning than attempting to stop the presidential election -- arguably the single most important piece of our democracy -- from happening, calling for the death of the vice president while building gallows, and potentially looking for other politicians to kill.
Yeah, CHAZ was wrong and stupid. Yeah, the people who did it should get some kind of punishment. So should the people who destroyed private property during the riots, that's not cool.
But it seems pretty clear to me that the storming of the capital is so much worse than that as it is a clear attempt to undermine our democracy. I believe the response should reflect that.
Vandalism, trespassing, arson, assault, and so on can and should be prosecuted because they are crimes. Full stop. The ideological motivation of the perpetrators should be irrelevant with respect to prosecuting the crimes.
I do realize that the impact and repercussions of the events is certainly a point for debate, but that seems orthogonal to the immediate and critical goal of keeping the peace.
> Vandalism, trespassing, arson, assault
, which BLM and the Capitol Riots had in common, to distract from the attempt to overturn the election of the President of the United States of America, which they did not have in common.
All of it should be prosecuted. Both the parts they had in common and the parts they did not.
Having a convicted terrorist as a director of their beloved BLM movement means nothing. Lofty ideals matter.
Invading a city block means nothing. Lofty ideals matter.
If you don’t think the people who did CHOP and Capitol are equally dangerous to society, you’re wilfully turning a blind eye.
Except it hasn't been. You just don't want to listen to what people are actually saying because it's easier to argue against a strawman.
FWIW lots of people on the left do the same thing. So I guess you're in good company?
It's okay to criticize both things here. CHOP/CHAZ was clearly wrong, as is throwing a molotov at a police officer. No question about that. The capitol was wrong as well.
We want to pretend that this is all Trump’s fault- but we’re unable to recognize that it’s Trump who is a symptom of a systemic failure of logic and reason.
It wasn't "clearly" wrong initially; just weird and novel. It was a nice break from SPD's regular violence against protesters.
Why didn't the city's electeds attempt to move back in sooner? Because something about gassing their own citizens was politically unpopular for some reason. Note that this was summer, most Seattlites don't have air conditioning, and teargas spreads in the air. People I knew on Cap hill were coughing despite having all their windows closed (and sweltering).
In comparison, the BLM unrest seemed like it would predictably peter out fairly quickly without much in the way of concrete changes, and that's exactly what happened. At no point did I expected some radical uncertainty in the future as a result.
... who were trying to get an election overturned at the behest of POTUS. Motive matters, even if they were too disorganized to stand a chance.
CHAZ: An occupation. They weren't killing anyone. They weren't trying to kill people. They literally setup a community garden.
Capitol Hill attack: An insurrection. It was clearly a violent rebellion against the government of the US, with people actively working to kill the VPOTUS and members of the government.
I can easily see the differences. So can many others.
> What childish madness.
It's childish madness to treat the two as the same.
Context matters. One group had specific goals, none of which involved killing. The other group specifically was calling out to kill someone.
CHOP started as a bunch of protestors who saw the police make the terrible strategic decision to withdraw from their own precinct building and said "hey, let's declare that this area is self-governing to make a political statement about how police presence isn't improving things." And it initially really was peaceful enough to walk your kids through to look at all the hippie positivity. The chaos and violence came about after the "autonomy" went on way too long and opportunists (anarchists and wannabe vigilantes) moved in.
Everything would have worked out a lot better if the CHOP folks yelled "you're retreating? This is our neighborhood now! Rah, rah, rah!" and then a day or two later the cops said "very funny, you made your point, but we are coming back and you better get the fuck out of the way or get your heads beaten in" and that was the end of it.
Look, I'll agree that everyone involved with both CHAZ and the Capitol Riots needs to go to jail. That includes Donald Trump, though. He was the one trying an end-run around the US electoral process in order to hold on to power for four more years.
You are, in your post upthread.