These are senior citizens, in a 85% liberal area, who are trying to support local business during a pandemic, and they potentially just contracted Covid which could easily kill them, for what?
What's gross is people defending the burning down of small businesses during a pandemic.
Either way, reasonable people who don't defend violence in either case are irrelevant, because things happen through violence regardless. What are you going to do about it when a horde of BLM rioters comes for your business and burns it down? Have a peaceful conversation with them about how much you don't think violence will solve the problem? No, you either have a gun or you don't.
and it will be okay because COVID doesn't matter if your protesting for equality and justice, by burning down a Wendy's or looting everything in a Target or destroying a clothing store.
After the big riots in Chicago I drove out on Sunday to get some Taco Bell. There were bricks through it, everything was closed up, and a fat security guard sat on a chair doing nothing as people looted a clothing store.
Next day on the news the owner, a Korean American, said he lost $300,000 on a news broadcast. Insurance would cover none of it (insurance rarely covers riots) and he said he was considering declaring it a loss and closing the store forever.
During the 2nd riot they looted a 7/11 a man had restocked with his savings. He lost everything and it's closed now.
People are now scared out of their minds because people walked around the Capitol Build and broke a few desks. Was it wrong? absolutely? But it's a message:
The people peacefully strolled through your rich fucking establishment, sat in your chairs, found your candy drawer (that was funny) and then left ... oh and one unarmed woman got shot and died by a security officer, but she wasn't black, so we'll forget about her tomorrow.
I don’t know. On the one hand I get what you’re saying, that CHAZ was “peaceful” during the day in that it resembled a sort of low-tier art fair. On the other hand, it was an incredibly lawless hijacking of public property. Daily, thousands of people who use those roads or surrounding amenities (parks, businesses) were forced to find alternatives that took longer and were more crowded, right in the middle of the pandemic. This re-routing included public transit and emergency vehicles. This type of violent takeover can’t be justified by surface-level “peace” during the day in my opinion.
Not to mention, CHAZ set the tone for how the city has been governed and its politics thereafter. In 2020 there were near-daily blockades of roads and tunnels, none of which were legal, and yet there was little consequence for any of the rioting. For example, one article noted that out of 261 rioters, only 8 faced charges, and exactly zero those faced any real consequence subsequently (https://komonews.com/news/local/city-attorney-charges-brough...). Meanwhile the city police was forced to build a concrete barricade around their main police station because of the lawlessness and city leadership forcing them to not take necessary actions. It got to the point where BLM protesters were setting white people’s houses on fire when they were sleeping in it (https://thepostmillennial.com/seattle-blm-activist-arrested-...), and staged protests outside white neighbors’ homes demanding they leave the neighborhood (https://nypost.com/2020/08/14/seattle-blm-protesters-demand-...). All this, became normalized and accepted by city government, in part because of CHAZ.
Fast forward to the present day and we see how much worse things have become. Hundreds of police officers have quit because of defunding and bad policy. Most will never come back no matter what bonuses are paid. The city has roughly half the number of police officers the average city would have per capita. Crime is everywhere. Businesses are shutting down due to it - look at the International District for a taste, where ironically minority business owners are the ones suffering. Trash is everywhere. RV ranchers are everywhere. Tents can be found in numerous parks and green spaces, leaving behind trash and needles. Property crime, like bike thefts, car breakins, car thefts, burglaries, and so on are common to the point no one bothers to even report them, since there’s no one to investigate and insurance requires a deductible anyhow.
You might call it a ridiculous juxtaposition. But CHAZ was exactly the harbinger and enabler that those complaining about it thought it would be. Seattle was a very safe and very clean city less than 10 years ago. I don’t recognize the city as it is today.
> Many effective protests do destroy property, and that's mostly the property of large corporations.
The property being destroyed by rioters and looters in the current wave largely belongs to individuals and small businesses, although there have been some large corporations affected (e.g., Macy's in NYC was looted).
> Violence against individual humans is a separate issue.
I agree that it is worse to harm or kill a human directly than to harm or destroy their property. However, since many people's property is essential to their livelihood, harming or destroying property is still a very serious matter and should not be condoned.
> You're free to assume that this has nothing to do with the public health and economic situation (and self-interested voluntary decisions of police) and may be blamed entirely on protests
Rioting and looting is not a valid response to the COVID-19 situation any more than it is a valid response to inequality before the law and corruption on the part of the police (and the local governments that are responsible for police corruption).
How thrilled would you be if I threw a traffic cone on or snowball at your car or house every day? Is that response unjustified because my actions are unlikely to cause damage every time?
The line between peaceful protest and rioting is property damage. This looks intended to be peaceful, but the intent is ambiguous. All it takes is a toss too hard or a hooligan to cross that line, and the line is crossed and civic argument toasted.
Put another way, this is aimless catharsis. Not civic engagement. It’s about as mature as the folks who were egging Google busses a decade ago, and now decry the budget cuts those jobs leaving San Francisco bring.
Many effective protests do destroy property, and that's mostly the property of large corporations. Violence against individual humans is a separate issue. There are some indications that such violence has increased by a finite amount since the start of the COVID-19 shutdown. You're free to assume that this has nothing to do with the public health and economic situation (and self-interested voluntary decisions of police) and may be blamed entirely on protests, but you're announcing a deep personal bias by doing so. Wondering aloud about how the message may be undermined is mere concern trolling. We recognize it when racist troglodytes do it, and we also recognize it when "good liberals" do it.
Sure, but that doesn't extend to rioting and looting.
The government has been restricting our first amendment rights to assemble for covid for 3 months. It's illegal to hold church services right now. Are we in a public heath emergency or not?
Wow, such delusion here. I guess broken doors and windows means peaceful now? Police officers getting stomped on? Pepper sprayed? Breaking glass and destroying offices?
Do your research kid. I can only hope you are joking.
With innocent people being harmed, and at least one killed, I think they should. Letting this get out of control is not the best option, as tensions are already high from covid, and this could be a feedback loop to more unneeded violence, with unintended victims caught in the cross hairs.
With a gas line possibly being cut, and ~170 business burned down, this is spiraling out of control [0]
I mention the gas line (though I don’t know if this a fair comparison) for the potential of chained explosions like the one in Merrimack Valley [1]
Regardless, I think many are using the protests as an excuse to loot, and let off steam from the tensions of lockdown, in addition to its obvious main reason.
So that explains why articles covering BLM protests with burning stores and looting in the background were called "peaceful". BTW, I don't know where you get you definition, but I consider people violently smashing objects as violence.
First, it's not like there has been widespread looting and chaos at these marches. Yes, there has been some, for sure, but the vast vast majority of these protests and protestors are peaceful. It only takes one person to break windows and light fires.
Second, even if there is looting and destruction it's generally not a rational thought process that leads people to it. These are angry, hopeless, beat down, etc people who feel like they never get any justice.
I don't condone the violence, but I certainly understand it.
If hundreds rioting and looting in multiple cities for multiple days for liberal causes only qualifies for "mostly peaceful protesters, this qualifies a "peaceful protesters" still.
You're right, they're just idiots that spread a pandemic, effectively taking more lives than the riots and looting would. Things would have to be extremely bad before the governments enacted a curfew because of the covidiots.
But that's philosophy, the fact is that USA hasn't excised all its racist roots. Your own president sought to fuel civic unrest by tweeting "FREE MINNESOTA!" during the lockdowns, yet it warned that rioters could be shot in more recent tweets. You can say that his hypocrisy comes from following his agenda, yet the troubling issue is that it resonates well among the intended recipients, which are too many TBH.
Evidence, please. I lived in a major US city, have a friend there who's a senior-level libertarian cleaning state trooper, and he told me the protests he knew about personally were peaceful. Nor did I see violent rioters myself.
How about spreading Covid during a lockdown? Is that peaceful as well?
Take a moment and watch this video, out of Novato... https://streamable.com/58kma9
These are senior citizens, in a 85% liberal area, who are trying to support local business during a pandemic, and they potentially just contracted Covid which could easily kill them, for what?
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