Starker on 28/3/2019 at 15:52
Also, pepper spray hurts people. Acid leaves permanent injuries. An egg, as someone here pointed out, is an inconvenience. And it happens across the political spectrum. David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nigel Farage, and Jeremy Corbyn have all been egged. Some of them multiple times. Maybe it happens less in the US, where the egg-thrower would perhaps be shot and killed as a result, but in the rest of the world it's a very old form of political protest and somewhat common, even.
As for the "deliberate fire", I was focusing more on the "setting a fire" part, not the deliberate part. Burning a piece of paper on a door does typically not set the door on fire, and, from the looks of it, it was soon put out by these horrible arsonists, as only a part of the paper was burned.
Found a picture that shows the extent of the damage on the door:
Inline Image:
https://a57.foxnews.com/a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2019/03/640/320/1862/1048/Fire-Split-1.jpg?ve=1&tl=1?ve=1&tl=1Draxil on 28/3/2019 at 16:17
Quote Posted by Trance
Connolly
could have put a rock in his pocket instead. Or pepper spray. Or acid. Maybe even could have brought a gun if he was really intent on that. If he had, the story would've elicited a very different reaction.
Point was, none of those things happened. He brought an egg. Something that stood very little, if any, chance of doing physical harm to the target, and whose only real purpose as a projectile is to humiliate the target and leave them dripping with albumen. So it's pretty silly to treat this act as equivalent to even a fistfight at a protest; they are just not even on the same level of seriousness.
I'd be happy to leave all violence out of the political sphere, and I agree that no acts of malice are justified, despite Anning's claims. But the left just isn't the group more in need of being told that. They're not the ones mailing pipebombs to political opponents, committing vehicular homicide, or slaughtering dozens of people with guns. There's an order of magnitude difference between the two groups in intensity, and if you're going to preach nonviolence, move your pulpit to the other side of the aisle.
I'm not going to concede that. Some (
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/31759-christchurch-shooter-praises-communist-china-condemns-conservatism-and-capitalism-media-call-him-a-trump-supporter) exceprts from his manifesto. The mosque shooter's ideal country was China. He praised Trump for his nationalism, but not his politics. He considered himself a climate change warrior. He had many progressive views, so trying to dump him on the right is intellectually dishonest. He's a sick individual and a radical.
You'll find plenty of incidents of leftist violence if you're willing to look. Shooting up Republican congressional baseball practice, shooting at the Family Research Council head quarters. Destructive mobs in Berkley and Portland, violent anti-free speech protests at colleges across the US. Angry mobs kicking in Fox News hosts door while his wife was home. That's off the top of my head without even consulting google. Venezuela. If you want to tally up deaths by ideology of government responsible, I'm pretty sure the socialist and communist end of the spectrum i.e., the progressive left, in its various flavors, takes the trophy for the past 100 years. The USSR, Nazi Germany, China, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Cambodia...
Starker:
Sure, an egg is inconvenient. So is paint. So is cow's feces or pig urine. Why not stink-spray, then? If permanent harm is the threshold to be met before an attack can be condemned, then there's lots of options on the table.
As far as the door is concerned, I read that the inhabitant extinguished it. Would it have done more damage? I don't know. Neither do you. It was stupid and reckless, potentially very dangerous, and deserves condemnation. Period. Regardless of motivation or victim ideology. Why is that hard?
N'Al on 28/3/2019 at 16:31
Nazi Germany was not a progressive left ideology. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Starker on 28/3/2019 at 16:46
Quote Posted by Draxil
I'm not going to concede that. Some exceprts from his manifesto. The mosque shooter's ideal country was China. He praised Trump for his nationalism, but not his politics. He considered himself a climate change warrior. He had many progressive views, so trying to dump him on the right is intellectually dishonest. He's a sick individual and a radical.
You'll find plenty of incidents of leftist violence if you're willing to look. Shooting up Republican congressional baseball practice, shooting at the Family Research Council head quarters. Destructive mobs in Berkley and Portland, violent anti-free speech protests at colleges across the US. Angry mobs kicking in Fox News hosts door while his wife was home. That's off the top of my head without even consulting google. Venezuela. If you want to tally up deaths by ideology of government responsible, I'm pretty sure the socialist and communist end of the spectrum i.e., the progressive left, in its various flavors, takes the trophy for the past 100 years. The USSR, Nazi Germany, China, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Cambodia...
Sure, an egg is inconvenient. So is paint. So is cow's feces or pig urine. Why not stink-spray, then? If permanent harm is the threshold to be met before an attack can be condemned, then there's lots of options on the table.
As far as the door is concerned, I read that the inhabitant extinguished it. Would it have done more damage? I don't know. Neither do you. It was stupid and reckless, potentially very dangerous, and deserves condemnation. Period. Regardless of motivation or victim ideology. Why is that hard?
I think it's probably best if I stated outright that I do not condone the act, even if it was against a libertarian (that's a joke, btw). But the article portrayed it as something that it was not, so that's why I "downplayed" it, because it's really easy to downplay what was in the article: "he came back and found his room on fire" to what really happened: "there was some minor damage to the door, so it must be repainted".
There's a problem with these kinds of articles, where certain media routinely exaggerates things beyond recognition or even outright fabricates stories. Take the "free speech issue", for example. A few anecdotes get blown out of all proportion and a narrative is spun of the authoritarian left that wants to suppress free speech, whereas the (
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/are-liberal-college-students-creating-free-speech-crisis-not-according-ncna858906) facts and data show otherwise. Thus when a conservative professor confronts students protesting police violence and the students say some things in response, it gets spun as leftists suppressing free speech and is breathlessly regurgitated on even the supposedly liberal media. And when the professor then quits his job and sues the university for not providing him a safe space, he gets treated as a victim who was pushed out of his job by leftists.
Angry mobs kicking in Fox News host's door while his wife was home -- that's another one that was entirely spun out of proportion (that is, outright lied about). Nobody did that. I looked at the video and even the protest was really tame.
Renzatic on 28/3/2019 at 17:10
Quote Posted by N'Al
Nazi Germany was not a progressive left ideology. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I don't even know what the fuck he's on about there. Save for Venezuela, which is really more of a clusterfuck, all those countries were authoritarian leftist, not progressive.
Nazi Germany? They were center right. Inclusive, so long as you were as white as the driven snow. Cambodia? Yep, the Khmer Rouge were a bunch of commies, so they were far left, but, you know, they blamed all the ills of their country on educated people and experts, so they're more like the American right in spirit, if not policy.
Anyway, yeah. People who constantly insist that the American left are anything like communists, or even Marxist socialists have no grasp of the political spectrum.
Gryzemuis on 28/3/2019 at 17:11
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Right?
Wrong.
In all societies, laws are maintained with violence. Mostly it's just the threat of violence. But when you do stuff that is not allowed, you get fined, or go to jail. If you don't pay your fines, somebody will come and take your possessions. With violence if necessary. If you don't show up for your prison sentence, someone will violently grab your ass, and throw you in jail. Not fun. But this happens. I don't see another way to maintain laws. I don't call for extra violence. I don't call for violence against right-wingers. I just suggested that the US makes a law, and maintains that law the normal way, like they maintain other laws. Or do you think it is OK to shoot at black people with marijuana, but not OK to shoot at white people with machine-guns ?
The reasoning that gun laws are not maintainable, seems idiotic to me. What gives gun-owners the right to not obey the laws ? Just make a law that does what you want. And when people don't obey, punish them. Like all laws. If they resist with violence, the answer is violence. Pretty simple.
The tone of my post was very dry. And short.
I'm sure you have great problems interpreting people's words. Both in real life as on the Internet.
I am sorry I wasn't more clear my words were meant to be sarcastic.
I normally don't take part in gun-related discussions. Because the point-f-view of gun-owners (and the NRA and Republicans) is ridiculous. The whole world knows that. It's just the yanks that act as if the situation in their country is normal. As if it is a situation they willingly created. As if more guns is the answer. They are all nuts.
But yeah, I've completely had it with right-wing people. Especially US republican politicians. They are dumb, egocentric, egoistical, hypocritical, greedy, vile, nasty, tribal people. Thank God (their god), that there is 6000 kms of water in between us. If only Americans would decide to stay in their own country (it's the 2nd greatest country in the world, after all !). No wars, no tourists, no Americans anywhere outside of North America. That would be great.
Quote:
I said I'm planning a strategic relocation?
I think you are not very smart.
Where would you wanna go ?
I see 2 options for you:
1) Somewhere, another country, where they welcome you. But that means the people there don't mind immigration. And welcome foreigners and outsiders. That means they are probably leftwingers. Oh no. You don't wanna live amongst libruls, do you ?
2) Somewhere, another country, where the people are just like you. Rightwingers. Conservatives. But that means they won't like outsiders and foreigners. You won't be welcome there.
You got nowhere to go.
Please stay with your Republican friends in the US. (The US is still a Republican country. Rightwing in its core. It is the most capitalist, non-socialist, non-communists, most crypto-fasicst nation in the world). You belong in the US. You fit in the US. You are meant to be in the US. Please stay there.
Renzatic on 28/3/2019 at 17:19
Tony should move to the Netherlands.
Trance on 28/3/2019 at 17:41
Quote Posted by Draxil
[The NZ shooter] had many progressive views, so trying to dump him on the right is intellectually dishonest.
He was a believer in the concept of the Great Replacement and white genocide, that they were real things he was fighting to prevent, which was the central pillar of his motive to carry out the attack. He was
specifically trying to drive a wedge through western society, pitting those of "European blood" against everyone else, hoping to start a shooting war between the two sides which he was no doubt confident white people would win. You just can't pretend he doesn't fit in with the right WAY more than the left. THAT is intellectually dishonest.
Quote Posted by Draxil
You'll find plenty of incidents of leftist violence if you're willing to look. Shooting up Republican congressional baseball practice, shooting at the Family Research Council head quarters. Destructive mobs in Berkley and Portland, violent anti-free speech protests at colleges across the US. Angry mobs kicking in Fox News hosts door while his wife was home. That's off the top of my head without even consulting google. Venezuela. If you want to tally up deaths by ideology of government responsible, I'm pretty sure the socialist and communist end of the spectrum i.e., the progressive left, in its various flavors, takes the trophy for the past 100 years. The USSR, Nazi Germany, China, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Cambodia...
What we've been discussing is partisan violence happening
now, in the democratic west. It should be obvious to you that historical violence carried out in and by oppressive regimes and third-world countries isn't relevant. (If it were, you wouldn't like where the Nazi Germany line of discussion will take you.)
I would give your words more weight if it weren't for the fact that the only denunciations of violence that I see right-wingers like yourself make refer to what leftist activists perpetrate, and basically ignores the much taller and steeper mountain of harm committed by those on the right. Charlottesville. Pittsburgh. Parkland. Tallahassee. Now Christchurch. All within the span of Trump's presidency, all consequences of the resurgence of the far right in the west, which Trump had a big hand (well, as big as his hands get anyway) in making happen. The body count is so much higher, the blood stains so much bigger on the right side.
I condone no violence by anybody, but it's downright silly to pretend both sides are equally to blame for violence. There's just no comparison between violent left-wingers and violent right-wingers in western society.
Starker on 28/3/2019 at 18:09
Yeah, for some reason, I don't see people as outraged about the egging of Corbyn that happened just recently because of his Brexit stance (whatever that might be). And the protester shouted "respect the vote", so that leaves no doubt it was a political act either.
Here's a video of the eggstremist attack in question:
[video=youtube;YH9AtTuQ6Ws]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH9AtTuQ6Ws[/video]
N'Al on 28/3/2019 at 19:33
Quote Posted by Trance
right-wingers like yourself
I may not have been paying all that much attention, but nothing Draxil has said here recently is right-wing?
