https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu3s6j/poli...
The list is growing by the hour.
Cops in America need to learn very quickly that their power comes only from the consent of the people they police, or they will be made to understand that fact.
The more recent history suggests that the people who wish to deter or educate the cops are significantly outgunned, and the brutality will continue until such time that those trying to change the status quo will give up, as they stand no chance of victory in the physical battle this has become.
See also: Hong Kong
I frequently wonder if these police would be so eager for a fight with sticks if some fraction of the protesters were carrying the same rifles as their opponents. In theory, that is legal there, and I hope more people take the peaceful, rights-based approach that the Black Panthers did.
Then these young people (in the U.S.) should stop fighting for gun control when it only works against them in times such as these. Can you imagine how these protesters would be treated if most of them were carrying a rifle?
Could the police roll out tanks in response? Sure, but I do not believe the U.S. politicians would be willing to start all out war between police and civilians.
I don't condone the looting and destruction of property. Having said that the curfews in place are a form of suppression/muzzling the peaceful protesters.
The police have for too long had unchecked power in the U.S. I've always been taught to be respectful and have been treated in kind in my interactions with police (but I am white.) If a cop is having a bad day or he's just a bully, that should not keep bystanders from helping a victim of police brutality with the threat of "assaulting a police officer."
Have you read about what happened during the Civil Rights Movement? How many MAGAs would even blink if police started killing Black people?
More recently MOVE was bombed and no politicians thought twice.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/10/move-1985-bo...
Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Fox News hosts, and even Rush Limbaugh have all spoken out against the murder of George Floyd.
> “I hope these cops are dealt with good and hard,” Limbaugh said. “I’ve seen the video like everybody else, and it makes me so mad I can’t see straight.”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/limbaugh-george-floyd-death-m...
> "it was clearly police brutality and it was not conduct we expect of any officer," Cruz said.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/ted-cruz-on-floyds-death-riots...
You noticed he never called White guys storming into state capital with guns “thugs”. Even after they basically forced the government to shut down out of fear.
Whereas these "thugs" today doing all of the above aren't protestors, in fact I've heard many protestors speak out against them too, and they seem to include quite a lot of young white leftists just looking to cause trouble.
The remark you're referring to was specifically about looters, so I think it's a bit dishonest to compare that to a group of peaceful protestors.
If the government wasn’t afraid of the white protestors, why did they postponed re-opening? They specifically said that they didn’t reopen out of fear.
You noticed he never called the policemen “thugs” has he ever called a white criminal a thug or a “son of a bitch” like he called a football player peacefully protesting?
I don't remember all the details, but weren't the protestors calling for reopening? If the government postponed, they did so despite the protestors, not because of them.
> has he ever called a white criminal a thug
Many of the looters right now are white, so they'd be included in the group of criminals he recently called thugs.
> or a “son of a bitch” like he called a football player peacefully protesting?
Kaepernick got the same treatment as Trump's white Republican competitors in the 2016 primary. Trump is an asshole and he's never nice to people he disagrees with, regardless of race.
Here are some other remarks Trump made along with "very fine people":
> we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.
> The driver of the car is a murderer. And what he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing.
> I think the driver of the car is a disgrace to himself, his family, and this country.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trump...
Excuse me, the armed Michigan protestors who stormed the state capital were “very good people”.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/politics/donald-trump-michiga...
I don't know if they were "very good people", but I haven't heard any reason to think otherwise.
And your own source makes it clear that the government wasn't intimidated by these peaceful protests:
> lawmakers were meeting to debate an end to the emergency order... Despite the pressure, Whitmer extended the order, which was due to expire at the end of Thursday.
Do you think 20 or 30 armed Black men could have gotten away with this?
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/05/05/PDTF/5969fca5-...
I'll just say that if 20 armed black men couldn't get away with protesting in Michigan, that says something very bad about the Democrats who run the state.
