There is an extremely blurry line between peaceful and violent protests. Unfortunately all of the chaos of recent days that the WaPo and others (Obama, etc.) seem all too eager to sweep under the rug has ruined things for everyone.
This article is also based on scant socio-political vector data so it needs more parallels to reach that causation level. For now, it’s a bare correlation and merely coincidence.
These protests are documented with more video and more sources than any ever in history.
Please point to an example where violent protestor outnumber those being peaceful and exercising their rights?
If you are so eager to call out individual protestors, are you as eager to call out police misconduct or paint with a broad brush for that viewpoint?
Are you condemning ideas and groups or are you concerned with conduct?
It's naive to expect perfect policing in such situations.
Your standards don’t seem consistent or reasonable.
As someone said, maybe the right perspective is "it's too bad all this property is needlessly destroyed, but how can we let so many innocent people die, protestors get assaulted for no reason, journalists losing their eyes and being beaten and detained on american soil for doing their job?" Priorities my friend, says a lot about you. I am sure a country that can afford multi trillion dollar wars and bailouts can handle a few insured propertied burning down. Heck, some people might even profit with the right insurance.
If you hold the Federal Government responsible, then you want to put this power in the hands of Federal Legislature. Are you ready to forsake the federal structure of US Government?
That's usually a good sign. Is there any song in the US currently equivalent to "We Shall Overcome" or "Winds of Change" or "Перемен"?
I can envision a lot of scenarios that are worse than now.
As for the decentralization argument - I really don't want to be on this side of the states' rights debate, but that ship sailed a long time ago with regards to civil rights. It's not terribly unreasonable that individual rights are protected by state governments ior the federal government when an individual state is unwilling. Although we are currently witnessing a direct failure mode of this centralization, with the federal government having gone AWOL with regards to enforcing the law and even inciting lawlessness.
Looking back at history, it's not surprising. Every big empire goes down the same way, by destabilizing and tearing itself up.
The Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire, the Byzantines, the Ottamans, everyone went down the same route. Now of-course with the nukes in question the USA might not just break itself up into pieces, but it definitely might exist only as a shadow of itself.
The protests are grounded in legitimate grievances, and engaging in public protest is a core right of the citizenry.
The violence effectively delegitimizes these protests in the eyes of millions of fellow citizens. I'm guessing that you may be one of them.
There are serious systemic issues with policing in America and if one only focuses on the bad actors on the "opposing side" then there is no dialog, only opposing monologues.
I'm among those that believe that the coup is already complete and it's now a matter of them holding on to it.
what cant people stick to facts and speak without exaggerating i wonder.
Do we live in separate universes? It is the media on the Left that is inciting violence by justifying and even glorifying violent riots. The federal government has done the opposite of invite lawlessness both now and in the past.
As we are now beginning to realize, the entire narrative of "rampant police brutality and killing of minorities" is simply a lie. Not backed up by the data.
Black communities need the police now more than ever. In Chicago over memorial day weekend over 50 people were shot. 11 killed. A 5 year old girl was shot! Where are the protests? Where is the rioting and the sanctimonious yapping from celebrities and companies?
There is none, because it's not politically advantageous for certain factions to address the real problems in the black community. Shameful and sickening.
also the man in the linked video wasn't very smart, he took a bat to a fight(with an angry mob) severely outnumbered... thats poor tactical decision making. Sometimes the best answer is to sit back and watch it all go down, and make the insurance claim.
If it helps protect innocent people's rights, I am willing to forsake the federal structure of the us government. I would actually be in favor of rewriting the condtitution. I think you forget the american war of independence and civil war were fought over much less.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions
I love this part specifically: "Reasons cited for sanctions includes Venezuela's poor human rights record", pretty much for all of them.
And then let's look at US's involvements in Latin America:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Funnily enough, the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953, only to sanction them when they are not willing to be US's pawns anymore.
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthr...
Are safety and the right to peacefully assemble so at odds?
The national guard protecting the lives and rights of its citizens is a far cry from being dominated as a part of a battle space.
If we consider that there may be substance to other viewpoints as opposed to only opposition to our own we could work at addressing some of the root or common goals instead of focusing on division.
Why don’t states and or citizens feel comfortable utilizing the national guard?
Is it reasonable to fear an escalation which may place the American people and their constitutional rights in jeopardy?
Are there approaches that would deescalate the situation that should be favored over those which risk even greater division (in particular between the citizens and the military )?
Regardless, I doubt you will ever get it. I think the rioters are holding back too much if you ask me. If I was in fear of my life from cops and I have exhaused the political process for decades like this people, I would be more strategic about the destruction, target gas stations, 18 wheelers, transformers,etc... Cripple the city's critical infrastructure. When they try to demonstrate peacefully ypu complain, when they democractically elect someone you fight undemocractically and in bad faith to prevent their success. People armed with automatic weapons stormed city halls just a few weeks ago with no consequence. Did you not see cops doing a drive by shooting? Cops marching and breakint car windows for no reason? Cops tear gasing a peacefup protest? Getting caught framing protesters so they can beat them up?
My friend, the rioting is for people like you so you can hear their screaming, I think they need to scream louder since you're still dismissing their plight as if they haven't been peacefully protesting and voting since the 1950's and the current president vowed to unleash vicious dogs on them, something JFK fought against in the late 50's and early 60's. So I think they need to scream louder this way so you can hear them.
Failing to properly report the scale of violence and looting whilst simultaneously questioning the legitimacy of the response to it though exposes the media narrative for what it is, not objective.
Looters should be assaulted instead of arrested? Where is the due process?
People have been assaulted on their own porches, is any of this resolving the situation or escalating it at the cost of the rights and well being of the citizenry?
No cities in America are ‘going up in flames’ or ‘on fire’.
A few fires started as a result of the protests.
Making it sound like some post-apocalyptic or wartime scene is just disinformation.
On the other hand we are wistnessing the largest set of mostly peaceful political demonstrations since the 60’s.