There have been a couple heavily armed rednecks defending both protesters and property, but certainly not enough.

That's a great way to get a whole bunch of people killed. Not sure why the Koch brothers would care though.

Would the police have acted the way they did with Floyd if the members of that community were walking around armed with guns? I’m not sure they would have.

Police shootings disproportionately affect people of a certain skin tone.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

I’m not sure about non-shootings such as choking, but it’s clear they do happen.

Now I don’t know which of those killings were or were not justified, but I think a citizen force or militia like the Black Panther Party might be a good idea to keep a watchful eye on the interactions between the state and their community.

The largest minority and most vulnerable people in the US aren't black, theyre Latino. What we do to protect black people protects them as well.

This crowd (on this forum) will move on to the next echo chamber pretty quickly. People who actually care will be out making sure people know how to vote and know what the candidates stand for.

I’m going to refrain from grouping people according to some abstract demarcation such as race, but tyranny is tyranny and injustice is injustice. The greatest minority is the individual, and if we stand for one we stand for them all.

It's absurd that the socialists in this thread thinks there's a chance in hell of that.

The irony is they can only rail against the system while living in free and open societies, upon gadgets that no other system has given them.

Nor do we want a communist system replacing the current one. That's a fantasy.

Hell no.

I think protesters should assert their rights, and not deny them of fellows. Americans have the unique right to march down the street fully armed as a display of power and force, and they can keep the state in check without destroying their own property and livelihoods.

And doing whatever you want since the social contract is voided.

I’ve never believed in the social contract theory. I don’t think the State came about as larger groups of people naturally agreed to subordinate their private interests for the common good. I believe states were born of conquest and coercion of one group over another. In that sense, I can sympathize with the anger, but violence will will lead to the same outcome: conquest and coercion of one group over another.

NOS, by burning down a TGI Fridays you're fighting capitalism which in turn helps dismantle systemic racism. It's a nuanced argument - you need a college degree to understand.

It’s simple perversion. You can justify violence, destruction of property, and making a mockery of a valid protest by invoking some abstract idea from the recesses of your skull.

By "the law" do you mean the institution of law enforcement or the written law? Regardless, I don't see how local businesses - even powerful ones like Wal-Mart - have anything to do with what Chauvin did to Floyd.

That’s the irony of it. If we are to blame institutions, it was the State that murdered Floyd, not the private citizen. Yet here we have people destroying the property and livelihoods of fellow Americans.

Extreme poverty has been declining exponentially over the last two centuries.

The available long-run evidence shows that in the past, only a small elite enjoyed living conditions that would not be described as ‘extreme poverty’ today. But with the onset of industrialization and rising productivity, the share of people living in extreme poverty started to decrease. Accordingly, the share of people in extreme poverty has decreased continuously over the course of the last two centuries. This is surely one of the most remarkable achievements of humankind

https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

It’s a common bias, not limited to socialists per say.

In a nutshell: When the RICH steal everything, all that's left for THE REST OF US to eat is the RICH.

Wealth isn’t a zero-sum game. There is no fixed amount of wealth in the world. Wealth is created and constantly expands.

How do stigmatized minorities advance agendas when confronted with hostile ma- jorities? Elite theories of influence posit marginal groups exert little power. I propose the concept of agenda seeding to describe how activists use methods like disruption to capture the attention of media and overcome political asymmetries. Further, I hypothesize protest tactics influence how news organizations frame demands. Evaluating black-led protests between 1960 and 1972, I find nonviolent activism, particularly when met with state or vigilante repression, drove media coverage, framing, Congressional speech and public opinion on civil rights. Counties proximate to nonviolent protests saw presidential Democratic vote share among whites increase 1.3-1.6%. Protester-initiated violence, by contrast, helped move news agendas, frames, elite discourse and public concern toward
“social control.” In 1968, using rainfall as an instrument, I find violent protests likely caused a 1.6-7.9% shift among whites towards Republicans and tipped the election. Elites may dominate political communication but hold no monopoly.

I read it back in 2015. Plenty of articles were written on it at the time. It’s probably been updated since then.

Here’s a great paper on the subject.

http://omarwasow.com/APSR_protests3_1.pdf

The riots are self-defeating, which is a shame. Whatever was gained by peaceful protests is lost and unravelled with riots. There is likely to be a rightward shift in voting if more innocent people and property are damaged, or worse, a violent reactionary backlash.

It certainly isn’t about the injustice of George Floyd’s murder anymore. They gunned down an officer in Oakland, not because he had anything to do with the assassination of George Floyd, but because he was wearing a uniform.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-30/federal-officer-killed-by-gunfire-outside-u-s-courthouse-in-oakland

I’m not aware of any evidence of Antifa agitators, but Barr’s recent statements and Trump’s tweets suggest they have enough intelligence to make this move.

"Sec. 5. This order is effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 29, 2016."

You are right. I was wrong.

Kislyak mentions them and says that Russia has to do something about it. That's when Flynn says that if they do something then it should be reciprocal.

Yes, Kislyak mentions them. Flynn does not. Flynn certainly does not “ask the Government of Russia's Ambassador to the United States to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day“. Rather, he consistently spoke about the State Department’s decision to expel Russian diplomats, not Obama’s response. Not once did he mention sanctions, and not once did he ask Russia to not escalate in response to sanctions. This is why you can’t quote Flynn saying such a thing, that you need to leave certain parts of his quotes out, that you can only keep asserting he did while pretending I don’t understand meaning and language or that I’m acting in bad faith.

On top of that, Flynn didn’t do a single thing wrong in that phone call, and threw water on a potentially dangerous situation. He was railroaded for it.

On or about December 29, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Government of Russia's Ambassador to the United States ("Russian Ambassador") to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day; and FLYNN did not recall the Russian Ambassador subsequently telling him that Russia had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request; and

https://www.justice.gov/file/1015026/download

The charging document made clear this is what he lied about. Yet in the transcript he does not ask the Russian government to “refrain from escalating the situation”, as he clearly states “we're not going to escalate this thing“, and "I don't want us to get into something that have to escalate to tit-for-tat" [my emphasis]. "Us" and "we" I assume mean both countries or even America itself, but not Russia. What does your understanding about the distinction between words and meaning and the natural flow of conversation say about this?

There is no evidence Flynn even knew about Obama's sanctions, because he doesn't mention them. The expulsions of diplomats were declared and enforced by the State Department, not by Obama's EO.

Further, Obama's EO and sanctions were signed the day before the phone call, December 28th, not the morning of December 29th. This is another lie in Mueller's charge.

Michael Flynn accepted a plea deal to to protect his son. "My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country".

I did read it, but I also read what you suspiciously left out of it.

And please make sure that its uh - the idea is, be - if you~ if you have to do something, do something on a reciprocal basis, meaning you know, on a sort of an even basis. Then that, then that is a good message and we'll understand that message. And, and then, we know that we're not going to escalate this thing, where we~ where because if we put out- if we send out 30 guys and you send out 60, you know, or you shut down every Embassy, r mean we have to get this to a - lefs, let's keep this at a level that uh is, is even-keeled, okay? ls even-keeled. And then what we can do is, when we come in, we can then have a better conversation about where, where we're gonna go, uh~ regarding uh, regarding our relationship. And also, basically we have to take these, these enemies on that we have. And we definitely have a common enemy. You have a problem with it, we have a problem with it in this country, and we definitely have a problem with it in the Middle East.

Clearly he's still talking about the expelling of diplomats.

On or about December 22, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution; and that the Russian Ambassador subsequently never described to FLYNN Russia's response to his request.

Kislyak: So, we will try to help, uh, uh, to give additional time for the conversation on ... on this issue, but if it is put on vote, uh, for historical reasons, as I explained to you,
Flynn: Uh huh ...
Kislyak: ... We cannot vote, uh, other than to support it.
Flynn: Okay.
Kislyak: That is something, uh, that is, uh, part of the position that we have developed, with the, um, countries in the region for a long period of time. But, uh, responding to your, uh, telephone call and our conversations, we will try to help, uh, to~ uh~ postpone the vote and to allow for consultations.
Flynn: Okay. That's .. that's good.

No where in that quote did Flynn ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution. Unfortunately, the December 22nd phone call remains classified.

Do you not care about local businesses? What about when the businesses (local or chain) relocate, leaving their area more destitute?

Clearly they don’t. Why fret about flesh and blood human beings when you can making sweeping generalizations? That’s why human beings are often the brick and mortar of socialist schemes. Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

In contradiction to the charging documents, it is true that “On or about December 29, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Government of Russia’s Ambassador to the United States ("Russian Ambassador") to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day”.

In fact, Flynn requested that Russia respond in “a reciprocal manner” to the expelling of “some number of Russians out of the country”.

He did ask Kislyak to refrain from escalating. You can read it right there in the transcripts. It is false to claim that he didn't ask Kislyak to refrain from escalating because he didn't use the sentence "refrain from escalating". As this is a philosophy forum, perhaps engaging in some philosophy (of language) -- or even just linguistics in general -- will teach you the distinction between words and meaning.

Even if I do agree with you (I don’t; we’re talking about putting people in jail for making false statements, so precision is important), did he in fact say so in regards to “US Sanctions”? Or did he say so in regard to the expelling of Russian diplomats?

He either asked Kislyak to refrain from escalating or he didn’t. He in fact did not. It takes some mental gymnastics to say he did.

Here’s the charging documents: https://www.justice.gov/file/1015026/download

There are some contradictions in the Mueller charging documents. As the transcripts show, Flynn in fact did not ask the Russian ambassador to “refrain from escalating”, but asked him to “make it reciprocal”. “Because I don’t want us to get into something that has to escalate, on a, you know, on a tit for tat”. He said this in regards to the dismissal of Russians from the country, not the sanctions.

As for the rest of it it’s what one would call diplomacy.

Lol. Sometimes you can come up with some gems. :ok:

I think it’s boring. I can’t even be bothered to read them, let alone respond.

Left or right are old, outdated ideas really, we all know you need a combination of the two...trouble is the left are the establishment now and wish to destroy the ideas of the right that are fruitful.

I used to vote Labour once upon a time and I vote Conservative now...but last time I wish I could have voted for the Brexit party... a party of both the left and right.

Yeah I've abandoned that spectrum myself. I just don't find affinity with abstract groups and communities in general, probably the logical result of my nominalism.

I still consider myself a man of the left, just not their version of it.

Truth shines in a free and open encounter with falsehood.

I like debate, no matter how contentious. It’s good for you.

I will abide, even when the rules are selectively applied.

I apologize for what I said, Benkei. I know you meant no ill will. That stuff just bothers me.

I don’t view the world through the lens of race, and I despise people who pigeon-hole others into such groups and then pretend they can derive from it some sort of knowledge about the world. I’m sorry, but this has been the modus operandi of racists since the beginning of time and I refuse to participate.

If you and your family are in a theater right now and someone does the same. People rush out in a panic trampling eachother many getting hurt, one of which being you, some getting killed, one of which being a family member. You don't think the individual who caused all that should be punished in any way? At least banned from the theater? lol

I'm not sure that would happen. Perhaps a real example would suffice.

That doesn't make a shitting difference. It says follow the steps below and the first step is what I quoted. Stay. The. Fuck. Home.

But yeah, the fact you read something racist in what I said while simultaneously defending the disenfranchisement of minorities says it all about who the real racist is here.

It applies to sick people only, not "non-whites" or any other group of people. Perhaps you might refrain from holding low expectations of entire groups of people because they don't have the same shade of skin as you.

You left his part out, shill.

If you are sick with COVID-19 or think you might have COVID-19, follow the steps below to care for yourself and to help protect other people in your home and community