Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:41 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:10 pm
Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 12:33 pm
Here's a story about my home town's "Hands Off" protest on Saturday. I was there, but refrained from breaking windows or looting. Similar protests took place all over the country.
But you said that protest
warranted or
justified such bad behaviour as violence, burning, looting, assaults etc. Were they merely failing to "protest," then?
I note that this "protest" comprised (according to the boasts of organizers) about 250,000 people. I believe that means that for every person who protested, there were over 1,300 Americans who didn't do anything of the kind. It's quite possible, therefore, that the entire protest was merely composed of those grifters and thieves who have been bilking the American taxpayer and realize that DOGE is going to take away from them their unearned income. If so, they weren't even "protesting" a principle at all, but rather the loss of the continued opportunity for their thievery.
Nice "protest."
I don't remember saying that. If I did, I would say some protests become revolutions; some revolutions are justified; revolutions are always violent; therefore, some violent protests are justified. In fact, my own country was born out of violent revolution.
And I asked you what circumstances would ever excuse the behaviour your "protesters" in your country have been performing, such as beating, burning, looting...and not doing a single good thing for the communities they destroy. I said:
"Vociferously" has never been a problem. But "violently, " that absolutely is. So is "criminally," as when looting, burning, beating and pillaging are reframed as forms of "protest."
So yeah, I guess we'll see what this lot is: we've already seen what the last lots have been like recently.
To which you replied:
Of course there are some forms of political repression that justify violent revolution. When laws are unjust, criminal behavior is often morally sound.
I can't imagine anything in present circumstances you could possibly be referring to. One thing for sure: nothing in the present democratic landscape, including your new administration and anything it has done, justifies the least such alleged expression of "protest." The majority of voting American s and the majority of states put the present admin in place through a process more open and democratic than anything that went on during COVID; and you seem to like that election. In any case, "protest" of the violent sort does not do anything good: not only are all such things ineffective with politicians, short of an outright bloody coup, in every form, they only hurt the people and communities for which, and in which, they claim to be "advocating."
As you know, it's taxpayers who are being saved by DOGE. It's the thieves, grifters and lazy bums who have been stealing from them that are being caught. So if you care about the ordinary, honest, blue-collar (or white-collar) American taxpayer, why would you be opposed to them exposing the truth: that former admins have been funding social security for people who are alleged to be 150 years old, free hotels and credit cards for millions of illegal immigrants, and such wondrous things as: 1. trans-sexual surgery in Guatemala, 2. gay theatre in Ireland, and 3. condoms for the Taliban? (Those are actual examples, of course)? How can you defend such gouging of honest Americans? Is there no shame?
Chat GPT says that 1/2 million people protested on Saturday,
Chat GPT is often a crock, as any reasonably sensible person knows. I'm going by what your own organizers say. If you want to call them "liars," I won't resist your interpretation of the facts, of course.
This is Manny you are talking to. He’s intellectually incapable of arguing in good faith. You’re asking him to turn his back on a years-long (if not a lifetime) career of disingenuousness and bullsh*t.