Bad Boys II

[hollodero]

(05-31-2020, 02:21 PM)Dill Wrote: YOW! now comparing these to Trump non-defenses.  We'll I just want to limit my response to 2 and 3 for the moment.

To follow up Bels point about the "language of the unheard"--violence is a "very human and understandable response" to perceived injustice, most especially when other avenues have been exhausted.  And the way to fix this problem, as in King's day, is to address the injustice first and foremost. 

I don't like to focus on how understandable it is though. Violence is still not the way to choose. And my analogy to Trump defenses is to be understood in this sense: There are people who say just that - and they get attacked for saying just that. Just like bfine attacks Dino or his motives to deflect from the point. And just like that, sure somewhere there is some "violence is wrong" hidden, but the bigger issue is Pence's hypocrisy and whatnot, and for me it really isn't.
I did say it is clearly not fully the same thing, it just applies a similar kind of argueing and I similarly am opposed to that.

(05-31-2020, 02:21 PM)Dill Wrote: A "Clearly not" dismissal of the Boston Tea Party analogy sends quite the wrong message to all civil rights activists, including the non-violent ones.  Colonists "looted and destroyed" the private property of people not themselves in government and responsible for the tea tax, and gained rather than lost "moral credibility" in the eyes of half their countrymen. And they did so because other "legal" forms of protest had failed. The Revolution which began two years later was also a violent response, and I've not met any right-wing American who doesn't "excuse" this violence as justified.

Sure thing. And now you used the word "justified" yourself, the Boston tey party was justified, the revolution was justified and... hence... so is the violence happening right now? Your train of thought seems to head just there.
I see those as very different instances.

(05-31-2020, 02:21 PM)Dill Wrote: In your "clear" dismissal of the analogy, some would certainly hear that you don't think legal forms of protest have failed. Those who have not been following your posts and know that you are Trump's most devastating critic might think they hear the voice of MAGA America and Charlie Kirk in that dismissal.

Yeah if you hear that voice, that's not on me. I just have a different take maybe, that does not mean I have the MAGA take or that there are always only two takes on everything. Nothing I said expressed any sympathy for Trump or MAGAism.

- Whether legal forms of protest have failed, I do not know that. I know these non-peaceful ways will fail though.

(05-31-2020, 02:21 PM)Dill Wrote: Rather than viewing the memes in question as "excuses" for violence, imagine for a moment that millions of people are tremendously frustrated first by the police violence and second by the cavalier dismissal of their complaints and protests. Then try viewing the memes rather as attacking the tone-deafness of MAGA America regarding this police violence in black communities. Their focus is not on "motives" so much as blindness to the double standard flying under the banner of MAGA post-raciality. That is what the memes creators are trying to foreground with their references to tax looting and the tea party and Kaepernick. 

I'm sympathetic to all that. It does not go that far as to be sympathetic to violent outbursts. No matter how much frustration is going on in anyone's life, and no matter how tone-deaf many folks reacted to former expressions of said frustration, it does not give that person any moral right to burn his neighbour's house.