The events in Portland & the plan to take it nationwide

[Kowani]

Considering that 65% of Americans support the protests, I say we’re winning.

I mean... I support the protests too.

You just disagree with every instance where they step outside your extremely narrow moral path.

[Fahran]

You just disagree with every instance where they step outside your extremely narrow moral path.

By which you mean I dislike rioting and unnecessary, usually arbitrary harm to people who are minding their own business.

[Kowani]

You just disagree with every instance where they step outside your extremely narrow moral path.

By which you mean I dislike rioting and unnecessary,

Most people do. Hell, even those of us who don’t think the rioting is a sin on par with mass murder think that it’s bad, just an inevitable reaction to the circumstances. Getting mad about it is like getting mad at the sun for setting.

usually arbitrary harm to people who are minding their own business.

Ah, so the police.

[Chirenai]

There's a lot of people trying to blame violence during protests on the protesters. In at least one case, not only were the protesters not the ones to blame, they tried to stop the violence. Personally (I fully realize there's no real investigation into this in many areas, so no way to say for sure), I would find it easier to believe that people angry at the protests are doing this in more areas than just this one. Fortunately, in THIS case, the police were smart enough to figure out what was going on.

https://www.wsls.com/news/virginia/2020 ... es-matter/

And, for the few on here that keep saying 'be patient, change should take time', think about it for a minute. If someone started shooting one of your family members (that you like) every day - or even every week or month - would you 'be patient' while it happened? Would you wait for it to end? Or would you start taking steps to protect yourself and your family?

[Purpelia]

Irrelevant. Protests are about trying to convince the neutrals you are the morally correct one. Looting and burning convinces them Trump is right.
And rhetoric that supports it, that demands action now at all costs and demands success at any cost convinces us the same.

Your cause is judged by the means you use to achieve it. If the means are unacceptable to the public so is your cause.

Considering that 65% of Americans support the protests, I say we’re winning.

Good for them. But those numbers are subject to change and drop should they make the wrong move. This said, I am happy to see some actually acceptable statistics being quoted for once. I mean, they even divulged their sample size. You don't see that often.

There's a lot of people trying to blame violence during protests on the protesters. In at least one case, not only were the protesters not the ones to blame, they tried to stop the violence. Personally (I fully realize there's no real investigation into this in many areas, so no way to say for sure), I would find it easier to believe that people angry at the protests are doing this in more areas than just this one. Fortunately, in THIS case, the police were smart enough to figure out what was going on.

https://www.wsls.com/news/virginia/2020 ... es-matter/

And, for the few on here that keep saying 'be patient, change should take time', think about it for a minute. If someone started shooting one of your family members (that you like) every day - or even every week or month - would you 'be patient' while it happened? Would you wait for it to end? Or would you start taking steps to protect yourself and your family?

The only way to legitimately win via protests is to demonstrate your moral superiority to the fence sitting majority until they decide to openly move to support you in mass. So yes, sit down and die for a while. It sucks but that's just the price of playing.

[Fahran]

Considering that 65% of Americans support the protests, I say we’re winning.

Good for them. But those numbers are subject to change and drop should they make the wrong move. This said, I am happy to see some actually acceptable statistics being quoted for once. I mean, they even divulged their sample size. You don't see that often.

In 88% of all cases, 63% of the statistics are bad.

[The Black Forrest]

You just disagree with every instance where they step outside your extremely narrow moral path.

By which you mean I dislike rioting and unnecessary, usually arbitrary harm to people who are minding their own business.

Shouldn't you direct that displeasure at the people in charge? Aren't riots the result of a build up of tensions?

[Kowani]

Considering that 65% of Americans support the protests, I say we’re winning.

Good for them. But those numbers are subject to change and drop should they make the wrong move. This said, I am happy to see some actually acceptable statistics being quoted for once. I mean, they even divulged their sample size. You don't see that often.

Well, Gallup is a good polling station. I’m not sure exactly what the “wrong move” would be, outside of a terrorist attack that doesn’t seem consistent with the MO of BLM.

There's a lot of people trying to blame violence during protests on the protesters. In at least one case, not only were the protesters not the ones to blame, they tried to stop the violence. Personally (I fully realize there's no real investigation into this in many areas, so no way to say for sure), I would find it easier to believe that people angry at the protests are doing this in more areas than just this one. Fortunately, in THIS case, the police were smart enough to figure out what was going on.

https://www.wsls.com/news/virginia/2020 ... es-matter/

And, for the few on here that keep saying 'be patient, change should take time', think about it for a minute. If someone started shooting one of your family members (that you like) every day - or even every week or month - would you 'be patient' while it happened? Would you wait for it to end? Or would you start taking steps to protect yourself and your family?

The only way to legitimately win via protests is to demonstrate your moral superiority to the fence sitting majority until they decide to openly move to support you in mass. So yes, sit down and die for a while. It sucks but that's just the price of playing.

Well, in the case of this particular issue, this seems to be untrue, and possibly even backwards.

Good for them. But those numbers are subject to change and drop should they make the wrong move. This said, I am happy to see some actually acceptable statistics being quoted for once. I mean, they even divulged their sample size. You don't see that often.

In 88% of all cases, 63% of the statistics are bad.

Ran, don’t do this to me. ;_;

[Purpelia]

Good for them. But those numbers are subject to change and drop should they make the wrong move. This said, I am happy to see some actually acceptable statistics being quoted for once. I mean, they even divulged their sample size. You don't see that often.

In 88% of all cases, 63% of the statistics are bad.

Still at least these guys are putting the effort in to look honest. Which is more than most. Got to give them a honorable mention. Even if I am dubious at them excluding everyone with no working internet connection from the results.

[Fahran]

Most people do. Hell, even those of us who don’t think the rioting is a sin on par with mass murder think that it’s bad, just an inevitable reaction to the circumstances. Getting mad about it is like getting mad at the sun for setting.

I tend to get mad at what I perceive to be unjust. I got mad when Breonna Taylor was murdered in front of her boyfriend while sleeping in her own home. I got mad when Tamir Rice was shot and killed for messing around with a toy gun. I got mad when George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin as his fellow officers looked on and Floyd begged him to stop suffocating him. I still get mad when I think about those cases. I also get mad when I hear about black-owned businesses being ransacked and when I see the owners sobbing because their life's work ceased to exist overnight. I also get mad when a girl a little younger than me gets shot in the general confusion of the protest and there's no way of solving the murder. I also get mad when a seventy year old retired police officer is murdered execution style while checking up on his friend's business as a favor. It's all terrible. And it's not equivalent to the sun setting. The sun doesn't have a moral responsibility not to randomly hurt people.

Ah, so the police.

See above.

Shouldn't you direct that displeasure at the people in charge? Aren't riots the result of a build up of tensions?

I can be mad at everyone responsible. The police hold some accountability for murdering people, local and federal leadership hold some accountability for mismanaging things, rioters hold some accountability for actually instigating riots, activists hold some accountability in proportion to the extent which they normalize and encourage wanton violence, etc. I'm not especially impressed with people these days. But then I just think folks are better than they're acting.

[Kowani]

Most people do. Hell, even those of us who don’t think the rioting is a sin on par with mass murder think that it’s bad, just an inevitable reaction to the circumstances. Getting mad about it is like getting mad at the sun for setting.

I tend to get mad at what I perceive to be unjust. I got mad when Breonna Taylor was murdered in front of her boyfriend while sleeping in her own harm. I got mad when Tamir Rice was shot and killed for messing around with a toy gun. I got mad when George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin as his fellow officers looked on and Floyd begged him to stop suffocating him. I still get mad when I think about those cases. I also get mad when I hear about black-owned businesses being ransacked and when I see the owners sobbing because their life's work ceased to exist overnight. I also get mad when a girl a little younger than me gets shot in the general confusion of the protest and there's no way of solving the murder. I also get mad when a seventy year old retired police officer is murdered execution style while checking up on his friend's business as a favor. It's all terrible. And it's not equivalent to the sun setting. The sun doesn't have a moral responsibility not to randomly hurt people.

You get mad about the individual cases-and mind you, all of those things are bad, very much so (though I hadn’t heard about this older police officer being executed, that one’s news to me). But there is a reason all of those things happen-symptoms of a greater disease. And unless we eradicate the disease itself, they will keep happening. More innocent people are going to die. More black-owned businesses will go down to the effects of racial disparities than to rioters, even if the rioters are much more of a spectacle. So yes, while we should make an effort not to kill innocent people, because they haven’t actually done anything, save for a radical change in our institutions (and I would argue culture, to a degree, particularly in media) less people will be hurt by the riots than by the disease of racism.

[Pilipinas and Malaya]

These events really don't need to be happening in major cities whatsoever. Frankly, I think the protestors should just go home and arrange more practical means of influencing the political establishment. For example, like running for office and donating to causes and political campaigns that they support.

There is a reason protests are a tried and true method of expressing disappointment in regards to the government/specific establishment. The protests means that the demands are shared by a good number of people, the people want significant change to the system in a faster way, etc. Protests are also avenues for people to be able to force local or national responses faster.

Protests were how the Berlin Wall was brought down, countless dictators were toppled, laws were immediately implemented or removed upon popular demand, etc.

[Kowani]

Kate Brown, the governor of Oregon, has just announced a Phased withdrawal of federal troops.

[Pilipinas and Malaya]

Kate Brown, the governor of Oregon, has just announced a Phased withdrawal of federal troops.

Hopefully this is a stop to such activity for good, not just a move to redeploy these people elsewhere.

[Purpelia]

I have a genuinely question. Say I were an american citizen owning a shop or something in one of your cities. And say it was in a state where I am allowed to own a gun. Now, say that rioters try and break into my store to loot and burn it so I open fire with my gun and kill a handful of them.
1. How has this not yet happened?
2. What is the legal status of this? I mean, it is defense of ones own property and arguably life so it should be fine.

[Grinning Dragon]

I have a genuinely question. Say I were an american citizen owning a shop or something in one of your cities. And say it was in a state where I am allowed to own a gun. Now, say that rioters try and break into my store to loot and burn it so I open fire with my gun and kill a handful of them.
1. How has this not yet happened?
2. What is the legal status of this? I mean, it is defense of ones own property and arguably life so it should be fine.

Depends mostly on the state.
Places like Texas and Louisiana, perfectly legal to shoot a parasite breaking into your home/business or someone trying to car jack you as vehicles are considered an extension of the home.

[Sundiata]

These events really don't need to be happening in major cities whatsoever. Frankly, I think the protestors should just go home and arrange more practical means of influencing the political establishment. For example, like running for office and donating to causes and political campaigns that they support.

There is a reason protests are a tried and true method of expressing disappointment in regards to the government/specific establishment. The protests means that the demands are shared by a good number of people, the people want significant change to the system in a faster way, etc. Protests are also avenues for people to be able to force local or national responses faster.

Protests were how the Berlin Wall was brought down, countless dictators were toppled, laws were immediately implemented or removed upon popular demand, etc.

Those are fair points, fair enough.

[Lanoraie II]

>no miranda rights read
>no reasonable suspicion or probable cause
Oh man, I knew I should've became a lawyer. I'd be rich...assuming these people were ever found again.

Yeah, it's extremely gross and is, effectively, kidnapping. In fact I bet some of them ARE kidnapping them to use in human trafficking. Wouldn't be the first time, hopefully the last.

[Bassoe]

I have a genuinely question. Say I were an american citizen owning a shop or something in one of your cities. And say it was in a state where I am allowed to own a gun. Now, say that rioters try and break into my store to loot and burn it so I open fire with my gun and kill a handful of them.
1. How has this not yet happened?
2. What is the legal status of this? I mean, it is defense of ones own property and arguably life so it should be fine.

You might get off legally, but Canceling will basically mean your life is over anyway.

[Ifreann]

Yes, America is not the only country that subjects its own people to treatment that would, were it inflicted upon enemy soldiers, constitute a war crime. Personally, I think that that's a bad thing. I think that all of those countries should stop committing war crimes against their own people, and the fact that they are technically not war crimes when you do them to your own people is not something I give a shit about.

The entire objection to tear gas is that it violates the Geneva Conventions.

Untrue.

It's a far less dangerous tool than bullets or batons. It also accomplishes the basic objective of dispersing unruly mobs. If you're going to object to tear gas as a solution to rioting on technical legal grounds, it's valid to point out that those technical legal grounds aren't really applicable to the situation in question. The alternatives are beating, maiming, and killing rioters or allowing riots to go uninterrupted. Both are far less palatable in my estimation. Tear gas prevents the most permanent harm to the most people and it is the responsibility of law enforcement to employ it as needed.

Tear gas is disproportionately, uncontrollably, and indiscriminately harmful. Which is why it and other chemical weapons were banned from use in warfare. That governments are inflicting such harms on their own people should be unacceptable.

Another technicality I am not interested in.

You're using legal terms and philosophical concepts that are misapplied or poorly defined. If the objection doesn't make sense when the appropriate context and nuances are explored, the objection is a poor objection.

I'm objecting to the violence police are inflicting on people in an effort to force them to cease protesting and quietly go home. Your objections that those people are technically rioters and the police are technically not punishing them are quite clearly a load of shite.

I cannot fathom how you can believe that it is acceptable to use violent force against people who you agree have not done anything wrong.

Because you cannot treat an unruly mob involved in rioting as a group of individual persons while effectively preventing said unruly mob from committing violence. Tear gas is one of the safer options you have of dispersing an unruly mob, generally only posing a health risk to people with preexisting conditions. One person has died from complications due to tear gas during the protests. More people have been shot by looters.

If the state cannot achieve its goals without disregarding the concept of individual rights then maybe their goals shouldn't be pursued.

I am arguing that it is morally wrong for the police to use violent force against people who have done nothing more harmful than be in physical proximity to someone who is suspected of committing a crime.

And, again, you do not have the luxury of treating persons as individuals when they're part of what amounts to a riot because of the actions of their fellows. The police are applying the measure against the crowd because it represents the quickest and safest way of ending crowd-based violence in the absence of self-regulation and citizens' arrests of rioters.

The safest way to handle a riot is to not have a riot in the first place, which can be accomplished by solving people's problems before they're pushed to rioting. And by not having the cops attack peaceful protests.

A tear gas grenade is an immediate threat to everyone nearby. That's kind of inherent in the nature of chemical weapons, they're indiscriminate, and don't neatly contain themselves to one area.

Tear gas is generally much less dangerous to everyone around than engaging in a physical altercation to beat the crowd away from buildings. It's a chemical weapon, yes. Rubber bullets and batons and fists are weapons as well. That's not really a substantive point. If I concede to your point, I pretty much concede that law enforcement should never intercede to halt riots and that we should accept large-scale communal damage and dozens of deaths as a necessary price for reform. That's problematic on many levels.

The police are hurting innocent, uninvolved people in an effort to protect innocent people. Big "We burned the village down to save it" energy.

Even if I were to accept your grotesque proposition that people can justly be subjected to violent attack because the crowd they are a part of has, according to some legal technicality, ceased to be a peaceful protest and become a riot, tear gas grenades will still harm people who are not even part of that "riot".

And the harm, in the vast majority of cases, won't be severe or permanent. And it's not really a technicality when the substantive effects of your peaceful protests are buildings set on fire, windows shattered, and people assaulted. At that point, your peaceful protest is a riot.

What does it matter if the harm won't be severe of permanent? It is harm, it is an attack, and according to your reasoning around collective guilt, the police in general are responsible and can be collectively attacked in turn in defence.

Tear gas grenades will harm journalists and legal observers. Or are they rioters too?

They're not rioters. I've stated as much. That doesn't mean they're not standing immediately next to a riot in progress.

So the police can legally attack journalists and legal observers who come close to the events they are trying to observe. I'm sure that power won't be abused.

As I have just argued, even if I accept your "they're dispersing a riot" justification, police use of indiscriminate violence harms more people than just the "rioters" they are seeking to disperse.

If you smash someone's business to pieces and then steal everything they've amassed over decades, you're causing them substantive harm when you have no right to do so. If you set a building on fire, you're putting other people at risk of burning to death when you have no right to do so. If you physically assault someone or shoot someone, you're physically harming someone when you have no right to do so. More people have been killed by looters than have died as a direct result of exposure to tear gas in these riots. Dispersal is wholly acceptable from this standpoint and is in fact the moral responsibility of the police when riots would harm the community.

Collateral damage, even deaths, are acceptable in pursuit of dispersing a handful of criminals and thousands of peaceful protesters? All because the police won't stop brutalising people.

So now it is not actual attempts at arson, it is the mere possibility of an attempt,

They literally tried to set a court house on fire last week. Fires have been lit in numerous places. That's actual arson. That you accept the commission of violent crimes against the community as a cost of permitting protest is fine as a position but it doesn't give you the moral high ground by default. Hence why we're even able to have a debate at all.

You accused me of underestimating the potential of a small number of people who like burning things to be present at a protest. So again, you are now talking about the potential for the presence of someone who might commit a crime as if that justifies violently dispersing people. There has been arson before, there might be again, so people cannot be allowed to congregate.

See, they have to use undercover officers and unmarked cars to arrest people because they're afraid of uniformed officers and marked cars being attacked.

But if you watch the videos of this arrest, uniformed bicycle officers acted quickly to form a barricade between protesters and the arresting officers. So any justification along the lines of what I offered above is a lie.

Given multiple cruisers and vehicles were actually set ablaze and protestors, even many peaceful one, were arguably celebrating criminal arson aimed at law enforcement, I think that rebuttal is a good deal weaker than you think it is, especially if law enforcement are trying not to kill protestors and rioters en masse.

If it is too dangerous for the police to be seen in their uniforms then why were there uniformed officers present? If it was safe for some uniformed officers then why weren't all the officers in uniform and using a marked car? I suspect that the NYPD are on board with Trump's use of secret police tactics. They want to intimidate people, to make them afraid that anyone they see on the street might be a cop, about to jump them and bundle them into a nondescript minivan, to make them afraid to even attend protests in the first place. I bet that's why they did this to a trans woman. Target a population that already has cause to fear the police and they'll get the most immediate effect.

[The Black Forrest]

The entire objection to tear gas is that it violates the Geneva Conventions.

Untrue.

She is partially correct. The Geneva Conventions of 1925 outlaws the used of poisonous agents in war.

In 1997 they added riot control gas in warfare.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

I have a genuinely question. Say I were an american citizen owning a shop or something in one of your cities. And say it was in a state where I am allowed to own a gun. Now, say that rioters try and break into my store to loot and burn it so I open fire with my gun and kill a handful of them.
1. How has this not yet happened?
2. What is the legal status of this? I mean, it is defense of ones own property and arguably life so it should be fine.

You might get off legally, but Canceling will basically mean your life is over anyway.

Defense of property isn't a good reason, however anyone actually entering the store illegally poses a risk to life which justifies firing. Having to unlock the back door to get out probably means no viable option to retreat. However I have an issue with "killing a handful" because it implies shooting suspected looters who haven't entered the shop yet. That's a no-no.

How is a person's life "over" just because customers boycott their shop and are mean to them on FB? I think you overstate the power of the Cancel.

[Salus Maior]

Untrue.

He is partially correction. The Geneva Conventions of 1925 outlaws the used of poisonous agents in war.

In 1997 they added riot control gas in warfare.

Fahran is a woman.

[The Black Forrest]

He is partially correction. The Geneva Conventions of 1925 outlaws the used of poisonous agents in war.

In 1997 they added riot control gas in warfare.

Fahran is a woman.

Ah. Hopefully I will remember. Thanks.

[Ifreann]

Untrue.

He is partially correct. The Geneva Conventions of 1925 outlaws the used of poisonous agents in war.

In 1997 they added riot control gas in warfare.

It is untrue that the entire objection to tear gas is that it violates the Geneva Conventions.