It feels good having confidence that there isn't a pending civil war. With that said, anyone want to buy a night vision monocle?

@Demosthenes I think it says a lot if the assumption is that if liberals loose an election they might get violent to the point of killing and starting a civil war and now that the repuclicans lost there is little or no fear of them rising up in violence in the same way and starting such a war....

To me the take away from that stated truth is probably a lot different than most people would think :)

@freemo I think there was still extreme risk with Republicans losing too. The only reason I'm relaxing now is because Trump is signalling that he will let the transition occur for the good of the nation. He just as easily could have put out a call to arms and had several million people fighting for him.

To put that in perspective, the Taliban only comprises of about 10k people.

The issue isn't left-vs-right, it's a problem of growing political polarization in general.

@Demosthenes The difference here is that trump has now had the chance to call people to arms to test your theory if those fears were true. he has not, it has now been demonstrated such fears were not founded.

However your fear of liberals rising up and biden being the one who called people to do violence instead, is only waning because they won and such an ultimatum never needed to be tested in the first place.

So in one case you now have proof they were not going to rise up and be violent, as they have demonstrated with their actions, and the other group you have no evidence to support those fears are at all unfounded and remain unanswered.

So even so the logic persists that your stance shows something very important.

@freemo @Demosthenes "you have no evidence to support those fears are at all unfounded and remain unanswered."

Except you know, like, the last 4 years when we haven't had violence due to an election result.

@finity

I live in philly, for many months out of the last 4 years the skys have been black with smoke as openly liberal crowds burned down buildings, and cars and homes. I've seen mothers holding their children in the streets in hysterics as mobs of people continued to incite violence all around her...

Never in my live have I ever been a witness to such massive and repeated violence on a large scale as I have the last 4 years. Cant say I've seen a single incidence of violence from the right since Trump lost the election or before if we are talking about actual en mass or face-to-face violence. Only exception I know about are a handful of cases that have showed up on TV and almost entirely individual violence, nothing even close to what I've seen on large scale from liberal mobs.

@Demosthenes

@freemo @Demosthenes That's not because Trump was elected though. It's not because a liberal lost an election. Which is the specific irrational fear you're discussing.

@finity

no, we were discussing if we had to fear violence and an uprising, for whatever the specific instigating cause, from the left or the right...

To argue the fact that the left has been violent and engaging in that sort of behavior, but for "other reasons" is somehow evidence they were not a concern is weak at best. Not to mention even if it wasnt not entirely true, their perspective of seeing the current government as authoritarian and evil almost certainly gave rise to them being much quicker to engage in uprisings over perceived injustices than they would under some other president.

There was no shortage of innocent black men being shot dead by police under Obama either, but we weren't seeing the same sort of reaction back then because they werent being spoon fed constant propaganda about living under the modern day hitler.

@Demosthenes

@freemo @Demosthenes "I think it says a lot if the assumption is that if liberals loose an election they might get violent to the point of killing and starting a civil war"

There's the quote. If you aren't suggesting that liberals losing an election is the cause of violence you're worried about, then I think you aren't being careful with your rhetoric.

And that is probably a large part of what causes left/right misunderstandings in my opinion.

@finity @freemo I'm not disagreeing with you on your comment here. I'd just like to state that I gamed out several potential outcomes of the election and predicted their potential for violence. The most dangerous was an early biden lead that shifts to a final Trump victory. I predicted the chances of mass nationwide rioting at above 80% and civil war at 50%, and I predict conservatively.

@Demosthenes

I assume by this you mean it was your personal judgment call after giving it a lot of thought (not a bad thing)... i presume there wasnt any actual data or math you did to come up with the numbers? (if there is id be curious what that was)

@finity

@freemo @Demosthenes Obama and Biden specifically, publicly, repeatedly called for an end to the violence and looting we're talking about, while Trump told his wing to stand by. So @Demosthenes I take it you're talking about how Trump's team would leverage such a "liberal violence" situation...