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.
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 Philly does that before a Superbowl.
LOL its not that far from the truth. We are a particularly rowdy group and we do get absolutely crazy. But I was out during the super bown.. there is a very different atmosphere when comparing people climging street lights and crashing them down because their drunk and up to stupid destructive shit.. vs a bunch of sober people actively and intentionally trying to light building and cars on fire and putting people in the hospital when they see someone in a MAGA hat, and being a hair away from killing the dude.
@freemo @Demosthenes we did see violence from the right several times these past few years.
I'll not disagree that folks got way out of hand in Philly...
Again im not talking abotu individual and isolated cases of violence particularly that on the news.
I am talking about 1) en masse violence, which may be on the news but which most of us saw across the USA in many cities 2) what ive observed in terms of personal violence ive witness with my own eyes as someone who is fairly neutral and despises any viewpoint on either extreme end of the spectrum.
Like i said most right-wing violence ive seen have been some individual cases here and there you hear about on the news somewhere in america out of 300 million people, and not even approaching the sort of numbers we have seen from the liberals in the last 4 years.
@freemo @Demosthenes The anti-police-killing-black-people-senselessly protests, and specifically the minority that turned violent, are the main instance of that which I can think of.
I say minority because there were tons of cities and small towns where no such violence occurred, despite protests. Then there were lots of cities where looting or property damage occurred, but we're certainly not talking about a war in those places..
Again there was no shortage of police killing innocent black people dead during obama either.. I mean even worse under obama, obama him self directly ordered the murder of a 16 year old child who was a us citizen and a minority without trial or due process.. like the president himself literally ordered an execution of a minority... yet despite the issue of innocent blacks being just as prevelant under obama with obama joining in on some killing, not a peep of an uprising out of them... hell most liberals i told to dont even know about the boy obama killed despite it being public knowledge and Obama even got taken to court for it, meanwhile liberals keep posting about how they missed Obama's "scandal free" presidency.
If you really think what party has a president in office had nothing to do with their violence.. i mean, your welcome to think what you wish ill still respect you and all, but that seems awfully ignorant of the facts when you lay it out.
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.
@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 @freemo based on what? (actually interested, not challenging)
Fair, and honest, I can respect that.
All I can say is I dont think the numbers were quite that high.. though they were scarily high.
Even a 5% chance of civil war is far too high anda lot bigger than it sounds.
But I can say what ever the numbers were I was only ever scared of my life when it comes to the liberals lately and post election. I can also say I had my gun, my ammo, my food supplies and a bug out bag ready for a worst case scenario if it did happen. so clearly I felt it was real enough to be prepared.
The right worries me in terms of the fact that they are shitty evil politicians no better than the left. But when it comes to the people the masses, only the left make me feel my life is at risk for some time now. the idea of the right starting violence was never even a possibility in my mind, hell most of the right barely like trump.
@freemo @finity your choice of language scares me here, and is very emblematic of the us-vs-them tribal mentality that is gripping the nation.
The violence isn't because of the left. It's because of the political system that is leading to such extremism on both sides. The fact that you don't fear the right at all betrays your political leanings to a certain extent.
To fix this, we need to fix the system and break the cycle of extremism.
@Demosthenes @freemo thanks for saying it better than I was figuring out...
Ok your missing an important point... While the left **is** the top concernw hen it comes to violence right now that does not mean "us vs them"... how can i be "us vs them" when i am not on the republican side either.. when it comes to violence the left are a huge threat as their actions have demonstrated, the right is not, that is true. But I also despise the right for a great many other reasons that simply doesnt happen to be violence (for example they rape our environment and it is killing us all).
So no it isnt an us vs them.. its a "I am calling the left out for being the powerboy of violence and intolerance for four years"..a nd its a "I am also calling out the right for shit it just is that that shit isnt the topic we are discussing at the moment"
While ic an agree both sides is are shit and no one side is the sole problem, I would not think it is fair or a good thing to reduce that to "every side is bad in the same way and to the same degree, both sides are to blame for the violence"
@finity
@freemo @Demosthenes I would say that neither side is actually advocating for violence. That's what I would say.
Aside from decisions about done strikes, which I put in a different category...
The right does not advocate for violence. The left does not either.
There are people on both sides that are advocating for violence, but they do not represent their whole "side".
There are fine people on both sides also. Just not on that one weekend in Carolina.
depends on who we are talking about as advocates, and i might agree.
If we talk about the politicians then i mostly agree politicians on neither side outwardly call for violence. They do however spew massive fear-based propaganda which both sides eat up and has the indirect result (and likely somewhat intention) of inciting violence. In this regard the left has been at full tilt for 4 years while the right has been relatively less active in that sense.
It is the masses taht are prone to violence and even calling for it, and as a result of that propaganda, not the leaders.
@Demosthenes @freemo and he's just been very confusing. He seemed to believe every side of every story all at the same time. Hard to tell what's going to happen next.
I think Sun Tzu would've approved, I guess.
To some extent he has.. he certainly has been negative on the left... but I think thats naive to the fact that trump is largely calling out the left for things they are actually doing (such as the widespread violence) obvious sometimes it was exagerations too and idiocy as only Trump knows hot to do... But it was no where near the scale of what was going on int he other direction where trump was painted as a literal nazi for four years.
To me your talking about something the left was doing to the right at 200% and the right was doing to the left at 30%, they arent really comparable at the moment. They definately over exagerated trump as an evil monster far far more than trump was even capable of doing the same in return.
I voted for obama, never once voted for a republican for president.. I know full well just how shitty the republicans are. But the left have behaved ona s cale i have never seen since. Since the Obama administration (whom i voted for) i became ashamed to say I supported Obama or the democrats in the past, their behavior has disgusted me int he extreme these last four years while the right im not happy with they were simply mildly unpleasant at worst.
Yea, what gets me is, trump was an idiot, if they had played it straight and called him out for hsi legit mistakes and not played the "omg the sky is falling" game I would have been right there with them rooting for trump to fail.
In my eye trump was more than mediocre enough that there was no need to even play those sorts of games to win anyway. Which causes me to loose far more respect than I might have whenc ompared to the usual mud slingingin the past for some reason...
Its kinda like i can respect someone who cheats against a casino, the odds were against you and the casino has all the advantage... but if you cheat at a game of poker with 5 year old you just kinda look pathetic :)
@freemo @Demosthenes I don't know man, I think it's the media that can influence the masses like that, so that's who you're referring to... And I've seen CNN and Fox, MotherJones and NewsMax, that guy who was recently given the peace medal and NPR... I know which side looks more like fear-based propaganda to me.
But I have seen what you're talking about from CNN too.
100% when it comes to spearheading the propaganda it was the media doing the leg work.. the problem is the politicians rolled with it and just took the boom.
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)
@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...
@freemo @Demosthenes sorry, responded in the wrong spot...
Again this demonstrates exactly why the left is the bigger threat in terms of violence based on recent behavior.
The lefts obscene violence is something that is so easily instigated it is automatic, and something that will manifest without any central leadership to egg them on...
Trump however said absolutely nothing to tell his followers to rise up, however he also didn't tell them not to, he pretty much didnt say anything, left it open ended (which admittedly may not have been a good choice by him) and even then there wasn't a peep of violence out of the right.
The way i see it you can try as you want to paint the picture as teh right being violent and the left as the good guys... but in the end actions speak louder than words
The stand back and standby is a hard one to weigh.
On the one hand it certainly didnt make trump look good. On the other it was probably more effective, as you pointed out, of preventing pontential violence before it happened, than if he had straight up dencounced them. Not that that is an excuse, but ultimately I have to take actual actions as a first principle over what might have happened... In the end all i can say is i saw 4 years of extreme violence from the left on my front door step and to date havent witnessed a single act from the right. If i wanted to find actual violence fromt he right id have to look to the news to small off isolated incidents, mostly rare individual violence.
So in the end I judge each side by what they did, not the fear mongering they might have done.
@freemo @Demosthenes https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/16/gretchen-whitmer-rise-up-scott-atlas-trump-covid/6308965002/
"Whitmer blasts 'rise up' tweet from Trump adviser amid new COVID-19 restrictions"
@Demosthenes @freemo 😆 she almost got herself kidnapped. Then the right went marching in the streets with open carry rifles.
Nobody gonna start violence in the daytime when everyone's carrying.
I am suggestiong that the liberals have demonstrated they are prone to violence and quick to violence when instigating factors come up they perceive as injustice. Yes I am implying that the election could have been an instigating factor for that, just as they continued violence since the last election, which has significantly been heightened as a result of that election and cyclically repeated every time a new perceived injustice surfaced is evidence of them being a threat...
You say "hey we liberals were not violent after the last election"... I say "the liberals have been consistently violent since the last election calling on repeated examples of what they see of government caused injustices of which they were acting out with violence in reaction to"
to be specific I do not think that it is simple as saying they lost an election, ergo they are violent. They are violent because they lost an election and are very easily manipulate by the evil people in charge of their party of choice, which means they were spoon fed the most extreme propaganda and bullshit I've seen for four years (yes trump sucks but the stuff they said was just absurd), and they bought the propaganda hook line and sinker to the point of becoming violent.
It is far more complex than a simple loss of an election, but that is the rallying point the propaganda used to rally the liberal masses into violence, and it was successful.
@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.