7 ms·

Surely, you aren't comparing mass murder, likely an international crime, to spray painting a building or stealing a TV? Property != people. People > property.

by dvdhnt 6y ago

Surely, you aren't comparing mass murder, likely an international crime, to spray painting a building or stealing a TV? Property != people. People > property. Period. Nothing else to consider. Additionally, it's fairly common for security forces to instigate criminal behavior during protests in order to justify the extreme measures they use to suppress those protests.

nightski 6y ago
I am from the area and I agree wholeheartedly that people > property. But let's be real, we saw a 182 unit multi story low income housing unit burn down to ash (the blaze was enormous). We also saw a police department building burn to ash. Countless local businesses have been completely destroyed by fire. That's a little more than spray paint and tv looting.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  I find it funny that we expect black Americans to peacefully protest. "Please use this system of peaceful protest that hasn't worked for you since forever." LA was 92, we're almost 30 years to the year. Has anything changed? Do you tell HK protestors to write a letter to the CCP instead? It's such a double-standard.
  - virmundi 6y ago
    Have the blacks voted out those in power and positions to change things? Nope. Democrats all the way. Hell, Biden said if you’re black and you vote anything other than Democrat, you ain’t black.
    - dhagz 6y ago
      Let's look at demographics and voting districts in Minneapolis. I'm willing to bet there's at least a little gerrymandering to suppress the black vote. It's hard to stand together and make your voice heard when the system is being designed to do exactly the opposite.
      - virmundi 6y ago
        The parent was referring the LA riots.
        cma 6y ago
        LA has a white majority. Felony prisoners aren’t allowed to vote, and are disproportionately black relative to the demographics and especially to the population affected by police brutality.
    - nicwolff 6y ago
      No, he didn't. He said "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black."
      - a_tractor 6y ago
        Is this your attempt at "defending the narrative"? Because what you just said... its actually worse? I mean, it doesn't get more literal than that. Why does Joe Biden get a pass on the "white guy arrogantly dictating what is and is not permissible for blacks"? I don't know if its possible to be more delusional or cognitively dissonant. I mean, wow. That's almost on the level of LBJ's "we''ll have those * voting Democrat for the next 100 years." Talk about a "great society."
    - patagurbon 6y ago
      It's hardly fair to ask a minority to simply vote out their oppressors, they're a minority... For political parties it's a real stretch to blame the Democrats. There's a reason the black vote is heavily Democratic, because their programs actually do help minority communities. But it's difficult to do with a majority Republican Congress for most of two decades and a majority "conservative" SCOTUS. Now Democrats are far from perfect. But they are at least better than the alternatives.
  - badRNG 6y ago
    I'd argue the situation has gotten significantly worse since '92. Post-9/11, especially in the early to mid '00s, there was this fetishization of the military and military aesthetic in American culture that had changed the public's appetite towards militarized police. It is important to consider that a significant portion of the public thinks "the troops" aren't going far enough to end the protests in Minneapolis.
    - vkou 6y ago
      > It is important to consider that a significant portion of the public thinks "the troops" aren't going far enough to end the protests in Minneapolis. It should be noted that most mainland Chinese shared that same opinion, with respect to Hong Kong.
  - nightski 6y ago
    Honestly I've been watching the protests and it's not black people rioting. It's a diverse group of black, Caucasian, and other minorities. In fact, I saw the arsonist that set the police department on fire and it was a Caucasian male. This is not a group of African Americans rioting in protest. It's a diverse bunch of a bad actors ruining a community. The protesters themselves seem rather peaceful.
- petre 6y ago
  Perhaps your police should stop accidentally killing persons of colour then. Flying military drones over the city isn't going to de-escalate the situation. Properly punishing police brutality is.
- ianleeclark 6y ago
  > But let's be real, we saw a 182 unit multi story low income housing unit burn down to ash (the blaze was enormous). This was a housing development that had some low-income units, but the majority were "market-price."
  - panzagl 6y ago
    Oh, well that's ok then.
    - ianleeclark 6y ago
      Glad we've come to an understanding.
  - a_tractor 6y ago
    They were all "low-income" housing, the majority was just less low-income than others. My god that was a desperate argument.
microcolonel 6y ago
> ...spray painting a building or stealing a TV? I'm not going to step into what is clearly an emotional argument for you, but I will say that downplaying what's going on in Minneapolis does not lend you any credibility. Social housing units, and hundreds of locally owned businesses have been rubbled and torched; and retailers have watched basically all of their inventory walk out the door (last time they bother setting up shop in this powder keg, seems Target was prettymuch expecting this to happen eventually). One prominent case of this is Scores Sports Bar; there's video of the owner standing there powerless and crying, watching common crooks walk out with his life savings, all he earned working as a firefighter. You can see it set in on him when they come in right in front of him and start busting open the safe. After all this, he went to work the next day, at his day job as a firefighter, where he got a call that the bar had been torched to the ground. Now there's a GoFundMe, but he's never getting that time back. So don't downplay what the rioters have done there, there are active warzones which are less rubbled and arsoned than this.
- dvdhnt 6y ago
  I am not downplaying anything and your points don't dispute my major argument of people are more important property. The sports bar, inventory, etc can be replaced. Why should locals care about those things when there's a real, non-zero chance their family and friends might be killed arbitrarily? Personally, I'd rather have my kids and wife than a Target.
  - grupthink 6y ago
    Why do you think it’s ok for rioters to destroy the property of businesses not involved with the death of George Floyd?
    - 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
      Violence is often normalized so long as those who are perpetuating it are politically aligned. For example, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his government genocided millions of Greeks and Armenians. Most nationalistic Turks found nothing wrong with that. In fact, Hitler admired Ataturk a lot, and used his actions as a template for his own programs. "The minority problem in Anatolia was solved in a very simple fashion... “Only through the annihilation of the Greek and the Armenian tribes in Anatolia was the creation of a Turkish national state and the formation of an unflawed Turkish body of society within one state possible.” Multiethnic nations don’t tend to last very long.

by dvdhnt 6y ago

nightski 6y ago

I am from the area and I agree wholeheartedly that people > property. But let's be real, we saw a 182 unit multi story low income housing unit burn down to ash (the blaze was enormous). We also saw a police department building burn to ash. Countless local businesses have been completely destroyed by fire. That's a little more than spray paint and tv looting.

ntsplnkv2 6y ago
I find it funny that we expect black Americans to peacefully protest. "Please use this system of peaceful protest that hasn't worked for you since forever." LA was 92, we're almost 30 years to the year. Has anything changed? Do you tell HK protestors to write a letter to the CCP instead? It's such a double-standard.
- virmundi 6y ago
  Have the blacks voted out those in power and positions to change things? Nope. Democrats all the way. Hell, Biden said if you’re black and you vote anything other than Democrat, you ain’t black.
  - dhagz 6y ago
    Let's look at demographics and voting districts in Minneapolis. I'm willing to bet there's at least a little gerrymandering to suppress the black vote. It's hard to stand together and make your voice heard when the system is being designed to do exactly the opposite.
    - virmundi 6y ago
      The parent was referring the LA riots.
      - cma 6y ago
        LA has a white majority. Felony prisoners aren’t allowed to vote, and are disproportionately black relative to the demographics and especially to the population affected by police brutality.
  - nicwolff 6y ago
    No, he didn't. He said "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black."
    - a_tractor 6y ago
      Is this your attempt at "defending the narrative"? Because what you just said... its actually worse? I mean, it doesn't get more literal than that. Why does Joe Biden get a pass on the "white guy arrogantly dictating what is and is not permissible for blacks"? I don't know if its possible to be more delusional or cognitively dissonant. I mean, wow. That's almost on the level of LBJ's "we''ll have those * voting Democrat for the next 100 years." Talk about a "great society."
  - patagurbon 6y ago
    It's hardly fair to ask a minority to simply vote out their oppressors, they're a minority... For political parties it's a real stretch to blame the Democrats. There's a reason the black vote is heavily Democratic, because their programs actually do help minority communities. But it's difficult to do with a majority Republican Congress for most of two decades and a majority "conservative" SCOTUS. Now Democrats are far from perfect. But they are at least better than the alternatives.
- badRNG 6y ago
  I'd argue the situation has gotten significantly worse since '92. Post-9/11, especially in the early to mid '00s, there was this fetishization of the military and military aesthetic in American culture that had changed the public's appetite towards militarized police. It is important to consider that a significant portion of the public thinks "the troops" aren't going far enough to end the protests in Minneapolis.
  - vkou 6y ago
    > It is important to consider that a significant portion of the public thinks "the troops" aren't going far enough to end the protests in Minneapolis. It should be noted that most mainland Chinese shared that same opinion, with respect to Hong Kong.
- nightski 6y ago
  Honestly I've been watching the protests and it's not black people rioting. It's a diverse group of black, Caucasian, and other minorities. In fact, I saw the arsonist that set the police department on fire and it was a Caucasian male. This is not a group of African Americans rioting in protest. It's a diverse bunch of a bad actors ruining a community. The protesters themselves seem rather peaceful.
petre 6y ago
Perhaps your police should stop accidentally killing persons of colour then. Flying military drones over the city isn't going to de-escalate the situation. Properly punishing police brutality is.
ianleeclark 6y ago
> But let's be real, we saw a 182 unit multi story low income housing unit burn down to ash (the blaze was enormous). This was a housing development that had some low-income units, but the majority were "market-price."
- panzagl 6y ago
  Oh, well that's ok then.
  - ianleeclark 6y ago
    Glad we've come to an understanding.
- a_tractor 6y ago
  They were all "low-income" housing, the majority was just less low-income than others. My god that was a desperate argument.

microcolonel 6y ago

> ...spray painting a building or stealing a TV? I'm not going to step into what is clearly an emotional argument for you, but I will say that downplaying what's going on in Minneapolis does not lend you any credibility. Social housing units, and hundreds of locally owned businesses have been rubbled and torched; and retailers have watched basically all of their inventory walk out the door (last time they bother setting up shop in this powder keg, seems Target was prettymuch expecting this to happen eventually). One prominent case of this is Scores Sports Bar; there's video of the owner standing there powerless and crying, watching common crooks walk out with his life savings, all he earned working as a firefighter. You can see it set in on him when they come in right in front of him and start busting open the safe. After all this, he went to work the next day, at his day job as a firefighter, where he got a call that the bar had been torched to the ground. Now there's a GoFundMe, but he's never getting that time back. So don't downplay what the rioters have done there, there are active warzones which are less rubbled and arsoned than this.

dvdhnt 6y ago
I am not downplaying anything and your points don't dispute my major argument of people are more important property. The sports bar, inventory, etc can be replaced. Why should locals care about those things when there's a real, non-zero chance their family and friends might be killed arbitrarily? Personally, I'd rather have my kids and wife than a Target.
- grupthink 6y ago
  Why do you think it’s ok for rioters to destroy the property of businesses not involved with the death of George Floyd?
  - 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
    Violence is often normalized so long as those who are perpetuating it are politically aligned. For example, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his government genocided millions of Greeks and Armenians. Most nationalistic Turks found nothing wrong with that. In fact, Hitler admired Ataturk a lot, and used his actions as a template for his own programs. "The minority problem in Anatolia was solved in a very simple fashion... “Only through the annihilation of the Greek and the Armenian tribes in Anatolia was the creation of a Turkish national state and the formation of an unflawed Turkish body of society within one state possible.” Multiethnic nations don’t tend to last very long.