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> ...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

> ...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.
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      It's a lot harder when the people who ostensibly advocate for multiethnic nations reject the only form of multiethnic nation that seems to work: one with a strong national identity and character. Multiculturalism fails without independent nationalism of one sort or another.
      - 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
        Yes that is true, and one of the major failures of the Ottoman Empire. They couldn’t instill any sort of nationalism in Greeks and other minority subjects. The cultures were too different. Hence why the empire fell and Balkanized.
    - dang 6y ago
      You've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly by using HN for ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, so please stop. It's off topic here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- microcolonel 6y ago
  > I am not downplaying anything... You literally just characterized the largest mass arson in at least several decades as "spray painting a building or stealing a TV". > ...your points don't dispute my major argument of people are more important property. I guess the ten or more people who have already died in the riots don't matter though; nor the numerous women who have been raped under the cover of chaos, nor the victims of the kidnappings. Effectively nobody is happy about the murder of George Floyd, but why cover for the killing of several more people and the destruction of countless lives? Is it over some bizarre sense of justice? What justice are you enabling, making cover for looters who were happy to bust the sports bar owner's safe right in front of him, and take what they please? This is incoherent. If the riots were out of a regard for human life, they would not callously destroy so many such lives.
cjslep 6y ago
If you want to play the anecdote game: There's also a local Indian Restaurant whose owner was on the phone with the police while watching it burn on the local news, and he basically said "Let it burn. If that's what it takes to get justice." Insurance will replace the buildings and stuff. Insurance can't bring George back, nor can it undo a bad system.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  > Insurance will replace the buildings and stuff. Insurance only works for the insured.
  - cjslep 6y ago
    Glad to know you think of my intelligence so uncharitably that you have to explain a tautological definition. I know that insurance only covers the insured. I charitably assumed the reading audience of HN knows that, too. Is there something more insightful you wanted to share? For example: have a conversation on the general risks of taking insurance versus not, or whether in these particular anecdotes the owners in fact did/didn't have insurance and their reasons for it? Or was it really just to try to make me look like a dumbass to the crowd?
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      I was responding to your assumption that he was insured, which was seemingly a defense of people looting and arsoning the business he worked his whole life to start, before it ever had a chance to open. If you don't want to feel criticized when people point out basic facts to you, don't use things you don't know as the basis for an argument why people should feel justified in committing crimes against innocent people. It's not about you, it's about the boneheaded idea that these riot traps are some sort of component of a movement for social justice. There is zero justice in looting and arsoning this sports bar, stop trying to say that there is, and you won't feel like a fool when presented with the facts. It's true that insurance can't bring George Floyd back; it can't bring back the dozen or so people killed so far in the riots either.
quickthrowman 6y ago
I assume the business owner had insurance? Bottles and buildings can be replaced. It’s not exactly like the bar was going to be profitable in the next 6 months anyways considering the pandemic, it’s probably a blessing in disguise that may save him from bankruptcy, who knows? He has a job still, he’s luckier than a lot of people.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  > I assume the business owner had insurance? He wasn't, he was just about ready to open when the pandemic hit. > ...it’s probably a blessing in disguise that may save him from bankruptcy, who knows? Of course, so what are your dreams in life? When you're about to reach the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice, we might as well just arson your project, save you from your own ineptitude. What kind of reasoning is that? > He has a job still, he’s luckier than a lot of people. A lot fewer people will have jobs in the rubble heap left in the wake of these selfish opportunists, operating under the colour of social justice. And now when he goes back to that job, he'll still have all that time stolen from him by the handful of callous pricks you seem so quick to defend.
  - quickthrowman 6y ago
    > > I assume the business owner had insurance? He wasn't, he was just about ready to open when the pandemic hit. This is what happens when you don’t hedge risk with insurance. Not sure what else to say dude. My dreams will be insured because I’m not stupid or a gambler. I’m not defending anyone, the riots are happening whether I agree with them or not. I live here, you don’t. I have to deal with the aftermath, you don’t. I’ve been abused by MPLSs 3rd precinct cops, you haven’t. I bet you’ve never seen adversity in your life, otherwise you’d have sympathy for the people that are rioting because they might be the next one laying face down dead under a cops boot.
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      Well great, now you're calling him stupid for not predicting that people will come and literally torch his business to the ground even though he has no enemies, and hasn't even had a chance to open. > I live here, you don’t. I have to deal with the aftermath, you don’t. But have you had your home or business arsoned by these pricks? You've been lucky. I doubt your tune would be the same if not. > I bet you’ve never seen adversity in your life, otherwise you’d have sympathy for the people that are rioting because they might be the next one laying face down dead under a cops boot. When these rioters have killed more innocent people in a handful of days than the police department does a year; guess you'll find a way to justify that. Two can play at the "here's my insinuation about your character" game. I have empathy for them, but there is nothing that would cause me to victimize a random community out of pure opportunism like these rioters. There could be a purely racist attack against my family, and I would not think for a second to torch a random business that just happened to be in the same city as the perpetrator. Before all of this, there is a distinction between people who are protesting, and people who are just looting and arsoning random businesses because the chaos invites it. I'm not going to sit here insinuating that these are the same groups of people. Hardly anyone is for the murder of George Floyd, but basically everyone is for the basic functioning of society, and at some point one will take precedence over the other.

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.
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    It's a lot harder when the people who ostensibly advocate for multiethnic nations reject the only form of multiethnic nation that seems to work: one with a strong national identity and character. Multiculturalism fails without independent nationalism of one sort or another.
    - 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
      Yes that is true, and one of the major failures of the Ottoman Empire. They couldn’t instill any sort of nationalism in Greeks and other minority subjects. The cultures were too different. Hence why the empire fell and Balkanized.
  - dang 6y ago
    You've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly by using HN for ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, so please stop. It's off topic here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
microcolonel 6y ago
> I am not downplaying anything... You literally just characterized the largest mass arson in at least several decades as "spray painting a building or stealing a TV". > ...your points don't dispute my major argument of people are more important property. I guess the ten or more people who have already died in the riots don't matter though; nor the numerous women who have been raped under the cover of chaos, nor the victims of the kidnappings. Effectively nobody is happy about the murder of George Floyd, but why cover for the killing of several more people and the destruction of countless lives? Is it over some bizarre sense of justice? What justice are you enabling, making cover for looters who were happy to bust the sports bar owner's safe right in front of him, and take what they please? This is incoherent. If the riots were out of a regard for human life, they would not callously destroy so many such lives.

cjslep 6y ago

If you want to play the anecdote game: There's also a local Indian Restaurant whose owner was on the phone with the police while watching it burn on the local news, and he basically said "Let it burn. If that's what it takes to get justice." Insurance will replace the buildings and stuff. Insurance can't bring George back, nor can it undo a bad system.

microcolonel 6y ago
> Insurance will replace the buildings and stuff. Insurance only works for the insured.
- cjslep 6y ago
  Glad to know you think of my intelligence so uncharitably that you have to explain a tautological definition. I know that insurance only covers the insured. I charitably assumed the reading audience of HN knows that, too. Is there something more insightful you wanted to share? For example: have a conversation on the general risks of taking insurance versus not, or whether in these particular anecdotes the owners in fact did/didn't have insurance and their reasons for it? Or was it really just to try to make me look like a dumbass to the crowd?
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    I was responding to your assumption that he was insured, which was seemingly a defense of people looting and arsoning the business he worked his whole life to start, before it ever had a chance to open. If you don't want to feel criticized when people point out basic facts to you, don't use things you don't know as the basis for an argument why people should feel justified in committing crimes against innocent people. It's not about you, it's about the boneheaded idea that these riot traps are some sort of component of a movement for social justice. There is zero justice in looting and arsoning this sports bar, stop trying to say that there is, and you won't feel like a fool when presented with the facts. It's true that insurance can't bring George Floyd back; it can't bring back the dozen or so people killed so far in the riots either.

quickthrowman 6y ago

I assume the business owner had insurance? Bottles and buildings can be replaced. It’s not exactly like the bar was going to be profitable in the next 6 months anyways considering the pandemic, it’s probably a blessing in disguise that may save him from bankruptcy, who knows? He has a job still, he’s luckier than a lot of people.

microcolonel 6y ago
> I assume the business owner had insurance? He wasn't, he was just about ready to open when the pandemic hit. > ...it’s probably a blessing in disguise that may save him from bankruptcy, who knows? Of course, so what are your dreams in life? When you're about to reach the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice, we might as well just arson your project, save you from your own ineptitude. What kind of reasoning is that? > He has a job still, he’s luckier than a lot of people. A lot fewer people will have jobs in the rubble heap left in the wake of these selfish opportunists, operating under the colour of social justice. And now when he goes back to that job, he'll still have all that time stolen from him by the handful of callous pricks you seem so quick to defend.
- quickthrowman 6y ago
  > > I assume the business owner had insurance? He wasn't, he was just about ready to open when the pandemic hit. This is what happens when you don’t hedge risk with insurance. Not sure what else to say dude. My dreams will be insured because I’m not stupid or a gambler. I’m not defending anyone, the riots are happening whether I agree with them or not. I live here, you don’t. I have to deal with the aftermath, you don’t. I’ve been abused by MPLSs 3rd precinct cops, you haven’t. I bet you’ve never seen adversity in your life, otherwise you’d have sympathy for the people that are rioting because they might be the next one laying face down dead under a cops boot.
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    Well great, now you're calling him stupid for not predicting that people will come and literally torch his business to the ground even though he has no enemies, and hasn't even had a chance to open. > I live here, you don’t. I have to deal with the aftermath, you don’t. But have you had your home or business arsoned by these pricks? You've been lucky. I doubt your tune would be the same if not. > I bet you’ve never seen adversity in your life, otherwise you’d have sympathy for the people that are rioting because they might be the next one laying face down dead under a cops boot. When these rioters have killed more innocent people in a handful of days than the police department does a year; guess you'll find a way to justify that. Two can play at the "here's my insinuation about your character" game. I have empathy for them, but there is nothing that would cause me to victimize a random community out of pure opportunism like these rioters. There could be a purely racist attack against my family, and I would not think for a second to torch a random business that just happened to be in the same city as the perpetrator. Before all of this, there is a distinction between people who are protesting, and people who are just looting and arsoning random businesses because the chaos invites it. I'm not going to sit here insinuating that these are the same groups of people. Hardly anyone is for the murder of George Floyd, but basically everyone is for the basic functioning of society, and at some point one will take precedence over the other.