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> Cotton called for force against “lawbreakers”, not “protestors” I don't care. I live in one of these so-called riot zones and my company's office was looted

> Cotton called for force against “lawbreakers”, not “protestors” I don't care. I live in one of these so-called riot zones and my company's office was looted. I do not want active duty soldiers pointing weapons of war around my neighborhood for any reason. Especially with how municipal police forces have dealt with (and escalated) these situations. I'll not have my home treated like a failed state or enemy war zone. How many leaders of the regions affected by the looting rallied to this call? None. How many military leaders did Cotton call upon to support his case? None. How many of those affected by the lawbreaking does Cotton represent? A vanishing fraction. Taibbi thinks hes being clever splitting hairs but he's missed the whole point. Cotton's repugnant article was an obvious partisan hack job, a towing of the Trump line, dogwhistles included. In the NY Times' own words, the article lacked basic fact checking and did not meet the paper's editorial standards- Bennet very obviously fucked up in the loudest possible way.

Udik 6y ago
> I do not want active duty soldiers pointing weapons of war around my neighborhood for any reason... I'll not have my home treated like a failed state or enemy war zone. These are excellent concerns, and I fully agree with you on those. But we can debate about them (at what point is it necessary to intervene to stop violent protests? With which means, what would be an acceptable use of force?). You can express your disagreement in full and mark your distance from Cotton's opinion. Instead misrepresenting what Cotton wrote, accusing him of inciting murder and forcing the editor to resign are not legitimate objections. Seems simple enough?
- pm90 6y ago
  If members of my community are being killed with abandon across the country by the police and it provokes largely peaceful protests against that, then an action which seeks to misrepresent the situation and argue for the use of militarized forces against such protests is de facto calling for an increase in killing of the more people from my community. Nobody is misrepresenting what Cotton wrote. Everyone who is following the situation closely rather than just reading the words knows what consequences could be to the proposed actions and are justifiably horrified by it.
  - Udik 6y ago
    > If members of my community are being killed with abandon across the country by the police Frankly, I don't even think that this is true. I think the US police is just hyper-violent, mostly for cultural reasons (both on the side of the police and on the side of the criminals). The 2.3 million inmates in US prisons are the demonstration of a deeply flawed culture in that respect. And the fact that blacks are disproportionately engaging in criminal behaviour (for whatever reason) makes them more vulnerable to police violence. But just framing this as a racism issue is misguided. There, I said it.

Udik 6y ago

> I do not want active duty soldiers pointing weapons of war around my neighborhood for any reason... I'll not have my home treated like a failed state or enemy war zone. These are excellent concerns, and I fully agree with you on those. But we can debate about them (at what point is it necessary to intervene to stop violent protests? With which means, what would be an acceptable use of force?). You can express your disagreement in full and mark your distance from Cotton's opinion. Instead misrepresenting what Cotton wrote, accusing him of inciting murder and forcing the editor to resign are not legitimate objections. Seems simple enough?

pm90 6y ago
If members of my community are being killed with abandon across the country by the police and it provokes largely peaceful protests against that, then an action which seeks to misrepresent the situation and argue for the use of militarized forces against such protests is de facto calling for an increase in killing of the more people from my community. Nobody is misrepresenting what Cotton wrote. Everyone who is following the situation closely rather than just reading the words knows what consequences could be to the proposed actions and are justifiably horrified by it.
- Udik 6y ago
  > If members of my community are being killed with abandon across the country by the police Frankly, I don't even think that this is true. I think the US police is just hyper-violent, mostly for cultural reasons (both on the side of the police and on the side of the criminals). The 2.3 million inmates in US prisons are the demonstration of a deeply flawed culture in that respect. And the fact that blacks are disproportionately engaging in criminal behaviour (for whatever reason) makes them more vulnerable to police violence. But just framing this as a racism issue is misguided. There, I said it.