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> From what I see and know, among conservative supporters violence against police is strongly condemned and to be harshly punished, as is any form of protest th

> From what I see and know, among conservative supporters violence against police is strongly condemned and to be harshly punished, as is any form of protest that is arguably the slightest bit disruptive. The question is who the police are being deployed to protect, private citizens or the government itself. Ordinarily police are deployed to protect citizens from criminals, so it’s bad to attack the police. But the Capitol police are protecting government officials from citizens, so attacking them is less bad. That’s the view. > 60s ... traditional It's a nice tactic to try to attribute those who disagree to a passing fancy, and your beliefs to 'tradition'. The assertion that the civil rights era signaled a major shift in views about the relationship between individuals and the government is hardly controversial. There’s a book on this idea (probably more than one): https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-distort-american-politics https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-dis.... Indeed, folks in the progressive left share more or less the same premise. If you talk to a progressive about foundational principles like federalism and limited government, the chief response is that those ideas were championed by our forebearers so that the government wouldn’t be powerful enough to protect minorities from the majority. The point of disagreement is about whether the new approach is better than the traditional one.

mmooss 2y ago
> Today, when you talk about foundational principles like federalism, limited government, etc., the chief response is that those are incompatible with having a government powerful enough to protect minorities from the majority. We live in different bubbles, it seems. I haven't heard that argument. I have heard that 'states rights' is intended to workaround various federal rules, including civil rights. The foundation is that "all ... are creatd equal", which includes all members of minorities. The Bill of Rights is there to protect unpopular minorities from the majority. The majority can always protect itself by changing the law. Edit: > https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-dis https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-dis.... I skimmed through this. The source is anti-left; of course they are going to give characterizations like that. And look at this piece of doublespeak: When I talk about civil rights, the reader should not get the impression that I’m friendly to segregation, or hostile to the civil rights movement as it existed for the whole of the 20th century up until 1964. In fact, I’m very much in sympathy with the claims to an agitation for equal citizenship that went on up till then, but there were problems in the Civil Rights Act that were not evident at first. They won't say they are hostile to the Civil Rights Act and every solution to problems like segregation, oppression of minorities and women, etc. And they don't offer any other solution. They are "very much in sympathy with the claims to an agitation", however. :)
- rayiner 2y ago
  > I haven't heard that argument. I have heard that 'states rights' is intended to workaround various federal rules, including civil rights. That’s the same argument from the other direction. The federal government, as designed, wasn’t powerful enough to protect minorities from the majority. Those rules entailed a major expansion of federal power. Indeed, you can see the seams in the civil rights laws. For example, Title VI’s ban on discrimination in public education is implemented through conditions on federal funding. Because the federal government can’t legislate such a ban directly. > The foundation is that "all ... are creatd equal", which includes all members of minorities. The Bill of Rights is there to protect unpopular minorities from the majority. That’s exactly the civil rights era retconning of the constitution I’m talking about. The statement that “all men are created equal” has nothing to do with minorities. Read the context right before and right after: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip.... The statement is about self determination: the right of a people to determine their own form of government. The equality being referred to is the equality between Britain and its monarch and the colonists. The founders said almost nothing about protecting minorities from the majority, except perhaps in the context of religious freedom. Their concern was exactly the opposite: that a minority cabal in the government would oppress the majority.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > The statement that “all men are created equal” has nothing to do with minorities. Read the context right before and right after ... The context before and after is quite well known; I don't have to read it. What they say is that 'all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, among those life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And to protect those rights, governments are instituted among men.' (from memory, probably a few errors). All means all - minorities included. The equality is for "all men"; rights are for "all men". Nothing is said about Britain and its monarch, except in your dreams of rationalizing oppression. The language is plain and clear, part of the reason it is so well-known.
    - roenxi 2y ago
mindslight 2y ago
> who the police are being deployed to protect, private citizens or the government itself I must have missed the outpouring of Republican support for the black lives matter protests when they were attacked by police riots or when police stations were attacked. No private citizens being protected there, and the protesting was directly against government oppression (including of the 2nd amendment even!).
- rayiner 2y ago
  Republicans don’t think that police using lethal force against people with long criminal records—which come from terrorizing fellow citizens—is “government oppression.” That doesn’t describe every person that was the subject of the protests, but certainly describes the people who became the figureheads.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    That's some high and mighty rhetoric, but it doesn't apply at all to Kenneth Walker (whose second amendment rights were trampled on) or Breonna Taylor (who died because of it). So once again, did I just miss the outpouring of Republican support for those specific protests or what?
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    'I'm all for rights, except the right to life (of some citizens)' is absolutely disgusting. Wow this comment says a lot about you and should remove the good faith people around here give you.
    - mindslight 2y ago
      You're just giving him an opening to retrench at a steelman - when the police have to respond with deadly force for some completely reasonable justification, "right to life" doesn't have much to do with it. The point is that even in very clear cut situations where the police are in the wrong, and have trampled over the very 2nd amendment rights that Republicans claim to love so much, it's then still crickets from Republicans. So this alleged "violence against the government is treated as distinct" seems to be just more post-hoc rationalization nonsense. The problem is that rayiner is continually trolling with gut-appealing half-truths, sidesteps the straightforward logical implications as long as he can by responding tangentially, and when he can't do that any longer he just bails on the conversation rather than confronting the contradiction. I guess I'm just glad us actually-conservatives (meaning everyone from "RINOs" to "the left" that actually respects our societal institutions enough to not want to see our country on the scrap heap) have reached a critical mass to beat back this wall of disingenuous bad-faith bullshit.
rectang 2y ago
The US Civil War was fought over protecting minorities from private slaveowners, so the federal government’s role didn’t fundamentally change in the 1960s.

mmooss 2y ago

> Today, when you talk about foundational principles like federalism, limited government, etc., the chief response is that those are incompatible with having a government powerful enough to protect minorities from the majority. We live in different bubbles, it seems. I haven't heard that argument. I have heard that 'states rights' is intended to workaround various federal rules, including civil rights. The foundation is that "all ... are creatd equal", which includes all members of minorities. The Bill of Rights is there to protect unpopular minorities from the majority. The majority can always protect itself by changing the law. Edit: > https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-dis https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-dis.... I skimmed through this. The source is anti-left; of course they are going to give characterizations like that. And look at this piece of doublespeak: When I talk about civil rights, the reader should not get the impression that I’m friendly to segregation, or hostile to the civil rights movement as it existed for the whole of the 20th century up until 1964. In fact, I’m very much in sympathy with the claims to an agitation for equal citizenship that went on up till then, but there were problems in the Civil Rights Act that were not evident at first. They won't say they are hostile to the Civil Rights Act and every solution to problems like segregation, oppression of minorities and women, etc. And they don't offer any other solution. They are "very much in sympathy with the claims to an agitation", however. :)

rayiner 2y ago
> I haven't heard that argument. I have heard that 'states rights' is intended to workaround various federal rules, including civil rights. That’s the same argument from the other direction. The federal government, as designed, wasn’t powerful enough to protect minorities from the majority. Those rules entailed a major expansion of federal power. Indeed, you can see the seams in the civil rights laws. For example, Title VI’s ban on discrimination in public education is implemented through conditions on federal funding. Because the federal government can’t legislate such a ban directly. > The foundation is that "all ... are creatd equal", which includes all members of minorities. The Bill of Rights is there to protect unpopular minorities from the majority. That’s exactly the civil rights era retconning of the constitution I’m talking about. The statement that “all men are created equal” has nothing to do with minorities. Read the context right before and right after: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip.... The statement is about self determination: the right of a people to determine their own form of government. The equality being referred to is the equality between Britain and its monarch and the colonists. The founders said almost nothing about protecting minorities from the majority, except perhaps in the context of religious freedom. Their concern was exactly the opposite: that a minority cabal in the government would oppress the majority.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > The statement that “all men are created equal” has nothing to do with minorities. Read the context right before and right after ... The context before and after is quite well known; I don't have to read it. What they say is that 'all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, among those life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And to protect those rights, governments are instituted among men.' (from memory, probably a few errors). All means all - minorities included. The equality is for "all men"; rights are for "all men". Nothing is said about Britain and its monarch, except in your dreams of rationalizing oppression. The language is plain and clear, part of the reason it is so well-known.
  - roenxi 2y ago

mindslight 2y ago

> who the police are being deployed to protect, private citizens or the government itself I must have missed the outpouring of Republican support for the black lives matter protests when they were attacked by police riots or when police stations were attacked. No private citizens being protected there, and the protesting was directly against government oppression (including of the 2nd amendment even!).

rayiner 2y ago
Republicans don’t think that police using lethal force against people with long criminal records—which come from terrorizing fellow citizens—is “government oppression.” That doesn’t describe every person that was the subject of the protests, but certainly describes the people who became the figureheads.
- mindslight 2y ago
  That's some high and mighty rhetoric, but it doesn't apply at all to Kenneth Walker (whose second amendment rights were trampled on) or Breonna Taylor (who died because of it). So once again, did I just miss the outpouring of Republican support for those specific protests or what?
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  'I'm all for rights, except the right to life (of some citizens)' is absolutely disgusting. Wow this comment says a lot about you and should remove the good faith people around here give you.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    You're just giving him an opening to retrench at a steelman - when the police have to respond with deadly force for some completely reasonable justification, "right to life" doesn't have much to do with it. The point is that even in very clear cut situations where the police are in the wrong, and have trampled over the very 2nd amendment rights that Republicans claim to love so much, it's then still crickets from Republicans. So this alleged "violence against the government is treated as distinct" seems to be just more post-hoc rationalization nonsense. The problem is that rayiner is continually trolling with gut-appealing half-truths, sidesteps the straightforward logical implications as long as he can by responding tangentially, and when he can't do that any longer he just bails on the conversation rather than confronting the contradiction. I guess I'm just glad us actually-conservatives (meaning everyone from "RINOs" to "the left" that actually respects our societal institutions enough to not want to see our country on the scrap heap) have reached a critical mass to beat back this wall of disingenuous bad-faith bullshit.

rectang 2y ago

The US Civil War was fought over protecting minorities from private slaveowners, so the federal government’s role didn’t fundamentally change in the 1960s.