4 ms·

It's hard to hear people complain about looting and authoritarianism after watching these same people calling BLM mostly peaceful protest, and had no problem wi

It's hard to hear people complain about looting and authoritarianism after watching these same people calling BLM mostly peaceful protest, and had no problem with the authoritarian policies passed during the COVID lockdowns https://fee.org/articles/george-floyd-riots-caused-record-setting-2-billion-in-damage-new-report-says-here-s-why-the-true-cost-is-even-higher/ https://fee.org/articles/george-floyd-riots-caused-record-se...

gamma42 1y ago
Remind us what both protests are for.
bruce511 1y ago
It's easy to play the hypocrisy card, theres plenty to go around. However in this case you're presenting a false equivalency. Yes, there were issues with BLM. the people got out of control. But that's not authoritarianism- if anything it was a lack of authority with caused dome of those problems. What you see with protests now is those with authority over-using that authority and wielding it as a weapon against the public. And I'm not sure COVID lock downs are a useful measure of anything. It was a unprecedented event and countries all over the world had all manner of restrictions, lock downs, and so on. Millions of people died, over a million Americans. It's always going to be easy in hindsight to blame those in authority for doing too much, or too little, too fast or too slow. Unlike most places, the US politicized the response, and even within the US the death rates varied from one state to the next. Anthropologists will be disecting covid data for generations to try and determine which approach was best.
- Whoppertime 1y ago
  That's the thing. COVID was a crisis an emergency, and that justified emergency powers. Donald Trump is declaring the current situation an emergency and is making use of emergency powers. You cannot assume "your side" is going to maintain political power forever, and build institutions with that in mind. Build a political system then hand it to your political opponents to run for 4 years. I think people who cheered on the use of emergency powers over the last 4 years are going to have it boomerang back on them, as I predict the next Democratic president will use the precedent set by Trump in a way that will boomerang back on Trump supporters who were cheering him on
  - bruce511 1y ago
    While it's easy to play the "both sides behave the same" card, in practice though I dont think they do. Fundamentally democrats are still behaving like a party did and are not excusing or indulging in radical governance. For example At the first hint of a scandal democrats get pushed from office, whereas we've had plenty of Republicans continue in office despite obvious wrong doing etc. So no, I don't think the next president would behave in the same way - there are fundamental differences in the way the parties are behaving.

gamma42 1y ago

Remind us what both protests are for.

bruce511 1y ago

It's easy to play the hypocrisy card, theres plenty to go around. However in this case you're presenting a false equivalency. Yes, there were issues with BLM. the people got out of control. But that's not authoritarianism- if anything it was a lack of authority with caused dome of those problems. What you see with protests now is those with authority over-using that authority and wielding it as a weapon against the public. And I'm not sure COVID lock downs are a useful measure of anything. It was a unprecedented event and countries all over the world had all manner of restrictions, lock downs, and so on. Millions of people died, over a million Americans. It's always going to be easy in hindsight to blame those in authority for doing too much, or too little, too fast or too slow. Unlike most places, the US politicized the response, and even within the US the death rates varied from one state to the next. Anthropologists will be disecting covid data for generations to try and determine which approach was best.

Whoppertime 1y ago
That's the thing. COVID was a crisis an emergency, and that justified emergency powers. Donald Trump is declaring the current situation an emergency and is making use of emergency powers. You cannot assume "your side" is going to maintain political power forever, and build institutions with that in mind. Build a political system then hand it to your political opponents to run for 4 years. I think people who cheered on the use of emergency powers over the last 4 years are going to have it boomerang back on them, as I predict the next Democratic president will use the precedent set by Trump in a way that will boomerang back on Trump supporters who were cheering him on
- bruce511 1y ago
  While it's easy to play the "both sides behave the same" card, in practice though I dont think they do. Fundamentally democrats are still behaving like a party did and are not excusing or indulging in radical governance. For example At the first hint of a scandal democrats get pushed from office, whereas we've had plenty of Republicans continue in office despite obvious wrong doing etc. So no, I don't think the next president would behave in the same way - there are fundamental differences in the way the parties are behaving.