^ Sadly that medal has been rendered all but meaningless at this point.

I'm still trying to figure out why I'm the bad guy for repeatedly, aggressively declaring these people to be villains. I've literally been banned from this forum in the past for 'generalizing' that the alt-right are terrorists. When they definitely, absolutely are. I've been worried about this exact thing happening for four and a half years now, and I get told I'm a hypocritical bigot every time. 

For anyone wondering: Protesting and riotting because you are systemically targetted and unsafe due to racism is justified outrage. Progress rarely happens without violence, and the BLM/Antifa protests are absolutely justified violence given the circumstances. Ideally we'd be beyond this and not need violence, but the oppressed never stop being repressed without action, and the chance of the oppressors giving up power without violence is historically a fiction. BLM just wanted to not be killed or abused or treated as lesser humans. Antifa was countering the rise of fascism like the Proud Boys and Alt-Right. Both of those are noble causes. 

Storming the capitol and enciting acts of terrorism because you lost an election is NOT justified rage or violence. It goes against everything the first world collectively stands for. We're supposed to be better than this. 

And for the love of fuck, Trump's first amendment rights are not being trampled because he was kicked off all the social media platforms. You're entitled to free speech, but there are limits. For one, you're not permitted to use your speech to incite violence or commit conspiracy to do violence. and for two, no private entity - no matter how far reaching and ubiquitous - are obligated to host your speech or amplify your words. Twitter can ban his hate-spewing ass as much as I can kick any racist ass out of my house. Twitter is not a government-owned property and is in fact a private company. I find it hilarious how so many people think the first amendment is a catch-all, get-out-of-jail-free card that protects a person from having to deal with any and all consequences for what they say and do. 

I also find it delicious that the same people that loudly protected people's rights to discriminate against making gay wedding cakes are also the same people who now suddenly have a problem with a private company denying the president a platform to spew his hate. Bloody snowflakes can't handle consequences for their actions. 

It's also hilarious that the same people (usually old boomers) who complain about participation trophies and call people snowflakes for wanting safe spaces are the same ones literally committing a coup against the capital because they came in second place and can't handle the fallout from their actions. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling and it astounds me that there are not only people out there who actually are like this despite the fact that the right answers are one google search away, but that they spew righteous indignation if their bullshit is called out, followed by aggressively calling everyone who disagrees with them communists or snowflakes. 

These people are the bad guys. Plain and simple. The modern right - you know, the ones who hate gay people, don't tolerate muslims, pretend the racism problem is cured so they don't have to feel bad about reality, bitch about the war on christmas, hate it when poor people get help, loooooove the military's power, and have a fetish for guns all while actively downplaying environmental issues and devaluing the importance of education - are villains. They are the bad guys. They are making the world a worse place by nearly every metric, and now they feel like they're the oppressed ones despite them being the ones with power and guns. That is incredibly dangerous, and until we do something about it, it's only going to get worse. 

There are few things more dangerous than when those with power believe themselves to be oppressed. We're seeing the reality of that firsthand. And the snowflake, safe-spaced, democractic libs have been saying this for years, warning y'all of the dangers of enabling these people and getting treated like we're hypocrites for it. 

We've all been expected to treat both sides as equal, like there are 'fine people' on either side of the debate. Like it'd be hypocritical to criticize one while not doing the same for the other side. and in an effort to not look biased or ignorant, a lot of people I know do tend to try to not criticize one without the other. Everywhere you look, you hear people saying that both sides suck or they make a point to counter their own point with one against their own side...but the reality is that one of the sides is good, and one is bad. In theory, both concepts (left-wing and right wing politics) have their value, but what you have in the US isn't left and right, it's center and far right. Democrats are not left compared to the rest of the developed world, but the american right are borderline extremists.

The reason I tend to err on the side of the democrats/liberals is because, despite the right's attempts to demonize them for being communists, their actual policies are pretty much right down the middle. They are the balance the world needs. Some socialist agendas, sure, but balanced out with America's obsession with freedom. Some socialism is good - 19 out of 20 of the world's best nations identify as socialist - but Americans outright villainize it even though it has been proven to work in many of the most prosperous and happy and safe countries in the world. 

It's like the climate argument. Every time you see a climate change debate, it's the same amount of people on either side of the argument to give it a feeling of fairness. In reality, something like 99.8% of all climate scientists agree that Climate Change is very real and very dangerous and very much so affected by our actions. so the REALITY is that, for every 1 scientist that believes it's a hoax, 499 believe it is real. The skewed perspective is doing America - nay, the whole world - a disservice. 

and while I truly do wish we could clean up our act without violence, I think at this point it's clear that the only way any progress is going to be made is if we protest and if we riot for what's truly important. 

Black lives are worth rioting over. 

LGBT+ Lives are worth rioting over.

Women are worth rioting over.

White dudes with fragile egos and more guns than common sense upset about losing an election is not a cause worth fighting for. These people are villains. Terrorists. And yes, historical context is important. There is no white genocide. There is no conspiracy against men or straight people, but there is a historical precedent for minorities being opressed. How some people out there don't get this is absolutely baffling to me. 

PRetty concise explanation as to how Twitter banning trump isn't a violation of the first amendment by an actual practicing lawyer who reviews a lot of these political issues from a legal perspective. In fact, forcing Twitter to Not ban trump would be a violation of that same amendment, though!

So the next big thing that is suppose to be happening is that the Trump has signed the Insurrection Act and will be sending in the troops to DC to enact something. Man I love a good conspiracy theory on a Monday. The going story is that we should see this happening this week so buckle up everyone. The browns beat the Steelers 2 twice so anything can happen.

"Protesting and riotting because you are systemically targetted and unsafe due to racism is justified outrage. Progress rarely happens without violence, and the BLM/Antifa protests are absolutely justified violence given the circumstances. Ideally we'd be beyond this and not need violence, but the oppressed never stop being repressed without action, and the chance of the oppressors giving up power without violence is historically a fiction. BLM just wanted to not be killed or abused or treated as lesser humans."

>As you rant and rave, I'm just thinking back to a family business near my home that was broken into and torn apart some months back.

I'm trying to think of a reason as to why they were targeted and victimized and I'm coming up empty-handed...

Yeah that's what the QAnon/MAGA cultists all seem to be telling themselves at the moment.

"The storm is coming, wait and see, you'll love how this ends. God's plan cannot be stopped!"

"Files on Pelosi's laptop incriminate the globalist communist pedophile cabal, the pope has been arrested, Trump is in Texas right now meeting with the heads of the military, there will be martial law and military tribunals and the democrats will be all executed for treason, all this happening in the next few days, be ready."

"Biden will never be president, looking forward to 4 more years of Trump our saviour."

In 9 days when Trump is no longer president, and there is no great unmasking of this mythical NWO pedophile vampire illuminati, the fragile fantasy they've built is going to come crashing down for a lot of these people.

Protesting is one thing; You can protest anything, no matter who foolish or bone-headed the cause may or may not be, so long as protesting is all you are doing. But if that protest escalates to a riot, that's a different story.

A lot of things are worth protesting over, NOTHING is worth rioting over; The moment you inflict physical harm upon other people and your actions put others in imminent, potentially life-threatening danger, especially those who have nothing to do with what is going on and are unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire, that's when you lose major credibility. It doesn't matter what the cause is or which side of the political spectrum you lean. You are just as guilty and just as extreme as the opposite side when you do that.

The problem with fighting fire with fire is that eventually, everything is burned to ash and cinders.

As usual, I argue for days about what I think about a certain issue and Kyle's thoughts on the matter end matching mine.

I wish he talked about religious texts as well, as they objectively incite violence yet, they're allowed to spread freely. 

I have a hypothetical question for you all: If the election was stolen and there was clear and undeniably evidence of this fact, would you support citizens taking over the Capitol building in protest (assuming nobody died in the process)?

Confirmation bias. Or maybe Occams Razor. I highly doubt your family business was targeted, more likely just a bad case of circumstances. Plus, the actual BLM activists were protesting for their right to...exist without persecution. One thing that is always going to be true about humanity is that people will take advantage of any situation. The people burning things down and doing the damage were not likely actual BLM protestors, but more likely unaffiliated shitheads who wanted to cause trouble and figured this was the opportunity to get away with it or blame it on others. 

For the record, I don't actually believe that BLM or Antifa caused the violence in their respective marches. both of those protests were with the goal of peaceful resolution and causing violence would be counterintuitive to their cause. I'm also saying that if they DID vandalize, their reasons were justified. Not ideal and I don't endorse violence, but that, as I said, historically shit doesn't change without violence. I like to think we're collectively better than that but it seems to not be the case. 

And no, for anyone else reading this is not hypocrisy, it's just multi-leveled nuance to a sitution. BLM and Antifa both came about due to the rise of fascism and the persistence of systemic racism. It wasn't just because they wrongfully thought they were being oppressed. The original intent of both movements was to curb the spread of bigotry and white supremacy. Bad things. Actual, non-negotiably bad things. The cause for both movements was justified and righteous. Both sought to get their message across without using violence but with loud voices and strength. Antifa existed only to counter groups like the alt-right and proud boys and the shocking continued existence of the KKK. They never wanted to hurt people, their goal was to stop a group from hurting others. Same with BLM. They never wanted to hurt anyone, their goal was to bring attention to the issue and stop cops (and other systems of governance) from targeting black folks in provably higher numbers. 

Both of these groups very much so have intentions of lowering hate and minimizing violence. I'm sure some of their members want more violent problem solving (Look at MLK vs Malcom X), and there will always be minorities within groups that act out against the will of the populace. Oh, and there will always be interlopers who are opportunistic shit-disturbers. 

So I'm saying that BLM and Antifa's existence were a reaction to various forms of bigotry, that their goals are for peace and a reduction and violence, and that if they did resort to violence given the reality of our current world, it would be understandable. Not advisable or encouragable, but understandable. Historically, BLM and the black community kinda has every right to violently oppose the system that has held them down. Antifa may very well have to resort to violence to...you know, combat fascism. I'll invoke godwin's law here when I say we didn't talk down the nazis in the 40's, we had to go to war with them. We had to kill a lot of nazis to, you know, stop them from eradicating the jews and all that. I'm saying that, as a collective we should know better, but if worse comes to worse, maybe we should start reacting appropriately to the rise of nazis and nationalism. 

I hope it doesn't come to that, but historically people really don't have a good record of peaceful negotiation when dealing with folks and groups who wanna rule the world at the expense of everyone else. IT's kinda hard to deal with folks who fetishize guns and think they're being oppresed. 

And anyone who thinks that BLM or Antifa are the bad guys...well, that directly puts you on the wrong side of history. I'm genuinely shocked that people don't see how things go throughout history. Like, we fought a war over whether it was alright to own black people. We fought wars over which religion got to be important in a region. We still don't treat women or queer folk fully equally...but we're getting there. As the march of time progresses, equality is closer and closer. Tolerance is growing more widespread. Multiculturalism is on the rise. as a collective whole, we're doing better and, believe it or not, the world is actually doing better than it ever has on a global scale in terms of world peace and prosperity. 

WE're making progress. White nationalism, bigotry, intolerance, all that shit is slowly but surely on its way out. This MAGA bullshit is the last gasp of a generation and an ideal that will soon be as obsolete as owning black slaves in America. IT's the last violent outburst of a people who knows their bigotry is no longer tolerated, so they're acting like they're being victimized in the same way slaves or queers or women were in the past, all while claiming that the world's changes are bad and their beliefs are the last clinging remnant of a world that used to be better. 

That's why republicans are so rightly vilified in today's modern world. They cling to the ideals of a past that they don't want to let go, even if those ideals also overlap with white supremacy and sexism and intolerance. That's why they hate progressives; all they see is that the world is changing and they can't keep up. They don't want to keep up. They don't like or can't handle change, even if that change is good for a wider range of people. That's why they hate democrats and liberals. Selfishness will always be baffled by altruism, and republicans value personal freedoms and liberty while democrats tend to believe that we're all in this together and should be helping each other out. To a republican, socialism isn't 'for the collective', it's 'you're stealing from me to give my hard earned money to the poor'. It's a matter of perspective, and sadly a selfish worldview devoid of context will make you sympathize with a republican. 

But as I said, that shit's on the way out. That sort of belief is making way for multiculturalism and inclusion and tolerance and certain people can't get over it. That's why they fight. That's why they're so loud. That's why they're so aggressive and so dangerous. They're like a cornered rat, fighting violently because they know they lost. Unfortunately, they're not fighting to preserve who they are like blacks or queers or women or even muslims, they're fighting to preserve the belief that they're superior to all of the above. That is why it's perfectly reasonable for BLM and Antifa to riot but it's not okay for MAGA to do the same. it's not hypocrisy; one of these is morally just and one of these answers is right. Period. 

I rant a lot; I should write a damn book.