I hadn't heard of that website, but this is how the author of that article describes herself:

>Sharon Rondeau has operated The Post & Email since April 2010, focusing on the Obama birth certificate investigation...

Linking to a website like that is going to destroy whatever point you were trying to make for a large portion of your audience.

It links to primary sources on everything, so this seems to me more a distraction than a meaningful critique. The fact that this is all easily verifiable, yet hard to find compilations of, is a critique in the other direction.

I wasn't debating the facts of your argument. I was simply telling you that the debate is already lost as soon as you link to a site that still claims Obama wasn't born in the US. In many people's minds, it isn't worth the energy to dispute your point because you are already displaying symptoms of someone who lacks the critical thinking skills necessary to assess and process basic facts.

If the only important pieces of that article are the links to primary sources, you could have linked to them yourself. That has potential to make you sound like a conspiracy theorist tying photos on your wall together with red yarn. However that is still better than linking to a conspiracy theorist website that seemingly proves the same point.

I wasn't trying to direct that at you, personally and I do understand what you're saying. This instinct to discredit the source is literally what's killing the news right now. People gladly swallow outrage porn, but when they see a fact compilation, their first instinct is to evaluate the one who compiled it (who is irrelevant to said facts) instead of engaging with the facts themselves.

Even to the point of missing that it's an honest compilation and includes those killed by police during the protests. But he's the biased one here, right?

Besides, that's a silly shibboleth all told. I voted for Obama and I wouldn't have cared even if he was born in Kenya (he wasn't). McCain was born in Panama and I didn't care about that, either.

Facts generally need context. Are these deaths actually linked to protesters? Are they motivated in some way by the protests or is the connection coincidental? How do these number of deaths compare to other protests? How do they compare to times when there are no protest? Questions like that need to be answered for the facts to have value. Most of us don't trust whatever context is given by a source like the one you linked. That is why people attack the source. Because the story here is the context of the facts and not the facts themselves.

> Are these deaths actually linked to protesters?

Mostly they were done by looters, a few by police. That's all shown in the linked articles, which give names and dates and locations.

> How do these number of deaths compare to other protests?

You remember that Charleston protest? One death. Number of unarmed black people killed by police in 2019? Ten. That's eleven too many, of course, but you wanted context and those are the most recent and closely related stats. Most protests are smaller scale and have few or no deaths, though, e.g. other big protests like the Women's March, March for Life, etc. don't normally involve looting or fatalities. Nobody died protesting Trump's inauguration, either, that I'm aware of.

> Questions like that need to be answered for the facts to have value.

They are answered, by the links to mostly local news stories where you can read all about David Dorn, a black cop murdered by looters. You can watch the video from the sister of the girl murdered outside of a Davenport, IA Wal-Mart. There's tons of context in the sources, that's just a convenient set of names and links.

> That is why people attack the source. Because the story here is the context of the facts and not the facts themselves.

The context is available to anyone capable of clicking two links. There are also names given which can be looked up to find sources you prefer. But maybe you're right that I should compile a giant list. I just feel that it's hard to justify it as worthwhile when people engage on a non-factual level. I can't take the beliefs of lazy thinkers seriously.

What is the difference between a "looter" and a "robber"? You can't simply link every death that happens during this time frame to the protests and if you do, you need to compare it to similar deaths that happened at other times.

>I just feel that it's hard to justify it as worthwhile when people engage on a non-factual level.

Which brings me back to the first reply to you. You are asking people to click through at least 3 level of links before we get to a non-biased source that can provide facts. People aren't going to think that effort is worthwhile if the first page they land on is a site founded on spreading conspiracy theories.

Also I quickly googled Dorn and you are fudging the facts a little. He is a 77 year old retired police officer. His death had nothing to do with him being a police officer. He was working as a security guard when he was killed. Coincidentally police have also recently killed an on-duty security guard[1]. Mentioning one and not the other can be an indication of bias.

[1] - https://www.ajc.com/news/police-shoot-kill-year-old-hispanic...

Anyone can look and see the path of arson, robbery & destruction that is not a part of any normal crime pattern. When dozens of people rob & destroy a Wal-Mart, Target, etc. that's "looting" not mere robbery or such.

Insofar as you want to compare crime stats, CHAZ/CHOP is part of a huge % increase in crime. Even CHAZ "security" managed to shoot people.

I only said that Dorn was a cop, not that he was murdered for being a cop--you're putting words in my mouth. I believe I did mention that some of even the 17 had been shot by cops and there were more deaths after that.

I take making false claims about what I've said to be a red flag.

>Anyone can look and see the path of arson, robbery & destruction that is not a part of any normal crime pattern. When dozens of people rob & destroy a Wal-Mart, Target, etc. that's "looting" not mere robbery or such.

Once again more context you are expecting your reader to look up rather than have explained by an unbiased news source.

The question isn't whether looting happened. Of course it did. However there are also hundreds of thousands of robberies and millions of larcenies. Those don't just go away during times of civil unrest. How do you decide what is considered looting connected to the protests versus traditional robbery or larceny?

>I only said that Dorn was a cop,

Here is what you actually said:

>>David Dorn, a black cop murdered by looters

There was no past tense on being a cop there.

> How do you decide what is considered looting connected to the protests versus traditional robbery or larceny?

There's a video of the people looting the store and several arrests were made. But you know that because you reviewed all that context, right?

> There was no past tense on being a cop there.

You do realize that I mentioned that he's dead, right?

But let's humor this for a moment... the fact that he was an old retired cop trying to keep his friend from losing his income and ending up in the proverbial poorhouse somehow makes his murder less awful to you?

Of course, that would only last until you found out about Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller or Dave Patrick Underwood, one assumes. Or will I hear more complaints if I neglect to mention that neither is black and the second is more of a security guard than a cop?

> The posts are public and the police cannot go after anyone for simply engaging in protected speech,

"police SHOULD NOT go after anyone for simply engaging in protected speech".

FTFY

They can do lots of things they should not. They should not run cars into protesters. They should not push over old men who are not causing trouble. They should not shoot unarmed people in the back who are running away. They should not kill a black man by choking him to death with their knee over a false counterfeit bill complaint.

And yet all these things happen. The police should not go after innocent protesters, but there's no way in hell I will believe that they will not, or are not doing so.

> They should not kill a black man ... over a false counterfeit bill complaint.

They shouldn’t kill even for legitimate counterfeit bill complaints. Police should use the absolute minimum force required to both apprehend suspects (as limited by relevant law) and is required by public safety; not one ounce more.

If someone is accused of committing a crime, it’s up to the courts and the jury to determine if they’re guilty and what the punishment shall me, the police don’t get to play judge, jury, and executioner.

Very much related to your last statement.

Why Some Cops Think They're The Punisher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM7z7pDmEC4

Good summary. Reminds me that I am very thankful to $deity that I am not an U.S. citizen.

In Boston I was standing beside the police as the let looting occur. There were only about 5 shops broken into and only 1 that I saw looted, but the police were standing 10 feet away from one and didn't do anything about it.

I’ve seen many videos of the same types of behaviors. My suspicion is things like this are intentional. Police are incredibly aware of how things are framed in media reports and they’re very aware of how little the media questions their actions–though I suspect, from their own actions repeatedly caught in video, this benefit of the doubt they've been afforded may be slipping away.

I genuinely believe that they let the looting happen either to punish the citizens who dared question them, or in the hopes that we’d focus on the looting and not the cops beating citizens down.

In other big cities, cops are kept on a very tight leash during protests and need permission from leadership to intervene.

In some areas, the cops are in league with the violent counter-protesters, which is why they watch them assault law-abiding people and do nothing about it:

...dozens of police looked on, in some cases chatting and sharing pizza with the group. They included Officer Joseph Goodwin Jr., whose brother Richie shoved one protester and was photographed punching another. [0]

Maybe it's the same thing with the looters.

0 - https://www.inquirer.com/news/fishtown-philadelphia-communit...

Only 5 shops? Jeez.

What did you expect the police to do? Stop the mobs while the looting happens? With anti police sentiment so high here, it would be a thousand times higher on the street. I'm not sure stopping the looting there and then would be a good idea.

> What did you expect the police to do? Stop the mobs while the looting happens?

Isn't that their job?

> So I'm not clear why so many people are against the police catching the violent criminals

Because someone can be against physical violence and simultaneously think surveilling everyone is wrong.

It’s things like this [1]. Doesn’t matter if it’s cops who really did it. People would like for the cops to not have a list of anti-police protestors.

[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-ferguson-acti...

> So I'm not clear why so many people are against the police catching the violent criminals who undermine the message of the many peaceful protesters.

It's because human beings are tribal by nature and tend to take social queues from those around them. SV and most major metro areas are overwhelming liberal, and right now it's trendy in those circles to issue blanket condemnations of all police activity with little regard for nuance.

In a lot of ways it's very similar to George W. Bush and co.'s "You with us or against us" mentally shortly after 9/11. Then, like now, any nuance or pointing out of grey areas were seen as a form of disloyalty and siding with the enemy, despite the matter itself being very complex, and yes, nuanced.