I’m curious what cities have been literally burned to the ground?

I agree with you! The way the police acts is often awful and overly broad. I'm all for diminishing their power. But this makes your comment down the thread even more confusing. You said: "He's trying to be clever and say "civil war" without saying "civil war". The LARPers on the right seem to be enjoying this a great deal. I'm sure the FBI will be very interested in their calls for violence."

So, are you against using police force unnecessarily or for it? Because you seem to be saying that people should be visited by the FBI for their comments online, like it happened with this kid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgqeJi_Z6aM. Or are you only for it if it's against your political opponents?

Oh no you got me. Police shutting down calls for bombing democratic cities is exactly the same thing.

Whoever instigates violence is at fault, let me get that clear.

But I believe there is a responsibility on the side of organizers to be more vocal about peace than they are about the change they are trying to implement as other more righteous and respectable figures have done in the past.

If you allow your movement to become one of violence and all you have to say is to point the finger at others, whether you are correct or not, you are grossly inferior of the civil rights movements of the past.

But I believe, as many others do, that this movement was not born to achieve any measure of civil rights, though that may be the intent of many.

Making an enemy of an clear necessity of any society ( a police force ) and only being satisfied when injustice is performed on the offender is madness. There are corrupt police, do something productive about. Burning your own house down solves nothing, unless perhaps your goal is a new house.

I've no problem with people protesting the gross incompetence of two poorly trained people in a position of relative power, I just think its ludicrous that it got turned into an excuse to loot and vandalise unrelated buildings and structures.

If your gripe is with the police, go and burn down a police station, not the Portland elk statue or a corner shop owned and run by your neighbour.

These were not the same people.

Maybe not, but going by all the "acab" graffiti on that elk, its not a hard jump for people to relate the two. It would be nice if certain organisations would have spoken out against the bad actors using their name to commit crimes.

> Heaven forbid that people protest getting killed randomly by the police.

Did anyone in power make any proposals on how to fix what was being protested about? In contrast, I saw a lot of politicians talking about how awful the protesters were as if they were protesting just for the sake of it.

Perfect example of "whataboutism"