https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667848
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691407
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25671284
Objectively, the summer's riots (as opposed to the more numerous peaceful protests) caused more deaths, injuries, and property damage. At the same time, the assault on the capitol was an unprecedented attack on democracy and the peaceful transition of power, to which there is no direct BLM parallel.
For now, I suggest we all stop comparing these things. I don't think many are receptive to either side of the argument. Emotions are still running high, and we're not through the transition of power just yet.
> I suggest we all stop comparing these things.
One group of people were protesting/rioting because police continue to suffer little consequence for murdering Black folks, despite years of effort at reform.
The other group protested/rioted by breaking into the Capitol and threatening to murder politicians because the current POTUS has claimed, repeatedly and without any evidence, that the election he recently lost was somehow rigged against him. Again, for context, this has come from the side of American politics that has for the past four years claimed that "elections have consequences."
To compare these two events on a "look who did more violence" level is reductive at best and at worst a bad faith argument in support of the folks who stormed the capitol.
If "protesting/rioting" includes gunning down unarmed black kids in the street (third link above), count me out.
This is a highly flammable topic and we seem unlikely to agree, so I'd prefer we pause here.
Antonio Mays Jr. was not killed near a protest by a random passerby. He was murdered by armed "anti-fascist" protestors. They shot him in the face with a rifle. It's on camera. The killers audibly confessed to the murder. See this link [1] for the clips, if you must. The footage is disturbing.
[0] https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/george-floyd-pro...
> He was murdered by armed "anti-fascist" protestors.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/26/almost-no...
If you can stomach it, watch the whole video. It is graphic:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0cUYLQkhGmU&t=2m
Another clip with the killer(s) and other protestors repeating, “I didn’t see sh*t!”, the mantra of those who don’t talk to police:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=kDmNJ6tO2Lg
Unsurprisingly, Seattle police have made no arrests in the case. Per official statement, the crime scene was destroyed and witnesses aren’t cooperating.
This happened in a residential neighborhood. An unarmed black kid died at the hands of political vigilantes. Rifle bullets entered people’s homes. It barely made national news. Joe Biden felt no need to tweet. Compare that to later coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse. To some, this disparity represents a double standard.
That double standard is the essence of my comparison between this summer’s violence and the storming of the capitol. Both are reckless, deadly, and reprehensible. Both must be condemned. Perpetuating the double standard just perpetuates one group’s grievance, fueling more violence.
You say you're concerned about the violence on both sides and there being a double standard which you find distasteful, and yet all of your posts are attempting to paint the BLM protests with the same violent core as the folks who overran the capitol, which given any kind of context or detail isn't true at all.
To my original point: the context around these events make it clear that they are different and should be judged differently -- context which you've continually ignored to push this narrative.
If there exists a double standard, it isn't that "violence on the left" is suppressed, it's that if the capitol were stormed by BLM protestors who've finally had enough of police violence and systematic racism, they wouldn't have gotten into the building, and they for damn sure wouldn't have walked out under their own power.
You aren't giving the same treatment to the the other side here -- you're not saying "if keeping people safe means the police should be allowed to murder folks / bludgeoning a police officer to death when storming the capitol" so I find it difficult to believe you're merely concerned about the use of violence.
You did, several comments up, state "the assault on the capitol was an unprecedented attack on democracy," which it was, but that's after posting multiple links where you're posting links and evidence trying to discredit the nationwide BLM protests by painting them as violent, so again, your bias is evident.
I’m only trying to discredit the violence, as I made clear in my original comment.
If you’ll casually assign me false motives and claim I’m “intellectually dishonest,” I see no reason to continue our discussion.
That's totally the same as invading the center of government decked out in illegal guns and armor while most of the line of succession is there, chanting your intention to murder them while breaking down doors, stealing government laptops, building a gallows to hang the politicians you don't like with, dragging police officers outside to beat them to death, all the while declaring the start of a new civil war, and while sympathetic insiders feed them real-time information about the location of the politicians you intend to kill, etc etc etc.