burnerben wrote on January 7, 2021 at 1:50 PM

I live barely outside of DC we had a curfew. Its amazing to see grown men and woman of this country have a tempure tantrum just because their guy didnt win. So much so they stormed the capitol building with weapons, killed someone, injured many many police, and put thousands of lives in danger. I have a close friend who's father works in the capitol and he wasnt answering his phone, she was scared half to death. Thankfully he's ok. And hopefully the united states invested enough in privacy infringing technologies to arrest these fuckers.

eeqrhty wrote on January 18, 2021 at 2:57 AM

Most of them didn't do it simply because their guy didn't win. It's because they believe the election was illegitimate. If Trump won this election and you sincerely believed that it was due to fraud, would you consider it unjustified for people to storm the capitol?

burnerben wrote on January 18, 2021 at 10:25 PM

yes. peaceful protests are what should be done

eeqrhty wrote on January 19, 2021 at 5:38 AM

Why would you expect peaceful protests to work in that scenario though?

The point of peaceful protests usually is to say "hey, look at all these people who are going to vote out candidates who don't do what we want and vote in candidates that do what we want". But if voting itself is rigged, then that is not a proper threat.

Trump supporters already had multiple peaceful "stop the steal" type protests prior to the 6th and showed up in large numbers to Trump rallies that happened after election day.

Every peaceful protest has this implicit underlying threat, and it is part of why peaceful protests work. "Look at all of the people who will be pissed off and might cause disruption or do something violent if you don't listen to them".

If the first threat (voting people out) is not a serious threat anymore, then we are only left with the second threat as leverage. Now, there are ways to cause disruption without violence and that is more moral. Examples would be a refusal to work or pay taxes in masse. But it would be very difficult to get enough people to participate. People felt that it was very urgent to save the republic and that is why some were motivated to take more drastic actions.

Keep in mind, most of the people who stormed the capitol were engaging in an act of non-violent civil disobedience. There were people at the front who fought with police but the vast majority of the people who went in just walked in after the police had already stood down or retreated further into the building.

burnerben wrote on January 19, 2021 at 3:21 PM

yea but inciting actual violence defeats the purpose of a peaceful protest

eeqrhty wrote on January 20, 2021 at 3:34 AM

If actual violence happens every now and then, that gives proof that the implicit threat is actually real. I think before this happened, politicians believed that conservatives were too committed to law and order to pose any real threat. Maybe now, instead of just cowing to the left's demands out of fear, decisions will be more balanced and they will weigh the potential reaction of both sides.

The left has had the advantage when demanding things for a while because people know the left can turn violent on a dime. Some of us on the right noticed that after the riots this year, corporations and politicians were suddenly trying very hard to prove how much they support BLM and the demand to defund the police was met in multiple cities. So it's no wonder that some Trump supporters decided that they ought to try rioting as well. Apparently it is effective.