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Interesting Take On Rioting & Looting


ChrisL

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The LA Sheriff held a press conference and he had several religious & community leaders speak.  One made an interesting point. 

He said that rioting & looting is a learned behavior going back to the revolution. What was the Boston Tea Party? A protest against tyranny where we looted tea and destroyed it.  His point was rioting & looting is woven into the fabric of America....

I think this guy is full of shit but am curious of other perspectives.

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5 minutes ago, sheep_herder said:

Do you or did any of the other speakers present facts to discredit his hypotheses? It is OK to say someone is full of shit, but it is best to be able to provide evidence and an alternative view.

It wasn’t a debate but an opportunity to give perspectives & insights.  The religious leaders from the black communities gave very inspiring talks. 

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3 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

It wasn’t a debate but an opportunity to give perspectives & insights.  The religious leaders from the black communities gave very inspiring talks. 

OK, but you still must have a view, if you are saying the fellow was full of shit. I am not trying to cause trouble, but just trying to understand your point of view.

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A black women in Toronto died just recently falling from upper stories of a building. She did have some incidents of epilepsy.... The police were inside.  There was a protest today in downtown Toronto. It was peaceful protest on Bloor St. (I recognize the buildings in photos.) and the family asked that it would be.  So no good sane reason for a big peaceful protest to degenerate into something completely unrecognizably violent.

https://www.blogto.com/city/2020/05/regis-korchinski-paquet-protest-march-toronto/  

Understand there have some situations of unfair of carding of some local blacks over the decades.  This is a former Toronto Star journalist now writer:  https://torontolife.com/city/life/skin-im-ive-interrogated-police-50-times-im-black/  I used to read his column before all this mess for him...he wrote a wide range of matters. 

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1 minute ago, sheep_herder said:

OK, but you still must have a view, if you are saying the fellow was full of shit. I am not trying to cause trouble, but just trying to understand your point of view.

I don’t think rioting & looting is woven into the fabric of America.  I 100% disagree with this.  Protest, yes, fighting tyranny yes.  Smashing businesses and looting for personal gain isn’t the same as throwing tea into the harbor in protest of tea tax.

I respect his point of view but I see it as this person was trying to justify the actions of the looters.

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5 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

I don’t think rioting & looting is woven into the fabric of America.  I 100% disagree with this.  Protest, yes, fighting tyranny yes.  Smashing businesses and looting for personal gain isn’t the same as throwing tea into the harbor in protest of tea tax.

I respect his point of view but I see it as this person was trying to justify the actions of the looters.

I don't disagree with you, but I've never been pushed to the 'breaking point' like some of these folks may have been.  Over the years, I have watched with disgust, as people show so little respect for the property and rights of others.  I hear comments more often than I like in passing, that scare the crap out of me. Such as bring it on, were ready for them, and these are from well armed people in a small town. Are they just full of bull, we may never know.

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1 minute ago, sheep_herder said:

I don't disagree with you, but I've never been pushed to the 'breaking point' like some of these folks may have been.  Over the years, I have watched with disgust, as people show so little respect for the property and rights of others.  I hear comments more often than I like in passing, that scare the crap out of me. Such as bring it on, were ready for them, and these are from well armed people in a small town. Are they just full of bull, we may never know.

Hmm looting the BevMo now... Think those people were pushed to the breaking point?

I see this is about getting mine and raising hell.  The legitimate protestors have cleared out.

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4 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

Hmm looting the BevMo now... Think those people were pushed to the breaking point?

I see this is about getting mine and raising hell.  The legitimate protestors have cleared out.

I hate to admit that I do not have a clue as to what you are referring.  Does it surprise you that the legitimate protestors have cleared out? I would assume most of them are law abiding.

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Just now, sheep_herder said:

I hate to admit that I do not have a clue as to what you are referring.  Does it surprise you that the legitimate protestors have cleared out. I would assume most of them are law abiding.

Going back to the point of people getting pushed to the breaking point. They feel so oppressed they need to steal liquor?

These people are not protesting, they are raising hell and getting what they can out of the unrest.  I don’t see this as being part of the fabric of America.

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I posted a perspective about this yesterday.  Yeah, there are the protesters, and the thiefs, and there is a venn diagram somewhere that will describe this, I am sure.

That said, many of these people who are protesting feel that the system has screwed them their entire lives, so why really should they buy into a system that favors the (entrenched, white, rich, etc)?   You are trying to attach your moral code to some people who think very differently.

When something is so out of whack and not changing, this is when you storm the fucking Bastille and you upend society until substantial changes take place.  It is alarming that some of you can't even deign to walk a few steps in another's shoes.   I understand this frustration and the need to do something, anything, to stop shit from happening.  That you also can't figure out why people will take a pragmatic view and loot to take what they feel society denied them when it failed them institutionally is also alarming.   You can be an inclusive and caring society or you can have this.  Everybody has to buy in.

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4 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

Going back to the point of people getting pushed to the breaking point. They feel so oppressed they need to steal liquor?

These people are not protesting, they are raising hell and getting what they can out of the unrest.  I don’t see this as being part of the fabric of America.

OK, but what the hell is BevMo? I don't disagree with what you are saying!! There are groups that will take advantage of these situations.  Glad I live where I do, as I at one time lived 26 miles southeast of Houston. Also had folks that lived in Pasadena and La Canada.

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5 hours ago, Randomguy said:

When something is so out of whack and not changing, this is when you storm the fucking Bastille and you upend society until substantial changes take place. 

I don’t disagree. What better way to protest classism than to loot and smash Louis Vuitton and Apple? It’s got a Fight Club smirk to it.

However, this has devolved so much from a protest over the racist disregard for human life into just anarchy that the message is virtually lost. If the Boston tea party had also busted up a bunch of shops along the harbor and set fire to some stuff, the message received by the King may have been very different than the pointed political one of rejecting their taxed tea.
 

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6 hours ago, ChrisL said:

see this is about getting mine and raising hell.  The legitimate protestors have cleared out.

That has been the point and issue here..yeah some of the smash and destroy  people are local...but some have come into the city just to make chaos...and my info comes from a community organizer who is seeing this happen..those people dont care about George Floyd..they care about causing chaos..and if they can get the protesters blamed for it...all the better.

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Given that the protests have an important message to deliver, how does the burning and looting make that message any stronger.  IMO it's not going to create a more warm and fuzzy feeling among the police.  On the contrary, they are going to go on doing their jobs fearing even more for their own protection.  

If an us vs them situation is what we want to change, this is a lot of us vs them to overcome.

 

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28 minutes ago, petitepedal said:

those people dont care about George Floyd..

Once the announcement that the police officer was arrested and charged with Murder, I feel the original protestor’s position had been heard and vindicated. That it took until Friday to happen did probably fuel the fire (and I would probably have favored a 2nd degree murder charge over a 3rd degree, but IANAL), but by Saturday when the worst  behavior of the protestors hit, the subject had changed. 

 

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6 hours ago, sheep_herder said:

OK, but what the hell is BevMo? I don't disagree with what you are saying!! There are groups that will take advantage of these situations.  Glad I live where I do, as I at one time lived 26 miles southeast of Houston. Also had folks that lived in Pasadena and La Canada.

BevMo! is a privately held corporation based in Concord, California, selling mainly alcoholic beverages. The company was founded in January 1994 as Beverages & More! in the San Francisco Bay Area, and re-branded as "BevMo!" in January 2001. By October 2009, the company had 100 stores in Arizona and California.

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10 hours ago, Randomguy said:

I posted a perspective about this yesterday.  Yeah, there are the protesters, and the thiefs, and there is a venn diagram somewhere that will describe this, I am sure.

That said, many of these people who are protesting feel that the system has screwed them their entire lives, so why really should they buy into a system that favors the (entrenched, white, rich, etc)?   You are trying to attach your moral code to some people who think very differently.

When something is so out of whack and not changing, this is when you storm the fucking Bastille and you upend society until substantial changes take place.  It is alarming that some of you can't even deign to walk a few steps in another's shoes.   I understand this frustration and the need to do something, anything, to stop shit from happening.  That you also can't figure out why people will take a pragmatic view and loot to take what they feel society denied them when it failed them institutionally is also alarming.   You can be an inclusive and caring society or you can have this.  Everybody has to buy in.

I understand this but why then are only a small percentage of the downtrodden burning & looting.  What’s different about those folks?  

And is this a learned behavior woven into the fabric of America?

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The Boston Tea party "looted" the object of objection: Tea on which they were being taxed.

What does the destruction pharmacies in Black-neighborhoods where older people get their meds, minority-owned businesses, private cars, etc. have to do with protesting?

Besides, if you want to justify today's actions by past behavior, why not include ownership of women and capturing them from other groups/tribes?  So if a guy kidnaps a woman - that's ok because it's "woven into American behavior" and has happened in every year of our history?

Anyone who tries to legitimize looting spits in the face of Jesus of Nazareth, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, etc.

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You guys are determined not to have any takeaways here.  Your ‘standards’ are not important to a substantial percentage of the population.  Frustration takes many expressions.  Because you cannot and will not attempt to understand does not make you better people or give you a moral high ground, it makes you rigid and unaware. 
 

Seriously, reconsider your stances that the Boston tea party was limited in any way.  Is that how people really work?  It is an embarrassingly simple perspective if you know even an inkling of human history.  Literally everything we are seeing now was present at that time.  Abuse of authority, no voice, absence of options, us vs. them, etc.  When “they” were identified and an absence of legal ramifications were ID’d, do some people take advantage throughout all of history?  Pull your heads out of your ass if you say no.  
 

There is a quote I heard years ago that said “it is the mark of an enlightened man to be able to entertain an idea without acting on it”.    Yes, everybody has their own code of behavior, but you can’t think that everybody is on the same page we are, or even wants to be.  Put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and just start imagining what they have been through. Then at least you have a chance of crafting a solution that will be satisfactory to other sides. 
 

It is easy to be all “oh, I would never loot, blah blah blah” because you can’t imagine doing it, but that is bullshit.   It is all situational, experiential, and context-related.   Nobody is saying to forgive the perps, or bleeding heart poor victims BS, but you have to consider multiple perspectives when crafting a persuasive means to stopping this kind of stuff that is regularly occurring and shows no sign of going away. 

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29 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

You guys are determined not to have any takeaways here.  Your ‘standards’ are not important to a substantial percentage of the population.  Frustration takes many expressions.  Because you cannot and will not attempt to understand does not make you better people or give you a moral high ground, it makes you rigid and unaware. 
 

Seriously, reconsider your stances that the Boston tea party was limited in any way.  Is that how people really work?  It is an embarrassingly simple perspective if you know even an inkling of human history.  Literally everything we are seeing now was present at that time.  Abuse of authority, no voice, absence of options, us vs. them, etc.  When “they” were identified and an absence of legal ramifications were ID’d, do some people take advantage throughout all of history?  Pull your heads out of your ass if you say no.  
 

There is a quote I heard years ago that said “it is the mark of an enlightened man to be able to entertain an idea without acting on it”.    Yes, everybody has their own code of behavior, but you can’t think that everybody is on the same page we are, or even wants to be.  Put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and just start imagining what they have been through. Then at least you have a chance of crafting a solution that will be satisfactory to other sides. 
 

It is easy to be all “oh, I would never loot, blah blah blah” because you can’t imagine doing it, but that is bullshit.   It is all situational, experiential, and context-related.   Nobody is saying to forgive the perps, or bleeding heart poor victims BS, but you have to consider multiple perspectives when crafting a persuasive means to stopping this kind of stuff that is regularly occurring and shows no sign of going away. 

You are confusing a lack of agreement with a view point with a lack of understanding of it.  
 

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3 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

You are confusing a lack of agreement with a view point with a lack of understanding of it.  
 

It is easy to confuse a lot of things without the nonverbal stuff, it happens.  
 

Anyway, I don’t think we are seeing anything remotely new, I am sure this has played out thousands of times in the last thousand years in pretty much the same way. 
 

Big difference is the cameras. 

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