The clearest example of this that I have personally experienced was in a discussion a few days ago about the fires in Oregon. A state senator had his house burned down, and my suggestion that we shouldn't be celebrating this guy's misery brought a level of vicious attack I was completely unprepared for.
Like, I get it, it's ironic- he opposed a climate change and wildfire bill and his house burned down. What really scared me though was realizing I don't think the reaction would have been much different if he himself had burned to death in the fire.
Ouch. I have so many complicated thoughts trying to process the implications of that story, which I won’t try to sort out here. People are in denial about this, especially younger people with a fairly narrow view of both history and global politics, but what we are seeing is foreshadowing a civil war, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to see what might avert that outcome. There’s no question in my mind that we haven’t seen the worst of the riots and the violence yet. With the police forces being neutered all over the country, the inevitable response will be federal forces, and I think that is by design. Once that happens, we face a major escalation that will be very hard to unwind. We’ve learned now that these events are not rooted in any principle of justice (despite their clever PR that still appears to be fooling most) which means they can’t actually be avoided. They’re going to continue to capture any event they can to advance. I’m not even sure they realize what they are doing. Honestly, you can see the same ideological possession in so many of the comments in this thread.
Every time the police shoot a black man, unarmed and possibly in the back, there's a huge outpouring from the conservative media about why they deserved it and the police were right to murder them.
That, more than anything else, has contributed to the coarseness of the discourse. Well, that and the 4chanisation of everything. Maybe the right could rein in the "libtard" and "cuck" discourse a bit too? Oh, and the death threats that prominent women get.
That’s not the case at all. There is an attempt to explain why the shooting was justified, and it nearly always is justified, which is an important analysis. It’s not as though there is a pattern of unarmed killings.
> It’s not as though there is a pattern of unarmed killings.
There's at least one a month that makes international news? And several thousand demonstrators in the streets for hundreds of days that think they're not justified? And it turns out that the police lie about events unless there's footage, and sometimes even then?
One a month spread around different individuals in the country with over 700,000 cops and a total of over 50 million interactions a year, which includes dealing with all of the violent criminals who usually don’t want to go to go willingly and are often armed, then yes, one a month is incredibly low and indicates that this isn’t a pattern.
Even basic statistics knowledge should make this obvious.
It doesn’t matter that people are rioting. It turns out they routinely lie about events until there is footage too. Crowds riot about dumb/wrong things all the time. Sports games come to mind.
You just linked to an example where a wanted violent criminal was reported to police for violating a restraining order against a woman he previously allegedly raped, who then disregarded the cops orders, decided to fight with them and put them in a headlock, refused to comply again after being shot with tasers, refused to comply again when the gun was drawn, and instead reached for a deadly weapon while in lethal striking distance of an officer. I think you proved my point, not yours.
The underlying deeper point is that you are assuming you, or your point of view is good, and perfect, and his is bad. And because he made a mistake he should have his house burned down (and should die).
What you are missing is that you also make mistakes as a human being, and when you have terrible consequences of that happen, it might be nice if people on some opposite side of a political spectrum don’t laugh at you about it and say you deserved it, but stay quiet because they also know they are fallible and make mistakes.
I am truly shocked you are ok with someone dying because of some mistaken political point of view. This tbh has no place in a supposedly civil place like HN (or America? Or the world??)
Not only that, but there is no evidence that the fires had anything to do with climate change. You can not attribute individual events to climate change. There is also an argument that they were as bad as they are due to poor forest management.
Like, I get it, it's ironic- he opposed a climate change and wildfire bill and his house burned down. What really scared me though was realizing I don't think the reaction would have been much different if he himself had burned to death in the fire.