Tennessee Colonial wrote:

It seems that San Francisco is thinking about changing their High Schools with the names George Washington, Lincoln, etc. to something else. I wonder if it would be dangerous to wear a GW hat or sweatshirt around that town?  Scary. 

If you consider that scary, you are living a very sheltered, privileged life. 

There are elected officials and staffers being targeted for assassination. There are Black people being killed regularly by police.  There are soldiers stationed in dangerous places overseas.  Our democracy is teetering on the brink of extinction. 

Wearing a GW hat in a city that may  change the name of high schools is not scary.  Give me a break.

Free Quebec wrote:

Tennessee Colonial wrote:

It seems that San Francisco is thinking about changing their High Schools with the names George Washington, Lincoln, etc. to something else. I wonder if it would be dangerous to wear a GW hat or sweatshirt around that town?  Scary. 

If you consider that scary, you are living a very sheltered, privileged life.

There are elected officials and staffers being targeted for assassination. There are Black people being killed regularly by police. There are soldiers stationed in dangerous places overseas. Our democracy is teetering on the brink of extinction.

Wearing a GW hat in a city that may change the name of high schools is not scary. Give me a break.

I don't think TC meant that literally. He can speak for himself but I think it was more a shot at the cancel culture.

But I admire the hysterics FQ. You talk about elected officials and staffers being targeted for assassination. Don't remember the same energy here when a Bernie Bros shot up a field of Republican Congressmen nearly killing Steve Scalise. The Secret Service and Capitol Police process thousands of threats every year against members and staffers of both parties. Nothing new unfortunately.

Not sure what your definition of "regular" is but are you saying that no killing of black (or white) by police is ever justified? Statistically, even assuming that one unjustified killing is too many, you should at least be heartened to know that this problem (unjustified shootings) is becoming less "regular" each year - not more "regular".

When in the last century have soldiers not been stationed in dangerous places overseas? But, in fact, there are less soldiers stationed in dangerous places overseas than there were just 4 years ago.

As far as our democracy teetering on the brink of extinction. I doubt it, chicken littles of the world notwithstanding. Our democracy has survived bigger tests than this. I am confident we are nowhere close to facing the extinction of democracy here.

 

Last edited by GWRising (1/29/2021 10:25 am)

TC - with or without a GW plate, your car probably will be vandalized (broken in to). My home town (SF) is a hot mess. Even when I lived there (been gone for over twenty years now) it was a hot mess. I remember voting there. I always knew that I would be voting for the loser...everytime. And then there was a city proposal. A SFPD officer, who worked the schools, bringing with him his "partner", a ventriloquist dummy, got moved out of the schools (can't remember why, but it seemed justified). Moved to working the streets, he continued to do it with his "partner". Surprise of all surprises, he was ordered to leave the dummy at home, as it was felt that a one armed cop on the street might be a problem on the job.

Well, he got put on the ballot a proposal that would allow him to continue to work with the dummy while on the street. I was happy, for once I would win a race in the city. NO DUMMYS ON THE STREET'S OF SAN FRANCISCO I wanted to cheer (of course if you took that literally, the streets of San Francisco would have been empty).

The cop won his proposal 60 to 40 percent. Sigh. Hot mess I tell you.

Last edited by chrisw (1/29/2021 2:11 pm)

Hugh if your point is that violence is bad and should be punished no matter the cause, we'll agree. But where was that energy this summer when many more officers were hurt or killed across this country? You know the summer when Democratic officials raised bail for violent protestors, pushed for leniency and either encouraged or condoned the violence as cities burned, lives were lost and businesses destroyed. Nobody has clean hands here. Nobody.

Last edited by GWRising (1/29/2021 4:17 pm)

GWRising wrote:

Hugh if your point is that violence is bad and should be punished no matter the cause, we'll agree. But where was that energy this summer when many more officers were hurt or killed across this country? You know the summer when Democratic officials raised bail for violent protestors, pushed for leniency and either encouraged or condoned the violence as cities burned, lives were lost and businesses destroyed. Nobody has clean hands here. Nobody.

Your response is the functional equivalent of responding to the BLM with “all lives matter.”

Yet the FBI considers domestic right wing terrorism as a major threat to the country, not violence from the left.  Of course using demonstrations as an excuse for looting is clearly wrong, in terms of a threat to the country itself, I think it is hard to argue that this pales in comparison to an invasion of the Capitol by right wing extremists, many of whom were bent on violence against our elected officials.   Likewise, although I am not given to hyperbole (except of course when it comes to GW basketball), I truly believe that our democracy is in danger, which began with New Gingrich's "contract with America" and culminating with Trump's "stop the steal".   We now have a Congress that is so polarized that the only governing that gets done is through executive order rather than legislation.   Democrats get in and undo by executive order everything done by a Republican Administration, and same with the Republicans.  What I miss is the back room dealing, away from the camera, where both parties can reach a compromised agreement, slap the names of a Republican and Democrat on it, then enact it into legislation.   

Here is where GWrising's comparison breaks down.  He was apt to make the comparison because both BLM protests and the protest on the Hill to overturn the election results each included peaceful protesters.  Any peaceful protester has the right to protest in my book even if I am in disagreement with the position.  The enormous difference is that The Capitol Hill rioters were a subset of the protesters.  They are the extremists who thought it was fine to break into the Capitol and attempt to murder democratic politicians plus Mike Pence.  The BLM looters were not so my protesters as they were vile opportunists.  These are people whose cause was not BLM.  Instead, it was an opportunity to help themselves to stolen merchandise with a very low likelihood of getting caught.  While we have seen the unpleasantness of looting throughout our lives, we clearly have never seen anything approaching American citizens wreaking havoc upon our own most sacred historical institutions.  If we are trying to compare the severity of these irreprehensible actions, those who stormed the Capitol take first place hands down.

Long Suffering Fan wrote:

Yet the FBI considers domestic right wing terrorism as a major threat to the country, not violence from the left.  Of course using demonstrations as an excuse for looting is clearly wrong, in terms of a threat to the country itself, I think it is hard to argue that this pales in comparison to an invasion of the Capitol by right wing extremists, many of whom were bent on violence against our elected officials.   Likewise, although I am not given to hyperbole (except of course when it comes to GW basketball), I truly believe that our democracy is in danger, which began with New Gingrich's "contract with America" and culminating with Trump's "stop the steal".   We now have a Congress that is so polarized that the only governing that gets done is through executive order rather than legislation.   Democrats get in and undo by executive order everything done by a Republican Administration, and same with the Republicans.  What I miss is the back room dealing, away from the camera, where both parties can reach a compromised agreement, slap the names of a Republican and Democrat on it, then enact it into legislation.   

Just looting? Did you forget how many police officers were killed and injured this summer? How about arson? Is that not a crime anymore? How many government buildings were destroyed (courthouses, police stations, etc.) or is only the Capitol that matters?

Actually the FBI considers political extremism from right and left a threat if you read the reports. The media has just chosen to amplify one side of it so I can see why you are confused.

Actually, the heightened alert national terrorism advisory issued by the FBI is against right wing extremists upset with the results of the presidential election.    Fact is, although there is violence that may be attributable to both sides, there is nothing on the left akin to the organized violence on the right, be it from the so-called militia groups that conspired to kidnap a sitting governor to the organized attack on the Capitol.   It is not the left but the right who are driving cars into crowds of protesters, shooting protesters to death, blowing up office buildings (haven't forgotten Timothy McVay), waiving Nazi and Confederate flags, etc.   And this is without even getting into such long standing right wing groups such as the Ku Klux Kan.   GWRising...I am a Democrat but I respect many of the Republican positions, such as fiscal conservatism and support for the police, but the extremists that they have embraced over the years, culminating with Trump, there whacko conspiracy theories, their denial of science, as well as their sheer hypocricy of so many of so many of their current  positions...I really hope are more "Larry Hogan or George Will" than one of those folks.

Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (1/30/2021 12:51 pm)