You're ignoring pretty much all of material conditions at play here, which I guess is kinda understandable if you aren't actually there taking part, but if that's the case then please at least consider what the people who are there have to say about it.
You don't seem to understand that public opinion and media spin is a big part of this whole thing. Without some measure of public support behind the protests, they would not be able to continue in their present form. Consider how the public and the media would view an armed left presence to begin with, and now consider how they would view a chud shooting someone in two different situations: one where we were unarmed, and one where we are. In the former scenario, there is no spin you can put on that to make it look like our fault. In the latter, there is no way they would do anything but that. We are not the aggressors, we are the subjects of disproportionate use of force, and we have to play to the fact that the media wants to portray us as the aggressors and will do so at every opportunity. And if someone ever gets shot at an unarmed protest, we now have a very compelling reason to begin carrying in self defense, not as the aggressors/escalators.
Never let these subhuman pieces of shit intimidate you. It’s frankly fucking pathetic that you’re more afraid of them than the cops.
Fuck off with that. I'm not afraid of them and never said that, it's hard to see how this statement was made in good faith but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here anyway. I said the cops have more restraint than the chuds, which based on personal experience I know to be objectively true in this case. There have been multiple instances of chuds firing shots off in PDX since this started, but the cops have thus far kept all of the real bullets in their magazines. If you wanna talk about something being fucking pathetic, I'd offer that it may be the person telling other folks who are out winning street brawls with chuds and nazis, and wearing down the cops, that they are cowards. Get out in the fucking street yourself if you wanna talk shit.
Most of them are fucking cowards. The dude in this picture would have kept his hand far as fuck away as possible from his gun if we had a line of us with rifles.
It is very clear that you have never met or interacted with Allen Swinney. As someone who has, I feel that the exact opposite is true. What exactly is your opinion here based on?
This attitude, that I’m encouraging escalation and violence and shit by saying we should be armed, organized, and ready to defend ourselves is what’s gonna get us killed, be it at a protest downtown or against a fucking wall a couple years from now.
If you're not actually out there with us (and based on everything you've said so far I feel like I can safely assume you aren't), I can see why you'd think this. However, I can tell you without equivocation that our side showing up armed is an escalation. It is 110% an escalation. I agree that a chud will shoot someone at some point, but an armed left presence at this moment would greatly heighten the risk of one of the chuds actually shooting us, which has not happened yet and I would prefer to keep it that way.
All it would take is one person accidentally flagging the crowd with their barrel to give them reasonable cause to shoot. As it currently stands, they have no excuse to use deadly force and they don't want to go to jail and lose the right to legally own firearms any more than you or I do. The fact that Skylor Jernigan is arrested and charged after discharging downtown last week provides proof that the police, for now at least, are still willing to punish them for crossing this line.
Yesterday's events aside, we are fighting a war of attrition with the cops and it is going well. An armed left presence at even one protest will result in a bunch of cops carrying rifles at all of the nightly protests going forward. So us doing this even one time basically means we would need to commit to doing this every night, and no one (you included) is signing up for that. It is blatant escalation. If you don't think so, show up to the protest tonight and get on the mic, tell everyone we need to start carrying guns with us and in doing so escalate the situation to the point where it will only ever end violently, and see how that goes.
Also, just throwing this in there in case you aren't aware, CC is outright illegal in PDX and to open carry you have to have a CCL. This requirement means that the majority of the protesters are unable to legally carry in city limits anyway.
Being armed at a protest where violent, mentally unstable people are waving guns around as a threat is not only an absolutely correct response, it’s basic like, How to Not Die 101.
Are you kidding me on this one? If you have a mentally unstable person acting violently, you think the answer is to simply bring more guns into the equation? This is wildly irresponsible, and is exactly what we are protesting against. Bringing guns in to solve the problem, threatening disproportionate force before any significant violence has occurred, is exactly what the fucking pigs do and is why they end up murdering so many folks.
As an aside, I'd recommend not making the blanket statement that these people are mentally unstable, as it's derogatory to folks who actually are, and most of the chuds are not. Just because they have a (very shitty) worldview that differs from ours doesn't mean they are mentally unstable, and claiming such is a very slippery slope that ultimately ends in dehumanization.
So yeah, get out in the streets yourself for a week and see if you still think what you're suggesting is the right move. Otherwise, I'd suggest you stop egging on other folks to put themselves in mortal danger because you think it's a good idea because you read some things on the internet and now know what's going on.
I'm done debating this with you online. If you want to talk more, let's see you come out to the protests at night and advocate for your position, put forward a plan to accomplish your goal safely without increasing the danger to other's lives, get agreement from the group, and be willing to stand on the front line with a rifle every night yourself. I'll wait.
And here's Robert Evans, a big advocate of an armed left, and who has shown more prescience about the way things have unfolded then pretty much anyone else, stating why he similarly believes us bringing guns into the situation (as it currently stands) is not a good idea. For context in case you don't know, Robert is not an internet observer but is regularly out there in the streets, and you should listen to 'It could Happen Here' if you haven't already.
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You're ignoring pretty much all of material conditions at play here, which I guess is kinda understandable if you aren't actually there taking part, but if that's the case then please at least consider what the people who are there have to say about it.
You don't seem to understand that public opinion and media spin is a big part of this whole thing. Without some measure of public support behind the protests, they would not be able to continue in their present form. Consider how the public and the media would view an armed left presence to begin with, and now consider how they would view a chud shooting someone in two different situations: one where we were unarmed, and one where we are. In the former scenario, there is no spin you can put on that to make it look like our fault. In the latter, there is no way they would do anything but that. We are not the aggressors, we are the subjects of disproportionate use of force, and we have to play to the fact that the media wants to portray us as the aggressors and will do so at every opportunity. And if someone ever gets shot at an unarmed protest, we now have a very compelling reason to begin carrying in self defense, not as the aggressors/escalators.
Fuck off with that. I'm not afraid of them and never said that, it's hard to see how this statement was made in good faith but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here anyway. I said the cops have more restraint than the chuds, which based on personal experience I know to be objectively true in this case. There have been multiple instances of chuds firing shots off in PDX since this started, but the cops have thus far kept all of the real bullets in their magazines. If you wanna talk about something being fucking pathetic, I'd offer that it may be the person telling other folks who are out winning street brawls with chuds and nazis, and wearing down the cops, that they are cowards. Get out in the fucking street yourself if you wanna talk shit.
It is very clear that you have never met or interacted with Allen Swinney. As someone who has, I feel that the exact opposite is true. What exactly is your opinion here based on?
If you're not actually out there with us (and based on everything you've said so far I feel like I can safely assume you aren't), I can see why you'd think this. However, I can tell you without equivocation that our side showing up armed is an escalation. It is 110% an escalation. I agree that a chud will shoot someone at some point, but an armed left presence at this moment would greatly heighten the risk of one of the chuds actually shooting us, which has not happened yet and I would prefer to keep it that way.
All it would take is one person accidentally flagging the crowd with their barrel to give them reasonable cause to shoot. As it currently stands, they have no excuse to use deadly force and they don't want to go to jail and lose the right to legally own firearms any more than you or I do. The fact that Skylor Jernigan is arrested and charged after discharging downtown last week provides proof that the police, for now at least, are still willing to punish them for crossing this line.
Yesterday's events aside, we are fighting a war of attrition with the cops and it is going well. An armed left presence at even one protest will result in a bunch of cops carrying rifles at all of the nightly protests going forward. So us doing this even one time basically means we would need to commit to doing this every night, and no one (you included) is signing up for that. It is blatant escalation. If you don't think so, show up to the protest tonight and get on the mic, tell everyone we need to start carrying guns with us and in doing so escalate the situation to the point where it will only ever end violently, and see how that goes.
Also, just throwing this in there in case you aren't aware, CC is outright illegal in PDX and to open carry you have to have a CCL. This requirement means that the majority of the protesters are unable to legally carry in city limits anyway.
Are you kidding me on this one? If you have a mentally unstable person acting violently, you think the answer is to simply bring more guns into the equation? This is wildly irresponsible, and is exactly what we are protesting against. Bringing guns in to solve the problem, threatening disproportionate force before any significant violence has occurred, is exactly what the fucking pigs do and is why they end up murdering so many folks.
As an aside, I'd recommend not making the blanket statement that these people are mentally unstable, as it's derogatory to folks who actually are, and most of the chuds are not. Just because they have a (very shitty) worldview that differs from ours doesn't mean they are mentally unstable, and claiming such is a very slippery slope that ultimately ends in dehumanization.
So yeah, get out in the streets yourself for a week and see if you still think what you're suggesting is the right move. Otherwise, I'd suggest you stop egging on other folks to put themselves in mortal danger because you think it's a good idea because you read some things on the internet and now know what's going on.
I'm done debating this with you online. If you want to talk more, let's see you come out to the protests at night and advocate for your position, put forward a plan to accomplish your goal safely without increasing the danger to other's lives, get agreement from the group, and be willing to stand on the front line with a rifle every night yourself. I'll wait.
And here's Robert Evans, a big advocate of an armed left, and who has shown more prescience about the way things have unfolded then pretty much anyone else, stating why he similarly believes us bringing guns into the situation (as it currently stands) is not a good idea. For context in case you don't know, Robert is not an internet observer but is regularly out there in the streets, and you should listen to 'It could Happen Here' if you haven't already.
https://twitter.com/IwriteOK/status/1294758318217392128?s=20