Let's say there were people who support violently overthrowing US government (I personally don't think there were many at Capitol on Jan 6, but I am willing to entertain your point and even go much further than that). In fact, we know such people existed, long before today, but let's say there are more of them. How that changes anything? There always were hundreds of millions of people who would like nothing better than US government to fall. There were many governments actually falling, including as a result of violent - or non-violent - revolutions. Most of us who are out of elementary school probably could remember several examples they witnessed (hopefully not in person, but at least via the news). Somehow it didn't cause people to say "well, if that could happen, probably free speech is stupid, we just need to let our betters on Facebook/Twitter rule us now, people are clearly too stupid to handle free speech".
To be clear, I am not claiming those violent people are right or not supporting them. I am just surprised that existence of such people - which shouldn't be any news for anyone - suddenly makes somebody to give up on such core ideals as free speech, and not as a result of some civilization-shattering catastrophic event with millions of deaths but as a result of a TV picture.
Please consider how immersed in the QAnon belief system the whole thing is. The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy (broadly against their own interests) on the impetus of completely baseless hogwash.
Society apparently has little defense against this sort of viral, distributed cult and people are scrambling. I'm pretty sure that ad-hoc ostracism effected by large social media companies isn't the best approach, but the cost of not doing anything is terrible.
> The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy
You mean, like set up an autonomous zone in a center of the city and kick the police out? Burn down a federal court? Destroy the police station? Take over capitol building and occupy it for several weeks? Attack an elected official's family at their own home because you don't like their policies?
Yeah, that happened, but not sure how immersed in QAnon belief system (whatever it is) that was. All I know the democracy survived all that.
Grievances about racial inequality are a lot more grounded in reality than QAnon and there was no attempt to disrupt elections, so no, very different situation.
But there it is.. Grievances. You think the Qanon Idiots don't have their grievances on the election? What the see as forced changes to their rights and beliefs? Feeling ostracized everywhere they go because of their beliefs that may be counter to yours?
Neither side sees themselves as terrorist, they see themselves as freedom fighters. Both groups are idiots and damaging the country. If you support either, you're adding fuel to the fire. Big Tech stepping in and shutting a group off the internet may see correct today, but all political tides wane and a new wave comes in, how sure are you that it will be the wave you want and not one where you're the dangerous one we have to silence?
It's not the same thing (a lot less oppression of others involved in that) and critically it's not the same grouping of people; it's like how Congress has extremely low approval rates but people often support their specific incumbent.
Successful in what? Stealing Pelosi's podium? Yes, she'd have to order a new one. And a new laptop. And probably fix some windows That's terrible, but what "population of people" do you mean here, beyond folks that need to clean up that shit (and who have my wholehearted compassion, it must have sucked)?
Successful in killing/hold hostage those elected officials they deemed against their cause. This could have ended so much worse than it did.
For example, what do you think would've happened if AOC or one of the other congresswomen maligned by Trump ended up in front of these maniacs? Do you think they would have stopped at stealing podiums/laptops?
What would have happened if any of the riots this past year escalated to violence because of heavy handed actions of the "left". In fact, we know what happened, death and destruction.
Why is this not viewed in the same way? It's a complete attack on our country and government, but was somehow sanctioned?
Because people rioting over centuries of racial abuse and systematic racially motivated murder at the hands of policeman is not the same thing as storming your nations capitol because you don't like the results of a free and fair election
Oh so lets scream ACAB, remove our police, allow crime to grow and that will fix things? How many of the protests / riots were started in response to a police shooting and then months later it is clearer that the use of force was justified?
I was 100% onboard with reformation of policing, increasing training, and the likes. When rioters attacked small business, used strong arm tactics to establish autonomous zones in us Cities, burned down police stations, attacked innocent bystanders.. etc.. you lost my empathy.
I'm 100% for equality, I'm 100% for people loving whome ever they want. You have my support. But when the demonization of anyone that doesn't 100% toe the line becomes standard you lose me and a large portion of America.
Both sides are going crazy and until both sides acknowledge that, it's only going to get worse. Media and big tech taking these actions will escalate not de-escalate.
While I don't doubt many leftists were violent in those BLM protests, many of them were not leftists. Many were anarchists, which its hard to be both at the same time. Also, some who were actually charged by the federal DoJ were members of right-wing groups trying to ignite the race war. These aren't conspiracy theories, these are looking at the actual people charged with committing violence during these protests.
I think they're scared because people like the ones who stormed the capitol, would happily kill any of them without a second thought. The attackers were completely under the influence of their propaganda.
The depressing thing is that while you may share some beliefs with that side of the political spectrum, these are not the kind of people who will be reasonable when they come for 'nonbelievers' in the night. That shifts the terrain considerably as far as the security situation is concerned. Even if I agree with some of the tenets of their politics.
Frankly that goes for the extremists on the other side of the political spectrum as well. These extremists have just shown tendencies that are way too dangerous.
