The current zeitgeist seems to be that peaceful protestors should be left alone and treated like the law abiding citizens they are, and that violent protestors should be punished accordingly.
Nobody in those Minneapolis neighborhoods (neighborhoods that were predominantly populated with african americans) wanted idiots burning down their local grocery stores or causing violence in their neighborhoods. Just like no sane person wanted a bunch of morons to break into the US Capitol building.
If you want to make a claim, own it instead of being coy.
> The current zeitgeist seems to be that peaceful protestors should be left alone and treated like the law abiding citizens they are
Even CNN, with it's masterful use of euphemistic language could only manage describe the protests last summer as "mostly peaceful" whist standing in front of a burning building.
I think this sort of false equality being constructed between peaceful protests against abuse of power and a seditionist insurrection against certifying election results is quite abhorrent, and your comment is certainly trying to normalize that equivalency by my reading.
Why would I say this? I don't think "the bad thing" of insurrection and lying about election results has been done by both sides, and so I perceive your comment that says "but both sides" to be reductionist, in a biased fashion. Surely, one can condemn an insurrection against democracy without needing to condemn peaceful protests against abuse of power and extrajudicial murder which were coopted by violent antagonists and opportunists.
The equivalency is not being drawn between the people who stormed the capitol and the people who were peacefully holding Black Lives Matter signs last summer. The equivalency is being drawn between the people who stormed the capitol and the people who smashed in the door to a federal courthouse and threw fireworks inside. [0]
Which is being defended and condoned by who? That is clearly a criminal act and should be punished.
The insurrection on the other hand has a hearty crew of deniers / supporters / it didn’t happen but if it did it wasn’t violent. Again, this is still a false equivalency being constructed.
> a hearty crew of deniers / supporters / it didn’t happen but if it did it wasn’t violent
is exactly what we all saw for months regarding Portland's protests.
I've seen it online and I've heard it in person. Exactly that way of talking about it: it didn't happen, but if it did, it would have been justified and/or nonviolent.
I'm not defending the capitol riot, nor am I condemning the BLM protestors as a whole. What I am saying is let's not pretend that either one was a group of exclusively peaceful protestors.
If we accept that there were violent crimes committed, then it follows police can and should be investigating the protests, because there were real crimes and real violence. We can debate whether they should be using Ring camera footage to do it, but some here are treating the mere fact that there's an investigation as an assault on free speech and free assembly. A more likely explanation is that they're investigating the assaults, robberies, and vandalism.
> What I am saying is let's not pretend that either one was a group of exclusively peaceful protestors
But how is that even relevant? These two events are not comparable and should not be spoken about in the same breath except for to say that the comparison is abhorrent.
The protests were a months-long event that was legitimately protesting abuse of power, regardless of who coopted the frequent, massive, public demonstration to do public damage.
The insurrection at the Capitol wasn't about anything other than disrupting the certification of the election. There can be no doubt about that. This is why well prepared and informed attackers were present and integrated with the crowd, which only existed for one day at one place that only one thing was happening at.
The question is how you know they're peaceful in advance. Do you just trust them? Often, many of the protesters don't know what's going to happen either. (Some do, and use the crowd as cover.)
It seems like some preparation for security at large events is necessary? But then the security is a target. Sometimes they try to keep a low profile to avoid this.
Sure, but that's not really relevant to the conversation.
The ring doorbell footage isn't used for intelligence in advance of an event. It's used for dragnet surveillance after an event has taken place.
My question about such after the fact surveillance: Is there a specific crime that they are investigating, or are they doing an investigation seeking a crime?
All of these protests, the BLM ones over the summer and the one on January 6th in DC were "mostly peaceful" by any definition of mostly and peaceful. Only the BLM protests got the "mostly peaceful" treatment from the media.
What is the strawman? Using statistics in this way is meaningless. Hell, I'd bet by area the capitol hill riots were mostly peaceful. The capitol complex is a large place and I'm certain 51% could be defined as peaceful under a similar definition that burning neighborhoods were this summer.
Nobody in those Minneapolis neighborhoods (neighborhoods that were predominantly populated with african americans) wanted idiots burning down their local grocery stores or causing violence in their neighborhoods. Just like no sane person wanted a bunch of morons to break into the US Capitol building.
If you want to make a claim, own it instead of being coy.