Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Just to avoid confusion here. The day of the inauguration there was violence around Washington and actual anarchists who turned up to cause trouble. The next day, the day of protests with the massive crowds etc, there was no violence and no arrests in Washington(which is amazing for a protest of that size.
So I think people are getting wires crossed on that one.
---------- Post added at 20:59 ---------- Previous post was at 20:47 ----------
What is anti-democratic about the protests?
Incidentally I think extremists of either persuasion are dangerous. They require authoritarianism in order in control people and implement change. It's usually too difficult to do so otherwise and you need to compromise with a wide range of opinion in a democracy. So whether it's fascist Germany or Communist Russia. They both had to oppress political opposition and the press. I would also point out there are plenty of people who've murdered others or committed terrorist acts in the name of far-right ideologies. Just last year we had a member of Parliament killed by such a person.
It's up to both sides to disassociate themselves with such people and not to assume it's only a problem the other side needs to worry about. But I don't think we should judge wide groups of people by their most extreme elements either. I think people would get along much better if they did that. Especially since once you've put people into such buckets then it's harder to empathise with them as individuals. |
Far left demonstrations, riots, protests, attract thousands and cause swathes of damage and destruction.
Far right, EDL, or BNP ( but they're defunct now anyway). You get maybe 50 ish.
The left is where the thought police reside, the left happily brand anyone that doesn't subscribe to their doctrine, racist or homophobic, unnecessarily. This makes people uncomfortable, they disengage and they re-engage at the ballot box.
Trump, Brexit and whatever else follows is the direct result of the unwillingness of the left to have sensible conversation before branding anybody with a contrary point of view as racist and homophobic.