Do you sympathize with those protesting COVID-19 restrictions?

Look at these lunatics. It literally looks like the zombie apocalypse. Frankly, I think we need to start encouraging these imbeciles to break quarantine. We need them to start dying by the millions and tens of millions. We should start encouraging the stupids to gather in mass protests, hooting and coughing on each other.

No, I have no sympathy for the people protesting. I understand they want to get the economy back and running. So do I. But at what cost? How many more have to die because people want their way?
I wonder how those protesters would feel if the economy went back to quasi normal and they lost a child, a spouse, mother or father needlessly because they couldn’t wait to get back together? I hope they don’t have to find out.

@chyna They’d just blame Obama, immigrants, or “socialism.” They’re fundamentally incapable of accepting blame or personal responsibility for anything. The same people who were howling about “death panels” are now totally content with allowing grandma to drown in her own dissolved lung tissue if it means they get to go back to their bourgeois lives of convenient inconsequentiality.

No Sympathy

They should collect the ID of each one of these idiots and stick it in a database. If these people end up in the E.R. they should be stuck in the back of the line.

About 1.5%.

Still not sure why people think the economy will thrive if the workers fall ill, infect their customers, and die.

No, let the fuckers eat cake!

I find them to be selfish pricks. They don’t care how many people die as long as they get what they want. They need to be held in one of the detention centers that’s rampant with covid

I feel sorry for desperate people. Many are on the verge of financial collapse. I hope things get better for everyone soon.

Of course I do.

And I think I would even under different circumstances. However, I am pretty desperate to go back to work May 1 and I am crossing my fingers I’ll be able to, so empathize might be more accurate than sympathy. How selfish and hideous of me to want to pay my bills and buy groceries.

Yes!

@ANef_is_Enuf Do you think the restrictions are done accomplishing what they were meant to accomplish? Or do you think they were never necessary to begin with?

I think we all want things to go back to normal. The problem is weighing the cost of potentially more infections and deaths against the economic fallout. But there’s no denying that the economic damage could last a lot longer than whatever short term blow the virus represents. Most people who get the virus will not die. That has not changed.

@Demosthenes I’m following the restrictions carefully and I believe they’re necessary and effective.
I also think they’ll have to be modified sooner than later, too many of us are falling through the cracks. It’s very easy to make these issues black and white, but like most things they’re not. The economic impact isn’t some abstract concept for a lot of us, I’m going on weeks with next to no income, no potential for real income and what pitiful savings I had is nearly gone. My best option at this point is to try to get a job at a grocery store or delivering food, which funny enough exposes me considerably more than my regular job. But people have to eat. Dismissing those very real and valid concerns is as reckless as opening everything up.

I personally know people who have lost loved ones to c19, I have no doubts about the severity of the crisis. I also know people literally a day away from homelessness, people stuck inside of dysfunctional or abusive households and many others who have no idea how they’re going to pay next months bills (myself included) so to imply those people are selfish rather than desperate is pretty sad to me. No one has to agree or disagree, but I think it’s easy to empathize.

@ANef_is_Enuf I agree. I think part of the problem is that these protesters (or at least the ones making headlines) are the usual anti-government crowd with their confederate flags and MAGA hats and aren’t necessarily representative of the larger group of people struggling economically. They are the type who protest the government over any perceived overreach. But I think it’s important to recognize that a lot of people are struggling and don’t have the luxury of continuing their white collar job via Zoom.

Yeah, I agree. I’m not saying I agree with them, just that I empathize.

No.

I do sympathize with them, but I do not agree with them. A good friend of mine owns a comic book store and he is barely hanging on.

@Demosthenes It’s not just the deaths from COVID-19. That’s what most people don’t seem to understand. Once COVID-19 overwhelms the medical system, people begin dying from all the other things which are ordinarily survivable like heart attacks, strokes, ruptured appendices, drug overdoses, sepsis, car accidents, and so on. That’s why it’s necessary to quarantine to “flatten the curve.” The same number of people will get sick over the long run, but if the need for healthcare spikes then you start getting deaths from everyone else too.

Being disabled myself, having a lot of serious health problems, and being part of a number of different disability rights groups, I’m hearing a lot of worried voices besides my own about how health care has already been withdrawn from people with disabilities as we’re “triaged” to make room for people considered more valuable because they’re not disabled.

For instance, I am on warfarin as a blood-thinner because I had a pulmonary embolism which came so close to killing me I was told if I’d gone back to sleep instead of calling an ambulance I’d never have woken up. I was getting weekly blood work done at the hospital because warfarin is extremely dangerous and has to be adjusted constantly. Several weeks ago I was told healthcare was being withdrawn from me and that I’ll just have to make guesses at my dosages from now on. If I guess too high, I can die from a nosebleed if I pick my nose. If I guess too low, I can die in my sleep from another embolism.

I am far from alone in this, and a lot of people with even more serious disabilities, like quadriplegics, are starting to get things like UTIs and bedsores from lack of medical care. A lot of us are going to die even if we avoid COVID-19. If COVID-19 cases spike, it’s going to be people without disabilities dying too.

I was quarantined for 5 days on the Grand Princess, before being transferred to Travis AFB, where I was quarantined for 14 days. Upon release, I returned home to my isolated mountain town, where I have been sheltering in place.
So, yeah, I’m sick of this shit too.
But I see the need.
I disagreed with being held in quarantine while I could be safe at home. I think restrictions are being too harsh and stringent, but I get it. It is better to err on the side of caution.
You look at Sweden and the meat processing plants in Pennsylvania and Colorado, and how they felt their isolation would protect them and it didn’t.

No I don’t. Those are the people that will drag it out and truly cause more death by their ignorance.

But Gex X and after have never really had to deal with limited freedom or doung things for the greater good. The petulant attitude is understandable, but ignorant.

@KNOWITALL I’m genX, and I spent half my life getting teargassed, peppergassed, pepperballed, peppersprayed, watercannoned, soundcannoned, beaten with truncheons, trampled by horses, bitten by dogs, and going to jail for justice, all for the “greater good” while the Boomers sat in their suburban bungalows and tut-tutted over the breaking of a few windows at Starbucks.

I’ve been antifa since the 80s, when I used to run with ARA and helped remove boneheads from parks and streetcorners with a pair of a steeltoes. I assure you that none of the crusty punks and council commies who helped me bootfuck Hammerskins “for the greater good” were Boomers.

@SmashTheState

”...I spent half my life getting peppergassed, pepperballed, peppersprayed….”

Besides pepper, with what other condiments have they attacked you? Is ketchup gas even worse than mustard gas? ;-0

I have some sympathy for them. Not that we should just put everything back to normal, but I feel that many of the restrictions were knee-jerk reactions that should be reviewed for importance or efficiency. Even for applicability. I live near the coast. Coastal activities are important for the economy here. But all the beaches were closed. Why? Too many people congregating? There are ways to control that without blanket closure. Even private beaches were closed on city or state orders. So if you own a house right on the beach, you aren’t allowed to go sit out there by yourself. Boat ramps were closed. So apparently going out on a boat is a grave risk for exposure to the virus. I could understand not operating charters or party boats, but those are not using the boat ramps. People with a boat that holds 2–5 people comfortably are the ones using the ramps. If that is not acceptable, then I guess I should ask the kids to move out since they make us up into those numbers. Shoot, just me and my wife make us into that range.
The entire effort at closing the country off was well intentioned, but started with absolutely no end point being established. Now that things are becoming painful those that made the initial decisions are trying to come up with plans for coming out of it…to take the actions that could have been done in the first place.

@Brian1946 Peppergas (aerosolized capsaicin in a mystery potion of carrier chemicals) is particularly evil. Not only is there a total absence of any studies on its long-term effects, it goes right through gas masks like they’re not even there. Which is why they used it on us.

I think they should be denied admittance to hospitals when their time comes.

Nope, no sympathy from me, because those “libertarians” will drive up health care costs when they get sick, and everyone else has to pay higher premiums.

I agree with @YARNLADY!

It is natural at times to feel sorry for stupid people and the tribulation that befalls them as a consequence. However, when such tribulations extend to myself as the result of the stupidity of others, sympathy for the stupid is not my go to default reaction.

“When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others. The same applies when you are stupid.” – Ricky Gervais

I live less than a mile from the state capitol building here in Madison, Wisconsin. A protest is being organized for next Friday. The people organizing this protest are not from Wisconsin. There’s a fb page with over 1000 people saying they are going to attend.

We could potentially have hundreds if not a thousand people in my neighborhood. Where do these people think they are going to find a toilet if they need to pee? The grocery store I work at is located on the main drag leading up to the capitol square. Are they going to visit my workplace for food and toilets?

These people are ignorant. I have no sympathy.

I can understand they are scared of financial ruin, but sympathy not at all because they don’t care about their health or anyone elses.
They figure what the fuck I feel fine let ME go back to work,I don’t care if I infect some one who could die from this virus ,I feel fine now fuck off and let ME go back to work.

I think one factor some people are forgetting is that if this leads to an economic depression, there will be a significant death toll from that.

There’s already a “significant death toll” from poverty. The only difference is the line where you start dying from not having enough money will be moved a little higher. Good. The Great Depression is where we got the New Deal social programs. Not out of the kindness of the flinty, black hearts of the rich and their pet politicians, but because so many people were so poor that radical unions and revolutionary organizations were gaining enough traction to start putting robber barons against walls.

The New Deal was their way of blunting the appeal of aerating the skulls of the Vanderbilts and Rothschilds.

@smash Generations before us didn’t always get a choice. I see antifa as thugs personally but whatever floats your boat. I’m Gen X btw.

I have friends in Michigan, and one of them is very upset about what the governor has done. She is fine financially, so it is not that she is any sort of desperate situation herself, but she is prone to being fearful about government takeover. After chatting with her a few days ago, I think her fears are unfounded, but I do think the governor of Michigan has gone a little too far, but I am glad she finally took action and put in some statewide orders.

I understand why people are frustrated, but I can’t say enough how much I completely disagree with the crowded demonstrations. People should have written the governor, written their congressmen, talked to the news, they could have even organized to stand on the corners of intersections taking turns, one person on each corner with signs all over the cities, but not this circus of people risking their lives and risking all of us. If anything they prove why there needs to be orders in that state, they are irresponsible.

What I was told was the Governor was not allowing paint shops to be open, or landscaping, that those were deemed not essential jobs, and my friend said neighbors are even calling the cops on their own neighbors for working in their yard. It juts snowed in MI, so I am not sure why anyone needs to do any landscaping, but I don’t understand why that service should be included. I also don’t see why someone can’t buy paint. The governor could put in orders that service men can ride together in a truck, or can’t work together in the same room, or even can’t work in occupied homes. My friend here where I live bought paint and did a project with her husband. The paint store doesn’t let anyone in, it is all curbside. Seems ok to me.
Just

Typo: can’t ride together in the same truck.

@KNOWITALL https://i.ibb.co/4J0CbkT/Antifa.jpg

I’m sympathetic to people being broke and panicky about how they’re going to pay their bills. However, I totally understand why the need to stay home and I agree with our governor on just about everything he’s put in place to keep people safe (Gov Cuomo, NY).

Things are going to be uncomfortable for people who can’t use pools or beaches when summer comes, and for parents with little kids, it’s going to be rough if things aren’t lifted, but hopefully people keep their eye on the prize and try to stick it out. For those in states where they’re protesting like zombies at the gate, I never would want to say I would like the death rate to go up to teach a lesson, but the politicians in those states may be taught a hard lesson. Time will tell.

There will be a second wave, and it will be brutal. Everyone knows this.

I think some are filled with anxiety, and want to return to life as they know it. It isn’t that they don’t care, but they just want it to be over so badly, they are in denial over the dangers.

There are some who don’t understand the full thread from 19. They know a lot of people have had it with little or no discomfort. They feel healthy and strong, so they feel safe.
Some people just don’t have the capacity to “feel” the reality until someone close to them dies from it.

I predict that if we get a resurgence like I believe, there will be healthcare people taking a dive off their hospitals.

The restrictions were meant to hold back transfer of the virus as much as possible to have time to get things more organized. Enough equipment, more training, setting good plans in place, so many areas where improvement is needed.

I’m in-house no matter what they do.
I sympathize with their hardships, but I don’t condone their actions. Still, I don’t wish additional hardships for them.

Just as a point of clarification: The number of people that starved to death during the Great Depression did not go up. In fact, life expectancy went up during it. It wasn’t pleasant for anyone, but the only increase in deaths during the GD was from suicide.

@Patty_Melt You made me think, and what you wrote makes perfect sense to me. Right now they have half empty hospital bed capacity on average, so they feel confident they can handle the additional caseload, so it’s time to open up and let it happen in their minds.

I think that no matter what you do, you will never hit a point where this disease is “beaten”. Until you have a vaccination, that is. So keeping the countries fully shut down until it is beaten is foolishness. At some point we have to make the tough decisions. The options are to keep everything shut down until there are no new cases, keep things shut down until a vaccination is available and fully distributed, open things up with reasonable controls in place, or to just open everything back up. The first two of these decisions will be disastrous to the economy and will put us in a world of hurt for many, many years. The last two will result in an increase of cases across the country. Pick your poison. Let me ask these questions though…while we are looking down our noses at the protesters, is the option of keeping things shut down any better? Are we just voicing the opinion that will cause longer term damage to the country? If we keep things shut down and the country goes into another Great Depression (which in my humble opinion will make the first one look like a bump in the road), will those of you sneering at the protesters stand by your opinions or will you find criticism in the government for not acting sooner to restore things?

@seawulf575 I will continue to criticize the government for not acting sooner and trying to control outbreaks in the first cities in the US that were affected.

There is no escaping we knew Covid was in Asia and Europe by January, we KNOW disease travels by plane and cruise ship to North America, FDA, CDC, and WHO watch the flu pattern EVERY year.

They must have known there was flu-like illness negative test for flu ramping up by early February. The graphs they are showing now didn’t just publish. You see the data I’m sure, it’s reported daily, at minimum weekly.

They didn’t try to prevent it from coming here well enough. Either they thought it was impossible or they are incompetent.

Look at the protesting going on in states that the governors seemed to go a little too far. Imagine if in January we had been testing, had stopped flights, had totally sealed off cities that had Covid. We could have contained it and kept it only in a few spots, let it stop transmitting, while the country continued to function.

Do you think cities would have gone along? It would be much much stricter than what we see now, but it would halt transmission. I think the US could have gone for months without international travel, but it does kill huge industries and millions of jobs. We could have still been doing some importing and exporting very controlled. The American people have no tolerance for it. Any county or state with a Democrat in charge and high percentage of Republicans would have had rioting. Possibly, vice a versa too. It is a cultural problem.

@JLeslie I understand your statements and am not trying to address what has been done already in the way of actions. What I am looking at is going forward. We are where we are and have to get back to some sense of normalcy. So what path do we choose and are we willing to live with the consequences without later saying they were the wrong choices and blaming others?

@seawulf575 My path is masks for everyone, some professions near better masks than others, distancing, no international travel, and much higher temporary taxes on the wealthy.

Additionally, we need military or national guard organized to support cities that get totally cracked down on to control the spread. Truly sealed off. They need to bring in food to make sure everyone is fed, supervise, set up at minimum tents for the homeless with cots, showers, sinks and soap and water, and they themselves need serious protective gear. These might be 2–3 week true lockdown situations like you see in the movies.

We need a cease fire across the world. This has been called on by the UN, supported by the president of Italy, and I assume other world leaders too.

This is an opportunity for the world to be united. Accusing China is out! We certainly can research and look at where China failed in this epidemic, as I stated above we failed too. If you want to win against China don’t buy their products, write your congressman, write your favorite companies who manufacture there.

@JLeslie Not a bad start. How long for wearing masks? How long for distancing? And what does distancing look like? Under pre-viral stages, we found we had to close all restaurants and bars. Do we suggest or require redesigned seating to spread people out? Things like this need to be addressed or else we end up right where we are now.
Accusing China is a senseless endeavor from a recovery point. However, I agree that we need to look at their culpability not only in the generation of the virus, but also the spread across the globe. What actions did they take and when, when did they tell the world, were their communications lies concerning numbers and contagion…things like this need to be addressed. If they aren’t and if actions are not taken to correct the deficiencies, we are due to do this entire exercise again in a few years.

There was a smaller rally held today in Madison, Wisconsin. The larger one will be April 24. I’ll share the article. The protesters aren’t protesting for the people being hurt financially by the pandemic and stay at home orders. They are protesting government intrusion.

https://isthmus.com/news/news/protesters-charge-coronavirus-cover-up/

@Jonsblond Fascists gonna fash. You can’t give extraordinary emergency power to authoritarians without having them abuse it.

@Jonsblond That’s what I thought. That’s just what my girlfriend is so upset about. She’s afraid the government is going to force her to take the C19 vaccine too.

@jleslie why would she not want to take it, if and when there is a vaccine?

Probably either it “causing autism”, or it “containing RFID chips so the government can track you at all times with this digital mark of the beast”.

@chyna She definitely would not want anyone to be forced to take it is her main point, but she does listen to anti-vax information. Two of her kids did go to public school for a while, so I am assuming they were vaccinated with the minimum that was required, I don’t know how extreme she is when it comes to vaccinations.

I was on a facebook thread with someone else who was completely anti-vaccination. She has never been vaccinated, and she looked like a young adult on her photo. This particular woman said vaccines are made with cells from fetuses (which is true in trace amounts) and just for that she would never take a vaccine, but then went on to say that Gates is causing polio outbreaks, and it was obvious she doesn’t trust it at all. I explained to her that the risks of polio outbreak is well known, it’s not something discovered and uncovered that was being hidden. It is why in America we no longer used the drops and we use the shot. I also told her most churches approve of vaccinating, including the Catholic church who are well aware the lines of embryonic tissue are from legally aborted fetuses from 60 years ago.

Everything she thinks is sinister and secretive related to vaccination isn’t. They only get half the story from these people who for some reason have a need to stop people from vaccinating. I haven’t quite figured out why the people who lead that anti-vax message do it? What is the power they seek exactly?

I do empathize with people who don’t want to be the first group vaccinated when it comes to market. That’s always a little scary, but the disease is so scary and it is so here that the risk seems well worth it to me.

@JLeslie I think it’s as simple as control. People are terrified to give power over their bodies to another person (hell, I’m terrified of that.) The anti-vax stuff gives people a sense of control, I think. Misguided, but I think that’s what it is, including the people who start and spread it. They’re afraid and it helps people feel like they’re in control.

^^I think the same.

It gets even more extreme with the religion element. Many of these people are very religious, and they have it drummed into them that atheists are trying to secularism the country, and brainwash people, vaccinate people, and they feel in a war to be able to practice their religion and in a war to keep America a Christian country.

It’s not just being able to freely practice their religion, it’s protecting the US against communism, which they believe is unGodly. Now, some groups have incorporated vaccinations into that mantra.

@JLeslie In some ways I agree with you, like Jews/Muslims not wanting to be circumsized even though there are noted health benefits to it.

It can seem silly to people of other faiths but generally, we don’t really care. When it comes to anti-vaxxers, that does affect the rest of us and community health.

Fact is the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment protects your religious beliefs, but not the right to religious ‘practice.’

@KNOWITALL There are no benefits to male genital mutilation. It’s done to desensitize the glans to make sex less pleasurable out of religious hatred of the concept of happiness. To quote Thomas Babington Macaulay, “The Puritan hated bear baiting; not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.”

@SmashTheState Ok. I’m sure you know more than doctors at the American Academy of Pediatrics and John Hopkins.

@SmashTheState Agreed. Any “health benefits” argument started out as an after-the-fact justification for something that was already being done for traditional non-health reasons. Should note that this obsession with circumcising infants for “health reasons” exists only in America.

@KNOWITALL To be clear, I absolutely am not lumping all Christians together in my statement, It is a specific group of people who are caught up in the extremes of paranoia of government control. I myself don’t like the idea of someone forcing me to take a shot or preventing from healthcare, it goes both ways, or overcontrolling the behaviors of people so much that I am restricted from exercising my rights as a individual as an American. The problem is the level of paranoia isn’t warranted right now, there is a reason why things are happening. People nee to be patient and air their grievances and objections in a civil manner that doesn’t endanger anyone. Americans are not known for their patience.

Paranoia is different to me than a healthy awareness of the possibilities of government overreach.

@JLeslie I didn’t think you were, I agreed with you. I was just saying that many religions have their own beliefs that contradict science.

As a Christian, I don’t belief in many of the things you posted above about some Christians, which just goes to show how many ‘varieties’ there are under that umbrella.

It interests me that Christians, Jews and Muslims, the top 3 Abrahamic religions of the world, have so many differences and similarities, as you break them down.

The one area I DO agree with the protesters on, is that if we can still have crowds back to back at Home Depot and Menards, then churches shouldn’t be getting tickets or harassed during this pandemic. I think state governments need to tread very carefully right now on religious freedom and the right to peaceably assemble.

@KNOWITALL I agree the inconsistencies are bad, and I think the negligence lies with the government not controlling the crowds in retail stores better. Retail employees are getting sick. Plus, the more we expose ourselves the more risk. Every time I go out to a store, doctor, anywhere in a closed area with people in it I feel nervous about it. Church would be an additional exposure to buying food, and obviously buying food is important. I have been very upset with the supermarket situations.

I can see an argument for allowing people to being able to come inside a church pray, but I think holding a service is too risky. No matter how distanced, it is too long with too many people in one space. If you are “near” the sick person for an hour, it is different than walking by him at a distance in a market for 2 seconds.

I’m all for clergy being creative in holding services and being available, but I do think any services in a house of worship is a really bad idea.

@JLeslie Agreed.

They are busting churches with everyone staying in their cars though-kind of like a drive in movie theatre. I think that’s overreach personally and infringing on constitutional rights.

Home Depot and Menards are posting that no kids are allowed and only one person per family, but they still allow them in the store. I don’t get it, that’s far more people than would be in a church, per square footage and generally speaking. And masks not being a requirement. I’d sit in my car in a church parking lot any day over that back to back situation.

@KNOWITALL I do think retailers should put out guidelines for people to follow on the honor system, but I also think retailers should not try to enforce the rules and risk themselves with a confrontation. I worked in retail many years, and this was the basic rule. If we needed security or the police, we called for one of those, but salespeople and managers generally did not act as policemen.

Some people can’t leave their children at home, but if they can, then the families who can should. I’m with you about masks, I think we should all wear masks, but again, I don’t want people confronted. The problem with masks is our country was horrible! Our leaders spoke out of both sides of their mouths on the mask issue, completely negligent, so some Americans still listen to the old message that masks won’t help. Moreover, if someone is poor, and didn’t have access to a mask, I have some empathy, we need to help people get what they need. As long as the majority does the right thing it helps protect everyone.

@JLeslie I agree in part. Anyone who watches world news knew by the end of 2019 it was heading here, like I did, so were able to procure items in advance. Frankly I don’t want the government doing my thinking for me, but yes, everyone could have done a better job.

@KNOWITALL Yeah, but you think. So, many people don’t.

As I’ve said here I live less than a mile from the Capitol in Wisconsin. The protest was today. I heard there were at least 1500 protesters. I could hear the news helicopters from my bedroom window. People were parking near my home and walking to the Capitol waving their American flags.

I walked up to the grocery store I work at which is two blocks from my home and on the main drag that leads to the Capitol. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Absolute gridlock heading towards the Capitol. People honking and waving flags, Trump flags and signs from their car. I took a video of what I witnessed.

When I got home I told my husband what I saw. He had to leave for work soon so we decided to leave early because of the traffic. We encountered this vehicle:

https://i.imgur.com/W1giHum.jpg

I saw pictures from others and there were men with guns at the rally. There was a swastika flag. There was also a man dressed as Trump.

This was posted in a group that supports Governor Evers Stay At Home Order:

The protests are not organized by “grassroots people” speaking out of personal pain. They are organized and backed by the same conservative groups that are working for Trump’s reelection. The protests in Brookfield and Madison were organized by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, founded by Republican pro-Trump economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, and by FreedomWorks, a training group for conservative activists that grew out of a political organization founded by David and Charles Koch. FreedomWorks is famous for organizing the Tea Party movement in 2009.
The protests are designed to divert our attention from the stark economic inequality that COVID-19 is showing us. We know that this pandemic is disproportionately hard on our local African American and Latino communities. Due to generations of racial bias and oppression, these communities face economic challenges, lower access to good health insurance, and the kind of immense stresses that compromise health. And many of our neighbors in these communities are working in jobs where they can’t work from home, and “stay safe.” They are on the front lines in health care, grocery stores, post offices, maintenance, and other service providers.

The “open up” protests are a classic example of trying to control politics by controlling the national narrative, but what’s underneath the protests is even more frightening. The Western States Center, an organization that works nationwide to strengthen inclusive democracy, has been closely tracking white nationalists. The horrible truth is that white nationalists see reopening businesses and spreading the virus as a way to kill off “undesirables” and get closer to their dream of a white ethnostate. White supremacy /white nationalism is inherent in these protests; if you pay attention, you’ll see the use of anti-Semitic images and tropes in them. White nationalist organizations are using this time to recruit people who are scared and looking for someone to blame.

Here’s another photo of some protesters from today:

https://i.imgur.com/NtZ8nKe.jpg

The people that go to these protests and those that support them, because Karen can not get a haircut during a pandemic, are the same type of people that not long ago utterly condemned black NFL players for kneeling to protest their people being murdered by racist cops.

@ragingloli And those that are condemning these protesters are the same ones that were supporting the NFL players that were disrespecting the nation and the first responders that put their lives on the line every day. Isn’t it funny that when you put your slant on things it sounds bad?

@ragingloli Not to mention, those that are condemning these protesters fully supported the protests of every other idiotic group in this nation, including Antifa and BLM even when their protests led to riots, vandalism, and assaults. Yeah, you’re right….we ought to sit in judgement of others.

I think it’s pretty obvious that people only support protests when they agree with the protesters. That said, there’s never been a situation where people were not supposed to go outside for public safety. That makes the context of these protests a bit different than past protests.

@seawulf575 “antifa” isn’t itself an organization. Any anti-fascist organization can call itself antifa. For example, I was part of ARA in the 80s, which was antifa. And in fact, any group which adheres to the five principles of ARA could call itself ARA. It’s the same way Al Qaeda works. There is no organization called Al Qaeda; anyone who adheres to the principles of Al Qaeda can call themselves Al Qaeda.

I’m not sure why I’m bothering to write this, as you have repeatedly demonstrated that you are delusional in the actual psychiatric sense. You deny reality when it disagrees with your professed ideology, and simply dismiss any attempts at correction. I am fanatical in my beliefs, but those beliefs are based on real, objective facts. People here often argue that my interpretation of the facts is wrong (because they’re privileged, petit bourgeois, mealy-mouthed, liberal milquetoasts), but they generally and grudgingly acknowledge that I am not actually delusional.

Every interaction I’ve had with you here has resulted in you making wild, unsupported, axiomatic claims and simply covering your metaphorical ears and singing LALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU when you are proven demonstratably wrong.

@seawulf575. I condemn the protesters, the NFL kneelers, and the other idiotic groups you think I support. Speak for yourself. Do not speak for me. You don’t know me.

@SmashTheState while you do type many puffed up, self-aggrandizing things, you still miss the point of the statement while you are trying to belittle me. Obviously because you were ARA and fully support Antifa. Which makes my point perfectly. Thanks for playing.

Of course I support antifa. Nazis get punched. They should be grateful they’re not just shot, but some of them are redeemable. If you don’t think Nazis should get punched, then you should probably be punched too.

@SmashTheState I would suggest that if you see it is okay to determine who should be punched on the basis of you don’t like how they think, you are a Nazi…or at least on a par with them. After all, isn’t that the justification they use to subdue others?

@SmashTheState Claims he is anti Boomer and blames them, but if he was Antifa in the 1980s as he claims (years before that term was created), then he is either a boomer or he was antifa fighting at the age of ten.

@zenvelo First, I was born in 1969. That makes me GenX. Second, Antifaschistiche Aktion, the organization whose principles antifa adopted, was founded in the 1930s. Third, ARA was created in the mid-80s for the specific purpose of opposing the rise of neo-Nazis in the form of the Hammerskin movement. You know how I know that? Because I was using a pair of steeltoes to send boneheads to the ER in the 80s with ARA. And lastly, ARA was antifa because the antifa movement is based on ARA. Get it? ARA was the origin of antifa as it is currently recognized.

blowhard

Huh. Born in 1969, join a group that was formed in the mid-80’s (actually 1987)...that means you were what…18? 19? Yeah, there are a lot of violent protesters in their late teens. Ever notice that most people don’t care for them? That they don’t look at them as leaders? And again, you talk about using your jackboots to stomp people. Yes, you are sounding more and more like a good Nazi.

@seawulf575 I wasn’t “protesting” anything. I was hunting down neo-Nazi skinheads with my comrades and bootfucking them until they learned to stay out of the parks and off the streets. These skinheads were mugging and beating up gay men cruising in the park, and threw one gay man off a bridge to his death in my city. I don’t doubt you feel sympathy for those scumbags, and your disapproval is evidence of my moral rectitude.

@SmashTheState Ahh…so you were a police officer at the time? That should be the only way you were hunting down criminals. But then you were “bootfucking” them so I would suggest that falls into the realm of police brutality. Of course, there is the other option to all this silly story I am creating, and that option is that you are a Nazi.

When criticizing protests, I’m not suggesting that these people don’t have a right to protest or that they should be shot (something I’ve noticed both sides say shout protesters they don’t like). I can criticize a protest while still recognizing they have a right to do it. I thought the NFL kneelers were being little bitches but I didn’t think they shouldn’t be able to do it (I didn’t think they were traitors either; the people saying that are little bitches too). ;)

The irony of these current protests of course is you can’t really have a counterprotest because that defeats the purpose of continuing to support a lockdown. What crazy times. :)

@Smash Thank you for protecting LGBT.

I agree @Demosthenes. I have nothing against protests either, even those I disagree with as long as there is no violence involved. It was quite a thing to witness yesterday and I’m happy to live in a city where I can participate in Democracy. This particular protest though is different from all others. It will put other lives at risk just by them coming together.

Wait a second Wulfie. It isn’t exactly nazi thinking that earns them a well earned ass whuppin, no more than NFL protesters are subversive traitors. As for the protesters of the covid movement, there will be limits to the tolerance of stupidity. And i find it rather fascinating that stupidity in America can be so reliably determined by the gathering together of American flags. It will be interesting in a couple of weeks to witness the infection rates among those in the crowds with their flags and assault rifles.

^We are seeing an increase in confirmed cases linked to voting here in Wisconsin a few weeks ago.
:(

@stanleybmanly let’s go back and think about what some of the truly ugly parts of the Nazis were. They were extremely intolerant of others they didn’t like. They didn’t like differing opinions. They would gather together in groups and physically beat people for the crime of being different or voicing opinions they didn’t like. So what part of that is different than anything @SmashTheState just proudly told us he did? Beating someone because you think they need it is called assault. If you use a weapon it is even worse. There are laws against that. If the people you beat had done something wrong like beating up someone else, the police should be the ones dealing with it. If you fall to the level of those you dislike, what does that say? It says you are no better than they. If you don’t like how skinheads act, you don’t act like a skinhead to show them how bad they are. It makes you as bad as them. Now, if they broke into your house and hurt your family, have at it. You are defending yourself at that point. If you wait until later to seek revenge, you are not defending yourself, though you might not care.

Nazis: I want to murder the disabled, homosexuals, Jews, Romani, unionists, communists, and anarchists, and enslave everyone else except Aryans.

antifa: I want to stop those guys by any means necessary, up to and including violence.

seawulf575: I can’t tell the difference! They’re exactly the same!

Nazis: Want to dominate, want to take the law into their own hands using their own opinions as the guidance, want to gang up and beat people they don’t like.

Antifa: Want to dominate, want to take the law into their own hands using their own opinions as the guidance, want to gang up and beat people they don’t like.

seawulf575: I can’t tell the difference…they are exactly the same!

smashthestate: There is a big difference!

By the way, lets review your groups choices: Let’s go back to Andy Ngo…you know…the homosexual conservative journalist that Antifa ganged up on and sent to the hospital? Yeah…him. They used their steel toes to bootfuck him, right? What was his crime? Oh yeah, they didn’t like him or his opinion. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/29/andy-ngo-beaten-up-by-antifa-activists-at-portland/
But let’s not stop there. at that same protest, we need to talk about John Blum and Adam Kelly…two Portlandians that were ganged up on by Antifa and sent to the hospital. What was their crime? They were trying to protect a gay man in a sun dress that was being chased by Antifa thugs. Guess we could count that poor man as well in the list of those that Antifa wants to beat because they don’t like them or their opinions. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jul/1/two-more-oregon-men-left-bloody-antifa-attack-port/
Alejandro Godinez and Luis Torres…two marines that were sightseeing and happened across a “We The People” protest that Antifa had showed up at to cause trouble. They were approached and challenged as to whether they were Proud Boys or not. They had no idea what that even was. They said they were marines. 10–12 Antifa, after a short exchange, decided they didn’t like these two people and began beating them, calling them racists and white supremacists. Mr. Godinez said “I’m Mexican!” at which the Antifa thugs began calling him “wetback” and “spic” and continued to beat them. What was their crime? There wasn’t any…Antifa just decided they wanted to show dominance, to take the law into their own hand using their own opinions as guidance, and they wanted to gang up on and beat someone.
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/12/18/im-mexican-marines-bewildered-after-being-called-nazis-beat-up-by-alleged-antifa-mob/

So, you were saying? There is a difference? I can keep going if you still want to cling to this idiotic idea that you are somehow different from a Nazi because you support Antifa and groups like them. But really, I don’t need to go on. Your own statements tell the true story.

“antifa” isn’t a group, as I’ve already explained to you several times.