I agree with you, but when it comes to identity politics, people will support others because it maligns the common enemy.
This leads people to no longer support ideals, but parties, and IMHO what is most wrong with our political system.
Here are more details. There were four people with three rifles, all in cases, unloaded. The cops inspected the rifles, then asked the four to lock them in the backs of their pickups and keep the ammo in a different part of the trucks.
The men told police they planned to stay at the garage and “act as a quick extraction team” in case someone from their group was injured during the demonstration.
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The community at large has zero faith in the PPB, and Outlaw in particular after chumming it up with Larsen to regurgitate far-right talking points. So yeah, believe that, bridge for sale etc…
ETA: this explanation is thin af. The incident occurred over an hour before the protest. Were police then posted at the roof for the duration to make sure that the rifles were left locked up and unloaded? Can we see camera footage to confirm that? Otherwise, it’s pretty basic logic to assume that the would be “extraction team” (seriously wtf taking cosplay waaaayyyyy too far) would not have much difficulty pulling their sniper rifles long guns back outta the lockbox and getting them loaded. Given the lengths these clowns go to, I’m sure they practice this shit every day.
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Just like how in a crisis, white people “find” things while black people “loot” things.
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Even if this were true, consider the intent of their actions. They sure as fuck weren’t standing around with a cache of guns to project a friendly demeanor.
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The story from the city, and especially the PPB has changed 3vtimes in 24 hours. Let’s see where it ends up. The interview I heard from the mayor made it sound like he wants to do some serious digging before concluding that all was fine with how this was handled.
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Right now it seems the only way she goes is if Wheeler is canned. I’ve got my money on a certain someone that’s soon to become a commissioner…
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That’s not who they say they are.
They are not mutually exclusive. Just different forms of assholery that make the whole narrative less simple to encapsulate.
[quote=“wait_really, post:107, topic:131196”]
hat’s so fucking wrong it hurts. Their fellow travelership…[/quote]
As their wikipedia page notes. It also says other stuff. But ten points for using the term “fellow travelers” non ironically. Don’t know if you are old enough to remember when we heard that phrase a lot. But it was NOT a high point in American history. In fact, it was pretty effing ugly, with too many people plenty happy to paint everyone they didn’t like with the same paintbrush.
That is only true if they are lying.
If someone is right wing libertarian, they are opposed to authoritarianism.
Trump has proven himself to be a protectionist authoritarian.
At this point, anyone who identifies as right wing libertarian and still supports Trump is either lying or wilfully ignorant. It will not end well for the latter, but maybe they need their own May Days situation to bring them back to the real world.
And going by the wikipedia page that you refer to, Patriot Prayer are not libertarian going by their actions. Their policy on borders (state restriction of movement) proves it.
Edit: forgot some words
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Yes, they may be lying. Or ignorant. Or they happen to stress some parts of Libertarianism that are different than yours. For instance, they may simply hate government with a passion. Trump seems to me to agree with that. AFAIAC, he is an anarchist, doing his level best to make Federal government fail.
The Wiki page may be inaccurate.
I’m just amazed that people were saying there is no other explanation for what happened but white nationalists setting up sniper stations during a “protest”. I mean, should one not need clear and convincing evidence before making such a claim?
Even assholes on the opposite side of the political aisle deserve not to be falsely accused.
Btw, you can imagine the quandary this put the cops in - taking guns out of peoples hands during a gun rights rally is a tough decision.
I need you to understand something, it is incredibly important so I am going to be as clear as possible: this isn’t some nebulous thing in the world that I’m engaging with secondhand. This group affects my life directly. And by directly, I mean that it was my friend that they randomly assaulted on Broadway. My boss is friends with one of the queer folx they randomly assaulted. For both work and school, I am downtown nearly every day. When these violent sociopaths come into Portland, a climate of terror follows them and blankets the streets, a climate I know the police won’t do anything about, because I’ve witnessed with my own eyes the collaboration between them and PB. I’ve witnessed the high fives and “ok” hand signs they exchange. So what choice do you think we have? They come to Portland, and commit random acts of gang violence against anyone they deem a vulnerable target. They come in for disingenuous “freedom” rallies, or to protest a government they do not live under, but these are simply thin excuses to commit very much intentional and targeted violence, knowing they will face no consequences other than possibly a beating. On the rare occasions when they are arrested, they are released immediately and never face charges. Tiny was one of the men who assaulted my friend on Broadway, in broad daylight. Numerous witnesses reported this to police, and indeed, the next time Tiny showed up in town, he was arrested. He was released either later that night or the next day, and absolutely nothing has happened since. Why the fuck can he strut around the city with no fear, free to assault more Portlanders whenever he fucking feels like it? Why? The same goes for Donovan Filippo. How the fuck can these terrorists walk freely through our streets? I’ll leave you to answer that question for yourself, but what we know is that we can only rely on ourselves for protection.
Prior to August 4th, I had been in attendance at nearly every rally. The run up to the 4th was different, however. The chatter was consistently based around PP/PB showing up with guns, and there was a swirl of misinformation about where the event would actually take place. As I mentioned before, I was at Thunderbird the night before with a group of friends talking about the rally. Fresh on our minds was the photos of DHS snipers posted up on roof tops overlooking the occupy ICE encampment the day Gibson and company showed up to start shit. It occurred to us that if PP/PB were coming armed, it wasn’t going to be the goons on the streets. They were going to be on rooftops- and conveniently, there is a garage with a perfect view of the rally location. With that realized, we decided not to go the next day. It is no comfort that our fear turned out to be valid. And failing any serious intervention- one which puts the community’s needs first there will be no comfort.
So in order to defend ourselves, we had to learn exactly who they are. We know where they work, we know where they live. We know if they’ve beaten their partners, we know which ones are deadbeat fathers. We know what they’ve been arrested for, and where they served time. We know what they post online when they think they have privacy- so we know what they say, what they believe, and who they are associated with.
So when you tell me to go look it up on Wikipedia, all I can do is shake my head.
These gangs are enabled by equivocation, they are enabled by mainstreaming their ideas, and especially they are enabled by the people that buy their flimsy rhetoric about free speech or gun rights. What they are interested in- what they’ve been interested in since long before they became “proud boys”- is violence. And as long as people are enabling that violence, my community is under threat. So please, please, I will repeat PLEASE, do your homework, as we have, and learn who these assholes really are, and stop defending them.
Today, it is our community that must deal with this mindless hatred and violence. Don’t wait until it reaches your front door to do something about it.
Niemöller’s words were the lament of a coward.
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The whole point of his statement was this:
LEARN from my fatal mistake; don’t wait until it’s too late.
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This is a fiction of your invention. No one in the thread said this was a secret sniper nest, there’s one mention of sniper rifles describing what the police were being called about and there is a picture of when a different group has rifles trained on federal officers and got in no trouble for it - but the only one that says what you said is someone using it as a figure of speech to prove how this wasn’t a big deal as did Joey Gibson. No one said they were setting up sniper stations during a protest except for the ones inventing it to argue against it.
This is frustrating; Patriot Prayer members are arrested constantly for violence, give speeches advocating violence against immigrants (not just counter-protesters), and spend a lot of time cozy with militant whit supremacist groups. They spend a lot of money, time, and energy on their media presence - like their Wikipedia page - in order to have a nice storefront. Just like Trump brags about cutting government spending and does all sort of posturing, but is outspending previous administrations and driving the deficit into the stratosphere - because no matter what he says he’s a big-government authoritarian. Just like Patriot Prayer.
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To flesh this out a bit:
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In other words, less the lament of a coward, and more the belated realisation of a bootlicker that he, too, was expendable.
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But… it’s just a symbol of rebellion against tyranny, right?
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