I would really rather that these were actual examples, and not conspiracy theories. We all have our own unsubstantiated ideas about what shadowy no-gooders are doing, but I’d rather hear about things that are actually happening.

299 points
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Anyone that says J6 was a “peaceful protest” that “got out of hand”

We all saw the footage of that day. There were gallows and calls to hang a sitting vice president.

It was an insurrection, fomented and encouraged by Donald Trump’s speech and actions leading up to that day. Plain and simple.

The right-wingers who say it wasn’t as serious as it was are gaslighting their base.

Edit: Victims of gaslighting in my replies

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-133 points

Sounds exactly like CNN’s headline “fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting” after the George Floyd protests where like, 30 people died.

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140 points

Do you not think it’s relevant to point out that:

  • Only 3.7% of the protests involved vandalism or property damage
  • Only 2.3% of the protests involved any sort of violence (excluding vandalism or property damage)
  • Much of the violence was directed against the BLM protesters
  • Much of the violence was begun or escalated by police (who are supposed to be trained to de-escalate)
  • Much of the property damage and property damage was not linked to protesters

If 5% of the people involved at violent BLM protests were violent and if the numbers above reflected only protester initiated violence, then that would mean roughly 0.12% of BLM protesters (or 1 in a thousand) were violent. But since, as we know, most of the violence was directed against them, that number is probably more like 0.05%, or 5 in 10,000. Obviously that number would be much worse for the actual instigators of most of the violence (police and far-right Trump supporters).

Main source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/16/this-summers-black-lives-matter-protesters-were-overwhelming-peaceful-our-research-finds/

Also weird that you say “like 30 people” died when it was more like 10:

  • 8 BLM protesters
  • 1 far-right, pro-Trump protester, who was shot by a self-identified anti-fascist protester who said he had been acting in self-defense
  • the above anti-fascist protester, who was shot by police

Yes, there were like 25 deaths related to political unrest in 2020, but most of those were not at BLM protests. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled

But hey, keep telling yourself that an active, intentionally orchestrated attempt by Trump and his supporters to violently overturn the results of our Presidential election was “basically the same thing lol” as a bunch of people who were protesting police violence and racism.

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28 points

It’s comments like this that make me glad Lemmy has a star that lets you favorite them. Thank you very much.

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-66 points

an active, intentionally orchestrated attempt by Trump and his supporters to violently overturn the results of our Presidential election was “basically the same thing lol” as a bunch of people who were protesting police violence and racism.

Yes, that’s exactly what I said. -_-

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36 points

Across the country? Damn that’s like less than a person per major city and I saw how brutally the police attacked protestors. If it hadn’t been mostly peaceful it’d’ve been in the hundreds dead.

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-24 points

I get your /s but I don’t think anyone should be dying in a protest, regardless of how small that number is relatively speaking.

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23 points

One side lying doesn’t make the other side’s lie true, or justified, or anything else but a lie

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-14 points

Exactly.

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3 points

You know what the word ‘mostly’ means, right?

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1 point
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How’s that exactly alike?

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-140 points

Conversely, anyone who says January 6th was a coup or anything approaching more then a wet fart. We should be so lucky that a fascist police state could be overthrown by 200 disorganized unarmed people walking into the capitol.

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109 points

Whether it was a successful coup is a separate matter.

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65 points

The problem wasn’t them getting anywhere near literally overthrowing the entire state, but the fact that they were trying/hoping to kill people.

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21 points

There’s so many levels on which it is deeply concerning. One is just on the face value. They actually did storm the capital, the security forces in place seemed ambivalent or perhaps actually complicit to some degree. Nevertheless, numerous people were injured or died.

And then there’s everything about the precedent it sets for next time, the excuses and defenses being made of it, and the ways in which those sympathetic to it may prepare to execute on the same idea again in the future, perhaps learning from prior lessons, and perhaps confident that they won’t face any legal exposure.

It’s a horrifying idea to have been allowed to take root in the form of real physical actions, which are then carried forward in culture to set the stage for future actions.

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27 points

200? What planet do you live on? Watch a video of it. Read the January 6th Commission report.

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11 points

On the day it happend I watched the videos being shared by the people participating amongst each other. There were tremendously more than 200 people.

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26 points

We should be so lucky that a fascist police state could be overthrown by 200 disorganized unarmed people walking into the capitol.

It wasn’t just 200 disorganised unarmed people, it was 200 partially-organised partially-armed people with explicit support from the sitting president trying to disturb the proceedings, so the president could carry out his plan to use “alternate electors”.

Why do people like you always act like the republicans weren’t hoping to capitalise on what happened?

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21 points

Are you trying to illustrate the point?

It wasn’t 200, it was 2000.

And while most did not carry guns, they brought other weapons and armor, and used improvised devices as weapons. And some did bring guns. Source: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/07/28/politics/armed-insurrection-january-6-guns-fact-check/index.html

Thank God they were poorly organized and that the capitol police resisted…but it’s a complete lie to say it was 200 unarmed people.

This is all on video! This isn’t a matter of opinion!

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217 points

A KGB spy and a CIA agent meet up in a bar for a friendly drink.

“I have to admit, I’m always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up,” the CIA agent says.

“Thank you,” the KGB says. “We do our best but truly, it’s nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them.”

The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. “Thank you friend, but you must be confused… There’s no propaganda in America.”

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14 points

…in Ba Sing Se

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-1 points
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Removed by mod
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10 points

There’s no propaganda in America.

promptly fires everyone who criticizes Israel

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167 points

“Democrats are liberal/progressive”

In reality, they’re pretty conservative.

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54 points

The Overton Window

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

A concept where political discourse is slowly shifted to one side or another over time. For example conservatism.

Politics are talked about the right who move even further right, the centralists are moved to old right and the leftists are moved to the center … the old leftists are now seen as extreme and unacceptable while the far right are also unacceptable but gain some ground … everyone shifts one step to the right and now everything is more conservative.

The right shift is what is happening now … but it can happen and shift towards the left as well.

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1 point

Trump moved the overton window by shitposting about fascism so hard people laughed at it, and then got used to it.

We need people shitposting about ideologies further left than communism

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39 points

They are still liberal though but not progressives. Liberalism isn’t necessarily a left wing ideology.

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24 points
*

A lot of leftists (and I hardly ever saw it before coming on Lemmy) use ‘Liberal’ to mean Classic or Neo Liberal - basically a synonym of capitalist… That’s not at all what it means in American politics, where it means the opposite of Conservative. If we used that definition, Conservatives would be called Liberals as well as Liberals being Liberals, which obviously makes no sense for US lingo. However, they both are Liberals in the neo/classic sense as most US Liberals aren’t calling for communism.

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11 points
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The conservatives are only liberal in the economic sense. They are the party of book banning, anti-abortion and anti-lgbtq. Liberalism is also about human rights and freedoms. But just because you think gays should be allowed to marry and acces to have an abortion should be a right that doesn’t put you left on the political spectrum or even make you a progressive. Since that is pretty much a centrist political position in the rest of the world. Most Democrats are liberal in the economic sense but also in the human liberty sense. But only a few Democrats in the house and senate can be truly called progressives. Since most Democrats are fine with the status quo and aren’t pushing society forward. They are just fighting of the attacks of the GOP

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6 points
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That’s not at all what it means in American politics

Two red scares and a cold war created an Orwellian memory hole such that Americans don’t even have the words anymore. It’s double-plus ungood.

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0 points

If we used that definition, Conservatives would be called Liberals as well as Liberals being Liberals, which obviously makes no sense for US lingo.

No this makes perfect sense. Those two parties are on the same side, so they get the same label

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9 points

Liberalism isn’t necessarily a left wing ideology.

It’s an inherently right wing ideology lol. They’re just conservatives that want/like to think they’re progressive.

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-1 points
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Liberal economic theories beleive the free market is the best solution generally, but allow the free market to be intervened in or even entirely supplanted in cases of market failure or where significant social problems arise from private ownership. There is a lot of debate inside liberalism as to when a market has failed, or when a social issue requires intervention, which is why sometimes you will see centrist liberals and left liberals arguing. Just look at Canada with our Liberal Party, its a big tent party with a small social democrat rump(since most social Dems are NDP), a larger social liberal / left liberal group, as well as some centrist and “blue liberals” (these would be right liberals, who are harder to convince about market failures).

Liberalism can be progressive, especially when the main thrust of a liberal party is left liberal or social liberal. Some Liberal parties are progressive sometimes, then more centrist at others as members and the membership changes over the years (or often on the strength and leanings of their leader). All still liberalism.

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27 points
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The real lie is the notion that “liberalism” was ever anything other than right-wing to begin with, let alone adjacent to progressivism.

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Democrats are liberals. Republicans are too. Both of them are reactionary.

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2 points

That’s only true if you use the international definition of “liberal”. In America, “liberal” means “left wing”. And we’re talking about American politics.

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In America, “liberal” means “left wing”.

No it doesn’t. Widespread ignorance does not change objective reality. This sort of thinking is Hyperliberalism. Just because most Americans are politically illiterate doesn’t mean the definition is changed. 40% Americans also believe the entire universe is only 6000 years old.

If you ask an american political scientist to define “liberal” they will tell you the “international” definition. If you allow technical and scientific terms to be subjected to “language just evolves” you end up with a Tower of Babble type situation where different groups of people are unable to communicate with one another despite using the same language and society collapses.

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6 points

By any civilized standard democrat politicians are far right extremists (a few token exceptions are closer to right or even center-right on some points, but they have little effect on the whole). Republicans are outright deranged lunatics, mixed with a worryingly increasing percentage of fascists.

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-15 points
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Socially left, but not communist

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142 points

“brexit will bring in more trade! brexit will provide 350 million to the NHS!”

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61 points

On a related note the whole notion extremely prevalent in the UK that all they have to do is decide they want to rejoin and it will happen. No matter which side of that a commentator is on, they almost never mention that they need to present something the EU27 actually want and convince them that the UK is not the ‘break international agreements’ kind of country any more. Overall the British still all seem to think that they are something better than everyone else and others have to do what they want and have no real agency.

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39 points

You could call it a colonial mindset. Wonder where that way have come from.

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34 points

The thing I loved about that lie is even as a 20 something who’d never been to that hemisphere I knew it was a lie because weren’t these the people trying to kill the NHS

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8 points

The idea that they could leave and somehow get better trade deals, especially with European countries. The EU is the deal! It’s a trade agreement that favors the participants, how could they ever get a better deal?? What’s baffling is that a lot of older people voted for it and they can actually remember when the UK joined the EU. That means they realize that the UK joined for the deal but somehow that’s worth nothing.

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4 points

A lot of those older people are racist and blame foreigners for literally every problem, and continuously vote against themselves

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136 points

Vaccines will give you autism, microchips, actual diseases etc. It’s one of the best medical breakthroughs in history and we have idiots ruining it.

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3 points
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I got the vaccine and currently have autism, microchips and an actual disease! Checkmate!

Though I’m pretty sure they’re all not connected to each other.

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1 point

You have a microchip in you? Curious about how/why, tell me more.

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1 point
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“vaccines will give you microchips” - nowhere does it say that the microchips will be given to me in a way that they end up in me. Maybe they’re just a nice side present that comes in the same box as the vaccine.

“I […] currently have […] microchips” - nowhere does it say I have them in me, just that I have them. I have them in my desktop computer, phone, and other electronical devices, and I’ve currently not shoved my smart dildo up my ass, so all outside me.

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