There is nothing illegal about protesting. I don't need to absolve them of anything. It's a 1st Amendment right.
Attributing looting and rioting to COVID-19 lockdowns alone is completely ignorant.
I didn't. In the post you deleted, I said it played a large part. Ignorant is thinking that it does not. Please do not attribute things to me that I did not say. And please try to comprehend what is written.
See, this is where you keep going off the rails.
The "people like you," "people like me" stuff is otherism bullshit.
I was addressing the poster that made the "chicken little" remark, not you. If you do not like "otherism," then start with him, Mr. Moderator. Oh, right. His politics align with yours. Nevermind. Carry on.
The irony about the rights lecture, of course, is that you're arguing above for them to be taken away when you can't draw the distinction between peaceful protesters and violent rioters.
Again, I never said protestors didn't have the right to protest. They absolutely do. But you're ignorant if you think these "protests" are about George Floyd anymore. It's already been repeated ad nauseam by both Democratic and Republican leaders that it's gone beyond simple protesting. The point I made earlier was that Obama explicitly criticized PROTESTERS that became violent. Here: "On the other hand, the small minority of folks who’ve resorted to violence in various forms, whether out of genuine anger or mere opportunism, are putting innocent people at risk." People that are resorting to violence out of anger are PROTESTERS. Just because you label one differently doesn't make it so.
COVID-19 lockdowns were and still are a delicate rights conversation because your rights affect others--ie your right to go out on the town and get drunk at a bar with a million other people is at odds with asymptomatic carriers; it's not your 'right' to go get everyone sick.
You're conflating rights with responsibilities again, just like the Chicken Little poster. They are related, but they are not the same. I agree with you and him to a very, very large degree about responsibilities. I disagree that your ideas of responsibilities give you the authority to take away my rights.
I can see that having a conversation that quarantines were considered 'constitutional' won't have an impact on you so I won't even go there, but it was alluded to above where the conflict seems to be with "my" individual rights vs. a collective "our" rights. What you are 'allowed' to do stops at the point it hurts someone else. Yes, there will be great diversity of thought on where that line is and as you can see from a lot of pages here we have been able to appreciate that. But you can guard your rights tightly without insulting everyone else that may have different thoughts. Especially when it comes down to issues surrounding a virus that we're sadly still trying to understand and deal with.
Edit: and if you want to cry "censorship" maybe you should stop writing utter bullshit like "Liberals follow the lead of their unelected social media overlords" and attacking people's viewpoints on things other than their merit. Not everyone follows the party talking points and I'm trying to give you the credit that you don't either.
