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Shameful Display of Anarchy and Violence

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3 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

The question is: What is the proper response?

To treat it as a valid point?

There has been no strong condemnation of the statement and I would argue that is a problem in this forum.

It amounts to saying that the time for armed revolution is now.  If our representatives deserve some violence, after all, and didn't really end up getting any on the Sixth, then they still deserve to get that violence now.  If our entire political system was in on the stolen election (and that's what you'd have to say in order to STILL think Trump should've won) then the entire system is totally corrupt and deserving of some punishment that it's not gonna administer on itself.

They're saying that these are real and important problems which cannot be solved with words.  And since there are only two ways for men to deal with each other, if words are not the way to fix these things then guns necessarily must be.

 

How one responds to the idea that Joe Biden is so awful that we have to violently resist him, I don't know.  It's just so Looney Tunes that it's hard to come up with anything serious to answer it.  But making the implications of those points crystal clear seems like a good starting point, at least.

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17 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

I do not believe it's time to swap our arguments out for bullets

True and very important point.

17 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Are we at the point of an armed revolution then?  Because that's what you're saying.  If you truly do think that then you should already have some sort of plan for how we're gonna accomplish it

Another point to be considered by anyone who thinks it's time for armed revolution:  If our current government is overthrown by force, under current philosophical and political conditions, what will replace it?  I haven't read or watched The Handmaid's Tale, but based on descriptions I've seen of it, it seemed far fetched to me.  Now I'm not so sure.

(I should add that it is OK to have a far fetched premise in a work of fiction.)

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38 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

then the entire system is totally corrupt and deserving of some punishment

Yes and that is the key issue, THE ENTIRE SYSTEM is corrupt is what they believe. It's not just the election system, it ALL OF IT. This is what's hard to understand. When did it start? Why?

The obvious fact, just looking around us, we should be able see for the most part, we have a system that works. So there's some sort of evasion that's going on (caused by some intense blind anger).

This kind of (angry) thinking (or lack of thinking) is dangerous, I mean deadly dangerous.

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5 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Give an example of a time that the media was impartial. The avalanche you are referring to is the avalanche of examples where the press and media has never been impartial. If it's impossible to give an example, that's my point: the press has never been impartial, so how could you possibly come up with an example? 

Why did you think I was asking for examples of media bias, when I gave you at least 5 examples so far? I think you read the first few words and then stopped reading my post. 

 

This goes well past the point of impartiality. Obviously I knew that the media could be and would be partial, that was my background. I said and say again, I've never seen anything as blatant as the media's prejudice lately, that it would deliberately lie, deceive, collude on stories and cover up facts the public needs to have.

I said only yesterday that the "ensconced media" will go to any lengths to protect its narrative from "ideological competition".

Today, rather timeously, there is confirmation of that, this Youtube I linked about CNN trying to block Newsmax.

Do you detect the ¬partiality¬ that CNN demonstrates? Can I rest my case?

Is this msm not a "de facto monopoly" exerted for the purpose of mass control?

I will say again that the last years have been an attack on the core of America, led by socio-political-media forces.

Edited by whYNOT
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3 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Calm down, dude!!!  Jesus Christ; I don't like the fake news either, but you're describing them like they're Immanuel Kant and aerosolized Ebola all rolled into one!  Maybe take a break from the news for a while?  As much as I'm sure they would like to end the world they're not gonna do it within the next year or two; it'll be okay to ignore them for just a little while.

TRY to not excite yourself. Try also to remove yourself, from the many others, and how they take in and respond to the media reports that they are given.

They are not you and don't think like you. They are the weak links the Press aims at.

CNN (etc.) is their direct and authoritative source of - reality.

Edited by whYNOT
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2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Obviously I knew that the media could be and would be partial

"Up until a few decades ago, the mainstream media played fair."

You told me yourself that they used to play fair. Now you're saying you agree that they never played fair, but they just never played as unfair? All I can say is that they have always played this unfair, you just haven't noticed until recently. And yes, Newsmax is guilty and perhaps more guilty than CNN (media in general, not just the mainstream). 

Edited by Eiuol
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3 hours ago, whYNOT said:

TRY to not excite yourself. Try also to remove yourself, from the many others, and how they take in and respond to the media reports that they are given.

They are not you and don't think like you. They are the weak links the Press aims at.

 

I am keenly aware of the fact that most Americans don't think very critically and tend to just believe whatever they are told.  Are you aware of how close many of them are to accepting that now is the time for open violence, what that violence would look like and in what direction it would ultimately lead us?

By all means; let's talk about the broadly uninformed masses of people all around us and the effect that all this apocalyptic rhetoric will have on them.  Better still, let's imagine what a real world civil war would look like nowadays, and how it would probably affect all of our lives.  As bad as CNN is (and they are terrible) I guarantee you have far more of a choice in whether or not to deal with them than you would have in a bullet.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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7 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

So the widespread hoodlumism in Detroit couldn't possibly have taken that city from Trump; it wasn't his to begin with.  This isn't to say anything nice about those flesh-and-blood Biden voters (who, again, should spend some time in jail for what they did); just that they weren't in a position to actually alter what they were obviously trying to.

What you're saying would be true -- if there were a way to guarantee that there was only one Biden vote for each Democrat in Detroit. Since outside observers were not allowed, there's no way to make that guarantee. It would have been easy for them to slip in thousands of Biden votes which don't correspond to actual voters at all, and that could have been enough to flip Michigan, and if similar fraud could be accomplished in other states, that could have been enough to flip the election.

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1 minute ago, necrovore said:

What you're saying would be true -- if there were a way to guarantee that there was only one Biden vote for each Democrat in Detroit. Since outside observers were not allowed, there's no way to make that guarantee. It would have been easy for them to slip in thousands of Biden votes which don't correspond to actual voters at all, and that could have been enough to flip Michigan, and if similar fraud could be accomplished in other states, that could have been enough to flip the election.

COULD HAVE.  It's also possible that they committed no fraud whatsoever (or even gave Trump some extra votes) once all the Republican pollwatchers were gone.  But I don't think I do have to guarantee anything 100% watertightly as long as I can show that my theory matches all the available evidence significantly better than any conceivable alternative.

 

Actually, considering that this is not just an epistemological but also a legal question (since voter fraud is rightly a criminal offense) I believe the burden of proof is on anyone trying to argue that anybody is guilty of committing it.

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11 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

COULD HAVE.  It's also possible that they committed no fraud whatsoever (or even gave Trump some extra votes) once all the Republican pollwatchers were gone.  But I don't think I do have to guarantee anything 100% watertightly as long as I can show that my theory matches all the available evidence significantly better than any conceivable alternative.

Actually, considering that this is not just an epistemological but also a legal question (since voter fraud is rightly a criminal offense) I believe the burden of proof is on anyone trying to argue that anybody is guilty of committing it.

If someone is taking deliberate steps to conceal or destroy evidence of a crime, that concealment can itself be used as evidence of the crime. (Not proof, but evidence.) It can also be a crime on its own -- "obstruction of justice" or the like.

The whole reason for having observers in the first place is to ensure that the election is fair. If the observers are not allowed to do their job, then that speaks volumes about the fairness of the election in question.

Edited by necrovore
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9 minutes ago, necrovore said:

If someone is taking deliberate steps to conceal or destroy evidence of a crime, that concealment can itself be used as evidence of the crime. (Not proof, but evidence.) It can also be a crime on its own -- "obstruction of justice" or the like.

The whole reason for having observers in the first place is to ensure that the election is fair. If the observers are not allowed to do their job, then that speaks volumes about the fairness of the election in question.

Alright; fair enough.  Like I said: I do think somebody needs to go to prison for what happened.  But how can we tell how much of an impact Detroit itself would've had on Michigan as a whole?

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On 1/7/2021 at 12:35 PM, MisterSwig said:

Until then your fluffy idealism is boring and unhelpful to the people on the ground desperately trying to preserve whatever remains of the American spirit against the tide of socialists and socialist sympathizers.

"Boring"!  You know, you are right: I probably am a slightly more boring person for being anti-sickass-explosions but that tends to happen to most people after they graduate middle school.

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On 1/7/2021 at 5:54 PM, Doug Morris said:

It was clear that the objections would fail and Biden's win would be certified.  So there is no reason for the Democrats to have interfered with it, or to have encouraged anyone else to -- and there is every reason for Trump to have done so.

Damn.  I'm out of reactions I can spend today but I really wish I would've thought of that.

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As with the case in the Wisc Supreme , Dr Linda Lee Tarver’s testimony at the Michigan hearings point to long standing problems with Michigan elections and Detroit in particular for decades. 

Systemic problems with partisan control of elections isn’t anything new , calling it out and focusing broad attention on it can at least be a positive , going forward as they say.

My hope was Trump could be an unapologetic American muckraker. Too much muck and apparently Maoists

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On 1/18/2021 at 5:40 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

... you should already have some sort of plan for how we're gonna accomplish it (which I'd really like at least a hint at because I have no such plan, because I do not believe it's time to swap our arguments out for bullets).

The plan begins with drawing a line in the sand. The line right now is still a bit fuzzy, but I think you're on the wrong side of it. Of course you probably think I'm on the wrong side. And I doubt anyone can convince either of us to switch sides. That's why "free speech" time is just about over. 

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7 you too's between pages 1 and 2.

 

On 1/8/2021 at 3:49 AM, whYNOT said:

Here is the crux of the matter, I think. "Looks great" compared to them in every respect except for superficial niceties and glib presentation. One needs to see also what was implicit in Trump's actions to know him. And one doesn't and cannot throw a switch and hey presto: (forced) laissez-faire capitalism. As Objectivists can give the impression he should. His supporters would hardly countenance that - and the opposition, never. Much action would need be taken by a leader through the present methods and channels of statism to start to reduce statism. Counter-intuitive as it seems, that's the only path possible. And so to slowly accustom the citizens to less statism.

I think much was necessarily reactionary in his output by what he faced: Malicious against the malevolent. A (erstwhile) "dictator" against dictators. A bully against the worst political/ideological bullies I've ever seen outside the African continent. An American against anti-Americanists. The deceit and lies of the media put his lies in the shade.

Freedom and independence of Americans was his explicit goal, I was never in doubt. His foreign initiatives bear this out, as did the economy taking off, but I have heard nothing complimenting those achievements except from conservative commentators. Where are you, ARI?

His support is largely that way already. But MOST Americans had had to rise to the personal challenge of greater liberty and the self-responsibility it requires. They have not. Another ideology predominates and that is beyond the powers of any President. Where does the moral onus lie - but on the citizens, not any leader to enforce.

In later years he will be seen as an America-and- freedom loving President, for now the memories are too raw.

And compared with what's to come...I shudder. Without the restraints of senate and the Executive, these new people are going to run havoc. They clearly have, like children, zero self-restraint whatsoever, and it seems most unlikely they respect the idea of America and its Constitution. Already before the inauguration, there's arrogant talk I hear of ending the filibuster; DC a new state; admitting increasing migrants; etc. That bodes badly for afterwards.

How possibly will the Socialist Democrats ever be voted out?

We are facing a one-party rule here, folks. The norms of politics have fallen away in the US.

And Harris the perfect candidate for future dictator.

Yup - "by comparison", Trump's an angel.

Okay.  Several things.

 

1.  Donald Trump could not define what the word "freedom" means if his own life depended on it.  Have you read his book?  When he makes a speech are you listening to the same man that I am?  Because that man (as endearing as many of his mannerisms really were) could not find his own philosophical roots with both hands.

1147437706_thebestwords.jpg.1a7d18ae7a14998426f5a84a00fc4911.jpg

2.  Because of 1 he really never tried to move us toward REAL Capitalism in any meaningful way.  He said a few vaguely nice things about Capitalism once or twice (and also about being attracted to his own daughter, and also about many other things and also their exact opposites - please see #1) and has slowed the advancing tide of statism a little bit, most of which was on accident.

3.  He will be remembered as the asshole who couldn't cope with losing - completely by his own doing.  Back in December I told a leftist friend of mine that "no, Trump wouldn't try and pull anything immoral now that we all know he's lost; he cares way too much about what other people think of him!  I'm sure he'll accept his defeat with some kind of dignity for future generations to remember him by".  Not true; now I owe him $20 and that actually is Donald Trump's own fault.

4.  Yeah; I'm worried about the future of this country, too.  Do you think that Donald Trump, in the grand scheme of things, has made that a brighter or a darker kind of future?  And what effect do you think YOU are having on it NOW?

 

I actually do think I could see the logic in reacting the way you are if we were talking about a real, walking John Galt or something; some hero of Capitalism who would've single-handedly saved us from this whole process of decline.  For THAT guy I could actually understand breaking some rules in order to really FIGHT for him!  But for Donald Trump???  Really, guys, we can find a better person for that job; it's not gonna be as hard as you might think it is.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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5 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

That's why "free speech" time is just about over. 

Oh, God, that really is where you're at.  I guess all I can say is that I hope you realize your error sooner rather than later.  I really do hope we both can live long and prosperous lives.

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22 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Who are you telling? I mean, it's fine to say what you think, but it doesn't seem like you agree with Peikoff.

I think I'm pretty familiar with OPAR and the section on the arbitrary in particular.

22 hours ago, Eiuol said:

I think the common missing fact of many of your claims have to do with the ways people can fail at their intentions or the ways people can fail to recognize what a rational course of action would be.

If I go with the idea that it was all a bunch of frenzied Trump supporters, then that leaves me unable to explain the presence of the Antifa and BLM people.

If some Antifa and BLM acted as "agents provocateur," I'm unable to explain why Trump supporters would listen to them. Even if they lied online and said they were Trump supporters, some of them were dressed as Antifa and BLM people even at the Capitol, which ought to have tipped off any real Trump supporters. It would have been a case of "strange bedfellows" at the very least. It just doesn't make sense.

22 hours ago, Eiuol said:

This is only true if you assume that a person acted rationally. Sure, maybe the right had everything to lose, but that doesn't mean people didn't do it anyway. Another way to explain what happened is "the right had everything to lose, and because they were emotionally outraged and not thinking clearly thanks to the rally before and Donald Trump, they failed to recognize the bad strategy". In other words, you left out facts. You left out the fact that people can disastrously fail in their use of reason. All you need to give us some document or tweet or something that someone on the left planned anything that happened.

I suppose the interesting thing here is this:

If the storming of the Capitol follows logically from mistaken ideas of the Right and of Trump, then the people who did the storming would have to have been following that logic, which means they would have to have been acting rationally (although mistakenly).

On the other hand, if the people who did the storming of the Capitol were not rational, then you can't claim that their actions follow from any ideas at all, so nobody's ideas can be blamed. Such people become like the creepy serial killer types who claim they are Stephen King fans. Stephen King (or his ideas) cannot properly be blamed for that.

It's even arguable that, if the people storming the Capitol weren't rational, they would have lost (or given up) their capacity to understand what being a Trump supporter even means, so they would no more be Trump supporters than the wild animals they were acting like.

You could say that the Left can't be blamed either, that they, too, might have creepy people among their fans. And that's true as far as it goes -- but another phenomenon is at work. There are intelligent people of the Left who know how to manipulate and use irrational people for their own ends, and they do that constantly. BLM and Antifa are examples, but there are other examples going back 100 years. So it's not unreasonable to say that they've done it in this case, even if I can't find their specific plans, because they've done it so many other times. This is like the Reichstag Fire, which was a false-flag orchestrated by National Socialists in order to gain power. (And it was not exposed until after the war!) This kind of thing is something that only the Left does, too, because the ends of the intelligent people of the Right cannot be advanced by lawless rioting like that. Even the deeply religious people among the Right want to work through the system rather than "burn it down."

I can't help but observe that "burn it down" is not something Trump has said, but people on the Left seem to say it all the time.

"Useful idiots" are only "useful" to the Left.

22 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Which cases? And not enough to alter the election, where that factors relevant, would mean that not enough of the fraudulent votes could affect that district, meaning that the vote would necessarily not affect the overall election. To even get into this, you need all the relevant info, and you probably need to be a lawyer. The bottom line is if these are bad reasons, then you don't trust the judicial system. The people who decided these cases, are they bad judges? I'm saying that because you are not a lawyer, so you do not have the expert opinion to tell us that the reasons are bad.

It is part of a judge's job to make sure that his rulings are intelligible to laypeople, especially when those rulings have large-scale consequences like this. If judges don't do that, then they should not be surprised when laypeople don't trust their rulings. But similarly they could get that trust back by explaining what they are doing.

I think some judges just flat-out didn't respect Trump or his claims, so they thought they could reject those claims without examining them. Such a thing is a slap in the face of people who have genuine concerns about possible wrongdoing. A dismissal without examination does not, and should not be expected to, settle the issue. (And other judges, as I said, may have been afraid to give due consideration to those claims.)

Just because I disagree with certain rulings doesn't mean I distrust the judiciary in general. Trusting the judiciary shouldn't mean that you have to agree with all their rulings, either.

"A judge puts himself on trial every time he pronounces a verdict."

22 hours ago, Eiuol said:

You already developed a theory, and now you're looking for evidence. You're doing it backwards. 

I had evidence, and I developed a theory from that, and more and more evidence came in, so I determined that the theory was "possible" or even "likely." I still regard it as unproved, but I can't disregard the evidence I have seen.

Edited by necrovore
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8 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

4. And few, "law makers deserved it" (This is what our representatives deserve. Screw 'em, and screw Biden.)

But ...

4 is the one I find reprehensible. A clear sanction of violence and clearly unethical from and Objectivist standpoint.

The question is: What is the proper response?

To treat it as a valid point?

There has been no strong condemnation of the statement and I would argue that is a problem in this forum.

Then let's debate it.

Resolved: It is a problem in this forum that there has been no strong condemnation of the statement "lawmakers deserved" the Capitol Riot of January 6th.

But I'm not going to discuss it further on this thread. You can start a new one in the Debate forum.

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4 minutes ago, necrovore said:

If the storming of the Capitol follows logically from mistaken ideas of the Right and of Trump, then the people who did the storming would have to have been following that logic, which means they would have to have been acting rationally (although mistakenly).

But you're omitting the question of whether those mistaken ideas came from honest mistakes or from choosing to be dumb.  I wouldn't agree that they acted rationally because I think most of those peoples' mistakes could've been avoided if they'd truly been interested in the truth (or even averse to the appeal to the gun).

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24 minutes ago, necrovore said:

If the storming of the Capitol follows logically from mistaken ideas of the Right and of Trump, then the people who did the storming would have to have been following that logic, which means they would have to have been acting rationally (although mistakenly).

On the other hand, if the people who did the storming of the Capitol were not rational, then you can't claim that their actions follow from any ideas at all, so nobody's ideas can be blamed.

No because irrational does not mean the same thing as totally detached from any kind of abstraction.  Islamist suicide bombers are acting completely irrationally and yet completely ideologically (i.e. motivated by an abstract code) at the same time, by definition; their abstract philosophical framework just happens to be an irrational one (and basically of the same category as the January Sixth rioters, but to a much more extreme degree).

 

And also (although I couldn't quote you chapter and paragraph where to find something about this, I'm sure someone with a better memory could back me up) between the two statements you seem to be trying to set up some weird kind of dichotomy that I find quite suspect.

24 minutes ago, necrovore said:

It's even arguable that, if the people storming the Capitol weren't rational, they would have lost (or given up) their capacity to understand what being a Trump supporter even means, so they would no more be Trump supporters than the wild animals they were acting like.

Yeah; that.  This whole thing reminds me of Fact and Value.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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55 minutes ago, necrovore said:

If I go with the idea that it was all a bunch of frenzied Trump supporters, then that leaves me unable to explain the presence of the Antifa and BLM people.

So what if you can't? Why do you phrase it that way rather than saying it is the only theory you have evidence for? 

55 minutes ago, necrovore said:

If some Antifa and BLM acted as "agents provocateur," I'm unable to explain why Trump supporters would listen to them.

They don't need to be told anything, that's why an agent provocateur can be effective. All the Trump supporter needs to see is a brick go through a window. Then they will continue from there because they already wanted to storm the Capitol. And we have evidence of that, I don't even think I need to mention it it's so well-known. It might not logically follow, but it emotionally follows. "Sleepy Joe is bad. Election stolen. Orange man say fight like hell!" And no, it is not a coherent ideology. Some of it is logical, some of it isn't. Irrational people are not zombies absent of all mental content.

55 minutes ago, necrovore said:

Even the deeply religious people among the Right want to work through the system rather than "burn it down."

They don't want to burn it down, they want to reinstall the rightful heir so to speak. 

 

Edited by Eiuol
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7 minutes ago, necrovore said:

How so? (I haven't read Fact and Value in a while, but I remember disagreeing with it.)

Your approach to the "incitement to violence" charge is very similar to the way David Kelley described Leonard Peikoff's take on Immanuel Kant, I think (not in Fact and Value at all but in his response to it).  I still disagree with your overall point, but I also think there are some interesting parallels that deserve to be explored at some time.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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16 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Your approach to the "incitement to violence" charge is very similar to the way David Kelley described Leonard Peikoff's take on Immanuel Kant, I think (not in Fact and Value at all but in his response to it).  I still disagree with your overall point, but I also think there are some interesting parallels that deserve to be explored at some time.

I think David Kelley was saying that you can condemn an action but you have to "tolerate" an idea.

Peikoff's position is the correct one, I think: you can, and must, condemn an idea on the basis of the actions to which it necessarily leads (and the results of those actions).

However, where I differ from you seems to be, I don't think the ideas of Trump or Republicans necessarily lead to the storming of the Capitol. For one thing, Trump and the Republicans have been supporters of "law and order" all through the BLM and Antifa riots, and even through the election challenges they tried working "through the system" all the way to the end. Storming the Capitol was not a "law and order" action at all (and in fact it interrupted their effort to work through the system).

So while I condemn the actions of the Capitol rioters, I can't condemn Trump or Republicans for it, because their ideas don't lead to it. Nor would their ideas be supported by the aftermath of such a thing.

The Leftists, on the other hand, do not have any qualms about starting up riots and other lawlessness, and they benefit from such things.

There are plenty of reasons to condemn Republicans, such as their attachment to religion, but this is not one of them.

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