Bombing Democrats?

[Antiboyscout]

There's been no serious left-leaning violence in the US for decades.

Wait what now?

I mean, don't get me wrong...until very recently, your statement would have been correct. And the right wing is still far, far ahead. But it seems like the left is at least testing the waters.

No, he is wrong and so are you.

http://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/

[LittleRaven]

http://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/

He said decades. 1970 was almost 50 years ago. I think that's allowable.

I mean, the left HAS had moments of violence in the past. But until VERY recently...the left has been pretty tame.

[Yukaphile]

As I said, it can't be Islamic terrorists because A) They don't give a shit about certain political parties, but Americans in general, and would wanna launch a general strike against lawmakers in general, which includes the GOP, not just Democrats, and B) It would be a more sophisticated bomb with wires and gears that would actually explode.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Are assaults by Antifa not serious violence, or are they not left-leaning? Or the 2016 shooting of police in Dallas?

You'll find extremists in both the right and the left. I pay more attention to what most members of that faction say about the violence.

I can take the shooting of police seriously, but like...
pipe bombs are in a whole fucking different league than punching nazis. And leftist violence comes from the far left and the fringe, whereas you have mainstream political leaders in power openly encouraging violence. Remember Sarah Palin's campaign with the gun targets on democrat's faces? And then one of those democratic congress members was shot by one of her fanboys?

"Extremists exist everywhere" is like "all lives matter", technically true but a big smokescreen for disproportionate reality.

Mitch McConnal could ritualistically sacrifice an undocumented immigrant baby on the senate floor and ya'll would still be shaking your heads solemnly and wagging your bony fingers and saying "the left is violent too!"

[CharlesPhipps]

Antifa breaking windows being compared to actual pipe bombs is embarrassing for the people trying to draw equivalence.

Mind you drawing equivalence is embarrassing to begin with.

Condemn the people involved without trying to do "both sides" bullshit.

[Darth Wedgius]

Antifa breaking windows being compared to actual pipe bombs is embarrassing for the people trying to draw equivalence.

Mind you drawing equivalence is embarrassing to begin with.

Condemn the people involved without trying to do "both sides" bullshit.

I had more in mind Antifa beating people, pepper spraying people, etc., and less the breaking windows thing. And this was in response to earlier entries in this thread saying that left-wing violence had been largely absent for decades, so I brought up left-wing violence that took place in the last couple decades.

Somehow I remain unembarrassed despite being told that I should be. However, I may ask you in the future if I should be embarrassed or not.

[Darth Wedgius]

Are assaults by Antifa not serious violence, or are they not left-leaning? Or the 2016 shooting of police in Dallas?

You'll find extremists in both the right and the left. I pay more attention to what most members of that faction say about the violence.

I can take the shooting of police seriously, but like...
pipe bombs are in a whole fucking different league than punching nazis. And leftist violence comes from the far left and the fringe, whereas you have mainstream political leaders in power openly encouraging violence. Remember Sarah Palin's campaign with the gun targets on democrat's faces? And then one of those democratic congress members was shot by one of her fanboys?

"Extremists exist everywhere" is like "all lives matter", technically true but a big smokescreen for disproportionate reality.

Mitch McConnal could ritualistically sacrifice an undocumented immigrant baby on the senate floor and ya'll would still be shaking your heads solemnly and wagging your bony fingers and saying "the left is violent too!"

Again you claim to read our minds without actually demonstrating being Vulcan or membership in the Psi-Corps.

I agree that pipe bombs are worse than punching someone, though punching someone and yelling "I'm going to ^$%@ kill you" in a premeditated attack is as bad, and swinging a bicycle lock at someone's head is as well.

I did not take targets as a call to actually shoot someone, and I think that's paranoid. Is there any evidence that the man who shot democratic congress members was influenced by that, or is that you reading somebody's mind again? Keep in mind the 2017 congressional baseball shooting, targeting Republicans.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'm making a reasonable inference from available evidence.

I want to ask you this. If somebody, say, a friend of a friend, posted a picture of your face with a gun sight on it, and it got really popular on social media, would you feel in danger? Would you think it was a threat?

If then, later, one of their twitter followers shot you in the face, while you were in the hospital, would you think "nah, that guy who posted my head in a gun sight isn't inciting anyone"?

I think your definition of paranoia is a touch broad.

[LittleRaven]

I'm making a reasonable inference from available evidence.

No, you aren't. At best, you think you are, but that's only because you haven't done the appropriate research.

Because there's lots and lots of evidence that the shooting of Gabby Gifford had nothing to do with politics.

Acquaintances say that Loughner's personality had changed markedly in the years prior to the shooting, a period during which he was also abusing alcohol and drugs. He had been suspended from Pima Community College in September 2010 because of his bizarre behavior and disruptions in classes and the library. After his arrest, two medical evaluations diagnosed Loughner with paranoid schizophrenia and ruled him incompetent to stand trial. He was placed on medication while in jail, as part of his treatment. He was again judged incompetent in May 2012.

We have piles of evidence and actual court rulings that show fairly conclusively that Loughner was (is) pants-on-head crazy. It took over a year of hard-core anti-psychotics to even get him fit to stand trial. His politics before he went over the bend were...inconclusive.

Records show that Loughner was registered as an independent and voted in 2006 and 2008, but not in 2010.[38][39]

Loughner's high-school friend Zach Osler said, "He did not watch TV; he disliked the news; he didn't listen to political radio; he didn't take sides; he wasn't on the Left; he wasn't on the Right."[18] A former classmate, Caitie Parker, who attended high school and college with Loughner, described his political views – prior to his 2007 personality transformation – as "left wing, quite liberal."[40][41] The tone of Loughner's online writings and videos from immediately before the attack were described by an opinion piece of The Guardian as "almost exclusively conservative and anti-government, with echoes of the populist campaigning of the Tea Party movement".[42]

But after his brain broke, he descended into conspiracy theories. It's hard to know what he was thinking at this point, because you can't apply rational thought to irrational people, and Loughner was pretty clearly losing his grip on reality.

Don't get me wrong, in general, I agree with you. Up until Trump at least, the left has been far less violent than the right. But Loughner is a bad example.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Alright, I'll grudgingly concede that one.

I'm still just a bit salty that the standing president's political opponents, including a former president who was subjected to lynching threats, get a bunch of pipe bombs and I hear so much waffle about "well the ANTIFA PUNCH PEOPLE!" and "can we really be sure what this is about?".

This is nothing less than politically-motivated right-wing pro-Trump terrorism.