The protesters are not a homogenous bunch, even if most of them are peaceful, there will always be rabble rousers and thugs wanting to take advantage of minor chaos to cause major chaos. Gross generalizations are then common (look, there was a rabble rousers, so they are all rabble rousers!) magnified by deceptive media techniques (show just the rabble rousers, and replay that same clip 50 times today to give the impression that this is more violent than it really is, hey, where is our photoshop person?).
The effect then is to inflame outrage on both sides, and now we are basically headed to BLM 2.0. Trump seems to have actually planned this out well (use the military to stoke outrage, and a protest in one LA neighborhood becomes a nationwide riot so he has an excuse to cancel the midterms?).
You aren't arguing in good faith, so what's the point? You are using logical fallacies along with a good dose of ad hominem, which has no place on HN, or in intelligent discourse. Yes, the president talks like you also, but no, that still doesn't make it right.
Please stop this style of commenting. You've been posting inflammatory comments in this thread for nearly two days. It's not what HN is for and it destroys what HN is for.
You've recently complained in another thread that HN is biased against the ideological position you represent. This is not how we moderate HN. We actively want the HN audience and discussions to represent the full ideological spectrum and for HN to be a uniquely good place for people of different ideological perspectives to discuss difficult topics and learn from each other. But that can't happen when people comment in this inflammatory style.
If you want to parcipate on HN, please do your part to make it a place for healthy discussion between people with different perspectives. Please heed these guidelines in particular:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
But you dodged my question. You had said a single car on fire was enough to shut down a protest. So then answer the question: how do you know who set the car on fire?
From my perspective, all it would take to manipulate you would be for a cop or agitator to set a car on fire and broadcast the picture blaming protestors.
So then what happens, in your preferred world? It would seem like if you got your way, that would be the end of the first amendment. Anytime anyone stands up to protest, police can just set a single car on fire, and based on your statement, you would want the protest to end at that point. Correct me if I'm wrong, but how does the first amendment survive in your utopia? Or is it not meant to?
