Is Free Speech Under Attack in this Country?

[57Brave]

people can speak freely they can say what they want.
People also have the right to not have to listen and have an equal right to shout them down



As far as their 1st Amendment rights that applies to government blocking " speech"
Yeah, there is free speech, there is also free STFU

you confuse the two

[57Brave]

But why are there federal buildings in Portland? And if the locals won't protect it, who will?

Yell can answer that at your leisure. I won't hold my breath

David Hogg (text vote to 954-954)
@davidhogg111
· 2h
Where were the police with riot gear and teargas when

white supremacists storming are state capitals with guns?

says that pesky Parkland Kid

[thethe]

David Hogg (text vote to 954-954)
@davidhogg111
· 2h
Where were the police with riot gear and teargas when

white supremacists storming are state capitals with guns?

says that pesky Parkland Kid

Was there any violence in that event? Just curious...

[sturg33]

Was there any violence in that event? Just curious...

Were there white supremacists?

[thethe]

Were there white supremacists?

They were white so by extension white nationalists.

Haven't you read White Fragility?

[goldfly]

I literally have a thread going of peaceful protesters having violence happening to them

And you gonna say barging in to a state capital with guns isn’t violence though

Lol

[sturg33]

I literally have a thread going of peaceful protesters having violence happening to them

And you gonna say barging in to a state capital with guns isn’t violence though

Lol

I really am confused how you have this viewpoint but think the Portland riots are peaceful.

Are they not barging in the federal building?

[cajunrevenge]

Judges rules Michael Cohen's first amendment was violated and sending him back to prison for not signing a form saying not only will he not write a book but his family members wouldn't even talk about it. I dont know that this is Barrs doing or just some Storm Trumper. Whoever is needs to go to prison.

[goldfly]

[cajunrevenge]

It's what I have always said about cops. They will beat, rape, and murder anyone. Doesnt matter if its women, children or the elderly. But I am supposed to respect and support these thugs who would do this? These people would go into a hospital and start beating new borns if they were told to do so.




People need to wake up to realize this is a war. They started it and it's well passed time people fight back instead of protest. I have yet to see an armed protest of 1000 people be brutalized. No one is a civilian in this war. My family is not so their families should not be.

[sturg33]

Arresting these people is an attack on free speech?

[goldfly]

I’m trying to imagine the made up scenario in your mind where the 2nd amendment gets invoked by citizens and what protests are good etc

I mean, you get really worked up about Twitter bannings.

Which is weird

But real life practical confrontation with the govt makes you uncomfortable and suddenly very pro govt

[sturg33]

I’m trying to imagine the made up scenario in your mind where the 2nd amendment gets invoked by citizens and what protests are good etc

I mean, you get really worked up about Twitter bannings.

Which is weird

But real life practical confrontation with the govt makes you uncomfortable and suddenly very pro govt

I'm still trying to figure out why you were against the Bundys

[nsacpi]

there is a curious symmetry between antifa and very poorly chosen one in all this

1) neither is interested in constructively addressing the issues the peaceful demonstrators are protesting about

2) both are interested in escalating the situation into a violent chaotic one

[sturg33]

there is a curious symmetry between antifa and very poorly chosen one in all this

1) neither is interested in constructively addressing the issues the peaceful demonstrators are protesting about

2) both are interested in escalating the situation into a violent chaotic one

Your constructive solution was to do nothing, right?

They tried that for 2 months... while local police let people destroy federal property

[nsacpi]

Your constructive solution was to do nothing, right?

They tried that for 2 months... while local police let people destroy federal property

we had a long back and forth about it...in case your memory is failing you i advocated for de-escalating the situation rather than escalating it through a provocative federal presence...the recent evolution of events seems to have vindicated my view...things have gotten worse not better since the federal forces were introduced into these situations...if there is a fire you don't throw gasoline on it

[sturg33]

Your approach to deescalation was to... Do nothing, right?

[Krgrecw]

Your approach to deescalation was to... Do nothing, right?

He was going to ask them nicely to quit. If they refused he was going to offer them milk and cookies. He has no plan

[nsacpi]

Your approach to deescalation was to... Do nothing, right?

the crowds were getting smaller

with smaller crowds it is easier to identify and arrest those who are breaking windows

with much bigger crowds is it easier for troublemakers to blend in with everyone else

[nsacpi]

From column by Nicholas Kristoff

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/o...gtype=Homepage

PORTLAND, Ore. — To watch Fox News is to learn from Sean Hannity that the “Rose City” of Portland is “like a war zone” that has been, in Tucker Carlson’s words, “destroyed by the mob.”

So I invite Hannity and Carlson to escape their bubbles and visit Portland, stroll along the Willamette River and enjoy a glass of local pinot noir. They’ll be safe — unless they venture at night into the two blocks beside the federal courthouse.

Citizens need to be vigilant there, for armed groups periodically storm the streets to attack peaceful visitors. I’m talking, of course, about the uninvited federal forces.

I’ve watched them fire round after round of tear gas, along with occasional rubber bullets or other projectiles. They even repeatedly tear-gassed Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, who has demanded that they go home, leaving him blinded and coughing on his own streets.

“They knocked the hell out of him,” President Trump boasted on Fox News. “That was the end of him.”

Trump is pretending that he is bringing law and order to chaotic streets, and now he has dispatched similar troops — what else can you call a militarized force like this but “troops”? — to Seattle, where that city’s mayor has also said they are unwanted. Yet if Trump is actually trying to establish order, he is stunningly incompetent. The ruthlessness of the federal forces has inflamed the protests, bringing huge throngs of Portlanders out to protect their city from those they see as jackbooted federal thugs.

“Their presence here escalates,” Kate Brown, Oregon’s governor, told me. “It throws gasoline on the fire.”

The paradox is that Oregon is simultaneously begging for federal assistance to address a real threat — the coronavirus pandemic. Brown said she has been pleading for Covid-19 tests and for personal protective equipment, but the federal government has rebuffed the state.

“It’s appalling to me that they are using federal taxpayer dollars for political theater and making no effort to really keep our communities safe,” Brown said.

So let’s be real: Trump isn’t trying to quell violence in Portland. No, he’s provoking it to divert attention from 140,000 Covid-19 deaths in the United States. Once again, he’s tear-gassing peaceful protesters to generate a photo op — and he’s doing this every night in downtown Portland. This is a reckless campaign tactic to bolster his own narrative as a law-and-order candidate, a replay of Richard Nixon’s successful 1968 campaign theme.

It is true that some protesters are violent. Some start small trash fires. Others paint graffiti, including “kill pigs” and “kill cops,” or hurl water bottles or firecrackers at federal agents. Some protesters point lasers at officers and in one case a man allegedly hit an agent with a hammer.

Such violence is wrong and plays into Trump’s narrative. Representative John Lewis, who died earlier this month, showed how much more powerful it is for changemakers to endure violence than to commit it.

But it’s also true that the vast majority of those in the crowds each evening are peaceful. They sing about racial justice, chant “Feds out now” and try to protect their city from violent intruders dispatched by Trump.

On the streets, I have no fear of the protesters (except when they pull their face masks down to shout slogans, risking the spread of Covid-19), but it’s prudent to worry about the troops. In a few weeks, they:

fired “less lethal” munition at a peaceful protester named Donavan La Bella, fracturing his skull and requiring facial reconstruction surgery. Video shows that the shot was unprovoked.

clubbed a Navy veteran, Christopher J. David, as he tried to ask federal agents how they squared their actions with the Constitution.

allegedly sexually assaulted a lawyer who had been arrested after taking part in the “Wall of Moms.”

An iconic moment came when a woman known as Naked Athena confronted the troops while wearing only a hat and face mask. Her naked vulnerability as armed troops fired pepper balls at her feet underscored the absurdity of Trump’s narrative that he is “protecting” anything.

Beware. What you’re seeing in Portland may be coming to other cities. After all, Trump’s verdict on the troops: “In Portland, they’ve done a fantastic job.”