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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9143 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025

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I think you can make an argument she was playing stupid games, but the public response to it is almost totally informed by 'Blue Team Good, Red Team Bad' factionalism. People who were vehemently pushing BLM and Defund the Police slogans a month before suddenly became totally cool with the idea of a justified shoot, whilst if Babbitt had been shot as an unarmed woman in a similar circumstance whilst say trying to approach Trump during a BLM protest or entering a capitol building she would be held as a martyr to the cause.

I understand why the Red team hasn't pushed her since they tend to be more accepting of violent consequences to 'fuck around and find out' but the handling feels deeply hypocritical on part of the Blue Team.

People who were vehemently pushing BLM and Defund the Police slogans a month before suddenly became totally cool with the idea of a justified shoot

Ironically one of the loopier members of the BLM movement, Shaun King, was the only one who actually took a principled stand and said he thought the Babbit killing was a bad shoot and an act of police brutality.

Good man. Props to him even if we do disagree.

I was writing a reply to zoink above but this is ridiculous standard. Yes, many on the left are hypocrites. Somehow, it is turned to equally hypocritical defense of a riot -- see, the problem with the riot is not the riot, the problem is that out-group who are all hypocritical angry when my-own-group does a riot but they don't care when their ingroup does it.

It is extra ridiculous because this being the internet, it takes no effect effort (ETA) at all to defend consistent standards for dealing with riots, left or right. Yet somehow the most important thing when discussing news of Trump awarding 5 megadollars to Babbitt family is complain loudly about BLM.

Yes but Jan 6th aside from the location and the suggested vibe of 'If the control point of US democracy were held for 30 minutes by funny hat man, the entire USA would automatically fall under his control' was hardly even a Riot. People who were glibly encouraging far more Riotous riots and complaining about far more justified shoots suddenly dropped both principles in favor of pure team allegiance logic.

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