Yep, and even when the majority of protests don’t turn violent, the media does an amazingly good job of making it seem like they did. I remember multiple family members posting about, and even talking about in our group chat, how multiple US cities were on fire and essentially war zones in 2020.

I don't know if you know, but quite a few European countries are known to send police or "state" confederates into protests to give authorities an excuse to Escalate. You also see lots more water cannons being used over there.

In Paris the burning and destruction typically happens in the outer "boroughs" of the city -usually by disaffected groups -sometimes they happen to be disenfranchised- though typically they harm the older generation's property and that generation typically frowns upon the destruction.

Of course, in the US, we've had organizations who on paper are for justice and redress being found to foment agitation. It's a total corruption of their mandate. We had an "anti-hate" group paying hate groups to "do things"[1].

[1]https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/119311/witnesses/...

It's rarely acknowledged but a big reason why ATF and FBI toned things down after Waco is because McVeigh (he was there watching) directly retaliated causing nearly 1000 casualties of government employees. At that point they went to the current plan of just divide and conquer a single person at a time via surveillance of the targeted group after things quiet down rather than try to take on groups head on.

Is this supposed to be sarcasm? As far as I know, America is the only nominally democratic country where cops routinely shoot people, and their number one excuse is that they thought they could be shot.

Nothing makes cops more trigger-itchy than the thought that a random stranger could "fight back" any moment.

Haha have you never watched COPS? I’ve seen tamer UFC fights than some COPS episodes.

Are you just being intentionally ignorant here? What are you even trying to convey?

Yes, they've wound up having their whole lives very effectively taken hostage. Also criminals lose the right to vote don't they? Seems like the perfect incentive to criminalize any political movements that are contrary to the ruling class.

But in latin America and poor countries don't have these benefits and still people protest way worse

Well maybe you can get some worker protection and social security by protest... oh, wait.

Oof, could never be the case.

Guys, I feel like we should get another anti-union thread here soon. It’s getting a little too hot for comfort. I’ll start. Whew While I do like unions in theory, I was really peeved when I was getting my start in the working forces as a banana picker and this guy Bob took midday naps...

Not snitches but paid government workers trying to get you to commit crimes and then you get arrested.

There was a lot of arson at BLM protests, and plenty of people beaten in the street, some of whom were in no way asking for it. The majority of the violence probably was the cops though.