Pulling down statues? It’s a tradition that dates back to U.S. independence

[Not2BSubjugated]

As a nation the US is based on the proposition that might is right and that protest is legit. Why are you all kicking against this ?

Might makes right is a leftist tradition. Critical theory, which has filtered through from academia and become all the craze with your fellow travelers, literally posits that humans have no access to objective truth, and that therefore all discourse between people boils down to those people jostling for power for their respective identity groups. The pseudo-post modern pseudo-Marxists pushing this movement view everything in terms of power dynamics. Claiming that America is based on this is pure projection.

The American Constitution was somewhat revolutionary in its championing of the rights of individuals (though the Magna Carta, as an example, had already codified this philosophical course of action), and was extremely revolutionary in specifically being designed to protect those individual freedoms FROM power by enshrining those rights in law and creating a system of governance around checks, balances, and a separation of power designed specifically to prevent its accumulation into the hands of an elite few. That document was constructed, of course, after the American Revolution, during which a tiny group of colonies declared their right to independence from the nation with the world's most powerful military and the greatest naval force the world had ever seen. If those people were possessed of the attitude that you claim, no such revolution would have happened. Aside from being projection, claiming that the American system is based on "might makes right" is also ignorant as fuck.

Moreover, you say that the system is based on might makes right, AND that protest is legit? Protest is literally how average people come together to speak out against people in power. These two values you've posited are diametrically opposed, and no system BASED on such a blatant contradiction would have lasted this long or had anywhere near this sort of measurable success.

That said, protest is legit, and that IS an American tradition. The reason that those of us who are against these protests are, in fact, against them, is primarily threefold.

1. The powerful/influential people backing the protests, along with many of the protesters, have called us murderers for wanting to brave Covid so that we can go to work to pay our bills, feed our families, and keep the nation's economic heart pumping. Now that THEIR values demand risking Covid, suddenly chanting shoulder to shoulder in the street is more important than not being what those same people have already defined as a murderer.

2. We disagree with the overall aim of the protesters. "9 unarmed black men were killed by the police last year. That, coupled with the fact that there were things that this nation did in history that were bad, obligates you to give our leadership absolute control over the economy and the full authority to dictate what is and isn't okay to say in public." Not saying you can't demand it, just saying don't be surprised when you're told to STFU and go home.

3. Perhaps most importantly, we disagree (to put it fucking lightly) with the constant conflation out of the mainstream left of protesting and rioting. The protesting on which the US tradition is based is, as the Constitution states, PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY. Defacing monuments is what you do when the overthrow is in progress. We disagree with the protesters who indignantly and repeatedly remind us that most of them are peaceful, while simultaneously admitting that it's not their place to police the angry people who are engaging in violent behavior at their events. The people who acknowledge the violence within their ranks, and then act as human shields through their willful refusal to either call it out or get out of the way so that the rioters can be dealt with effectively.

If you take an honest look at where the "kicking" is coming from, and what we're "kicking" against, it shouldn't be difficult to understand.

You do well to build a case but you leave out several pertinent facts. Might is right saw off the Native Americans because you had guns. Might is right subjected Black folk to 4 centuries of oppression which continues to this day. Check out the horrific postings of the recidivists on this site.
I also note that Kapernik protested peacefully and lost his job on the back of it. Is protest a white only privilege?

I didn't leave out anything. We were talking about what America is BASED ON. We weren't arguing over whether or not America has flexed its power in some fucked up ways over the years. The claim that the 4 centuries of oppression continue to this day, though, I gotta tell you. Hyperbolic as fuck. Once someone can actually quantify systemic oppression, I'll be all ears, but so long as your only evidence is the fact that there are disparities in outcomes between races, well. . . I'll be forced to point out that there's a million and one reasons that you can lose a foot race that have nothing to do with the referee. Until we can eliminate quite a few of those, I'm not interested in your insistence on any particular one.

Protest isn't a white privilege. It's a right. It's also a right to fire someone from a business if the employee in question is publicly conducting themselves in a way that the employer doesn't appreciate. Believe it or not, white people are also legally unprotected from this reality. Since it's not Colin Kaepernick's right to be employed by whoever he orders to employ him, and since the NFL's severing of their professional relationship with Kaepernick doesn't prevent him from speaking, he's not being denied anything to which white people are entitled.

If we're going to talk about privilege where the protests are concerned, maybe you could answer me one. Countless BLM protesters in cities nation-wide have been defacing everything from businesses to homes to national fucking monuments, and very, VERY few of them have been or ever will be prosecuted. Many cities have, in fact, repeatedly released all arrests at these demonstrations, and some have gone so far as to announce that they wouldn't be charging anybody arrested for "protesting". On the other hand, a couple who shares dissenting opinions defaces a painting on a Bay Area street that specifically glorifies a progressive political movement, BLM, and they get charged with a hate crime. Since you're interested in privilege, my question is this: Is defacement of public property a black privilege, or a progressive privilege? I can't seem to figure out who's balls in particular these state governments are gargling.

I'm kidding, it's obviously a progressive privilege. I'm fairly certain that if Clarence Thomas was caught carving his name into a statue of Caesar Chavez in a blue city, the dems there would lynch him.