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by malvosenior 2579 days ago
Having grown up in a poor community I got to know a lot of police officers and their children. Racism and thuggish behavior was definitely a huge problem. These posts sadly don't surprise me.

That being said, Buzzfeed and their ilk routinely make excuses for people on the left posting the same type of racism and thugish messages. "Ironically" calling for old white men to be punished, routinely calling for violence against Trump and Trump supporters (not ironically), sexist comments against men and so on.

I feel the need for freedom of speech is so great that we shouldn't censor any of this stuff but neither should we endorse or support it in the media regardless of what side of the political spectrum it's being perpetrated on.
3 comments
phxrsg 2579 days ago
I don't think its a hard distinction to make that the bar is higher when you are issued weapons and authority by the state.

Leftist asshole talking about "old white men" online = bad

Cop who has the power to use force against you or arrest you talking about how "thugs deserve slugs" = worse

This isn't hard.

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malvosenior 2579 days ago
The media is extremely powerful and has amplifying effects on violence. Both they and the police are strong and dangerous.
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r00fus 2579 days ago
I’d say the opposite. Intolerance should not be tolerated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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projektfu 2579 days ago
Classic whatabouttism. Does it really make you feel better to imagine two sides, one of which is "left", the other "right", and placing them on a balance? The two sides here are the police and civilians, not police and "leftists on the internet".
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dang 2579 days ago
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological warfare. If one is already heading there, either take it in the opposite direction, or simply don't reply. This community is about curiosity, and scorched earth doesn't interest or benefit anybody.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Also, please don't use the 'whataboutism' label in arguments here. It falls under the guideline that asks people not to call names in arguments. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

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projektfu 2579 days ago
Fair enough. I felt I was trying to pull the conversation back out of the ideological by re-humanizing and making relevant the actual victims.
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