[cjslep]

If you want to play the anecdote game: There's also a local Indian Restaurant whose owner was on the phone with the police while watching it burn on the local news, and he basically said "Let it burn. If that's what it takes to get justice."

Insurance will replace the buildings and stuff. Insurance can't bring George back, nor can it undo a bad system.

[microcolonel]

> Insurance will replace the buildings and stuff.

Insurance only works for the insured.

[cjslep]

Glad to know you think of my intelligence so uncharitably that you have to explain a tautological definition.

I know that insurance only covers the insured. I charitably assumed the reading audience of HN knows that, too. Is there something more insightful you wanted to share? For example: have a conversation on the general risks of taking insurance versus not, or whether in these particular anecdotes the owners in fact did/didn't have insurance and their reasons for it? Or was it really just to try to make me look like a dumbass to the crowd?

[microcolonel]

I was responding to your assumption that he was insured, which was seemingly a defense of people looting and arsoning the business he worked his whole life to start, before it ever had a chance to open.

If you don't want to feel criticized when people point out basic facts to you, don't use things you don't know as the basis for an argument why people should feel justified in committing crimes against innocent people.

It's not about you, it's about the boneheaded idea that these riot traps are some sort of component of a movement for social justice.

There is zero justice in looting and arsoning this sports bar, stop trying to say that there is, and you won't feel like a fool when presented with the facts.

It's true that insurance can't bring George Floyd back; it can't bring back the dozen or so people killed so far in the riots either.

[cjslep]

> If you don't want to feel criticized when people point out basic facts to you

Dude! As I said, you could treat me as a full fledged adult and we could have an actual intelligent conversation. Rather than you try to not-very-wittily say a one-liner "pwned a lib" stand-in for an actual conversation.

> don't use things you don't know as the basis for an argument why people should feel justified in committing crimes against innocent people.

Is the "thing I don't know" about "whether the guys is insured"? How does this tie into your goalpost-shift into moralizing me about the riots? Could you really not have taken a second to construct an argument so we can have a conversation? 'Cause now it seems like you are really hell-bent on merely trying to make me look like an idiot in a "got'em" zinger.

> There is zero justice in looting and arsoning this sports bar, stop trying to say that there is, and you won't feel like a fool when presented with the facts.

Are you trying to censor me? I can say what I damn please, thank you. You may not like it, but my arguments are here to stay.

My original point highlights there's going to be a wide spectrum of anecdotes coming from the riots. Using a sports bar example is stupid because I see a distinction between life and property. I wanted to challenge that anecdote directly with a counter-anecdote. I even said insurance "can't undo a bad system" which I intended to also be a point in favor of the very anecdote I was providing a counter-example for: the system has obviously failed the guy as he's at a total loss of his business. I showed the absurdity of loss of things versus loss of life. You don't see me straw-manning you by imagining you're OK with genociding people to protect "stuff".

On the other hand, you then assumed a lot and constructed a strawman of me, imagining me as, as far as I can tell, some drooling idiot that doesn't know "only insured parties are covered by insurance" and thinks that "the dozen or so people killed so far in the riots is OK" and that "the riots are a part of the movement for social justice". I highly recommend taking a step back and really look at yourself and ask what kind of conversation you're looking to have here. So far, it feels like you just want to insult me.

Let me tell you what I think straight up so we can clear this air and you can see me for what I actually believe. If you want to keep insulting me, that's fine. I, quite frankly, don't care about your opinion. I'm stepping away from your toxic bullshit after this. I'm frustrated that ideological-incest of Reddit and /pol/ is leaking to HN.

I believe these riots are a part of the wider movement to draw attention to police brutality (but not associated with the BLM organizers necessarily) due in part to the way the police over the last 20 years has shifted their training to be less community-focused and become much more military in training and viewing confrontations in a militaristic rather than civic light. This affects every citizen, not just black people.

Do I want riots in general? No. Do I want these riots in particular? No. Do I applaud the loss of life in the riots? Hell no! Do I think the damage to property is OK? Fuck no. Do I think comparing total loss of a man's business to the loss of George Floyd is OK? No. But as uncomfortable as the riots are, they're here. In reality. I've got to accept that and figure out what the hell to make of it.

But fuck my beliefs, if people are so frustrated that they are rioting and the National Guard can't even restore order, that is a very strong signal that the civic system used to govern the people is broken. That should start a productive dialogue to those of us outside and able to look in. Is it only the police force no longer connecting with the local community and becoming more of a State Police? Is it local elected officials who've been ignoring their constituents? What are all the straws that broke the camels back?

There are additionally conversations about how movements against injustice should be conducted. We could be having similar conversations to the original debates around Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr's differing approaches to changing civil rights.

Finally, a word of warning: it's too easy to paint all the rioters as bad guys, their cause as obviously flawed, and therefore their movement as immoral. Liberties and injustices cuts both ways: when it's your pet protestors rioting, I sincerely hope you don't have to face your anti-clone.

For the record, I'm not feeling like a fool here, despite your operating assumption as such (there were no facts presented in your non-argument).