I do not personally support the violence, the looting, or the burning of private property.

But I am not as young or passionate as I once was...

I believe the police should be held accountable. I remember the Black Panthers. They had similar tactics. However, it is important not to lose the support of the masses, in my opinion.

Also, I am not sure of the intentions of some of the protestors. I am not so sure they agree with my sentiments or the sentiments of many Democrats.

I so appreciated what he had to say - and I shared it a lot.

Very unique perspective

Who set himself on fire and awakened a whole region.

While we're "debating" positions no reasonable person actually holds, the cops are stepping on someone else's neck.

it's fine for someone to commit arson?

The first part of your question does not exist purely in the realm of the hypothetical, but it exists in the real, and it SHOULDN'T.

One of those "positions no reasonable person actually holds" I mentioned is "it's fine for someone to commit arson."

It is not fine for someone to commit arson. Nobody actually thinks it is fine for someone to commit arson. The trouble with wringing our hands over it, however, is twofold: 1) when adjacent to murder, arson is objectively the lesser crime, and 2) said arson is a predictable reaction to a breakdown in social order caused by police tossing public trust into the fucking toilet.

Arson is a symptom, not the disease. You want to stop the fires, then fix the fucking police.

would sing a different tune if it was THEIR house or workplace being targeted.....firefighters should NOT have to risk their lives over someone's anger - PERIOD

This is now a tribal free for all of political ideologies and supposed "movements". This includes the cop tribe and anarchists and the social minded liberals and progressives and the christofascists and POC.

People are pissed about way more than Floyd's murder and Trump has never had a handle on this.

In his usual incompetent manner he is just screaming at his "subjects" to obey him through tweets and blaming others for his failure.

Whether you are on the right or the left or middle trying to find a political boogeyman to pin this on is largely a waste of time.

Well, not *really*. I would discourage it but I'm not going to actively go out of my way to stop it.

I can see why they do it.

As long as police are trained and equipped more to fight an invading military rather than serve and protect the neighborhoods of black Americans and as long as black Americans are politically and socially disenfranchised to the degree they are, we will have problems like this.

Some people gather to protest injustice and police brutality and other people go for the shoes and electronics.
They are not the same.

There are inequalities in America.

Either way, they're going to be addressed.

Medicaid, etc., etc., were passed. Economic opportunity was real.

There were, of course, many very legitimate complaints.

However, there were 'riots', etc., and 'the Center' was lost.

Awful and unpopular Nixon was elected. The'cons won the WH for 20 of the next 24 years. [Carter won in '76 by default, of Watergate a crashing economy, and inflation, but could not undo the damage, especially of the gold window thing]. Far right, known to be mentally incompetent reagan won in '80. Only in '92, was Clinton, a weak bush economy, and 24% of the popular vote Perot, enabled to win.

Moral of the story, 'riots' however righteous, are disastrous.

I could care less about Footlocker’s inventory, but the imagery will undoubtedly find itself in lots of nasty race baiting GOP ads in the very near future.

However, I understand the protests.

I think the outside influence, including from the White House, are the ones that we should have been focused on from the get-go. Now, it is out of control.

We are in a dangerous situation for a variety of reasons, including the pandemic. All that has spilled out of that (stress, job loss, lives lost, money lost, minds lost), and the uncertainty of the future caused people to explode once the Floyd video came out. It was the final straw.

If we'd had a leader that was reasonable, even if he had been a Republican, maybe this situation wouldn't be so dire. I'm elderly and have never seen a situation America couldn't work its way out of, but this is a whole `nother story.

I don’t support any of it. There shouldn’t be any live demonstrations now due to covid. Nothing good will come of this. I hope it all stops asap.

...when emotions are running high like they are. You hope cooler head prevail, but how much is too much? My sense is that we've just found out how much is too much.

Neither would Mr. Floyd.

behind stores with break-in tools, black attire & hoodies and smoke bombs to obscure their identity if a camera was nearby. Their numbers are up too. They were organized and started after peaceful protests were well in motion.

I do not support the looting and violence in any way shape or form. Mom and Pop businesses suffering from covid lockdown were completely obliterated today.

I just hope we don't end up with some private military mercenary intervention