Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

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I think your confusion is warranted. Context is important. I wanted to cite more from Cottons op ed but was afraid it would be too much words. This is the beginning of his essay:

> This week, rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy, recalling the widespread violence of the 1960s.

> New York City suffered the worst of the riots Monday night, as Mayor Bill de Blasio stood by while Midtown Manhattan descended into lawlessness. Bands of looters roved the streets, smashing and emptying hundreds of businesses. Some even drove exotic cars; the riots were carnivals for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements.

It’s immediately clear that it’s not a nuanced argument he seeks to make, in his view protestors and rioters are one and the same. If his desire was to use the military on only the rioters he could have mentioned that distinction. However, that would reduce the thrust of the argument: why deploy overwhelming military forces when the rioters are a minority? If they’re a minority can they not be controlled with existing law enforcement ? Instead of weakening the case he chooses to ignore the distinction, which is deliberate and insincere.

Cottons op ed: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protes...

You: It’s immediately clear that it’s not a nuanced argument he seeks to make, in his view protestors and rioters are one and the same.

Tom Cotton: Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.

You're doing exactly what Cotton warns against just a paragraph later from the part you quote. I'm actually baffled.

If we can't agree on things said in a single straight forward op ed, how are we (humanity) ever going to have any real conversation? Is this the Great Filter of Fermi's Paradox?

I stand by exactly what I said. Context is important and words in isolation mean nothing, and that paragraph was explicitly designed to protect the outcome of what he’s really calling for.

Consider another example. Tough on crime laws were not explicitly designed to incarcerate large number of POCs by the the letter. But the difference in how different communities are policed meant that POCs communities often ended up being targeted more anyways. Lawmakers who created such laws would say “ Its meant to target hardened drug criminals, just the bad apples” but in practice it doesn’t really matter.

In this case, the op ed explicitly paints an incredibly biased picture of the situation on the ground and uses that to justify a heavy handed response. There is absolutely no way for a militarized response to differentiate between peaceful and non peaceful responses and Cotton knows that. When the military is involved, it means one thing only: curfews, rigidly enforced. All protests shut down regardless of their nature. One line saying “ please not the peaceful protestors” means absolutely nothing.

> If we can't agree on things said in a single straight forward op ed, how are we (humanity) ever going to have any real conversation? Is this the Great Filter of Fermi's Paradox?

I’m not sure what that is so I can’t address that directly. It’s not a black and white argument as you seem to imply though. Context is extremely important and words in isolation mean absolutely nothing.

He explicitly claims that rioters sometimes outnumber both the national guard and police. I think it’s unlikely that such a statement makes sense without drawing no distinction between protesters and rioters. Saying that the ‘peaceful’ shouldn’t be confused with the ‘roving bands’ seems more rhetorical, or even aspirational, given that he’s not really trying to distinguish himself (and this is clear throughout the piece).

He doesn’t even mention protests or protestors in those quotes, so why do you believe he’s equating rioters and protestors?

It seems like you’re reading the words “riots” and “rioters” and assuming that they must be Cotton’s terms for “protests” and “protestors”, but why make that assumption?

The vast majority of politicians have been very careful to differentiate between peaceful protestors and rioters/looters specifically because they know people will have the same exact discussion we are having now. Competent politicians are very careful about their choice of language. They weren't born yesterday and neither was Tom Cotton.

He does make it explicit that rioter =/= protestor:

> Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn't be confused with bands of miscreants.

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