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Comment by throwawaygulf | Hacker News Reader

If Rosa Parks didn't like sitting in the back of the bus, she could have just started her own bus line!

If GMC wouldn't sell her a bus, she could just make her own!

Sure it takes expertise, time, expense, negotiation... but that's the price of true freedom!

Before anyone comes crying: I in no way support the assault on the Capitol, calls to violence (which should be illegal), alt-right ethno-state madness, Qanon delusions etc. Nazism is a cancer on society.

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> If Rosa Parks didn't like sitting in the back of the bus,

Buses are run by governments. And Rosa Parks wasn't advocating throwing molotov cocktails at bus drivers, she sat in the wrong damn seat in an act of civil disobedience.

> If GMC wouldn't sell her a bus,

It'd be great if GMC would refuse selling vehicles to insurrectionist militias, IMHO.

Your analogies aren't doing any good here.

I believe the bus was operated by National City Lines. Could be wrong.

"The Montgomery City Lines is sorry if anyone expects us to be exempt from any state or city law ... [w]e are sorry that the colored people blame us for any state or city ordinance which we didn't have passed."

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

They were free to not do business with the city of Montgomery, if I’m following the logic of some of today’s discussion correctly.

>Buses are run by governments.

Not the one Rosa Parks was on.

>And Rosa Parks wasn't advocating throwing molotov cocktails

Rosa Parks no, but other Black groups most definitely. Same with Parler, not everyone was advocating violence.

>It'd be great if GMC would refuse selling vehicles to insurrectionist militias, IMHO.

Yup, stop selling them to the Black insurrectionist militias (codeword for any Black political group), would have been great.

>Your analogies aren't doing any good here.

They're pretty great honestly, describes the general idea well.

Not only that, Rosa Parks was discriminated because of who she was while the MAGA goons and the platform they used are receiving backlash for behaving like pos and refusing to moderate the violent posts. The parent poster is deliberately muddying the water with the twisted analogy.

This is the most important part. We need to defend people from being discriminated for who they are, but things they do is fair game.

More specifically, for the things they do towards the destruction of our democratic society.

> Rosa Parks wasn't advocating throwing molotov cocktails at bus drivers, she sat in the wrong damn seat in an act of civil disobedience.

Agreed. But because some others didn't take her approach to civils rights, but were violent, why should she be canceled? It would be interesting to ask people at that time in history whether they saw her actions as violence or inciting violence. I bet the answer is a big ol' yes. I bet even many thought it was inciting the overthrow society/government.

There is a significant difference between refusing business on the basis of race (which is rightfully a protected status) and refusing business with a platform that hosts far-right content. This particular example, comparing the far-right to Rosa Parks, is especially distasteful.

> If Rosa Parks didn't like sitting in the back of the bus, she could have just started her own bus line!

Or she and like minded people could have boycotted the bus lines, in modern terms "cancelling" them. (In case any non-US users don't know, that's exactly what they did, it was called the "Montgomery Bus Boycott").

Ironically, racists in those days tried to use the government to shut that movement down, just like Republicans are trying to use the government to go after people cancelling Parler today.

Buses are considered public transit in most areas, not private. Also, discrimination against race is illegal, unlike calling for violence.

In the USA, there are many kinds busses that are not public transit. Greyhound and Trailways were historically the most famous, but there are still lots of long and intermediate distance services (i.e. not just shuttling you around a town) that are still completely private bus services. Today, Megabus and Bolt would be contemporary examples. They are subject to some regulation as a kind of "public transportation", but their services, facilities, investment and staff are in any significant way controlled by governments.

But the segregation of bus lines was mandated by law in Alabama at the time, so it was a government action.

Indeed. I was just trying to clarify the public/private status of bus lines in the US, particularly for non-US readers.

You are comparing literal Nazis who are calling for insurrection and murder to someone peacefully fighting against oppression.

>You are comparing literal Nazis

Literal Nazis?! Wow! Didn't know there were that many National Socialist German Workers' Party members in the US in 2021!

Those freedom fighters mostly peacefully protested at the Capitol to fight against tyranny and literal communism! /s

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