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Comment by AlexC04 | Hacker News Reader

I think you're listening to what they say they they do as opposed to what they actually do.

The Proud Boys have been declared a terrorist organization by the Canadian government.

This was specifically based on their role in organizing and planning for violence at at the Washington DC insurrection.

No matter what your feelings are about the Canadian government, that isn't something they'd do lightly.

While the prod boys official line "we just show up fight anti-fascists" is belied by their actions like "planning and participation in an attempt to violently overthrow the us government"

edit: Here's a reference for the claim WRT being declared an actual terrorist org https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/02/03/canada-...

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Protesting what you believe to be a corrupt system isn't overthrowing the government, else BLM are also guilty. Illegally protesting inside the capitol isn't overthrowing the government, else AOC would be in prison for leading protesters into it in 2018.

This protest was far less violent and less destructive than those that Americans have been made to accept as peaceful throughout the preceding year. This wasn't an insurrection, and none of your gaslighting will make it so.

By what metrics do we call it an insurrection? Since only 5 people died did we need 50 to die before it is an insurrection? 1000?

For the "protestors" who shouted "hang Mike Pence", did they need to shout "hang all of congress" for it to be an insurrection? "Hang all democrats"? "White power"? Which is it?

I hate to break it to you, but I can cherry-pick examples of left-leaning protesters calling for deaths of Trump, Republicans, cops, white people, etc. When people are emotional, they are hyperbolic. Unlike those in the Chaz, for example, these didn't even attempt to seize power. They marched in, made some noise, and left.

And as for deaths, we've seen far more of those over the previous year. The only one provably murdered in this case was a protester.

Do you think your whataboutism makes even the minorest dent in anyone's opinion here in 2021?

>This wasn't an insurrection, and none of your gaslighting will make it so.

They literally discussed their plans for violent revolution openly on various social media platforms for months beforehand. Who is gaslighting whom, here?

They literally never did this. They didn't believe that the election was fair, and fought tooth and nail to make sure the results weren't certified. Even the whackiest of Q-believers, stupidly believed (and still do) that it would be the government that would step in to prevent a coup.

I think it is fair to say that no matter how much we go back and forth on this, we are never going to agree.

The gulf between what you perceive and what I saw is far too great a chasm to cross.

If we carried on, it'd probably get heated or it'd end up being a massive wasted effort.

I've been through this rodeo too many times before. I spend the effort to go find objective sources that prove the claims I make only to be met with shifting goal posts and denialism.

For example the link literally describing the PB getting declared a terrorist organization. We're just hand waving that one away are we?

Anyways ... That was a rhetorical question. I've seen the way this all goes.

In order to preserve my own sanity and respect the sanctity of hackernews' no flamewars policy I'm just going to tell you that I disagree and wish you a peaceful day.

> I think it is fair to say that no matter how much we go back and forth on this, we are never going to agree. The gulf between what you perceive and what I saw is far too great a chasm to cross. If we carried on, it'd probably get heated or it'd end up being a massive wasted effort. I've been through this rodeo too many times before. I spend the effort to go find objective sources that prove the claims I make only to be met with shifting goal posts and denialism.

I feel the same. That song and dance gets old. My goal wasn't to come to an agreement, but to introduce a different perspective in a largely one-sided discussion.

> For example the link literally describing the PB getting declared a terrorist organization. We're just hand waving that one away are we?

It's kind of downstream from this discussion, no? That designation is contingent on the facts that we were directly debating.

> In order to preserve my own sanity and respect the sanctity of hackernews' no flamewars policy I'm just going to tell you that I disagree and wish you a peaceful day.

Thank you, you too. I know we aren't able to reconcile, but I do appreciate engaging with the other side on a more civil forum.

They believed they were acting under the direct orders of the President of the United States, and that the military and police were on their side. If you refuse to believe the words of the people involved, watch some of the videos[0] from the scene - that crowd wasn't all there to protest, a lot of them were out for blood and vengeance.

[0]https://projects.propublica.org/parler-capitol-videos/

Can you point to a specific video? I watched livestreams as it was happening, and have seen a lot of the Parler videos.

My impression both from the videos and from right-wing twitter in the lead-up to this event, is that some q believers thought that various government and military leaders were going to step in, expose, and arrest members of the "deep state". Some of the more out there ones thought that the "deep state" leaders would be executed for treason. They're insane, as is par for the course in American politics, but weren't attempting a violent revolution. The rhetoric of "stop the steal" was wholly consistent with that of "the resistance".

There were shirts printed with

> MAGA > Civil War > Jan 6th

"It's just a prank bro" doesn't really hold a lot of water when the actions taken at the event look indistinguishable from what the "real" version would look like.

The shirts: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-go...

Violent chat in their private channels: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/capitol-ri...

An analysis and reporting of the Maga mob's garbage chats: https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/77-capital-coup (audio)

There's just so much actual, verifiable evidence of what happened that it is stunning to me that anyone would come along and say "no they were just upset at what they think was unfair"

But also why I don't really get involved in discussions with them anymore. If we can't come to terms around the existence of objective reality then anything further is a total waste of time.

It shouldn't be a surprise. It didn't just spring into existence. They got here by being subjected to a long campaign of ignoring actual, verifiable evidence. Decades long, if not longer.

There was a battle over basic epistemology, and objective reality lost. Everything else has followed on from that.

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