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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

This comes across as a laundry list of “people who hold views I don’t like” at least the two that started the GoFundMe. And are you saying people can’t start a GoFundMe without being a trucker? That makes no sense, it’s beyond truckers now.

The rest of the names (the ones I’ll take your word are racists) you describe as “organizers” but what does that mean? Involved? Leading it? What? Tweeted support?

And who cares what Trucking Organizations think? Do they represent all truckers? All dissenting voices shouldn’t be heard?

This seems like some vague collection of “facts” and insinuations in an attempt to paint the entire movement. It’s kind of slimy.

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Can you describe what sort of evidence would convince you that this movement is a problem, other than the political affiliations and concerns of the organizers, the behavior of people on the ground, the symbols on display, and what actions they are calling for?

Let me steel-man your proposition. I've seen left-wing protests that were organized by people who were rather questionable, and who were far more radical than the average protester. But in those cases, the content of the protest is carefully measured so it's something everyone can support. I assume there are similar affairs on the right. So no, not everyone who attends a protest has identical views with the organizers.

However, it seems to me that even if you ignore every other bit of evidence and try to focus on what it is these protesters want and are actually doing, it's still a problem.

They don't seem to be here to respectfully petition for a change of policies. This is not the loyal opposition.

This is a Facebook conspiracy theory convened to experience itself in person. They're here to flex "ownership" of a national capital, to validate their own delusion that the government is taken over by foreign powers, to call for the literal murder of a political leader, and to goad each other into more and more obnoxious actions.

(not parent)

>They're here to flex "ownership" of a national capital

Seeing how the government & media reacted at the start, I highly doubt a change.org petition would have had accomplished much. Having flashy show of support is way more impactful. This is the whole point of protests.

>This is a Facebook conspiracy theory convened to experience itself in person.

As I said in OP, reductionist views like this are very toxic and not how you approach disagreements in a democracy.

Attacking the character of some organizers (be it true or not) adds nothing to the discussion except divisiveness. Not only that, you seem to imply that their demands are invalid because of that, which is just a smear campaign to ignore the issues they (and the other protesters) raise.

Once again:

> Can you describe what sort of evidence would convince you that this movement is a problem, other than the political affiliations and concerns of the organizers, the behavior of people on the ground, the symbols on display, and what actions they are calling for?

More importantly, why do you insist on labelling them as a problem? What do you propose be done once you do label them as "a problem"?

Yours is a pathetic rhetorical attempt to reduce a complex issue to your narrow-minded ontology. You are like the dude who, during the plague of 1630 in Italy, was arguing that Aristotle had said that everything is either a substance or an accident (where "accident" has a technical meaning that I won't discuss here). He then argued that the plague cannot be a substance, and it cannot be an accident either, and therefore the plague does not exist. QED.

Small minds discuss people. Great minds discuss ideas.

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