Aestu wrote:
Organizing a counter-protest is perfectly legitimate and not comparable to using plants. Comparisons to the Nazis, while inappropriate, are also legitimate given the many similarities in their movements such as disregard for the law, ultranationalism, and using lies to accuse others of lying.
You said that the Tea Party's opposition does the same things they do. I asked you to substantiate this claim. Try again.
Eturnalshift wrote:
Jason Levin didn't organize counter protests. He encouraged people to go to the Tea Party tax day rallies with the intent of causing mayhem. For starters, he wanted people to impersonate Tea Partiers but take it to the extreme, using costumes and exaggerating their stance by purposely misspelling signs and making outlandish interviews for television. He asked the people who frequented his website to go to Tea Party planning meetings to gather information that can be used against them. He figured the Tea Party was a paranoid bunch and they would eventually tear themselves apart with some paranoid fear that there were frauds amongst their ranks. (He was clearly wrong.) He also asked people to collect as much information about the people at the rallies... information like names, addresses, social security numbers, etc. for the sole purpose of causing mayhem. His intent wasn't to protest... it was to cause harm to individuals exercising their right to protest because he feared the Tea Party would overtake America and dismantle all the social programs.
This.
As much as it would be nice to simply discuss the issue(s) at hand, we can't do that, because some people can't have a discussion without saying the people on the other side of the conversation are racists, bigots, homophobes, shady punk-asses, or whatever. That's when it stops being about the issues and starts being about who can win the game of character assassination. You know, some people "hate brown people" simply because they have the temerity to dissent from someone else's point-of-view.
Your Pal,
Jubber
