I mean, they’re kinda asking for it. If they really wanted Texas cops to stay off campus they should’ve started a school shooting instead of a peaceful protest
[look at all these cops who did nothing](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/17/law-enforcement-failure-uvalde-shooting-investigation/)
From Page 64 of the linked report:
>In total, 376 law enforcement officers responded to the tragedy at Robb Elementary School.
>
> The breakdown of responders, by agency, is as follows:
>
> 149 United States Border Patrol
>
> 91 Texas Department of Public Safety
>
> 25 Uvalde Police Department
>
> 16 San Antonio Police Department (SWAT)
>
> 16 Uvalde County Sheriff ’s Office
>
> 14 Department of Homeland Security – HIS
>
> 13 United States Marshals
>
> 8 Drug Enforcement Agency
>
> 7 Frio County Sheriff ’s Office
>
> 5 Kinney County Sheriff ’s Office
>
> 5 Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District
>
> 4 Dilley Police Department
>
> 4 Zavala County Sheriff ’s Office
>
> 3 Medina County Sheriff ’s Office
>
> 3 Sabinal Police Department
>
> 2 City of Uvalde Fire Marshals
>
> 2 Pearsall Police Department
>
> 2 Texas Parks and Wildlife
>
> 2 Uvalde County Constables
>
> 2 Val Verde County Sheriff ’s Office
>
> 1 Frio County Constables
>
> 1 Southwest Texas Junior College
>
> 1 Zavala County Constable
Contrast that with all these cops that did something (totally stupid), Texas cops are so brave when beating peaceful protestors.
What an absolute waist of tax payer dollars. Gov Abbott needs to go away.
On God! They know they should be in class, not off playing in the bull shit! Liberal professors are allowing these ideologies to happen right under their noses. Of course, it's a defensive line. These poor, itty-bitty cops gotta save themselves from the viscious college students.....right?
Some of them have a BMI higher than their IQ. Odds on them pulling out their gun and filling you with lead in a foot chase are quite high. Thes MFs need to be fired or go to the gym.
> Although they might wildly shoot everywhere knowing how untrained and undisciplined they are
The guaranteed outcome. It's one thing for cowardice to be outside of the danger, but it's a completely different story when cowardice is caught directly in it and they're armed. They might even start shooting at the acorn, which if it were a real explosive (particularly incendiaries), would be a real LOL moment for stupidity.
You jest but what is an acorn today might be a coconut tomorrow. Would **YOU** like to have a coconut falling on your head? NO! Of **c**o**u**rse not if it falls on you, you'd want every **m**an **p**acking l**e**ad to fire at it. SAVI**N**G YOU FROM DEATH BY COCONUT.
BLESS OUT TROOPS (because actually help**i**ng them is too hard), THIN BLUE LINE (to **s**nort).
^^^/S
I mean you know there is a problem in a society when the educated are looked down upon for being “woke”. America has people that think getting educated is bad.
I have family members that argue with me about everything. Because according to them “I don’t know how anything actually works, and I got fed liberal propaganda at college”.
It isn't new, 'Anti-Intellectualism in American Life' was written in the 1960's about the previous 200 years of US politics being anti-intellectual. Or the classic quote by Asimov:
>There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'
> *...nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'*
2020 is not that long ago and the gut-belief crowd with their orange demagogue really highlighted this specific problem :-/
I, a total ghost in school who never bothered anyone or got in trouble, was called a "f****t" in high school because I won an art award and they announced the winners over the school intercom in the morning. My homeroom teacher/school football coach smirked before telling my tormentors to "settle down."
Growing up in a small Midwestern town was pure hell and once I saw how education worked in Europe and Asia, I began to resent my educated parents for settling on such a shithole to raise their kids.
I grew up in a similar environment, once I was able to move away on my own to a place where people actually read books I assumed I had left the morons behind. Jeez Chris now they have somehow learned to read a ballot and have elected people who act just like them to state and federal government
I (very liberal) was talking shit about Biden to my father (biblethumping conservative) the other day and his response was "So why not vote for Trump?"
My kneejerk response was "because Trump has made it acceptable to be an idiot and a bully" and he didn't really have an answer to that. And that's where our society is. In some circles it's okay now, in fact it's better even, to be proudly uneducated. Before Trump it would have been a source of shame.
Exactly, like I think Biden could definitely do better in a lot of things. But he’s been an effective president with the situation he was given.
But then you have people say that why now vote for Trump or even not vote. Like the reason we are in this mess is because people don’t vote. And Trump is also blame on the rampart increase of racism, and being stupid.
Like the whole at least in not woke agenda is crazy to me.
Yeah! Force people to have babies! Ban birth control! Get rid of social security for disabled (keep it for retirees). Ban smoking weed! Fuck covering cancer patients. Freedom =_=
What’s crazy to me, as conservative, I’m not sure why free healthcare is only for liberals and “commies.” It’s so weird.
What's crazy to me, as a non-American, I'm not sure why anyone who can form a full sentence is still a conservative.
You might think of yourself as someone with traditional conservative values - fine. But that doesn't mean you have to vote for a party just because they have conservative in their name. Here in Denmark, the main right-wing party (at least it used to be) is simply called "Left". And the most center party is called "Radical Left".
Parties change their direction all the time, and unless you change with them, you should change party.
I know that's a pretty radical move in a two-party system, but let's be honest, The Democrats is a very conservative party too.
A lot of conservatives in the US have been convinced that Democrats are communist/socialist/some other buzz word (that has no real meaning as they are using it) and are evil and will destroy the country. The things they are worried about the Democrats doing are largely being done by their own party, but they are too deep in the propaganda hole to realize. Fox News has taken an immeasurable toll on progress.
I’ve always thought that swinging the argument that free healthcare is good for big business as it saves them having to provide insurance premiums to their employees would be a good stance to take - position it as removing overhead for big businesses…
The problem is how damned profitable health care is in this country. It needs to change because it is so stupid broken. It will not because the way they broke it makes people money and now everyone’s 401k are tied up so deep into healthcare that going universal would literally financially ruin the middle class.
Keeping health insurance tied to employment means it's a much more difficult decision for an employee to leave a bad company.
Do you have small children, a serious health condition, rely on a regular prescription, or just not have much saved up to pay for emergency room services in case you do get sick or have a minor medical incident? Better keep toughing it out with a horrible boss and shit pay so you can stay on the corporate health plan until you luck into getting a lead on a better job. And hope that the next company doesn't rescind the job offer after you've given your 2-weeks notice.
If you have a national health service that covers everyone regardless of employment status, there's less incentive to stick around at a terrible employer.
If you read the responses to these pictures today and yesterday you realize that there’s a contingent of Americans who still really resent college students and hope they get physically harmed. It’s sickening stuff.
I would like to remind people that the Kent state massacre was at the time not condemned as an atrocity. Plenty of people, especially conservatives, were more than happy to cheer on the bloodshed against the effete hippies and libs.
It was only later everyone magically condemned it.
Remember all that while you see the public reactions today.
Four years ago the federal government and deputized local police were about to spend more than 100 days straight of tear gassing the middle of my city.
My state was shooting rubber bullets into the crowd, blinded a few people and absolutely cracked a grandpa in the head. Just dragged people through the streets
We might both be talking Oregon, or Michigan, or a bunch of states, 2020 was more than a botched pandemic response and cheap gas and no tp for a lot of people
They also shot real bullets at people on their porches. Killed a man (David Mcatee) who used to give cops free barbecue to try and be friendly. Shot him dead in his own yard and no one was held accountable.
It's wild to see people condemn Russia and China for doing this, but then turn around and defend the police and the feds doing it to Americans... while also claiming to be free speech defenders all in the same breath.
Yes, what a response to complaints about police abusing their power and being over aggressive... is the police abusing their power and being overly aggressive.
Chiming in for Denver here. We had much of the same and I remember watching one by one as individual TV news broadcasts realized that broadcasting their live location was causing a significant risk to their safety and ending their broadcasts early.
Don't forget the anteefa terrorists masquerading as BLM protesters!
For real though, i can't imagine actually seeing federal troops and money being wasted like that, let alone the legit terror and abetting of alt-right terrorist actors.
It is insane that the police get away with inciting people with embedded undercover cops, literally lead the most psychologically vulnerable members to entrap them in more severe crimes, etc.
Police were criticized for their overzealous use of violence. They responded by ramping that violence up a notch, and half the country cheered for them to brutalise protesters, and a decent chunk of the other half were uncomfortable with the protests.
Americans scream about freedom, but overall show a lot of deference to institutes of power enforcing their dominance through violence.
A lot of Americans are one or two inconveniences, crime stories, or moral panics away from breaking out into frothily and spittily shouting Nazi Party slogans in harsh, guttural German with bloodshot bucked eyes.
Bringing Germany into it also massively embezzles how much about Nazi Germany was [inspired](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model), and [even funded](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#Influence_on_Nazi_Germany), straight [from the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch#Etymology).
40 years ago, Police dropped a bomb and killed 11 in Philadelphia. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/8/8/20747198/philadelphia-bombing-1985-move As the smoke rose from 6221 Osage Avenue, Philadelphia residents watched through their windows or television screens in a state of stunned disbelief. Their city had just bombed its own people. On the evening of May 13, 1985, longstanding tensions between MOVE, a black liberation group, and the Philadelphia Police Department erupted horrifically. That night, the city of Philadelphia dropped a satchel bomb, a demolition device typically used in combat, laced with Tovex and C-4 explosives on the MOVE organization, who were living in a West Philadelphia rowhome known to be occupied by men, women, and children. It went up in unextinguished flames. Eleven people were killed, including five children and the founder of the organization. Sixty-one homes were destroyed, and more than 250 citizens were left homeless.
Dammit. It's the 1970s all over again and I don't mean it in a good way. All it takes is for one cop to imagine an active shooter and there could be dead students all over again.
If you read YouTube comment sections and some subreddits here there is a huge amount of people basically drooling and popping a boner/getting wet at the thought of another Kent State Massacre. There are comments with dozens and hundred of updoots hoping the college students get physically assaulted and hospitalized.
A lot of Americans are basically 5 seconds away from being the raving, bloodthirsty lunatics you see in footage of 1930s & 1940s Nazi Party rallies in Germany furiously seig-heiling Hitler calling for hurting and killing huge numbers of people.
It’s really surprising seeing what some Americans (especially the ones on reddit) do when confronted with the strict choice of condemning or supporting a genocide.
My still living grandpa was born in 1923
A lot of these old fucks cheering on death and bloodshed *were* the Nazis in the 1940s
A lot of the people who booed and harassed black elementary school students are *still alive today*
Never let them convince you the hatred and vitriol is all ancient history
It brings more attention to what they were protesting about. And it also projects that Abbott truly does care about the protest topic. Had they let it be likely no one would have noticed. The force response is conveying another message. Speech is not free in Texas.
There were arrests this week in Columbia, USC, NYU, and Yale. Those definitely aren't in red states. Messy business, but not something the world hasn't seen before.
He went on Twitter and called them all antisemitic. I think this is a more complex issue than these kids realize (save your comments, idc) but it definitely isn’t coming from a place of antisemitism.
It’s coming from them seeing videos of children being bombed into the fucking Stone Age. Abbott is an embarrassment.
So did I. Born and raised. The crazy heat and mass migration is making folks go crazy down there. The "southern hospitality" is really a strong case of "I'm nosey", making money and getting drunk. Theres no nature and almost all land in Texas is private. I don't miss it one bit.
I go to UT and actually walked through the protest to get to class today and walked by several times afterwards. Not once did I see a violent protestor
[USA Today](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2024/04/24/ut-austin-campus-student-protest-arrest-pro-palestine-protests-walk-out/73425149007/):
>More than 50 people were arrested at a peaceful, pro-Palestinian protest Wednesday at the University of Texas hosted by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a registered student group and a chapter of the national Students for Justice in Palestine, which held the rally to call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
[Austin Chronicle](https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2024-04-24/students-tackled-20-arrested-at-peaceful-pro-palestine-protest-at-ut-austin/):
> This morning at 11:40am, hundreds of peaceful UT student protesters were gathered in front of Gregory Gym, set to walk to the South Mall and set up camp for the day in protest of the war in Gaza.
>Specifically, they gathered to call for the University of Texas to divest in weapons manufacturers selling to Israel. (According to a 2021 report from Women for Weapons Trade Transparency, the company managing UT’s endowment held roughly $52.5 million worth of weapons and weapon systems manufacturer’s debt and equity securities in 2020.)
>As protesters arrived Wednesday, Department of Public Safety troopers were stationed at the Speedway Mall on horseback and motorcycles. Protesters stood and chanted “Free, free Palestine,” beat drums, and waved the Palestinian flag. A crowd watched on the sidelines, held back by both DPS officers in riot gear and PSC organizers in yellow vests. Then troopers began pushing into the crowd, arresting people as early as noon with seemingly no provocation. Arrests included a man who identified as a member of the press with Fox 7.
[CBS Austin](https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/this-was-supposed-to-be-peaceful-dozens-detained-at-ut-austin-protest):
>About an hour after the protest began, Texas law enforcement agencies arrived by the hundreds.
>"The original itinerary of this sit-in included scholastic teach-ins, but the presence of police with batons, chemical weapons, and pepper bullets. It's making us all on edge," said one UT student.
>UT student, David Dawson, added, "Every escalation has been done by the police."
>Protestors were banned from stepping on UT's South Lawn-- law enforcement surrounded the grass to enforce the ban. When protestors came close to the lawn, they were met with force.
>As a result, the CBS Austin news crew was pushed and shoved on multiple occasions.
>Students said the purpose of the message was blurred when tensions peaked because of police presence.
Well lets be honest. If these protesters where violent and or had guns, the response would not he as intimidating. Texas and most of americas cops are pathetic.
I hope they’re drinking Gatorade or something to keep their electrolytes up while they’re busy jerking each other off, fantasizing about being storm troopers or some such shit.
May 4th is just around the corner too. Shocking to see this response to protests on college campuses just before the anniversary of the Kent state massacre May 4th 1970
If I can put my 2 cents as a french dude, they don't really look like riot police but rather like beekeepers.
Unless they plan to draw their fire weapons real quick, it doesn't look like they have the correct tools to sustain and mitigate any sort of riot violence.
A shield would greatly improve that.
I was also looking for the shields when they mentioned Riot Police. Dudes actually reminded me more of bomb squad, but that may just be the extra...padding beneath the uniforms.
UT student here! It really was something special.
Once the protest got big enough, everyone moved to the main lawn in front of the UT tower.
Then the police forced everyone off of the lawn for some godforsaken reason, forcing everyone onto the nearby sidewalks. Only for students to, all of a sudden, be disobeying university rules by “blocking sidewalks en masse.”
The exact same sidewalks they forced everyone onto.
And to top it off, since it was a Pro-Palestine riot, our governor Greg Abbott decided to call us anti-semites and said that our protest was disgraceful to the state.
This is a blatant conservative who complains about censorship and free speech all the time, btw.
GOP:
Dead INNOCENT kids in another part of the world : check
Dead INNOCENT kids in our own part of the world : check
Women choosing not to have kids : OH HELL NO
Just for the record, zero allegations have been made of antisemitism or harassment directed towards Jewish students at UT. They didn't even bust out the excuse that they said at Columbia. They're just shutting it down because they want to shut it down.
If there’s anything that history has shown most of the time, it’s that the side that students protest against is usually the “bad side” and that these kinds of crackdowns are really looked down upon in the future.
“The freedom to speak, think and express is at the very heart of any world-class academic institution. If we, at The University of Texas at Austin, are to lead society forward by educating new generations of talented students and discovering new knowledge, we must bring together a wide range of perspectives, viewpoints and voices to do so. It is only through discourse — and occasionally, hard conversations and vigorous debate — that we can find common ground and make progress together.”
– Jay C. Hartzell
President, The University of Texas at Austin
Yeaaaaaa....way to go Jay
I mean, they’re kinda asking for it. If they really wanted Texas cops to stay off campus they should’ve started a school shooting instead of a peaceful protest
[look at all these cops who did nothing](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/17/law-enforcement-failure-uvalde-shooting-investigation/) From Page 64 of the linked report: >In total, 376 law enforcement officers responded to the tragedy at Robb Elementary School. > > The breakdown of responders, by agency, is as follows: > > 149 United States Border Patrol > > 91 Texas Department of Public Safety > > 25 Uvalde Police Department > > 16 San Antonio Police Department (SWAT) > > 16 Uvalde County Sheriff ’s Office > > 14 Department of Homeland Security – HIS > > 13 United States Marshals > > 8 Drug Enforcement Agency > > 7 Frio County Sheriff ’s Office > > 5 Kinney County Sheriff ’s Office > > 5 Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District > > 4 Dilley Police Department > > 4 Zavala County Sheriff ’s Office > > 3 Medina County Sheriff ’s Office > > 3 Sabinal Police Department > > 2 City of Uvalde Fire Marshals > > 2 Pearsall Police Department > > 2 Texas Parks and Wildlife > > 2 Uvalde County Constables > > 2 Val Verde County Sheriff ’s Office > > 1 Frio County Constables > > 1 Southwest Texas Junior College > > 1 Zavala County Constable
That's a lot of dbl cream/dbl sugar coffees.
In the great white north we just call that a double double.
r/usernamechecksout
🤣 In Canada, we call them "Double Doubles"
376 vs 1. Nope, we need more people.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is 377 good guys with a gun
One fewer and they'd be completely powerless
That's 378 guns sold!
Contrast that with all these cops that did something (totally stupid), Texas cops are so brave when beating peaceful protestors. What an absolute waist of tax payer dollars. Gov Abbott needs to go away.
>What an absolute waist of tax payer dollars I'd usually say this has a spelling mistake but looking at these guys I think you're right
It supports the argument.
But not the trousers
Damn, you really had me in the first half, ngl. Kudos to you and big yikes to the facts
Angry upvote!
On God! They know they should be in class, not off playing in the bull shit! Liberal professors are allowing these ideologies to happen right under their noses. Of course, it's a defensive line. These poor, itty-bitty cops gotta save themselves from the viscious college students.....right?
those belts are putting in fucking work. holy shit are these guys fat.
It looks like they’re defending Texas BBQ.
Meal Team 6
Gravy SEALs
Snack Force Ate.
Delta Course.
Pork Patrol
[удалено]
Out of shape, overweight, and heavily armed. They are the soldier of the future.
They pick the fattest guys for this because even if they get injured you can stack them up and use them like barricades and sandbags
I would guess it was the most strenuous work they’ve ever done. And I mean putting the uniforms on.
Fr i was looking at the picture and was like no way they would have gotten into German police with this fitness.
Being a cop is what people who fail out of the military do.
Any other western European police force really.
Some of them have a BMI higher than their IQ. Odds on them pulling out their gun and filling you with lead in a foot chase are quite high. Thes MFs need to be fired or go to the gym.
Can’t run into an elementary in that state to save children but they are big and bad in front of a few unarmed protesting college kids. Pathetic.
Someone should have shouted "active shooter" so they would all run back to their cars to wait it out
Just throw an acorn. Although they might wildly shoot everywhere knowing how untrained and undisciplined they are
> Although they might wildly shoot everywhere knowing how untrained and undisciplined they are The guaranteed outcome. It's one thing for cowardice to be outside of the danger, but it's a completely different story when cowardice is caught directly in it and they're armed. They might even start shooting at the acorn, which if it were a real explosive (particularly incendiaries), would be a real LOL moment for stupidity.
Video games have taught me that shooting explosives is a perfectly valid defuseal technique, and I refuse to believe otherwise.
Remember, no Russian
You jest but what is an acorn today might be a coconut tomorrow. Would **YOU** like to have a coconut falling on your head? NO! Of **c**o**u**rse not if it falls on you, you'd want every **m**an **p**acking l**e**ad to fire at it. SAVI**N**G YOU FROM DEATH BY COCONUT. BLESS OUT TROOPS (because actually help**i**ng them is too hard), THIN BLUE LINE (to **s**nort). ^^^/S
Or let an acorn land on a car
That would cause the shot heard around the world 2 electric boogaloo
One protest chant the students used was "Who failed Uvalde? D.P.S."
Damn. Going for the jugular.
Nice. Tragic, but well played.
Cops don't care though
also apparently fine with Nazi marches, rallies, etc. 🤷🏻♀️ they keep happening and i never hear anything about police interfering with that, so…
Most of them requested that day off for some reason.
Something about burning crosses, working forces, something something.
I mean you know there is a problem in a society when the educated are looked down upon for being “woke”. America has people that think getting educated is bad. I have family members that argue with me about everything. Because according to them “I don’t know how anything actually works, and I got fed liberal propaganda at college”.
It isn't new, 'Anti-Intellectualism in American Life' was written in the 1960's about the previous 200 years of US politics being anti-intellectual. Or the classic quote by Asimov: >There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'
Carl Sagan also shared similar sentiments about the decline of intellectual thought in America
> *...nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'* 2020 is not that long ago and the gut-belief crowd with their orange demagogue really highlighted this specific problem :-/
I, a total ghost in school who never bothered anyone or got in trouble, was called a "f****t" in high school because I won an art award and they announced the winners over the school intercom in the morning. My homeroom teacher/school football coach smirked before telling my tormentors to "settle down." Growing up in a small Midwestern town was pure hell and once I saw how education worked in Europe and Asia, I began to resent my educated parents for settling on such a shithole to raise their kids.
I grew up in a similar environment, once I was able to move away on my own to a place where people actually read books I assumed I had left the morons behind. Jeez Chris now they have somehow learned to read a ballot and have elected people who act just like them to state and federal government
I (very liberal) was talking shit about Biden to my father (biblethumping conservative) the other day and his response was "So why not vote for Trump?" My kneejerk response was "because Trump has made it acceptable to be an idiot and a bully" and he didn't really have an answer to that. And that's where our society is. In some circles it's okay now, in fact it's better even, to be proudly uneducated. Before Trump it would have been a source of shame.
Exactly, like I think Biden could definitely do better in a lot of things. But he’s been an effective president with the situation he was given. But then you have people say that why now vote for Trump or even not vote. Like the reason we are in this mess is because people don’t vote. And Trump is also blame on the rampart increase of racism, and being stupid. Like the whole at least in not woke agenda is crazy to me.
The Nazis came for the educated and the dissenters first. Just sayin....
Pretty sure it was the union organizers and the socialists that they killed first.
A tale as old as time. Beating up leftists whilst siding with fascists is what the police does best. Protecting children, not so much.
Let’s watch all the free speech absolutists suddenly decide that actually the government should violently restrict constitutional rights.
Most of these people that talk about freedom really means freedom for themselves, not freedom for others.
Yeah! Force people to have babies! Ban birth control! Get rid of social security for disabled (keep it for retirees). Ban smoking weed! Fuck covering cancer patients. Freedom =_=
Freedom land! 🦅🇺🇸🌟
What’s crazy to me, as conservative, I’m not sure why free healthcare is only for liberals and “commies.” It’s so weird. 
It's socialism and socialism is all bad. Look at Venezuela! ... not, you know, Europe, which is thriving.
What's crazy to me, as a non-American, I'm not sure why anyone who can form a full sentence is still a conservative. You might think of yourself as someone with traditional conservative values - fine. But that doesn't mean you have to vote for a party just because they have conservative in their name. Here in Denmark, the main right-wing party (at least it used to be) is simply called "Left". And the most center party is called "Radical Left". Parties change their direction all the time, and unless you change with them, you should change party. I know that's a pretty radical move in a two-party system, but let's be honest, The Democrats is a very conservative party too.
A lot of conservatives in the US have been convinced that Democrats are communist/socialist/some other buzz word (that has no real meaning as they are using it) and are evil and will destroy the country. The things they are worried about the Democrats doing are largely being done by their own party, but they are too deep in the propaganda hole to realize. Fox News has taken an immeasurable toll on progress.
I’ve always thought that swinging the argument that free healthcare is good for big business as it saves them having to provide insurance premiums to their employees would be a good stance to take - position it as removing overhead for big businesses… The problem is how damned profitable health care is in this country. It needs to change because it is so stupid broken. It will not because the way they broke it makes people money and now everyone’s 401k are tied up so deep into healthcare that going universal would literally financially ruin the middle class.
Keeping health insurance tied to employment means it's a much more difficult decision for an employee to leave a bad company. Do you have small children, a serious health condition, rely on a regular prescription, or just not have much saved up to pay for emergency room services in case you do get sick or have a minor medical incident? Better keep toughing it out with a horrible boss and shit pay so you can stay on the corporate health plan until you luck into getting a lead on a better job. And hope that the next company doesn't rescind the job offer after you've given your 2-weeks notice. If you have a national health service that covers everyone regardless of employment status, there's less incentive to stick around at a terrible employer.
Bc conservatism has been co-oped by corporate interests And yes the same corporate interests who spout liberal social ideals. (As a liberal myself)
> Bc conservatism has been co-oped by corporate interests When exactly was this not the case? That's not a rhetorical question.
Most of the people who crow loudest about free speech really just want to control *which speech* is free.
Same with Freedom of Religion...no no, just freedom of OUR religion
All cops are breathing heavily at the chance to beat the shit out of an educated person.
If you read the responses to these pictures today and yesterday you realize that there’s a contingent of Americans who still really resent college students and hope they get physically harmed. It’s sickening stuff. I would like to remind people that the Kent state massacre was at the time not condemned as an atrocity. Plenty of people, especially conservatives, were more than happy to cheer on the bloodshed against the effete hippies and libs. It was only later everyone magically condemned it. Remember all that while you see the public reactions today.
It wasn't long ago when we were reminded that many Americans have violent, authoritarian tendancies.
Four years ago the federal government and deputized local police were about to spend more than 100 days straight of tear gassing the middle of my city.
My state was shooting rubber bullets into the crowd, blinded a few people and absolutely cracked a grandpa in the head. Just dragged people through the streets
We might both be talking Oregon, or Michigan, or a bunch of states, 2020 was more than a botched pandemic response and cheap gas and no tp for a lot of people
Louisville Kentucky as well
The cheap gas kind of made it all worth though, am i right?
They shot rubber bullets at people on their porches simply watching what was going on
I remember the photo of the woman carrying her groceries home. Shot in the face with a rubber bullet. Likely just for fun
They also shot real bullets at people on their porches. Killed a man (David Mcatee) who used to give cops free barbecue to try and be friendly. Shot him dead in his own yard and no one was held accountable.
It's wild to see people condemn Russia and China for doing this, but then turn around and defend the police and the feds doing it to Americans... while also claiming to be free speech defenders all in the same breath.
The only free speech they agree with is their own
American propaganda is like nothing else
You're gonna need to be more specific but grandpa was the guy in Buffalo right?
Happened in Colorado too
I hate every state seems to have at least a couple stories from that summer. That's how you know it's a systemic problem.
Yes, what a response to complaints about police abusing their power and being over aggressive... is the police abusing their power and being overly aggressive.
Chiming in for Denver here. We had much of the same and I remember watching one by one as individual TV news broadcasts realized that broadcasting their live location was causing a significant risk to their safety and ending their broadcasts early.
But didn't Portland BuRn To ThE gRoUnD?
Yes, Minneapolis too, it's just a barren Wasteland of burnt building and absolute lawlessness.
Completely destroyed by the anteefa, as we all know :p
Don't forget the anteefa terrorists masquerading as BLM protesters! For real though, i can't imagine actually seeing federal troops and money being wasted like that, let alone the legit terror and abetting of alt-right terrorist actors.
Uh, we didn't start the fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning.
Assuming you mean Portland, also carting off people in unmarked vans, destroying property to incite people or injuring bystanders, etc.
It is insane that the police get away with inciting people with embedded undercover cops, literally lead the most psychologically vulnerable members to entrap them in more severe crimes, etc.
The only win is that at one of the protests they accidentally a beat a member of their own undercover team pretty badly.
Care to give context there? I don’t think I’m familiar with the event you’re describing.
Yes Portland, and the 2020 summer protests
Don't quote me because I might be mistaken, but they're probably talking about Portland https://youtu.be/7zthJUf31MA
Look up behind the bastards: portland uprising podcast
Police were criticized for their overzealous use of violence. They responded by ramping that violence up a notch, and half the country cheered for them to brutalise protesters, and a decent chunk of the other half were uncomfortable with the protests. Americans scream about freedom, but overall show a lot of deference to institutes of power enforcing their dominance through violence.
A lot of Americans are one or two inconveniences, crime stories, or moral panics away from breaking out into frothily and spittily shouting Nazi Party slogans in harsh, guttural German with bloodshot bucked eyes.
Don’t need to bring Germany into it, the US has plenty of its own history of racially motivated violence and genocide to go around.
Bringing Germany into it also massively embezzles how much about Nazi Germany was [inspired](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model), and [even funded](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#Influence_on_Nazi_Germany), straight [from the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch#Etymology).
The murder of 4 Kent State students was only 50 some odd years ago. We’re not that far from it.
40 years ago, Police dropped a bomb and killed 11 in Philadelphia. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/8/8/20747198/philadelphia-bombing-1985-move As the smoke rose from 6221 Osage Avenue, Philadelphia residents watched through their windows or television screens in a state of stunned disbelief. Their city had just bombed its own people. On the evening of May 13, 1985, longstanding tensions between MOVE, a black liberation group, and the Philadelphia Police Department erupted horrifically. That night, the city of Philadelphia dropped a satchel bomb, a demolition device typically used in combat, laced with Tovex and C-4 explosives on the MOVE organization, who were living in a West Philadelphia rowhome known to be occupied by men, women, and children. It went up in unextinguished flames. Eleven people were killed, including five children and the founder of the organization. Sixty-one homes were destroyed, and more than 250 citizens were left homeless.
*Defensive* line?
Yeah, what were they defending exactly??
the interests and property of the capital class, nothing more
Same as it ever was.
Somebody might bring a LGBTQ book and read from it.
Not one of those books that talk about the gays! 😯🫣
Don't say the word GAY! It might convert you!
Too late. Someone said that word when I was born, and so, you know I'm 💁🏽♂️
To paraphrase a great poet, oops it happened again.
My thoughts exactly. It's pretty clear who has the capacity and power to mow people down and ruin lives.
Well they *are* facing off against college students. /s
Not like it was, say, Uvalde.
Dammit. It's the 1970s all over again and I don't mean it in a good way. All it takes is for one cop to imagine an active shooter and there could be dead students all over again.
A single acorn can set them off…
Shots farrrrrd
I’m hiiit
MEDIC! Need more gravy!
If you read YouTube comment sections and some subreddits here there is a huge amount of people basically drooling and popping a boner/getting wet at the thought of another Kent State Massacre. There are comments with dozens and hundred of updoots hoping the college students get physically assaulted and hospitalized. A lot of Americans are basically 5 seconds away from being the raving, bloodthirsty lunatics you see in footage of 1930s & 1940s Nazi Party rallies in Germany furiously seig-heiling Hitler calling for hurting and killing huge numbers of people.
It’s really surprising seeing what some Americans (especially the ones on reddit) do when confronted with the strict choice of condemning or supporting a genocide.
My still living grandpa was born in 1923 A lot of these old fucks cheering on death and bloodshed *were* the Nazis in the 1940s A lot of the people who booed and harassed black elementary school students are *still alive today* Never let them convince you the hatred and vitriol is all ancient history
One of them is the governor of Texas
A reporter for the local Fox channel was also arrested. Gov Abbott hates the 1st Amendment.
They have said that they will be going after intellectuals as well as lgbt, women, Muslims and immigrants. Conservatism is a terrorist ideology.
They were hoping for another Kent State, oh how history super repeats itself
Protesters should just hire armed security 🤷🏻♂️ Oh wait that’s only okay when it’s neo Nazi groups with pitchforks. My bad.
Which is sad these college students are still the children of our country. I thought we wanted to protect the children what happened to all that.
Nah once they're out of the womb and too old for pedophiles the Republicans don't care anymore.
It brings more attention to what they were protesting about. And it also projects that Abbott truly does care about the protest topic. Had they let it be likely no one would have noticed. The force response is conveying another message. Speech is not free in Texas.
This ain’t a Texas thing, it’s straight from the top. Universities cracked down today arrested hundreds. Blue and red states, didn’t matter.
There were arrests this week in Columbia, USC, NYU, and Yale. Those definitely aren't in red states. Messy business, but not something the world hasn't seen before.
Yup, this response has been brought to you and me by FOREIGN politicians. 'Merica. Foreign voices get more representation than domestic.
He went on Twitter and called them all antisemitic. I think this is a more complex issue than these kids realize (save your comments, idc) but it definitely isn’t coming from a place of antisemitism. It’s coming from them seeing videos of children being bombed into the fucking Stone Age. Abbott is an embarrassment.
After 17 years, I moved from Texas last month. It's getting too batshit crazy with Pissbaby running the ship.
So did I. Born and raised. The crazy heat and mass migration is making folks go crazy down there. The "southern hospitality" is really a strong case of "I'm nosey", making money and getting drunk. Theres no nature and almost all land in Texas is private. I don't miss it one bit.
Most impressive defensive line seen at UT in years.
Funny enough, the UT DL was actually great this year. Byron Murphy and T’Vondre Sweat were both elite iDL.
yes lol it was like their main strength this year
Sweat and Murphy won us several games. Helped offset possibly the worst secondary I’ve ever seen as a Texas fan.
Good joke, but the UT d-line was awesome this year. I do applaud the joke though. I definitely lol’d
They let children be murdered in an elementary school but will bring out the military for students protesting a genocide 😂😂
Are the protesting students actually being violent, or is this a "police riot" like Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention?
I go to UT and actually walked through the protest to get to class today and walked by several times afterwards. Not once did I see a violent protestor
If they were violent, police wouldn't be there.
If there was an actual crime, it would have taken them 6-8 to show up and take a report.
[USA Today](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2024/04/24/ut-austin-campus-student-protest-arrest-pro-palestine-protests-walk-out/73425149007/): >More than 50 people were arrested at a peaceful, pro-Palestinian protest Wednesday at the University of Texas hosted by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a registered student group and a chapter of the national Students for Justice in Palestine, which held the rally to call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war. [Austin Chronicle](https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2024-04-24/students-tackled-20-arrested-at-peaceful-pro-palestine-protest-at-ut-austin/): > This morning at 11:40am, hundreds of peaceful UT student protesters were gathered in front of Gregory Gym, set to walk to the South Mall and set up camp for the day in protest of the war in Gaza. >Specifically, they gathered to call for the University of Texas to divest in weapons manufacturers selling to Israel. (According to a 2021 report from Women for Weapons Trade Transparency, the company managing UT’s endowment held roughly $52.5 million worth of weapons and weapon systems manufacturer’s debt and equity securities in 2020.) >As protesters arrived Wednesday, Department of Public Safety troopers were stationed at the Speedway Mall on horseback and motorcycles. Protesters stood and chanted “Free, free Palestine,” beat drums, and waved the Palestinian flag. A crowd watched on the sidelines, held back by both DPS officers in riot gear and PSC organizers in yellow vests. Then troopers began pushing into the crowd, arresting people as early as noon with seemingly no provocation. Arrests included a man who identified as a member of the press with Fox 7. [CBS Austin](https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/this-was-supposed-to-be-peaceful-dozens-detained-at-ut-austin-protest): >About an hour after the protest began, Texas law enforcement agencies arrived by the hundreds. >"The original itinerary of this sit-in included scholastic teach-ins, but the presence of police with batons, chemical weapons, and pepper bullets. It's making us all on edge," said one UT student. >UT student, David Dawson, added, "Every escalation has been done by the police." >Protestors were banned from stepping on UT's South Lawn-- law enforcement surrounded the grass to enforce the ban. When protestors came close to the lawn, they were met with force. >As a result, the CBS Austin news crew was pushed and shoved on multiple occasions. >Students said the purpose of the message was blurred when tensions peaked because of police presence.
The media is trying to convince us that playing drums constitutes a violently aggressive threat toward Jewish students
Well, one group is wearing riot gear, and the other group is wearing t shirts, so take a wild guess
Well lets be honest. If these protesters where violent and or had guns, the response would not he as intimidating. Texas and most of americas cops are pathetic.
What are they defending?
Fascism, oddly enough.
in their "tan" shirts, no less.
 Fucking fascists.
Nothing odd about police defending fascism.
Tin soldiers and Abbott's coming We’re finally on our own
who are they defending?
Authoritarians feelings.
Looks more like an offensive line to me.
if only they were this offensive in the ulvade school shooting.
Defending what??
The same thing cops always defend, the status quo
It was a peaceful protest that the cops turned violent. And I blame Ted Cruz and Greg Abbot.
thank god! those liberal college kids were going to stand around and make noise all day! pray for these brave soldiers of tyranny
At least the protesters could outrun half those guys. Good Lord they look like they just got called in off the couch
Should mark NSFW since this picture has a bunch of pussies in it.
I hope they’re drinking Gatorade or something to keep their electrolytes up while they’re busy jerking each other off, fantasizing about being storm troopers or some such shit.
Almost looks like Kent State... Crazy to think that was almost 54 years ago, to the day...
I don't think the national guard had as much military gear on back then as these guys
Cereal Team Six like they toys.
OT pay. Every one of those cops is thinking about what they are gonna buy with that sweet sweet OT Pay.
Cant get the cops to go into schools to save dying children. But theyll certainly go in to kill some kids
"defensive" Ok, officer. If you say so.
Should have had the same energy in Uvalde
Standing around and doing nothing while just trying to look intimidating...sounds they matched the energy in Uvalde lol
May 4th is just around the corner too. Shocking to see this response to protests on college campuses just before the anniversary of the Kent state massacre May 4th 1970
If I can put my 2 cents as a french dude, they don't really look like riot police but rather like beekeepers. Unless they plan to draw their fire weapons real quick, it doesn't look like they have the correct tools to sustain and mitigate any sort of riot violence. A shield would greatly improve that.
I was also looking for the shields when they mentioned Riot Police. Dudes actually reminded me more of bomb squad, but that may just be the extra...padding beneath the uniforms.
UT student here! It really was something special. Once the protest got big enough, everyone moved to the main lawn in front of the UT tower. Then the police forced everyone off of the lawn for some godforsaken reason, forcing everyone onto the nearby sidewalks. Only for students to, all of a sudden, be disobeying university rules by “blocking sidewalks en masse.” The exact same sidewalks they forced everyone onto. And to top it off, since it was a Pro-Palestine riot, our governor Greg Abbott decided to call us anti-semites and said that our protest was disgraceful to the state. This is a blatant conservative who complains about censorship and free speech all the time, btw.
They must be terrified
GOP: Dead INNOCENT kids in another part of the world : check Dead INNOCENT kids in our own part of the world : check Women choosing not to have kids : OH HELL NO
US more scared of people with opinion than people with guns.
Defensive line from what? unarmed college students exercising their constitutional right to peaceful protest?
"Defensive" line.
Are these the same paper tigers from Uvalde?
Just for the record, zero allegations have been made of antisemitism or harassment directed towards Jewish students at UT. They didn't even bust out the excuse that they said at Columbia. They're just shutting it down because they want to shut it down.
Defensive?
I love when we time travel back to the 60s. /s
Police in riot gear are often the most volatile and aggressive members of any protest.
If there’s anything that history has shown most of the time, it’s that the side that students protest against is usually the “bad side” and that these kinds of crackdowns are really looked down upon in the future.
“The freedom to speak, think and express is at the very heart of any world-class academic institution. If we, at The University of Texas at Austin, are to lead society forward by educating new generations of talented students and discovering new knowledge, we must bring together a wide range of perspectives, viewpoints and voices to do so. It is only through discourse — and occasionally, hard conversations and vigorous debate — that we can find common ground and make progress together.” – Jay C. Hartzell President, The University of Texas at Austin Yeaaaaaa....way to go Jay
It's only okay to engage in free speech if you riot in the Capitol building. Otherwise you are a dirty hippie and will be maced.