briar patch

[Bootstrap]

I agree, except that the problem of overt political violence is (currently) significantly worse on the left than on the right. Until we can fairly acknowledge that, we won’t get anywhere.

This is the political campaign I'm talking about. We can't have a discussion until I agree with you? In general, "who is worse" and "who started it" are questions that never get resolved, and they often have a lot to do with political identities. As Christians, can't we simply agree that this is bad and think about how we can avoid contributing to political polarization and hatred and enmities?

Notice that in this thread, in a chain of just a few posts, you cannot accurately represent what I am saying. Yet you appoint yourself to represent what I believe and what I have said in the past, inserting that in conversations where I am not even talking about those things. That's a problem for any discussion - and a reason I'm not responding to the rest of your email.

Perhaps you could let 3-4 other people to respond to any post on current events before you respond yourself? Or if you prefer, just don't respond to my posts, let other people do that.

Perhaps you could let me express my own opinion instead of telling everyone what my opinion is? Perhaps you could express your own opinion instead? Perhaps you could have some doubt about your ability to accurately represent past discussions, even the short one we had in this thread, and let current discussions happen?

It's hard to imagine having normal discussions on MennoNet any other way. You are generally the first to respond to anything I post related to current events, but I am not here primarily because I want to interact with you.

[temporal1]

boot:
.. We can't have a discussion until I agree with you? ..

This topic had been dormant since January.
P.47 / i happened to view Amala’s reaction video and thought it might be helpful here.

P.48 / You responded right away, declaring the video was not worthy of forum discussion. In detail.

i added what the video meant to me. a study in apologizing for mistakes. often very difficult.
(my opinion is, celebrating or wishing death on anyone is a grave mistake.) not partisan, at all.

my response to Amala’s video was quite different from yours.
i didn’t suggest your opinion or anyone’s wasn’t worthy.

i realize you and JH are speaking to one another.
just above you’re suggesting/requesting other opinions.

my opinion is,
JH isn’t doing anything beyond what you’ve already done - in your first response to Amala.
can you appreciate that?

[JohnH]

This is the political campaign I'm talking about. We can't have a discussion until I agree with you? In general, "who is worse" and "who started it" are questions that never get resolved, and they often have a lot to do with political identities. As Christians, can't we simply agree that this is bad and think about how we can avoid contributing to political polarization and hatred and enmities?

Boot,

You've been claiming for years that domestic terrorism and political violence is primarily a right-wing problem.

I suppose I'd be very open to hearing you've changed your mind. What is problematic, though, is that (a) you make the claims that the right wing has all the violence problems, and meanwhile (b) reality is the left does. I think that's a very difficult thing to get past.

When you're willing to step outside of political loyalties, we can return to living in reality and talk about how things actually are. Are you willing to do that?

[Ernie]

I agree, except that the problem of overt political violence is (currently) significantly worse on the left than on the right. Until we can fairly acknowledge that, we won’t get anywhere.

I'm curious if you trust CSIS for good information? I went looking for info and here is what I found.

According to CSIS...

2016-2025 there were 35 left wing incidents of violence and 152 right wing incidents of political violence.

from 2025 to the present there are 5 left wing incidents and 1 right wing incident. Is this what you are referring to as "currently"?

[Bootstrap]

This is the political campaign I'm talking about. We can't have a discussion until I agree with you? In general, "who is worse" and "who started it" are questions that never get resolved, and they often have a lot to do with political identities. As Christians, can't we simply agree that this is bad and think about how we can avoid contributing to political polarization and hatred and enmities?

Boot,

You've been claiming for years that domestic terrorism and political violence is primarily a right-wing problem.

In other words, no. You can't simply allow discussion with people you suspect have expressed the wrong views in the past, you feel compelled to bring up your views of other people instead of discussing the subject, and you can't simply discuss things with people who don't share your views. Are you justifying this kind of heckling?

I can start another thread, if need be, to show what I have actually said in past threads. But that's almost besides the point.

You are on a political campaign. Part of that campaign involves disrupting conversations to turn attention to what you think of the participants in the discussion. Projecting negative and often false stereotypes onto them. I think this is one of the things that makes discussing things as Christians on MennoNet very, very difficult.

How do you justify this to yourself as a Christian?

[Bootstrap]

JH isn’t doing anything beyond what you’ve already done - in your first response to Amala.
can you appreciate that?

I don't see the similarity. I expressed my views. I did not confront you with some version claiming to represent your views and ask you to justify yourself.

To me, discussion involves expressing views, and those views may differ. That difference is what the discussion revolves around.

[ken_sylvania]

JH isn’t doing anything beyond what you’ve already done - in your first response to Amala.
can you appreciate that?

I don't see the similarity. I expressed my views. I did not confront you with some version claiming to represent your views and ask you to justify yourself.

To me, discussion involves expressing views, and those views may differ. That difference is what the discussion revolves around.

I believe you when you say you don't see the similarity. Do you have any curiosity about why others looking on might think that your response is similar to JohnH's response?

[Bootstrap]

To show how JohnH has been misrepresenting my positions, here's a post from earlier in this thread:

I see two basic messages in reaction to this shooting:

1. Political violence is horrible. We need to work together to dial down hate and agree to be one country, even though we differ on politics or religion or other things, or
2. Political violence against my side is horrible. My side never does those things. Their side is horrible. We need to defeat those other people.

The second message scares me. The first is encouraging. This is the basic choice our country needs to make.

https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/press ... cases-2024

[Bootstrap]

Another post that shows how I actually have discussed these things in the past - rather different, I think, than what JohnH claims.

I still agree strongly with the previous post and this one.

Because, like it or not, this is a problem primarily in only one of the political groups.

When we look at polls, some do show higher acceptance of political violence among one party than the other. That’s a real concern, and it deserves to be taken seriously.

But if we also look at the acts themselves and who has been harmed, we see a more complicated picture. Victims include Republicans like Steve Scalise, Donald Trump, and Charlie Kirk, and Democrats like Gabby Giffords, Paul Pelosi, Josh Shapiro, Melissa Hortman and her husband. Violence has scarred people on both sides. I think all these names have already been mentioned in this thread. Hortman, Shapiro, Trump, and Kirk were all within the last 12 months.

If you look at the ideology of the people doing it, it's a little complicated because these people are often messed up and a little incoherent, but right-wing violence is at least as serious.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalatin ... ted-states



Polling varies depending on the wording and timing. For example, a 2022 UC Davis survey found about 20% of Americans said political violence is at least sometimes justified. Other surveys (PRRI, YouGov) show partisan differences, often with higher acceptance among Republicans.

To the partisan, everything looks partisan — the answer is always “they are the problem.” But violence is a challenge we all need to face. And for those of us who want to follow Christ as peacemakers, the deeper question isn’t which party is worse, but how we can help break the cycle of violence and model a different way.

[JohnH]

I agree, except that the problem of overt political violence is (currently) significantly worse on the left than on the right. Until we can fairly acknowledge that, we won’t get anywhere.

I'm curious if you trust CSIS for good information? I went looking for info and here is what I found.

According to CSIS...

2016-2025 there were 35 left wing incidents of violence and 152 right wing incidents of political violence.

from 2025 to the present there are 5 left wing incidents and 1 right wing incident. Is this what you are referring to as "currently"?

Real credible organisation you picked there.

In September 2014, The New York Times reported that the United Arab Emirates had donated a sum greater than $1 million to the organization. Additionally, CSIS has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Japan through the government-funded Japan External Trade Organization, as well as from Norway. After being contacted by the Times, CSIS released a list of foreign state donors, listing 13 governments including those of Germany and China. CSIS lists major funding from defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon Company and General Atomics.

Significant funding has come from the governments of the United States, Japan, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates.

Talk about a rogue's gallery.

In any case, assassination attempts or assassinations have been almost entirely a left against right phenomenon; street-level political violence has been dominated by the extreme left wing; the recent plot against Trump during the MMA match was a counter-example of extreme-right political violence.

I'm not sure why there is such a strong agenda to keep score. Political violence is bad regardless of who does it. Currently, the left wing is worse. Maybe in a year, the right wing will be. What's important is to stay grounded in reality and not to fall prey to the biases of "my political enemies are more violent than I am."

For the record, I am far more of a leftist and always have been than a right-wing person anyway. I've only ever volunteered in a significant capacity for left wing campaigns, not right wing ones. My voting record is for Democrats, not Republicans. (I worked an election once as a registered Republican because the election office wouldn't accept my Libertarian registration and changed it to R for the purpose of being an election worker.) Since becoming a Christian, my main political activity has been to try to convince solidly right-wing voters in what was once a swing state not to vote for Republicans or for Trump.

Yet here we are. I would admit to even being slightly sympathetic towarsd left-wing political violence sometimes; I just refuse to let myself do that because I believe it's wrong for a Christian to do so.