So it's been basically 6 months since we started this new stay close to home life. Since the pandemic became a real thing to us instead of an out there somewhere thing. Since we realized that yeah, it can happen in today's day and age. How weird.
And it's been three months since the murder of George Floyd led to pretty constant civil unrest, at least in Portland. And no, the city is not on fire. And no downtown isn't a wasteland. No matter what the media wants you to think. But yes, it's bad. And sometimes it's worse and sometimes it's better.
Weekends are pretty much always worse now because we've added in Patriot Prayer and their ilk.
Two weekends ago they marched downtown and there were fist fights and actual riots and the police said...yeah, we are tired. You guys just go on ahead.
Last weekend a guy from Idaho organized a Trump parade and hundreds of trucks and cars descended on downtown and they proceeded to show their love of freedom by pepper spraying and shooting paint balls at the people protesting. And at the end of it there was an altercation where the mace was met with gunfire and the Patriot Prayer guy died.
I bring up the fact that the original parade was organized by someone from Idaho because that's always the claim from the Conservosphere, that the protests are organized by Outside Agitators! Like, oh I don't know, someone in Idaho saying let's go cause shit in Portland? Or maybe a kid from Illinois driving in to Kenosha, WI with a gun he shouldn't have had in the first place and ending up killing two people?
I posted last night that if you go looking for a fight you don't always find the fight you were looking for and you don't always win.
You know when these guys are egging each other on to go cause shit, or be Patriot Property Protectors, they don't envision it ending with death. Or at least not their death. Because if you are bringing an AR to clean graffiti you have to at least consider that someone could die. Maybe the kid didn't really, because he is a kid with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, but some of the adults in the group should have. One of the first gun lessons you should learn is that you don't pull it on someone unless you understand you could be killing them. Guns are death weapons. That's just what they are for. You can say you are threatening someone, but the threat is death.
So yeah, if you go looking for a fight the problem is sometimes the fight you find is a different one. And you don't always win.
Now the funny (funny in a 2020 way) part is that someone on my list took great exception to that post and proceeded to have a full argument without me. I say without me instead of with me because I just kept posting the same response. Because that was my whole point. The problem with looking for a fight is you don't always get the fight you were looking for and you don't always win. But he told me what I thought and how he was mad about it. Which then made me think, that sums up our current situation so well.
We aren't having discussions, that ship has sailed. We aren't even having arguments anymore. We are plastering people with what WE think they believe and fighting them about that. We are telling them they believe things or agree with things that they might or might not. Last week another person on my list told me they "sensed my frustration" and made the assumption that I was calling them an asshole. I went back and reread everything I had posted to make sure I hadn't called her an asshole and just blocked it somehow and then let her know nobody ever has to "sense" what I am thinking, I will tell them. For instance if you say I called or even implied that you are an asshole and I have not I'm going to tell you that you are wrong.
I'm actually worried about this election cycle no matter who wins. Biden isn't a lock. And he's not a White Knight that will automatically fix everything. There are a lot of emboldened angry people out there with guns. There are a lot of people out there who have decided how "the other side" thinks. There is a big enough divide right now that there is an other side. I think it's going to be bad and ugly and I have no idea how it all turns out.
And on top of that we are still fighting a virus that we can't even get everyone to agree is a problem.
We have a group of people willing and ready to strap on a gun and protect a building who won't put on a mask to protect people.
It's a strange world we live in right now. I'm not sure what it will be like this time next year.
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