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You are! And I am! As intelligent beings capable of reasoning on our own. It's fine to say to a Blue Triber who defended the 2020 rioters, "Hey, if you thought summer 2020 wasn't violent, then I won't grant you that Jan 6 was violent. Your rules!" But you shouldn't believe that yourself in the privacy of your own mind merely because you're rubbing your opponents' noses in their hypocrisy.
There is no reasoning on our own when it comes to the meaning of words, as the meaning is inherently dictated by how people perceive it. If I start using a word differently from how others use it, that creates a problem, because then I'm no longer using the same words as others and thus have my own language. This undermines the value of languages as a tool of communication.
There is absolutely no hypocrisy or bad logic in changing the way you use words, when others use it differently as well.
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I do appreciate what you're saying here. I think most people here are just used to the ridiculous media caricatures of Jan. 6, and lumping you into the same bag. I'm not a fan of Trump, but still I could easily imagine myself in the shoes of some of the random people in that crowd. They came for a protest, obviously, not planning to overthrow Congress and impose Trump as El Presidente. Then all of a sudden, they're in the Capitol building, probably having no idea why except that's where the amorphous crowd went. They shout a bit, take a few photos, and go home, then find out that they're now on a watch list and barred from air travel and at serious risk of prosecution.
Oh, and note that one of them was literally shot and killed. The media described this (and four people dying from health issues) as "a protest that led to five deaths." Which is about as honest as reporting that George Floyd "committed a crime at a convenience store that led to one death".
This isn't how we should treat protestors, left or right. You're allowed to protest! And to be clear, the peaceful BLM protestors should also not face any consequences - it's not their fault some opportunists used the protests (and media cover) as a convenient excuse to attack people, set fires, and loot stores.
Except, in my experience, the same people who are sympathetic to the nonviolent members of the J6 mob also howl in outrage when the actually violent members of the J6 mob face criminal sentences for their acts. And again, I'm fine with insisting on there not being a double standard between the J6ers and the Summer 2020 protesters. I absolutely agree there was a double standard, and I'm open to the suggestion that J6ers get off the hook just out of fairness. But these people seem to believe that the J6ers did basically nothing wrong (or at least nothing wrong beyond the realm of trivial misdemeanors), not just that they ought to be treated lightly to keep with the Summer 2020 standard.
That's what boggles my mind - the suggestion that they did nothing wrong. I can only assume these people didn't bother watching the videos, or that they're just that thoroughly mind-killed from perpetual incubation in the culture wars? I really don't know. I don't get it. If you can see all the video footage and think "Nope. Basically just lost tourists. No violence of any significance. No transgression of anything important happening here", then the inferential distance between them and me is so vast as to not be bridgeable.
It may have something to do with the contrast between how the actually violent members of the J6 mob have been treated and the how the actually violent members of another mostly peaceful mob from recent memory.
I mean, they did trespass, and they did shove some cops, but that doesn't sound like the end of the world. Write them a ticket, or something.
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It is one thing to say it, to treat this as a rhetorical device, a debate tactic. It is another thing to actually implement it, to cement in your own mind, "going forward, these are the actual rules I will live by and argue for". This is probably one of the core differences between extremists like myself and moderate normies generally. It's very easy to say "You shouldn't do this, or X would result". But if X doesn't actually result, then your argument was never valid in the first place. You have to actually commit. The social rules and definitions actually have to change, permanently. the new reality must be recognized and accepted, and equanimity with it achieved, otherwise it's just a stupid bluff that's already been called.
I'm trying to communicate to you that I have done so, that I consider the norm you are appealing to not merely threatened, but actually destroyed, past-tense, of strictly historical interest, expired, gone. What you are arguing for is, in the abstract, better, but it is not a feature of the world we live in, and I see no benefit in pretending otherwise.
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