Yeah… fair possibilities…
Nah, You’re good. It was gun law discussions that were getting heated and detracting from the topic and subject at hand
To be honest, people who are scared shitless don’t take photos with the people scaring them. It’s also their duty to stand against that crowd and would be desertion not to. Also, investigation was coming out (last I saw, can’t guarantee this tho) that they did indeed let them through.
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I can either think that… and if I’m wrong I get further disappointed with humankind…
Or I can assume they are terrible people, so if I am wrong, I get positively surprised!
This distinction makes wonders for my stress levels. ^^
also this:
(Although nothing tells me those officers are the same ones taking the pics)
Wait… not??
Damn! I sure hoped I could find a Cartman Mk3 Probe here!! 
Very true.
Any posture able to trigger defensive responses will usually backfire.
Although… and then I put my tinfoil hat on… and think to myself: What if someone had more to gain by causing that backfire?
We actually had some very similar riots a few years back in Brazil.
Population angry against the police… Was the biggest movement we had, perhaps in history. Loads of public sympathy as well.
Then the population movement started to grow terribly violent, burning cars and assaulting people and police alike…
The movement lost a lot of it’s public sympathy and basically died because of that.
Later on analysis of video from the places where violence escalated revealed that many of the “protesters” inciting the violent upscale were actually far right cops, dressed up as protesters, acting under orders from above with the intent to cause that backfire.
This forum was the most direct, long-time contact I had with various Americans, with tons of different opinions and all that, and believe me - it changed my opinion quite a lot. Thanks to all of you who helped me seeing beyond my own nose here.
I am sad at what’s happening in the US currently, and I almost can’t believe it. It’s insane, it’s terrible, and I seriously hope that something more fair and more democratic might come out of this whole trouble - though I know this is a very optimistic thought, and not likely to happen.
I’m wishing all of you all the best… 
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“Currently”?
The past 4 years have been utterly ridiculous. But let’s not forget the past: Dubya’s tenure started out as utterly ridiculous too, and ended in worrying Reichstag-burning-style emergency unconstitutional legislation that the country and entire world are still reeling from, and won’t go away anytime soon. Reagan ruined the US economy long term and turned Iran into a nasty theocracy. Nixon… well, Nixon. Johnson was a war criminal sonofabitch. Kennedy almost brought about WW3.
If the US ever was a country worth looking up to - which is debatable, it was no later than Eisenhower. It’s been going downhill ever since - and, that’s new, it turned from worrying but fairly predictable to worrying, rogue and clownish.
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4 deaths…
Okay, I’d say I worry about the US definitely since Trump, as well as during the Bush-period.
Most of the stuff that happened before escaped me a bit, for I wasn’t interested in politic as a child (and being born in the 80s, I “recognized” American presidents since… hm, I’d say Clinton^^). I also have very little insight into what actually happens in the US, like I said, this forum is the first time I have some serious conversation with Americans. I mean, I met some for a few days at festivals and such, but you rarely talk about politics in such a setting.
So I guess I’m pretty ignorant to the history of US politics. Shouldn’t be that way, I know, but I’m trying to improve 
To be fair, I draw a line between Americans as individuals and the American administrations. The people for the most part suffers from their administrations as much as anyone. Or, if you’re less generous, you might say they’re rich enough and their bellies are full enough to blissfully ignore what their politicos are doing in their name. Or, if you’re even less generous, you can blame them for electing them in the first place: they ain’t entirely innocent here.
Personally, I’ve never been particularly impressed with US policies since they decided to stop being isolationist. And I’m not particularly impressed with their expansionist tendencies in their immediate vicinity before that either. But I started worrying seriously after 9/11. I know enough of Germany’s past mistakes to draw parallels. That’s also when I left the country, incidentally.
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Totally agree. This was one of the few times I felt actual fear because of decisions being made somwhere on the opposite side of the world.
Moscow didn’t worry you before that? 
They’re closer to you too.
The game-changer with what happened after 9/11 is, I never EVER thought in my wildest nightmares that Americans would fall into that trap, especially considering they had freed Europe from the consequences of the exact same trap 50 years before, and they’re mighty proud of it. I knew America was capable of many stupid things, but I didn’t think it was capable of turning into that. It’s truly sad. And now, on top of that, it’s turning into an idiocracy.
This might sound very stupid, but… Moscow was always like that. I was in my teenage years when 9/11 happened, and Russia never seemed like a “free country” for me at all. Not the least bit.
But America was (obviously due to quite a bit of propaganda, of course) always the epitome of freedom, in a way - when I grew up, America was the country that freed us from the evil Nazis, that passionately helped to rebuild Germany after the war, and where people of all kind were able to live together peacefully. The land of unlimited opportunity. That was the way it was taught to us, at least until the 90s or even longer.
So seeing a fellow “free country” doing those things was more frightening than all the stuff Moscow did, simply because - well, you kinda expected something like that from Russia. I mean, they freed us from evil Nazis as well, but suprisingly enough, they weren’t praised much in western-Germany schoolbooks…
I guess I see your point of view.
In my family, we watched the doomsday clock as a kind of barometer for international tensions between the Ruskies and the rest of the first world. Sometimes the bear slept, sometimes it stirred and we worried. I mean I’m far too young to remember Russia as anything other than a communist dictatorship with too many nukes, but the worry waxed and waned following who was the Soviet premier or the US prez du jour. We didn’t see it as some immutable country we should simply be aspiring not to become.
By the way, no way! I thought you were in your twenties, what with the little bit of skin you deigned revealing that looked surprisingly youthful and all
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Hehe, you’re cute - thanks a lot 
Just saw the press conference as well, and the reactions of international politicians.
Funny enough…
In Germany, most politicians felt as shocked and disgusted as myself. Our President of the Bundestag just said they now want to check the security at the Reichstag building. Yeah. Let’s talk about fighting symptoms. I hope things like that won’t ever happen here in Germany, but not because of better security 
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Things in the US have been polarizing since the 50s… with the velocity increasing exponentially since the late 70s. We are now seeing this kind of pendulum swing where we swing between perceived extremes… bush to obama to trump to biden … and it’s creating a resonance that only intensifies those swings and drives everyone further apart. I can only hope that Biden lives up to be the “centrist” he’s touted to be… if not for better policy, at least to maybe try to stitch the tatters left of this country together.
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I’m really curious where they will set it this year, given that last year is the closest to midnight it has ever been (100 seconds) and with all that has happened in 2020