Mostly Harmless Opinions

I’m of the opinion that actions speak louder than words. Opportunities for people to turn their talk into action always interest me because it shows me whether somebody is honest about their stated intentions. Needless to say, yesterday’s Trump rally in Minneapolis was such an opportunity.

When the rally was announced I immediately thought of two expressed beliefs. The first is that Trump is the second coming of Hitler and his supporters are Nazis. The second is that Nazis must be destroyed with violence. If one drew a Venn diagram of people who express these beliefs, there would be a lot of overlap. Trump and his supporters coming to town provided the opportunity for the people in that overlap to demonstrate their beliefs.

I was fairly certain that the rally would pass by with minimal violence and from the linked story it appears that my prediction was accurate. There was only one arrest by 23:00 and I have found no serious injuries or deaths reported. If the overlap group was at all sizable and the people composing it were truthful about their beliefs, shouldn’t there have been blood in the streets? Shouldn’t there have been hospitals packed with combatants? Why wasn’t there? I’ve come up with three potential explanations.

The first is that the overlap group is actually quite small. While this is possible, my personal experience leads me to believe this explanation is the least likely.

The second is that the people in that overlap who opine that Nazis must be destroyed with violence don’t actually believe that Trump and his supporters are Nazis. If they believed that, they would have used a significant amount of violence against them.

The third is that the people in that overlap who opine that Trump and his supporters are Nazis don’t actually believe that Nazis must be destroyed with violence.

Regardless of the explanation, yesterday reinforced my belief that a lot of people hold mostly harmless opinions. When the opportunity to act on their words presented itself, they back down faster than Apple after being given the stink eye by China.

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