Guess I imagined that whole CHAZ / CHOP thing then. You know, the time when armed leftists took over an entire city block
You think democrats orchestrated that riot? What, in the name of leftism? Were they holding signs and shouting about how great the democrat party and leftism is? I suppose democrats must have also planned the murders of Floyd, Blake, etc in order to spur the riots....which resulted in a huge surge of violence and crimes upon other democrats in blue states. Crazy how they planned all that. It's almost as if these events had nothing to do with political parties. But please, do tell how those evil democrats secretly orchestrated all these events from the shadows and BLM is their "militant arm".
and the Democrat establishment did nothing to stop them, and in fact encouraged them in their rampage.
Except they did eventually stop them. The sheer scale of the unrest took time to defuse. Also why was it solely up to the "democrat establishment" to fix that situation? I didn't know riot control was a partisan responsibility.
they were "conservative" in that they favored the status quo.
they share absolutely zero in common with modern conservatism
They were 100% conservative in that they stood for the core tenets of conservatism (states rights, limited government, individual freedom, free markets, Christian fundamentalism, etc) and occupied the same red states and Bible Belt states where modern conservatives dominate today. In many conservative households there is a direct lineage in family history and core beliefs that goes back to the confederacy. But sure, let's pretend that conservatives have zero connection to confederates, despite being directly connected in literally every single aspect. I don't understand the denial.
The democrats in those states did, yes.
Who were conservatives, yes. Glad we can agree there.
Yeah and how's that going for them? In the UK you'll get arrested for teaching your dog to make a nazi salute as a joke. In Canada you'll be arrested for trying to tell your kid he isn't trans, or refusing to use his "new" pronouns. In Italy you need a vaccine passport to work, in France the police are going table-to-table in restaurants to check your papers, and in Austria they've just made getting injected with experimental medical treatments that don't work and might very well kill you compulsory, presumably to be enforced the AUG-fashioned way.
Do you genuinely believe that citizens being armed would have prevented all those laws being implemented and enforced?