When, if ever, is political violence acceptable?

[Outlier]

Personally I'm saddened whenever I see political violence, especially from people who live in a democratic society where they can debate and vote for their views rather than force others to comply with them. Of course it's not always as simple as debating or voting but I still think people are too eager to resort to violence these days.

It should go without saying that something like the recent shootings in New Zealand is a tragedy that went way over the line so I feel silly even typing that out. However how do you feel about violence on a smaller scale such as the #punchanazi trend.

I might have less of a problem if everyone who was targeted were actual Nazis and not just right wing figures whom the attackers don't like personally or politically but even then I wish there was more discourse and less violence. Maybe I'm just being idealistic but that's better than being violent imo.

There's also the risk of politically neutral people getting wrangled into these incidents which happened when antifa attacked a couple of off-duty marines last December because they were nearby an alt-right event even though they didn't take part. https://www.foxnews.com/us/marines-testify-about-antifa-mob-they-say-attacked-them-in-philadelphia

Then you had groups like the proud boys who seemingly went out of their way to fight with antifa to the point you couldn't just claim they were defending themselves, especially given some of the comments Gavin made about them actively targeting people, some who might not even be with antifa, before he stepped down form whatever influential position he had with the group.

Feel free to bring up other examples of political violence that come to mind and how you feel about them or political violence in general.

 

[LDSman]

I disagree with political violence. It's all to easy to use violence to silence those you disagree with.

 

[EnglishALT]

I tend to believe political violence is unnecessary, especially in a fair and democratic society. If you do not like one party or politician then you work within the system to change it or remove the person from power. If that does not work out in an election then you try again next time. I can however understand the need for political violence in a dictatorship in which all other options have been exhausted. Cuba, North Korea, the former Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and currently Venezuela are good examples in which political violence seems to be the public's only recourse.

With ANTIFA, BAMN, and other political groups, they seem to be nothing more than domestic violence terrorists, using fear and intimidation to try and quash decent. It is a miracle that ANTIFA has not killed anyone yet, although that is not for lack of trying. They are honestly no better than the Klan or supposed Nazis that they say they are fighting against.

 

[Her]

fascists and their sympathisers need to be kept afraid of organising and scared of attempting recruitment, so i absolutely believe in their kind being treated with necessary hostility
and if it comes down to physical resistance in order to keep apologists and their ilk frightened, so be it!

i'm a devout pacifist but i'll absolutely put my moral weight behind those who take the tolerance paradox and use it for good

 

[EnglishALT]

fascists and their sympathisers need to be kept afraid of organising and scared of attempting recruitment, so i absolutely believe in their kind being treated with necessary hostility
and if it comes down to physical resistance in order to keep apologists and their ilk frightened, so be it!

i'm a devout pacifist but i'll absolutely put my moral weight behind those who take the tolerance paradox and use it for good

Isn't the use of physical violence and intimidation to suppress political beliefs essentially fascism as well? Not to mention who gets to pick and choose who is and isn't a fascist? Using physical resistance to take down fascists and by extension their "apologists" becomes a rather slippery slope of catching anyone who disagrees with you as part of the "fascists" enemy that need to be frightened and silenced. Examples of this being the labels of "enemy of the workers", "enemy of the people", "bourgeois", and "Bolsheviks", in dictatorships like China and the Soviet Union to silence descent.

 

[Outlier]

https://twitter.com/4TheGoal/status/1106792838837133314

I wish this was as "violent" as things got. :laugh-squinted:

 

[tigertron]

No, I don't think political violence is acceptable at all under any circumstances unless it's in self defence.

 

[gimmepie]

Violence isn't acceptable unless it is in defence of your safety or your freedom, and I don't mean that in the subjective way, I mean if there is actually an immediate threat to your safety.

 

[TailsMK4]

It is occurring too often from my viewpoint, and from what I've seen, a lot of these stemmed from protests getting out of control. Yes, you're encouraged to voice your opinion (If the left supports it), but do so in a way that doesn't cause physical harm to others (these days, you're bound to upset others no matter what you say if they do not like your stance on a hot topic). People are becoming ultra-sensitive to things, and I'm afraid the activities of political violence have yet to peak out...

 

[Venia Silente]

With ANTIFA, BAMN, and other political groups, [...]They are honestly no better than the Klan or supposed Nazis that they say they are fighting against.

...Really now? There's a lot of different considering one of the two sides strongly engaged in way past political violence.

It is a shame to humanity to put both things even within comparison, and probably speaks of a sheltered mind that is headed on its way to turn like those in that past path.

I'm usually against political violence, if I'm understanding the term alright, simply because it unevens the playfield - it forces all parties to work outside the system to restore the equilibrium between "we need to do things" and "we need to decide what to do". Political violence is a sign that your judicial system is not responding fast enough to a situation that affects many people and that degrades their standing constantly - which makes it ironic we do not see more of it in the fields of tech and medicine.

There are cases however where the situation is so asymmetrical between the parties that political violence becomes a tool to restore equilibrium, in particular when it is used to break the operational wall of bureaucracy that the partiy in power can always use to deny or stall solutions forever. The kind that most usually comes to mind is political violence to prevent or stop projects that deal severe environmental and societal damage. if your children are seeing their lifespan and health shortened (or even dying) en masse from say lead poisoning in the water and no one is doing anything because the lead company pays good ¢a$h to keep operating, the next best stop unfortunately is to target its agents directly, since by definition no further political action within the system is going to work without the extra incentive.

From that perspective, it's not functionally different than the concept of people "hoping" for "divine justice" to strike a criminal who has been acquitted: while they both require a lot of correctness beforehand to turn out "fair", they are still a symptom that the political system is failing so hard at keeping the people around it balanced that they literally need to get off the Society Horse and attempt to solve their problem the old fashioned way because otherwise the alternative is you're not going to be alive to take part of the political process any more. See: Venezuela and, well, nowadays Nazis. What is more asymmetrical than that?

 

[EnglishALT]

...Really now? There's a lot of different considering one of the two sides strongly engaged in way past political violence.

It is a shame to humanity to put both things even within comparison, and probably speaks of a sheltered mind that is headed on its way to turn like those in that past path.

There is a difference in power in the past obviously, however currently I see no difference in the use of violence in the murder in Charlottesville with a Nazi, and the attempted murder at Burkley with an ANTIFA member. Right now both are using violence to terrorize and silence those that they disagree with.