Seriously though, don’t do violence.
I mean history is ambiguous about it, but it usually tends to be more bad than good. Usually.
Depends on how far back you go. We’re smart because we’re predators.
deleted by creator
It’s A solution, just not the preferred one.
Because the US government has more guns than any other entity on the planet. There’s no fight it loses.
Afghanistan and Vietnam come to mind.
afganistan, lol
lol
The Vietnamese peasants and farmers beg to differ.
If the us government where to go to war with its own populous it would destroy the very wealth they sought to control.
yeah except for basically all of them
My experience with human rights acrivists is that they only fight for the assholes. Never saw a human rights activist in a foundraiser for children, but talk about murderers and rapists they are all love.
They fight to keep government overreach in check
I get that in a lot of circunstances BUT once you have confessed killers what do you want? Them to have a nice life?!
Yeah, because nobody else speaks up for those who’d be railroaded through court otherwise. You don’t ’see them speak up’ because those same people’s voice get lost in the crowd of everyone else’s outrage/support.
It’s trite but true, failure to defend the fringes leaves a smaller and smaller pool of resistance/solidarity:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Look I’ve heard human rights activists say that over and over again but you know what I think? You can look at a CHILD that was raped and say "sorry he deserves to be treated nicely, your values are crooked.
I’m NOT talking about the legal system that is indeed corrupt, I’m talking about people that confessed to murder and rape and you still go out of your way to defend that “he need nicer food”. He needs to burn in hell
So are you talking about prison reform? Because MOST people in prison are not there for rape or murder.
If rights aren’t universal they may as well not exist. To defend the rights of another is to defend your own. Remember that next time you see the rights being violated of someone you feel deserves it.
Aw man. You’re gonna bring the “I like hospitals and roads but not taxes” crowd out of the wood work, claiming governments are just warlords with good PR.
You’re doing violence to grammar with your “an.”
deleted by creator
Stupendous!
The state is nothing but a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. To a hammer, everything is a nail. To a state, everything is a target for violence.
This sounds super motivational until you stop to think about how the only thing worse than legitimate violence is the endless horrors of ILLegitimate violence. Solidarity is nothing but a stance of pure aggressivity towards those neighbors outside of your community
Those look like sentences but it’s weird… I’m not seeing any meaning here.
Precisely what I was trying to highlight–many thanks for the confirmation comrade
So just because it’s sprinkled with the magic fairy dust of ‘government’ it’s immediately moral and good violence?
Here’s a freebie thought experiment I had to pay a PoliSci professor for; if tomorrow the democratically elected government passed a law that from today forward, all babies with blue eyes will be euthanized at birth, is that legal?
Yes. 100% legal. And 100% morally bankrupt.
Consent of the governed is the bedrock of civil society - the ghouls that run big business seem to have forgotten/don’t care that legality does not equal morality.
You win my most obvious strawman award. I really tried to find how any of this pertains to any part of my comment and gave up. I still like your pretty metaphors despite the absence of logical meaning
You’re trying hard to be obtuse, or super myopic if you don’t see the through line from state violence, to consent of the governed to accept laws (and the violence required to enforce them) - hence my comment that legality is not morality, and the inference that lobbying has broken that trust and consent by legalizing policies like UHC’s that are not unique to that one company.
You brought solidarity into this, which is distinct from tribalist/sectarian violence like you’re alluding to. Soup kitchens, community legal defense funds, or cooperative farms are examples of solidarity. Not vigilante murder.
I figure legitimate in this instance just means they won’t have any reason to expect repercussions for their acts of violence.
The state is nothing but a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
Which, ideally, is pretty much how it has to work. The state is, ideally, composed of elected representatives and their appointees. The alternative to violence monopolized by elected representatives is violence distributed to private interests. State monopoly of legitimate violence is not great and I agree with the problems inherent to that, but realistically the alternative seems worse. I’m racking my brain for another system, but I can’t think of anything that doesn’t devolve to oligarch-led private armies oppressing people.
state is, ideally, composed of elected representatives
oligarch-led private armies oppressing people.
They’re the same picture.
Elections are a venue for competiting oligarchs - US elections are largely just a wealth check - with the bonus that afterwards people feel they’ve chosen their oligarchs and are less likely to notice that 90%+ of elected representatives only represent the interest of elites.
I do the same thing at work when I need mentally ill people to do what I say. “You can do what I want version A, or do what I want version B, which one?” always works better than “Do what I want!”
I agree that violence management is a very difficult problem with no easy solution. But I don’t think giving full control of legitimate violence to the rich is the best solution, which is what a state of elected representatives does.
The state even sometimes uses violence on itself.
See: Civil Wars.
I certainly agree with that, but that agreement is not a call to violence, and definitely not an incitement of violence…from a legal perspective.
Legal smeagol. When the legal system (jury box) fails us, time to move on to the next box.
I don’t disagree, but I don’t want to get on the wrong side of any of the ToS. Or wind up on a government watch list.
You’re not even willing to risk THAT to help fight against evil?
I mean… I’m not willing to risk that for a meme post.
What do you think that the difference is between a meme post and public conversation?
There’s a public, digital record of one and a very slim chance (for most people) that anyone who would care is listening to the other.
I’m saying that framing a meme post as the fight against evil is a bit much.
The government stopped using watch lists. It’s easier just to watch everyone.
One of the things I remember Snowden saying about the NSA’s data collection is, something to the effect of, “It doesn’t even make sense. If you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, the answer isn’t more hay.” I was still outraged by the government’s collection of my meta data, but it did make me feel a little better about their ability weaponize that data competently.
It’s not so much the excess hay their collecting, it’s the giant electromagnetic they’re building.
Only in Connecticut
Except when it isn’t.
Well, I definitely can’t agree with that…in writing.
I don’t know why you chose the title you used. I would’ve upvoted this post but i couldn’t because of the title. Violence absolutely is the right course of action in certain circumstances. Violence should never be used first, but once all non-violent means have been tried and failed to correct a grave injustice, then violence becomes the appropriate action for any moral person.
If you do nothing while you watch a murderer kill an innocent person, then part of the guilt falls on your hands. As the saying goes “the only thing necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.”
When you crush folks into the ground for decades, ensure there’s no legal recourse, and bleed them for every dollar until the money runs red. It’s hardly a surprising outcome.
Here’s the song that’s been playing in my head last couple days, for no related reason: https://youtu.be/o9mJ82x_l-E?si=y7r9kDydchPhNPAp
Not sure if you know the reason for the song, but here is the info behind it… the actual footage was brutal as well.
A Song Inspired by an Infamous Suicide
Patrick found the lyrical inspiration for “Hey Man Nice Shot” from the January 1987 suicide of Pennsylvania State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer. It occurred on the day Dwyer was to be sentenced for 11 counts of bribery for which he had faced up to 55 years in prison and a $305,000 fine, according to an Associated Press article from the time. No money was said to have exchanged hands. The public official spent 20 minutes on live television proclaiming his innocence, then shot himself to death. The incident shocked family, friends, and political associates, not to mention the viewing audience.
I saw that video when I was in middle school and found out later in my teens that song was about that headshot. It’s a good song.
Wasn’t that the guy who was later found to be innocent? He tried to fight the charges, got convicted, killed himself, and THEN they figured out he really didn’t do it?
Here’s the song I’ve been thinking about
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm1nCYOZB-s&t=175s&pp=2AGvAZACAQ%3D%3D
Oh damn, I don’t think I’ve heard that one in since I was in middle school.
I have a soft spot for what my friend calls, “divorced dad rock.”
To me this is, “rock my edgy older sister listened to.” Gave me a nice nostalgia hit too.
I prefer this one for obvious reasons.
“Violence is bad”
-Sincerely, every country that came into existence from the violent overthrow of the country that existed before it.
If it works it works. Humans have been using as an effective way to accomplish things for millennia.
The current capitalism overlords may not be happy when it’s used the other way around to what they are used to.
Humans? You mean every living thing that ever existed?
“Violence is a precipitation of two sides unwilling to compromise.”
- Sun Tzu The Art of War
At best, this will cause insurance companies to spend more on PR, and maybe make some small token changes they can use as headlines.
violence is bad
It is bad if used as the first approach.
It is fine when used in self defense or when all peaceful approaches have been exhausted in response to oppression and other malicious actions. It does matter when and why it is used.
Agreed. This happened because both parties are bought and paid for by big corpo. Our vote is only on how to address some of the social issue symptoms, if at all, of our crony capitalist economy, and only if they don’t meaningfully effect corpo profits.
Example “please leftwing Obama, save us from this for profit healthcare hell!” proceeds to further enshrine for profit insurer leeches in a plan made from the heritage foundation because big corpo demand line go up.
The people don’t get a vote on the crony capitalist economy.
When we wish to protest, we’re now sent to designated protest zones out of the eyelines and profit operations of those we protest, making such “protests” as effective as masturbation in creating change.
This is happening because they have made us this desperate,and taken away/castrated our non-violent options. Some are apparently finally realizing that our votes and our protest have been manipulated by the capitalists that know they’re doing us harm into still technically existing, but no longer mattering.
Gotta hand it to them, it’s far more insidious than overt slavery with chains.
It goes to show how morally bankrupt these people are that it takes the fear of death being out into them to get them to do something even remotely good/ethical.
It also unfortunately proves, once more, that violence can absolutely be the solution.
I wouldn’t call it violence, I would call it a justified use of force.
I’m not saying to track down do what this guy did to huge multi-hundred-billion dollar CEOs, but it’s hard to say that it doesn’t work.
Yeah, that’s about what I’m getting at.
Aggressive negotiations
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield reverses decision… for now. They’ll wait a month and then introduce it again.
