• wheezy@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    I think you read my comment as somehow promoting violence or even romanticizing it in some way.

    There are things I agree with in your comment and things I disagree with. But I don’t think it’s meaningful to discuss that because you seem to have taken my comment in the wrong way from the very start.

    I am was not describing what I want to happen, or what works in bringing about radical change (though history tells us that is almost always through some form of violenct resistance). I was simply explaining what happens when a society subject to state violence is backed into a corner. It was almost a plea to not bring our society to that inevitable stage. Something that “protest peacefully” leaders with zero action are contributing to.

    I think maybe you should reread my comment with that perspective. Then maybe you’d have a more meaningful response.

    I think you may also have a better grasp on it if, instead, you widened your scope a bit more. You seem to be stuck in a very short timeframe of historical reference in which you’re comparing to. You should widen your scope to include the rise of major fascist powers. Limiting yourself to comparing events within your lifetime or even recent American history is definitely limiting your ability to apply historical materialist understanding of what is going on. Though, I do think you are thinking correctly, you are not really able to describe or grasp what is going on fully.

    There is no point in telling people to “arm themselves in their homes”. When, inevitably, after 100s of armed people are killed in their homes the remaining armed people will realize that, they are stronger together. And waiting for the state violence to come to their door is just puting them at a disadvantage for no reason other than some vague notion of a moral society and state that, clearly, no longer exists.

    When will YOU ask yourself: Why am I advocating for people to defend themselves, but only after it reaches them personally while they are alone in their home?

    Because that time WILL come for you. It just hasn’t yet. But for many people that have experienced the state violence first hand. It already has. And those that live through it aren’t going to fight back alone in their home. They are going to get organized.

    You’re puting an arbitrary restriction on resistance to state violence that does nothing but help to make that state violence easier to carry out.

    • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Arbitrary restriction? I’m not restricting anything. Everyone reading this is free to do whatever they want. For now, anyway.

      What is this tremendous power I have to stop you from going out and antagonizing ICE yourself?

      Again, name any violent protest in recent history that has done anything but made matters worse. Even Minneapolis and Portland, the two American cities with the greatest violence in 2020-2023 have learned that violence doesn’t work. That’s why they’re not going that route this time.

      When will YOU ask yourself: Why am I advocating for people to defend themselves, but only after it reaches them personally while they are alone in their home?

      When will YOU ask yourself why you have to put words that I did not say in my mouth for you to have a rebuttal? Why are you making vague claims to historical precedent without ever being specific? Why are you widening the scope of what I actually said to cover ideas and positions I did not state and do not actually possess?

      I said exactly what I meant to say and I stopped there. Again, you and anyone else are free to go out and harass ICE yourself if you think that’s so wise, but you are dead wrong to incite others to do it for you, or to even suggest that it is a winning strategy when if it were you’d be able to cite at least one recent example of that.

      You have nothing, or you’d have brought it already. And you can’t, because it just doesn’t exist. For myself, I linked to the actual court decisions where non-violent protests ARE working, TODAY.

      You’re not arguing in good faith. I said what I have to say. Good night.