Why is it wrong to resort to violence?

[ColbertWatcher]

Please note: this is not a poll; it's a free-for-all

There have been many reports of violent acts against Democrats for:
* a. protesting
* b. wearing clothing/buttons supporting their candidate
* c. being liberal

Instead of seeing the hundreds of thousands of troops overseas on the teevee, we are inundated with programs about living in prisons, is it any wonder that people would use violence as a first reaction to situations beyond their control.

It might be understandable why so many people become violent, so what's wrong with that?

How would you explain why violence is inappropriate in this day and age?

(EDITED)

How would you explain why violence--as a first resort--is inappropriate in this day and age?

[thraxis]

1. Because it's illegal and not very nice.

[Oregone]

6. There are just and unjust laws

Unfortunately, sometimes authority uses violence to enforce unjust laws. Are the victims not justified to reciprocate such force?

Is the term "justified" a true concept that exists outside of humans anyway? Or does it only exist within agreed upon social orders? Does someone who feel the social order (or contract) is in violation, therefore have no obligation to not use violence?

[billyoc]

2. "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts"

--Mahatma Gandhi

[TomInTib]

3. I see nothing wrong with using force and violence, when necessary.

Sometimes, you just have to get with it.

I am not about to try to reason with someone who is hitting me in the face.

[ColbertWatcher]

8. I changed the question a bit to include "as a first resort" n/t

[TomInTib]

21. Well, then,....

nevermind.

For me, violence is used in retaliation or vengeance.

Except in combat situations, which are entirely different.

[ColbertWatcher]

36. I'm sorry I forgot to post that part! n/t

[shadowknows69]

55. In fact I'm going to preemptively stop him from hitting me in the face

Whenever possible.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Oregone]

5. Because no one knows 100% that they are right or wrong

To use violence when your morality is not objectively testable can cause harm to those who are innocent. How can you be justified to use force if you can never "know" your position is justifiable?

[ColbertWatcher]

9. Thank you! Wow.

I didn't think everyone replying was going to be so bloodthirsty.

For a second, the thread started to sound like a GOP rally.

[Oregone]

17. Haha...I try to be fair to the subject, since it is important.

And Im definitely see the absolute amount of gray area associated with it. You can play devil's advocate to any such side.

As long as you care about "justifications" and "social morality" its hard to reconcile its use. Once you can see that acts can occur outside of the context of a functioning social order, it becomes a much more viable idea. But again, the problem is determining beyond a doubt if the conditions are met (there is a breach of the social contract).

[undergroundpanther]

48. So Absolutism

Is what you want before you will stand up for the oppressed.

You are an enabler of abuse.

But the pacifist, like all bourgeois theoreticians, is obsessed with the lazy lust of the absolute. ‘Give me,’ they all cry, ‘absolute truth, absolute justice, some rule-of-thumb standard by which I can evade the strenuous task of finding the features of reality by intimate contact with it in action. Give me some logical talisman, some philosopher’s stone, by which I can test all acts in theory and say, this is right. Give me some principle such as, Violence is wrong, so that I can simply refrain from all violent action and know that I am right.’ But the only absolute they find is the standard of bourgeois economy. ‘Abstain from social action.’ Standards are made, not found.

Thus Pacifism, as a method of avoiding the moral guilt of violence, is selfish. The pacifist claims, as a primary duty, the right of saving his own skin. We are not concerned with whether it is ethically right for man to consider himself first.

Some pacifists, however, make a different defence. They are not concerned with their own souls. They are only thinking of others. Pacifism is the only way to stop violence and oppression. Violence breeds violence; oppression breeds oppression. How far is this argument well grounded, and not merely a rationalisation of the bourgeois illusion?

No pacifist has yet explained the causal chain by which non-resistance ends violence. It is true that it does so in this obvious way, that if no resistance is made to violent commands, no violence is necessary to enforce them. Thus if A does everything B asks him, it will not be necessary for B to use violence. But a dominating relation of this kind is in essence violent, although violence is not overtly shown. Subjection is subjection, and rapacity rapacity, even if the weakness of the victim, or the fear inspired by the victor, makes the process non-forcible. Non-resistance will not prevent it, any more than the lack of claws on the part of prey prevents carnivores battening on them. On the contrary, the carnivore selects as his victim animals of the kind. The remedy is the elimination of carnivores, that is, the extinction of classes that live by preying on others.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/1935/pacifism-violence.htm

[Oregone]

54. You have good points, but realize, I was playing Devil's advocate...

And Ive brought up similar counters here too. The entire matter is truly gray area, and I do not feel anyone can fully "justify" their position. That aside, when starving and oppressed, justifying actions according to some predetermined social system becomes the last concern of man.

[summer borealis]

7. No one at Lexington or Concord asked that.

More than once.

[plaintiff]

13. But we must remember those people were traitors.

Nu?

[kestrel91316]

10. He who throws the first blow loses the moral high ground. That's just the way it is.

[Oregone]

14. It isn't so simple

If a group of individuals must starve, be repressed, face strife everywhere they go, due to a single (or few) people who are bent at eliminating or marginalizing their existence, do not they have an inherent 'right' (the right to exist) which would justify *any* means they must take at survival? There are many scenarios where this situation may apply...

And then there is also gray area. How repressed does someone have to be to strike back (to starvation or uncomfortableness)? Does repression in itself constitute a "first blow"? If one feels their existence is threatened, or their ability to produce viable posterity (another inherent 'right'), is the question of 'moral high ground' even relevant?

[undergroundpanther]

52. The only"moral ground"

I know of is a combination of factors..The external problem/threat,The risk,The responsibility, survival and emotional states all balancing on the fulcrum of my own conscience and the level of wisdom I have at that moment I had to decide to act to make a change in a situation.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Hey, you got to do what you got to do.

:shrug:

[Cleita]

12. Because, if you can't see anything wrong with it out of principle, then you should

see that they have a bigger stick than we do. It's a matter of being smarter than them, not more violent.

[Oregone]

16. Bigger stick? Not true exactly....

How can we be defeated? We are the jury, we are the judge. Who will try us, and who will find us guilty? We are the police, and we are the soldier. Who will fight us, and who will deny us? We are every man.

The only power the ruling class effectively has is the power that the masses yield to them, in exchange for a comfortable and "fair" coexistence (terms to be fluidly agreed upon and adhered to as a social contract). Once that social contract is abused, the power is no longer in surrender. It is at such a point the ruling class most decide whether it is more cost effective to *attempt* to win a war with a disloyal army, or to capitulate to the demands of the masses. If the masses can remember these basic principles, their power is infinite.

[pipi_k]

15. Because using violence as a first resort is what

Bush and Company would do.


Why stoop to the level of common criminals?



Try to do it non violently first

if that doesn't work, then I'm all for a bit of kicking and punching

or whatever...

[cliffordu]

18. Because they will kill you for it.

And don;t you doubt it for one second.

kent state.

[ColbertWatcher]

19. ***Just an FYI, I changed the OP after some of the comments were already posted.***

So, don't think they're being as blood thirsty as it may seem at first glance.

[Downtown Hound]

20. It's counterproductive

You may or may not be justified in your use of violence against this government. The question is, is it effective? Personally, it seems to me that every major social change movement that has happened throughout the history of the United States has largely been done through non-violent means. Non-violence is not only more humane, but ultimately more effective.

[ColbertWatcher]

25. Thank you for your thoughtful response! n/t

[Kip Humphrey]

22. What kind of world do you want to create by your actions? A peaceful one or a violent one? /nt

[readmoreoften]

23. Because online interactions are archived, its not a good idea to state obvious truths.

Allowing violence to continue by inaction, handwringing, prayer, etc. is participation in violence in my view. It's a view that has me rather depressed at times because it certainly contains self-condemnation.

[readmoreoften]

24. Well, I didn't read the whole "first resort" thing. That makes it a no-brainer.

If you're violent without provocation, you're a bully or a fascist. But "violence" itself is a weasel word. A tyrant robbing your community of water rights and condemning you to die of thirst would be a form of violence. A terroristic threat from one in a position of power is also a violent act: if the mayor on television says that X group is an enemy of the people and "maybe" members of X group should be executed in the streets, that is a first strike. Of course, responding violently to such a pronouncement would only make the mayor's prophecy self-fulfilling, which is why so many "denounced" groups resort to non-violence for tactical rather than moral reasons.

[ColbertWatcher]

27. Good point about the tyrant and water. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

26. Countdown kick. n/t

[BlooInBloo]

28. Generally, that's what weak people say. Read The Geneaology of Morals for the full story.

[ColbertWatcher]

32. Thank you. n/t

[lonestarnot]

29. because violence breeds violence, and then more violence. Violence is horny.

:evilgrin:

[ColbertWatcher]

33. Drill, baby, drill! n/t

[lonestarnot]

34. Snort!

:rofl:

[cobalt1999]

30. Because the violence would never stop.

Imagine each of the hundreds of special interest groups in this country alone all resorting to violence as a first resort.

Chaos.

Anti-abortionists, libertarians, environmentalists, vegans, religious groups by the dozens, anti-tax, prayer in school, intelligent designers, and on, and on, and....ALL resorting to violence first.

Like that would really work.

[undergroundpanther]

44. Distinguish

Between the violence of the oppressor and the oppressed.
Pacifism FAILS because it does not recognize this so it ends up enabling the very evil it claims to stop.
A pacifist position rests firmly on a fallacy. A pacifist thinks that a person as an individual has power. This fact goes unrecognized as the pacifist is hoping everyone will take the pacifist viewpoint and passively resisting
The insistence upon Pacifism as the one and only course of "action" to take in the fight for liberation
http://www.anarchistnews.org/?q=node/1954

But in fact the bourgeois had no desire for such a(pacifist) world. He lived by merchandising and banking, by capital as opposed to the land which was the basis of feudal exploitation. Therefore he meant by the ‘absence of social restraints’,

Therefore, in throwing off all social restraint, the bourgeois seemed to himself justified in retaining this one restraint of private property, for it did not seem to him a restraint at all, but an inalienable right of man, the fundamental natural right.

Unfortunately for this theory, there are no natural rights, only situations found in nature, and private property protected for one man by others is not one of them. Bourgeois private property could only be protected by coercion – the have-nots had to be coerced by the haves after all, just as in feudal society.

Thus a dominating relation as violent as in slave-owning civilisations came into being, expressed in the police, the laws, the standing army, and the legal apparatus of the bourgeois State. The whole bourgeois State revolves round the coercive protection of private property, alienable and acquirable by trading for private profit, and regarded as a natural right, but a right which, strangely enough, can only be protected by coercion, because it involves of its essence a right to dispose of and extract profit from the labour-power of others, and so administer their lives.
This, then, is the analysis of bourgeois violence. It is not like something that descends from heaven for a time to madden the human race. It is implicit in the bourgeois illusion.

The whole bourgeois economy is built on the violent domination of men by men through the private possession of social capital.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/1935/pacifism-violence.htm

[cobalt1999]

57. Who is the "oppressor" and who is "oppressed" is often subjective.

Anti-Abortionists feel oppressed by a government that "kills babies" and a supreme court that doesn't respond like they would like, and sometimes resort to violence to force their standards on the country.

Some rabid Animal Activists feel the same anger and occasionally resort to violence to make the world bend to their viewpoint.

Ted Kandinsky resorted to violence to enable his worldview upon the rest of us too.

You, apparently, have some communist viewpoint that you'd like to have the world adopt.

You say to distinguish, but that is impossible and each group in the world sometimes feels they are the oppressed and should resort to violence.

I would ask you why any argument you can make for violence couldn't be applied to, say, anti-abortionists just as successfully. Therein, is the fundamental flaw in a violent first approach.

[TahitiNut]

31. The first objective of any government is to establish a monopoly on violence.

The Second Amendment notwithstanding, the "monopoly on violence" is the common objective of all governments in the history of the world.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Monopoly-on-the-legitimate-use-of-physical-force
http://www.counterpunch.org/solomon04082004.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_the_legitimate_use_of_physical_force

To challenge that legitimacy by employing violence is to challenge the very legitimacy of that government. That's why it's called "revolution."

[ColbertWatcher]

35. Thank you for your links! n/t

[The Magistrate]

37. A Pleasure To See Someone Else State It Flatly, Sir

[TahitiNut]

39. Well, it's one of those seminal themes that leads to better understanding of politics.

Max Weber did folks a service by presenting this so clearly ... whether or not one thinks it 'right' or 'wrong.' The very framing itself gives us a way of discussing the nature of the state that's very useful. Western political thought is very heavily influenced by Weber.

[undergroundpanther]

49. Exactly Tahiti!!

Pacifism is a fantasy.

[Cerridwen]

38. Where do we draw the line?

Who determines the line?

Is the line different if we're of one age, say, over 18, from the line if we're under 18 (as an example)? Should we beat on people with less power and authority than we have or just those with more power and authority?

Shall we teach children to commit violence so they can take all the toys? Shall we resort to beating someone with whom we disagree or just those who have something we want? Maybe we should just duel to the death (or maybe just "first blood") for jobs rather than submit resumes.

I remember a time when some of us thought that peace and peaceful ways were signs of human evolution or of humans maturing into something beyond the "caveman" or the "barbarian." Now we embrace retribution, punishment, submission to "authority" regardless of the authority's wisdom or honor.

What's next? Blood feuds? How far back into our brutal past shall we regress?

If we start now, we could perhaps wipe out humanity in just a few generations; one person at a time. Who needs nukes?

[undergroundpanther]

51. We have to eventually take a RISK

And stand up for each other's human rights when some thug is stomping us . Eventually life will bear upon you until you have to take the risk.Either we might have been mistaken or done the right thing. You are dead inside if you fail to ACT within the events around you and risk is part of life,you know.

Risk there is no escaping it.
Responsibility it exists too.
Each of us HAS to balance both on the fulcrum of our OWN conscience.
This is the Process of ethical wisdom deepening itself by experiences that challenge your beliefs.
There is no magic 8 ball telling you right from wrong.Either you risk and do what your best intentions are or enable evil.Either way a CHOICE has to be made,
Decide and DO SOMETHING..to help.


The illusions of cowards ,Security,pacifism ,absolutes etc.Need to go.

[Cerridwen]

58. My post was in response to the edited OP in which the OP stated

"as a first resort".

It was not intended as a response to "what do you do when someone ELSE 'throws the first punch'?"

[Norwood]

40. Its not

If someone wants to use violence against you I think its perfectly acceptable to retaliate. Don't let someone walk all over you, some people only understand force.

[undergroundpanther]

41. Violence

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life. --Theodore Roosevelt

My main Beef with Pacifism
Pacifism fails to distinguish between the violence of the oppressors, and the violence of the oppressed.
secondly it cannot exist in this world.unless it becomes ENABLING of perpetrator violence.

The Illusion of Pacifism

The problem with pacifism is not that it's mistaken or impractical (although it is), nor that it's an illusion indulged in by people whose own safety is protected by non-pacifists (although it is), nor that non-violence has probably caused more loss of life and suffering than it has prevented (although it has) nor even that the record of pacifists in supporting brutal, corrupt and repressive regimes is at least as bad as that of the CIA (although it is). The problem with pacifism is simply that it does not exist.

http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/ProblemWithPacifism.HTM

[Poseidan]

42. because we are not dumb beasts!

What is the point of violence? In nature, it was for survival. In society, violence almost always achieves the opposite of survival.

[undergroundpanther]

45. We are not beasts

BUT some people behave like monsters,and they rape children,torture and ruin every social relation they can get away with ruining.It is because of WHO they are.
I am referring to the ruthless among us,the abusers, psychopaths ,authoritarians and violent narcissists.They can't be"rehabbed",cured or changed because they see nothing wrong with themselves,they have NO inner sense of control or ethics or conscience,no remorse or shame.Those mechanisms are what that allows humanity to co-exist without having to be a beast to survive.

These bad personalities know right from wrong but they do not care who gets hurt they'll do it regardless. These personalities would just LOVE everyone else to be pacifists than they'd be totally FREE of ANY social limits or restraints upon their appetites,greed and other behaviors that cause such trauma and suffering to us .


The nature of "evil" is that, unless a person is a sociopath or psychopath, their tendency to harm others is ties to how much it benefits them, and how they rationalize hurting others..

No pacifist has yet explained the process by which non-resistance ends violence.Another assumption of pacifists have is a solipsism and absolutism bordering on a utopian fantasy. This belief that all people are alike..claiming that all human beings doing violence will wilt at the sight the defenseless victim as if that will always arouse pity.THIS PITY EFFECT DOES NOT APPLY TO ALL PEOPLE THE SAME WAY. Current crimes and historical crimes proves this fact.

Psychopaths won't stop being violent or abusive because they LACK internal restraints,a conscience,shame and empathy things required to have a social moral sense . So the bad must be restrained by force by imposed outside limits,reinforced by others .So if milder forms of control fail to stop them than what??
Should we all lay down and let them rape,abuse,beat,oppress and traumatize us all they want to?

And how is that position anything but ENABLING the very violence pacifists claim they wish to end?

Psychopaths,authoritarians and abusers do harm because it is in their parasitic self interests to oppress others for selfish reasons.

[RedCappedBandit]

43. Violence leads to more violence. Period.

[undergroundpanther]

47. Depends on how it is applied

If it is to throw off an oppressor,a rapist or torturer or imperialist invasion...To protect others from harm,yes it IS justified.

Pacifism FAILS to be JUST,in the face of fascism,psychopathy and abuse.It ENABLES violence to the oppressed the victimized and traumatized.

Ask the Jews in Germany under Hitler if just doing as they were told was right,ask a torture victim if just taking it did anything but traumatize him , ask a battered wife if all her appeasement of her abuser stopped her from being pummeled..

[krispos42]

46. In the macro, only massive violence forces change

This election, well over 100,000,000 people will vote. How many people will join a riot? A few tens of thousands if you're lucky? And in the unguided, goal-less "mob" form, to boot, accomplishing nothing except destruction.

However, the public spectacle of rioting can achieve change in some circumstances, when there are enough angry people in a small enough space to actually achieve some kind of temporary parity with law enforcement. And perhaps our elected officials should always have this in the backs of their minds.


But progress as a society cannot occur during wartime destruction.

How can you progress when one side or the other is constantly in a state of rebellion? Democrats pass a bill lowering interest rates on student loans so there's an uprising? Increasing the minimum wage results in an insurgency?



Soap box, ballot box, jury box, cartridge box. In that order.

[undergroundpanther]

50. Things change,We change.

All of this thinking,changing is happening in proximity with each other,and it will have an impact,maybe it will be hard to detect it now ,but it IS changing..

When the majority catches up it will be like the tectonic plates of many minds shifting what operates in the unconscious to conscious awareness.If required the force of necessity will force the re-erupting of reality to punch through that denial,diffuse that overpowering fear of the unknown and undo that thick sense of powerlessness.

It begins with the death of certain old beliefs. The breaking down continues in earnest once all the assumed comforts and security blankets are gone and in the harshest conditions there the transformation happens,the pressure points evolve. Alive when you are in the thick of it all alongside other revolutionaries living it creating it on auto pilot moment by moment. We are running the path like runners with linked arms swirling in clusters with no winners or losers.There will be a point when we will move together(100th monkey)..

Destruction has to happen sometimes to make room for another kind of growth,I am not talking physically only. We need to tear down many kinds of structures from how we live our lives,our thinking to in the way our culture is arranged. When this outmoded"top-down empire" "system" devours itself, we might discover something as we all realize the pyramidal relationship could never hold onto us if we wanted to continue.The Economy and this "lifestyle" and those who perpetuate it to maintain their position,parasite lifestyles and power represented as 'money' that we live in is dying. Because it HAS to die. This old model of our cultural arrangement has ceased to function and evolve with US.It has become suicide and ecocide.We have to LET IT GO.Cherish the proximity and the social connections that help us hold onto each other.That network will be our safety net.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A collective intelligence will be unable to thrive as long as its participants are obliged to compete with one another in attaining this scarce resource called money. This impasse demands a new type of currency,one that is: free, open,collective, democratic, decentralized, sufficient, distributed, has ample volume and is based on a real ­time, self­ regulated repartition in keeping with true needs of supply and demand.

There is no doubt that Collective Intelligence is now lurking and being expressed just beneath the surface of the questions we are raising. Humanity's stakes rely less in the nature of the issues than its capacity to invent social structures able to solve them,or even better: not producing them anymore. This makes Collective Intelligence a survival and evolutionary stake for humankind...The transition might be as unexpected as brutal, and it might seriously impact national currencies.
Jean­François Noubel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is step one,The Pain of Realization:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You will not likely wake up one day to find that democracy in America has finally come to an end. There will not be any breaking news to this effect. More than likely, you will still hear the usual regurgitations coming across the MSM (mainstream media) and you may even hear an occasional report that seems critical of a government policy. But you will not likely find out how un-free you really are unless you step out of line and challenge the politico-corporate puppeteers who pull the strings. For the majority of Americans who never realize that they are at the other end of those strings, life will seem pretty much the same as ever. That, we think, would be the biggest tragedy. Edward Bernays
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have seen the changes happening with my own eyes,if you stop and look around you might begin to see it too.Look along the fringes of your thoughts ,just barely there in your perception.The edges of the fractal between order and chaos.

[shadowknows69]

56. What if the society in question has already stopped progressing

And it needs a sea change to get in in the right direction. If you let a wound fester long enough sometimes you have to cut off a limb to save the body.

[krispos42]

60. Then it wouldn't be the first resort

It would be "we've tried everything else, start the revolution" kind of event.

Even then it would probably need to be initiated by some outside, polarizing event like a famine, invasion, or economic collapse.

[ColbertWatcher]

53. Thursday morning kick. n/t

[DireStrike]

59. My take is that it would be ineffective.

The fascist power structures can deal with anything that protesters could throw out, many times over. And it would hurt our cause, in the hearts and minds department.

The only form of physical violence that the system would be vulnerable to is asymmetric warfare - terrorism. Anything short of that would not accomplish anything. Terrorism could indeed cause damage. Our infrastructure is massively vulnerable. What would that accomplish though? Everyone in the country would hate you.

People are too comfortable to engage in revolution. Too happy, I guess you could say. The value of maintaining their normal life is far higher than the amount of change they could cause by throwing it away in warfare against a vastly superior enemy. Even as the value that can be had in being a wage slave continues to decrease, year after year. The numbers just aren't there. Not even close.

You might succeed in making them waste more money on security measures. Which is in effect a further militarization and polarization of the country. You'd wind up giving them more power. You'd be destabilizing things, and who is in a position to assert their will in this country, in that environment? It sure as hell ain't violent protestors.

If you have a scenario where violence could accomplish something in the situation we're in, I'd like to hear it, just for the shock value. I don't think there is one.

This isn't the first or only argument against violence, but it is the best. The only argument FOR violence would be that it could accomplish things. No, it cannot. Not in America today.