Marching doesn’t accomplish much, but I marched in some of the Take Back the Night marches back in the day. I think I’m ready to jump in the middle of a domestic and get myself killed, but I haven’t been tested yet.
No, I’m not a pacifist. In terms of politics I believe in exhausting all non-violent options and using violence only as an absolute last resort for the most urgent of issues. So far we’re a long ways off from having exhausted all non-violent options, thus I oppose violent rhetoric.
Are you claiming that making drugs illegal is violent? That’s a pretty out there take.
I do think crossing the border illegally should be a crime, I just think that we should allow anyone who wants to move here legally to do so within reason. Background checks done in good faith, making the system efficient and capable of handling much larger numbers, then setting the limit to avoid too much chaos would be my preferred policy.
Advocating military action by a government is also different from what we’re talking about in this thread or with NBZ in the past.
There is no comparison between the two. Assad has gassed civilians. There’s a risk of genocide there every single day. Trump is doing some terrible things here, but we’re nowhere near that. Further, you’re talking about people who do not have non-violent recourse and who are fighting to defend their lives.
There’s a reason Bernie is always talking about political revolution. We do need revolution to make changes in our political and economic system so that it works fairly for everyone. That revolution does not need to be violent. So to discuss violent revolution here is inappropriate, immoral and unproductive.
I assume you mean what is the difference between Assad gassing his civilians and Trump (and every other recent American POTUS) killing innocent people in those ways?
The simple answer is that Assad is doing it as the primary objective, whereas American presidents who have that blood on their hands almost always have it as collateral damage. Now we can certainly discuss whether or not that’s okay - IMO it comes down to where the line should be drawn and Trump is way over the line - but I wouldn’t consider anything any American president has done in my lifetime as akin to Assad.
I think both these things are violent and morally worse takes than, say, advocating for the assassination of a fascist. I guess it’s possible that someone who thinks drugs should be illegal is just a well intentioned idiot, but that’s a stretch.
I know it’s different, but I think advocating for military action by a government is not necessarily better. It depends on the action. I think you’re just as liable morally for supporting government sponsored violence as you are for supporting revolutionary or personal violence though.
Given how frequently you end up in these arguments, maybe you should consider the possibility that the other side’s view actually has some merit and that your framing of it as “violent rhetoric” is absurdly hyperbolic. You’ve demanded that a lot of people make concessions to meet your standards. You might consider making a few of your own and recognize that your own opinion is pretty extreme.
It’s not like the thread was just me and NBZ cackling gleefully about putting heads on spikes. There were quite a few long time regs not known for any sort of extremism who thought it was a good idea and wanted to participate. I believe at least two of them were lawyers. It may not be everybody else’s compass that’s askew.
I guess I’m a well intentioned idiot, because I think plenty of drugs should be illegal. Obviously not weed. I don’t see anything wrong with keeping immigration as orderly as possible while limiting it as little as possible and creating a quick/reasonable road to citizenship.
Depends on which government sponsored violence you mean. I would put advocating for our current system of policing as just as bad. Advocating for military action to help defend the Kurds, say, is a completely different story.
Do you have a cite on that number? I thought it was like 10-15K. And I’m extremely upset about what’s going on at our border, what our government is doing, and how little we’ve done to fix it. I’ve lost a lot of sleep over it, and I feel personally responsible in any number of ways. But we have a non-violent recourse to fix that, we’re just collectively doing a shit job of using it.
How is it appropriate or moral to advocate for violent means to an end that can be achieved more quickly through non-violent means?
My view may be pretty extreme here but that highlights the extremity of this group relative to the population, not the other way around.
It does seem to me that I’m on the edge of the Overton window for this community, which I didn’t think was the case until recently. My opinion is that this community has shifted its tolerance of violence pretty far, but it’s possible that I wasn’t aware of those positions because they hadn’t come to light.
Either way, you’re right that maybe in the context of this forum, I’m the one who’s the outsider or “problem” in which case perhaps I’m not welcome to the extent that I cannot quietly coexist with this type of posting, and my reactions to it are annoying to a significant percentage of the community.
Yeah, that’s what I was referring to with “in this regard.” Of course I’m trying to change people’s opinions and advocate for what I believe to be the best set of rules.
That you just assume people are against it. That nobody on this forum has participated in it. That it’s a done deal. The whole attitude pisses me off. It’s this complacency that allows it to happen. There is zero chance there isn’t a male on this forum that has acted violently to a woman at some time in his life, but oh no everyone here is fucking great it’s only bad families this shit happens in. That’s how your attitude comes across and let me tell you domestic violence affects all stratospheres of society it doesn’t just happen on the bad side of town!!!
But, we know that the ultra rich and powerful are not going to face consequences. We have centuries of proof of this.
When you demonize immigrants or minorities, we actually do see elevated violence against those groups. Hate crimes have risen substantially in the USA in recent years. In the last couple of years of being more outspoken against the 1% what is the worst thing to happen to any of these people that haven’t committed a non associated crime? They’ve had to read some mean tweets?
There is just an insane difference between theorizing punishment against the underclass vs the ruling class. I haven’t been giddy on violence against billionaires, but I also realize this is a thing with a 0% chance of happening. When there are people giddy about police abusing minorities or whatever on CP, they are happy about things that happen every day and they might even be in roles that perpetuate such!
Cuse, you say you have a nonviolent means to ending kids in cages. What if Trump wins again? What if he loses, but don’t abdicate and throws his opponent in jail? What then? These are realistic situations that certainly add up to around 50% chance of happening in under a year!
Being considered extreme relative to the general US population is a very good thing. I might consider it a bare minimum for being a decent person. Not being outside accepted US norms is a depressingly low bar to set.
I apologize that I came off that way, I’m really sorry. There are ~300 people here, mostly men, so I’m sure some have participated in some form of domestic violence in some way. You’re definitely right about that. But I have no way of knowing who/what/when, so I can’t just attack people for it. I haven’t seen any opinions expressed that are pro domestic violence, or I’d go after it. I’m also extremely confident that more than 90% of regulars here would be in agreement on the vast majority of related issues, would condemn incidents if they knew of them, etc.
So I’m not sure what exactly you think I should be doing in this regard that I’m currently not, but I’m certainly open to hearing it and considering it. I’ve spoken out against some forms of objectification and sexism on here, probably not often enough though, and for that I’m sorry. Generally the attitude of the offenders in that regard has been to laugh it off, call me a snowflake, etc, and no progress has been made - as a result I haven’t called it out every single time I’ve seen it.
I’ve dated women who have opened up a little bit about domestic violence/sexual assault in their past, and I’m sure plenty who have chosen not to talk about it or disclose what they’ve experienced… My attitude in those situations is to be supportive however I think I can, but one of the reasons it’s a challenge for society is that it’s not happening in front of us so it’s hard to call people out for stuff that we don’t know is happening.
A small example would be a guy I play poker with regularly who says sexist stuff a lot and objectifies women. My situational awareness tells me that getting “preachy” and using facts and logic is not going to make the slightest difference to his attitude/views, so my response is generally to make fun of him for it at the table and usually a couple others will join in. Again, I’m open to criticism and feedback of my handling of this type of stuff… My best current understanding/opinion is that we have to root out rape culture by pushing back against things guys say when nobody else is around and by stepping up when we see things unfolding. Unfortunately, it usually happens behind closed doors. Any time I’ve seen anything actually happen that was heading that direction (two or three incidents come to mind) I’ve done what I could to step in.
I have no problem with being outspoken against most of the 1%. In fact, I support it. I am outspoken about it. Just in non-violent ways. Tax them, jail them for breaking the law, write laws to prevent some of the immoral things they’re doing, then jail them when they break them.
We should be marching in the streets en masse already, we should be doing it if that happens. We should be using our protest power, political power, etc to hold the eDems accountable for taking an absolute moral stand on this issue.
In this scenario I would advocate for massive non-violent protests, and I would encourage people not to start violence but to refuse to give up the streets and to defend themselves if necessary.
My attitude is that from now until the election we should be focused on doing everything we can to try to land in the other 50% of possible outcomes. If he wins again, we should be doing everything we can to use peaceful means to force our way politically on issues like child detention. And to be clear, I am ashamed of myself for not doing more on this already. I think it makes me a bad person, to a degree.
I would agree with you on some issues, but certainly not on the topic at hand (political violence, rhetoric, etc).
I think that all of these discussions about violence have started getting to me. Seeing people put such time and effort into getting their way with how the forum presents itself yet there’s barely a mention of domestic violence on here. It just seems like typical A grade privileged white male bs.
Men are the main perpetrators of violence yet are generally invisible when it comes to solutions. I recently went to an AGM of a domestic violence support service and of the 50 or so people there 3 were men. It makes me sad that countless threads have been made on this site regarding violence yet nobody has seen fit to make one about domestic violence which is so prolific and damaging. Makes me feel very, very sad.
All that said, I will be doing some thinking about what zikzak and vict0ar said, I think they made some fair points about whether or not I belong here. And before anyone else chimes in on this, I know a majority of people here enjoy a majority of my posts and generally like me as a poster.
That said, I have strong views on this that I cannot set aside and my views appear to run counter to the overall tenor and mood of the community, which ranges from supporting this type of rhetoric to not caring about it much to opposing it, but not feeling a need to take a firm stand on it. Engaging in arguments like this every few weeks is not productive in my life, and it’s going to annoy a lot of people around here while being unproductive here as well. If I thought some good (in my view) could come from annoying people around here on this subject, there might be a case for continuing to fight on the issue. But I think minds are made up.
So really it’s for me to decide whether or not I can be a part of a community with that range of views. I don’t think I can, so I’m probably going to step aside and post rarely - maybe I’ll aim for once a month or something.