• Geldaran@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I agree with you in principle. It sucks a well-worded dissenting opinion is getting downvoted. I’m not an advocate for political killings. But I want to pose a counter question… When does it become acceptable to cross this line? When can an otherwise reasonable person give up on a broken system, and go from political resistance to violent resistance? Because for a lot of people, their rights, their lives, and their futures are under attack. Both politically AND with the full force of the government.

    • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      I take issue with your question because it conflates two completely separate things as the same. There’s a very difference between a “system” and an “individual”, especially when that person is a private citizen. Ideally, political violence should be a line that’s never crossed, however, we don’t live in an ideal world. If people are tired of the system they live under, and they have no meaningful way of getting change then violence might be inevitable. However, in these cases people go after the system itself. That means the actual institutions that keep the system in place. Want an example? Look at what’s happening right now in Nepal.

      What you don’t do to fight a system is shoot a private citizen over their political views. That’s not meaningful resistance, that’s just violence. It doesn’t do anything or change anything, all it does is help establish a dangerous precedent where violence becomes an acceptable part of political discourse. Don’t like someone’s political views? Shoot them, they probably deserved it anyway… at least that’s what people here are saying to justify it, but what these don’t understand is that it’s a two way street. Just as you cheer and condone political violence, others can as well, including the people you don’t like. You can’t condemn people you don’t like for doing it but then cheer for the same actions when the people you like do it, because you’ll just be a hypocrite and your words will hold no weight. It’s not a defensible position.

      It should be noted that for any principle to mean anything, it is absolutely mandatory for it to be applied fairly and universally. If we want to remain a society that values civil liberties, then those have to extend to everyone, including those who you don’t like don’t or don’t agree with, and this includes people with vile views. When a system becomes a dysfunctional mess, it means that it has deviated significantly from it’s founding principles, and a new system needs to take it’s place to embody them. However, if the people no longer believe in civil liberties for all, then we’re looking at a very grim future because we would have tyranny’s pandora’s box.

      • Geldaran@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I don’t know your backgrounds or motivations, but that simple a response feels flippant.

        I too believe that you should obviously resist and try to counter someone who wants to stamp down the “other” just because they are the other. But simple talk probably shouldn’t warrant execution, unless you want those same rules to apply against you as well. Fight them with words and actions, yes. Discredit the speaker and their ideas, embarrass them, ostracize them. Drive them and their bass-ackwards views out of polite society. I know this is difficult in the current environment. They appear to have no shame. But I think the bar for for violence has to be higher.

        I wont shed any tears for this guy. I wont use his name. I want him to be forgotten. But I don’t think his killing should be celebrated either.

        • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          i am saying that the time to act is now. unless you want to wait until the genocide starts. it sounded flippant because it was.