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No matter how legitimate the message may be, violence is certainly not a legitimate means of getting your voice heard.

• vkou 9y ago
  Violence is an incredibly legitimate way to get your voice heard. It's why the heads of state meeting at the summit will be employing it, in order to speak. How else would they be able to expel people from large portions of the city, if not through application of violence? It's just that states only view their own use of violence as legitimate.
  • majewsky 9y ago
    1. There is a difference between "application of violence" and "threat of violence". When police asks people to stay away, 90-99% are going to comply politely. 2. You make it sound like there wasn't overwhelming support for delegitimizing use of violence by any unsanctioned actor. That implicit agreement is what enables society in the first place.
  • krapp 9y ago
    >It's just that states only view their own use of violence as legitimate. They're correct. That is the entire premise of the "monopoly on violence" which defines a state. You can possibly argue that violence is effective, but by definition it's not legitimate, unless you choose to simply disregard the framework by which that legitimacy is conferred and substitute your own, in which case your criteria become relevant to no one but yourself.
    • fghtr 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution
    • vkou 9y ago
      It's certainly a consistent position. I am inclined to agree with it, even. However, it does not follow that the state is not using violence to enable speech. State violence is still violence. The army of riot police descending on the city is there for a reason - to suppress the rights to freedom of speech and assembly for the many.