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Looting private businesses and setting fires isn’t “self-defense”.
by philwelch 6y ago
Looting private businesses and setting fires isn’t “self-defense”.
- baby 6y agoAn organism that is attacked can self defend in impredictible ways, there will be collaterals.
- efraim 6y agoThat still doesn't make looting self-defense.
- baby 6y agoIf you see the community, or the people, as a single organism. Then yes it is reacting in harmful way to an attack. And it is hard to control where the harm is directed.
- philwelch 6y agoYou’re talking about human beings who are responsible for their own actions.
- baby 6y agoAnd yet people generalize the action of a few to the whole protest.
- philwelch 6y agoYes, especially when they say things like, "If you see the community, or the people, as a single organism..."
- baby 6y agoit's like you're actively trying not to understand my comment?
- philwelch 6y agoNot at all. If looting and vandalism is “the action of a few”, then it doesn’t make sense to characterize it as “self-defense” on behalf of some collective “organism”. It’s like you switched sides and started arguing my point in the middle of the argument.
- baby 6y ago> If looting and vandalism is “the action of a few”, then it doesn’t make sense to characterize it as “self-defense” on behalf of some collective “organism”. Then we'll have to agree to disagree, opportunists don't exist without a crowd.
- efraim 6y agoWhat is the point of your comments? You mention the community as an organism that can't control where the harm is directed, that is acting in self-defense. But the people looting, breaking windows and throwing stones are individuals that chose to participate in violent riots. They are not acting in self-defense.
- baby 6y agoThe point of my comment is that you will always have bad apples, doesn't make the whole field rotten.
- philwelch 6y agoSure. If you mistreat a dog for long enough and then let it loose in a playground it may very well react by mauling random children. Usually the end result is the dog getting euthanized because it’s not capable of living peaceably within society anymore, so I’m not sure that’s really the analogy you want to go with here. I would expect grown adult humans to have better judgment.
- baby 6y agowhy not? In a lot of authoritarian state this is what happens. Look at Hong Kong.
- anigbrowl 6y agoMilitary theorists disagree.
- ixtli 6y agoNot to be flippant but, to your point, Civilization has always allowed a profitable "pillage" option if your units are on an enemy title. This is a feature of struggle.
- philwelch 6y agoAnd if that’s the answer we’re going with—that looting businesses is part of a general violent insurrection—then Trump’s threat to suppress that insurrection with military force becomes more justifiable, not less.
- GordonS 6y agoIt's drawing worldwide attention to the issue of systemic racism across the police force in the USA though, isn't it? What else do you think might get this kind of attention? Fact is, incidents like this have been happening for a long, long time, yet nothing changes.
- philwelch 6y agoThat’s the rationalization of a terrorist.
- GordonS 6y agoI think we need to be very careful before throwing around that word - it's something the authorities band around a lot, usually when it fits their political narrative. I don't think we should any further dilute the term. I think it's ludicrous to call a spontaneous out-pouring of despair and anger, after being wronged so badly for so long, an act of "terrorism".
- philwelch 6y agoThankfully that’s not what I said. I said that was the rationalization of a terrorist, and it is. Committing violent acts against third parties to gain attention for some grievance is inexcusable, and if your rationalization is that “it works”, then perhaps the best response is to ensure that such tactics never work so as to eliminate the incentive to engage in them.