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Choosing to substitute a general principle instead of reading about the particular event as it happened 50 years ago... that likely informed the formation of th

by lkey 11mo ago

Choosing to substitute a general principle instead of reading about the particular event as it happened 50 years ago... that likely informed the formation of that principle... When you have nothing to add, say nothing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_transition_to_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_transition_to_democrac... Or have the courtesy to do the reading.

graemep 11mo ago
A Wikipedia article would not give me sufficient knowledge to judge the effect of violent resistance. There was a fairly peaceful transition. Would teenagers throwing Molotov cocktails have helped or hindered this? Would peaceful protest or passive resistance have been better? I do not know. The general principle is more than adequate as a counter to the comment I replied to. You should not assume that is what you would do if you lived in a dictatorship.
- lkey 11mo ago
  Shorter you: I'd rather not learn things, even a little, before commenting. Did you even read the entire article? | You should not assume that is what you would do if you lived in a dictatorship. No, one cannot. That said, there are people here that have made those decisions, and that are making them right now. It's strange that you have assumed of me that this could not be true. I will only say that I've made my decisions and my conscience is clear. What you can decide right now what your principles are. One of mine is that resistance against a violent authoratarian state, including violent resistance, is morally justified. Whether it is most effective or not is a matter for organizers, historians, and arm-chair quarterbacks like yourself.
  - graemep 11mo ago
    What you are missing is that it could actually be harmful. You may have noticed that "fighting terrorism" often provides governments with an excuse for greater repression. Have you read the comment I replied to? it was saying that violence was definitely the right thing to do. > One of mine is that resistance against a violent authoratarian state, including violent resistance, is morally justified. Without even considering the consequences? I believe that one of the criteria for morally justifying violence has to be that the consequences or using violence as better than any available non-violent alternative. I think that is a fundamental different of values. > and arm-chair quarterbacks like yourself. I have lived in a country where 1) multiple groups of people were using violence to do what they considered to be fighting oppression, 2) I have come pretty close to bombs they planted, and 3) the end results not only included huge numbers of deaths, but also let the government get away with things such as disappearing journalists who opposed them. I am a lot less of an arm-chair observer than I guess you are.
    - lkey 11mo ago
      | often provides governments with an excuse for greater repression. Fallacious assumption. They don't need an excuse. They will invent one if they feel it is required. "Look what you made me do" is the logic of abusers, large and small. No amount of conspicuous rule-following will stop them from calling you a genetically violent degenerate, unworthy of compassion when it suits their ends. Nothing will stop them from revoking your right to exist at a moment's notice. This isn't to say that we shouldn't do what it takes to survive, but harm-reduction and resistance are different things altogether. Solidarity and primarily non-violent resistance are my preferences, and I believe they are also the preference of most people, until circumstances drastically deteriorate. However, I'm not going to second-guess a molotov thrown by a teenager's friend 50 years ago in Franco's Spain. Especially when the response to that incident was 3 years of psychological and medical torture. The scales are not balanced, and our focus should be on the people that actually wielded power for great evil, rather than ahistorical hypotheticals. | [I]t was saying that violence was definitely the right thing to do. | I believe that one of the criteria for morally justifying violence has to be that the consequences or using violence as better than any available non-violent alternative. I think that is a fundamental different of values. You are demanding that individuals who are being harmed by ongoing state violence see all possible futures and choose the optimal one for most people (themselves excluded). In so doing, you hold individuals living under unceasingly violent regimes to a much higher standard than the regime itself, which is free to act in arbitrary ways. This is an utterly unbalanced position that demands passivity or flight. | I am a lot less of an arm-chair observer than I guess you are. I will not discuss my situation online, probably not for a decade. That said, I am sorry you had to live through what you did, and I am glad you made it out. I still weep for those who we've lost, even as I write this. We all deserve a better, kinder world. As a point of reconciliation, and without pulling directly from current conflicts. I think that if every British agent in Sri Lanka perpetrating the ‘Divide and Rule’ Strategy had been exiled or killed in 1815 (with violence and malice aforethought), the history that you had to endure would have been orders of magnitude less bloody, do you disagree?

by lkey 11mo ago

graemep 11mo ago

A Wikipedia article would not give me sufficient knowledge to judge the effect of violent resistance. There was a fairly peaceful transition. Would teenagers throwing Molotov cocktails have helped or hindered this? Would peaceful protest or passive resistance have been better? I do not know. The general principle is more than adequate as a counter to the comment I replied to. You should not assume that is what you would do if you lived in a dictatorship.

lkey 11mo ago
Shorter you: I'd rather not learn things, even a little, before commenting. Did you even read the entire article? | You should not assume that is what you would do if you lived in a dictatorship. No, one cannot. That said, there are people here that have made those decisions, and that are making them right now. It's strange that you have assumed of me that this could not be true. I will only say that I've made my decisions and my conscience is clear. What you can decide right now what your principles are. One of mine is that resistance against a violent authoratarian state, including violent resistance, is morally justified. Whether it is most effective or not is a matter for organizers, historians, and arm-chair quarterbacks like yourself.
- graemep 11mo ago
  What you are missing is that it could actually be harmful. You may have noticed that "fighting terrorism" often provides governments with an excuse for greater repression. Have you read the comment I replied to? it was saying that violence was definitely the right thing to do. > One of mine is that resistance against a violent authoratarian state, including violent resistance, is morally justified. Without even considering the consequences? I believe that one of the criteria for morally justifying violence has to be that the consequences or using violence as better than any available non-violent alternative. I think that is a fundamental different of values. > and arm-chair quarterbacks like yourself. I have lived in a country where 1) multiple groups of people were using violence to do what they considered to be fighting oppression, 2) I have come pretty close to bombs they planted, and 3) the end results not only included huge numbers of deaths, but also let the government get away with things such as disappearing journalists who opposed them. I am a lot less of an arm-chair observer than I guess you are.
  - lkey 11mo ago
    | often provides governments with an excuse for greater repression. Fallacious assumption. They don't need an excuse. They will invent one if they feel it is required. "Look what you made me do" is the logic of abusers, large and small. No amount of conspicuous rule-following will stop them from calling you a genetically violent degenerate, unworthy of compassion when it suits their ends. Nothing will stop them from revoking your right to exist at a moment's notice. This isn't to say that we shouldn't do what it takes to survive, but harm-reduction and resistance are different things altogether. Solidarity and primarily non-violent resistance are my preferences, and I believe they are also the preference of most people, until circumstances drastically deteriorate. However, I'm not going to second-guess a molotov thrown by a teenager's friend 50 years ago in Franco's Spain. Especially when the response to that incident was 3 years of psychological and medical torture. The scales are not balanced, and our focus should be on the people that actually wielded power for great evil, rather than ahistorical hypotheticals. | [I]t was saying that violence was definitely the right thing to do. | I believe that one of the criteria for morally justifying violence has to be that the consequences or using violence as better than any available non-violent alternative. I think that is a fundamental different of values. You are demanding that individuals who are being harmed by ongoing state violence see all possible futures and choose the optimal one for most people (themselves excluded). In so doing, you hold individuals living under unceasingly violent regimes to a much higher standard than the regime itself, which is free to act in arbitrary ways. This is an utterly unbalanced position that demands passivity or flight. | I am a lot less of an arm-chair observer than I guess you are. I will not discuss my situation online, probably not for a decade. That said, I am sorry you had to live through what you did, and I am glad you made it out. I still weep for those who we've lost, even as I write this. We all deserve a better, kinder world. As a point of reconciliation, and without pulling directly from current conflicts. I think that if every British agent in Sri Lanka perpetrating the ‘Divide and Rule’ Strategy had been exiled or killed in 1815 (with violence and malice aforethought), the history that you had to endure would have been orders of magnitude less bloody, do you disagree?