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Exposing emails, hacking the FBI? This is not at all helpful. Murdering politicians, assassinating police officers and judges, freeing the wrongly imprisoned

Exposing emails, hacking the FBI? This is not at all helpful. Murdering politicians, assassinating police officers and judges, freeing the wrongly imprisoned by force. A willingness to die fighting. Any or all of those would change things, possibly for the better. But this, this is a waste of your time and ours.

mseebach 14y ago
So, here's a free piece of advice: Put away the Guy Fawkes mask, turn down the RATM and read a book. You live in a real democracy. Not a perfect one, those don't exist, a real one. That makes you more free than most people alive today and all the dead ones. All of them. Your frustration shouldn't primarily sourced in the brokenness of the system, but in how the vast majority of your co-citizens disagree with you that it's broken - or, at least, fundamentally disagrees with what the solution is. Your mission as a citizen in a democracy is to convince your fellow citizens that this is wrong and that it should be fixed. The second you pick up a weapon, you lose. Game over.
eksith 14y ago
Can you say martial law? I know several officers who belong on either side of the integrity fence. Losing the bad ones violently will only turn the good ones against whatever good you're hoping to accomplish. This is absolutely the worst thing they could do. There are plenty of politicians, police officers and judges who are doing everything they can to free those wrongly imprisoned. Besides that, not everyone who works inside the "machine" is evil; most are just doing their jobs to whatever capacity they can and I assure you, they don't sleep well when their work is used for injustice. Violence is the worst option. Ask India. They got independence peacefully after violent rebellion failed.
- throwaway2048 14y ago
  At the time India gained independence, the British Empire was in shambles, and was financially derelict after World War 2. A strong argument can be made that it was the implicit threat of violence which the UK would be totally unable to handle at the time is what ultimately led to Indian independence. The situation is not a particularly effective argument that non violent solutions are always preferable, or even possible.
twoodfin 14y ago
hernmannj314, this comment could be read as encouraging the ("helpful") deaths of a variety of civic officials. Even if there were an appropriate forum for such loathsome sentiments, hn is certainly not it.
- mpyne 14y ago
  > Even if there were an appropriate forum for such loathsome sentiments, hn is certainly not it. This behavior is the inevitable result of lynch mobs throughout history though. Rile up the people enough and stuff like this is a byproduct. Even in the American Revolution the people started off by torturing unpopular British officials by tar-and-feathering them. One can't have their cake and eat it too.
  - twoodfin 14y ago
    What's your point? hn is still not the place for such behavior to be framed as "helpful".
    - mpyne 14y ago
      You're right, I wasn't very clear. My point is that HN has been kind of a rallying point for some of the more intellectual opposition to anything and everything regarding how Swartz's case was handled (at least, once he killed himself). But all of the people calling for heads to figuratively roll need to be really careful about the effect of their rallying cries. Like "having one more drink" while carrying your car keys, decisions and actions made now can spiral out of anyone's control and lead to even more anguish down the road. Mob rule is very much a package deal, you don't just get to keep the good parts and disclaim all the rest.
- hermannj314 14y ago
  It could also be read as a dramatic exaggeration of the parent's claim that one class of crime was better than another and that we should be willing to commit crimes of civil disobedience based on pragmatism and not be tethered by morality or legality. I tried to point out the absurdity of that claim by extending it as far as I could, by arguing that we should murder government employees so long as it "might" make the world a better place. I thought it was clear by copying the words of the parent in my post what I was doing.
rbanffy 14y ago
> Murdering politicians, assassinating police officers and judges... Regimes that start by abandoning the rule of law tend to have problems adopting it back later on. It's so much more convenient not to worry about following rules.

mseebach 14y ago

So, here's a free piece of advice: Put away the Guy Fawkes mask, turn down the RATM and read a book. You live in a real democracy. Not a perfect one, those don't exist, a real one. That makes you more free than most people alive today and all the dead ones. All of them. Your frustration shouldn't primarily sourced in the brokenness of the system, but in how the vast majority of your co-citizens disagree with you that it's broken - or, at least, fundamentally disagrees with what the solution is. Your mission as a citizen in a democracy is to convince your fellow citizens that this is wrong and that it should be fixed. The second you pick up a weapon, you lose. Game over.

eksith 14y ago

Can you say martial law? I know several officers who belong on either side of the integrity fence. Losing the bad ones violently will only turn the good ones against whatever good you're hoping to accomplish. This is absolutely the worst thing they could do. There are plenty of politicians, police officers and judges who are doing everything they can to free those wrongly imprisoned. Besides that, not everyone who works inside the "machine" is evil; most are just doing their jobs to whatever capacity they can and I assure you, they don't sleep well when their work is used for injustice. Violence is the worst option. Ask India. They got independence peacefully after violent rebellion failed.

throwaway2048 14y ago
At the time India gained independence, the British Empire was in shambles, and was financially derelict after World War 2. A strong argument can be made that it was the implicit threat of violence which the UK would be totally unable to handle at the time is what ultimately led to Indian independence. The situation is not a particularly effective argument that non violent solutions are always preferable, or even possible.

twoodfin 14y ago

hernmannj314, this comment could be read as encouraging the ("helpful") deaths of a variety of civic officials. Even if there were an appropriate forum for such loathsome sentiments, hn is certainly not it.

mpyne 14y ago
> Even if there were an appropriate forum for such loathsome sentiments, hn is certainly not it. This behavior is the inevitable result of lynch mobs throughout history though. Rile up the people enough and stuff like this is a byproduct. Even in the American Revolution the people started off by torturing unpopular British officials by tar-and-feathering them. One can't have their cake and eat it too.
- twoodfin 14y ago
  What's your point? hn is still not the place for such behavior to be framed as "helpful".
  - mpyne 14y ago
    You're right, I wasn't very clear. My point is that HN has been kind of a rallying point for some of the more intellectual opposition to anything and everything regarding how Swartz's case was handled (at least, once he killed himself). But all of the people calling for heads to figuratively roll need to be really careful about the effect of their rallying cries. Like "having one more drink" while carrying your car keys, decisions and actions made now can spiral out of anyone's control and lead to even more anguish down the road. Mob rule is very much a package deal, you don't just get to keep the good parts and disclaim all the rest.
hermannj314 14y ago
It could also be read as a dramatic exaggeration of the parent's claim that one class of crime was better than another and that we should be willing to commit crimes of civil disobedience based on pragmatism and not be tethered by morality or legality. I tried to point out the absurdity of that claim by extending it as far as I could, by arguing that we should murder government employees so long as it "might" make the world a better place. I thought it was clear by copying the words of the parent in my post what I was doing.

rbanffy 14y ago

> Murdering politicians, assassinating police officers and judges... Regimes that start by abandoning the rule of law tend to have problems adopting it back later on. It's so much more convenient not to worry about following rules.