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Bringing a "please don't" to a gun fight (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] -1 points 1 year ago (66 children)

Aaahh, yes. Yet another call for civil war, mass murder and violence. Good times.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    MLK needed the Black Panthers as much as the Panthers needed MLK. Its not a call for civil war, murder, or violence. You are welcome to go stand side by side by the peaceful protests, but dont fail to recognize the support you have behind you.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago

    It's important to note that MLK and Malcolm X were friendly and saw themselves as allies.

    There's a big push of revisionist history where they want to portray it as them disagreeing about methods and arguing with each other over the best path forward. Because that's what the wealthy want us to do, because it doesn't work.

    If you give a privileged population the choice between:

    1. Status quo

    2. Things getting better for someone else, but stays the same for you.

    It's really hard to get the majority of priveleged people to pick #2

    But when you add in:

    1. Shit gets much worse for you and much better for the people you persecuted

    Suddenly #2 becomes a popular choice. It's often the only way to get the majority to agree to equality

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Why would corrupt leadership care that people are marching in the street if there's no consequences to ignoring the protests?

    Peaceful protests are a statement that the people are upset and want change. There has to be a threat of escalation if protests are ignored.

    That's not to say we should jump straight to violence. It's recognizing that in the event a government ignores laws, suppresses the vote, and uses violence against its people that the people may eventually need to hit back.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Because there are consequences and everyone knows it. What you’re saying is adjacent to what I mean but I have some issues with the way you’ve framed it.

    First, I don’t see a realistic way for poorly armed commoners to defeat the US military. It’s just not viable.

    But the key is that political struggle requires leverage. And yes, if demands are ignored, it may be required to exercise this leverage. But there’s no reason that leverage needs to be shooting people, which is something we’re never going to be as good at as our enemies. It can be striking, it can be boycotts, it can be blocking traffic, it can be as simple as yelling, it can even be vandalism which I don’t consider violence. And yes (sorry blackpilled leftists) it can be voting.

    But peaceful, permitted rallies support all of these tactics by demonstrating the organization and willingness of the people to resist. So criticizing these tactics is just ignorant.

    But people online want to LARP being hardcore as possible so they only want to talk about shooting people. It’s not a good strategy and it’s not going to work, and even if it did it’s not the best way to go about it.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I don't think we should be going around shooting people. But I do think that there is some sense to the idea that an armed populace is more difficult to control, which is often a problem in the US, but can occasionally work for the greater good.

    And if things got really, really bad, the plan wouldn't be to line up in front of the army and trade blows - this isn't 17th century Europe.

    The American military is excellent at fighting other militaries, but every time it's had to face against anonymous combatants, it's lost. Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Vietnam, Somalia. And in none of those cases did they have to worry about disloyalty among the troops like they would here.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    More difficult to control I believe but that’s not the same a winning a political struggle for human liberation, which at least for me, is the real goal.

    Those other conflicts were lost mainly because it wasn’t the top priority of the US military to win a war on the other side of the world, and militants were able to outlast and make it too costly for it to be worth it anymore. The calculus will be very different when you’re rolling out guillotines in their own neighborhoods. They will fight to the death. Why wouldn’t they?

    People won’t like this but elites often capitulate because a movement is able to construct a scenario where that’s what’s in their best interest. That means, yes, we should threaten to make things bad for them if they don’t capitulate. But it also means we need to offer some reconciliation if they do back down. If you’re fighting a war of annihilation then that’s a tough signal to send.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    It can be striking, it can be boycotts, it can be blocking traffic, it can be as simple as yelling

    And what happens when the state reacts to this leverage violently. Will you just roll over and take it? They will eventually respond violently to be clear, they already are.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Mostly agree, I am only insisting that sometimes violence IS necessary. This is my main point. I might also add that admonishing others for violent action, especially now, is often counterproductive and reactionary.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    I think we agree more than either of us realized. I am myself trying to refrain from criticizing allies in the movement directly. I find it much more useful and appropriate to condemn the much greater violence committed by the police, ICE, and similar paramilitary groups. Not to mention that many of the resistance tactics being used right now aren’t even what I would consider violence—destroying the tools and slowing the movements of violent, repressive forces without harming them is completely compatible with the principles of nonviolent struggle.

    However, I think there is a place for tactical discussions like this where it is more theoretical. And I find memes like this suggesting that nonviolent struggle is ineffective to be ahistorical and counterproductive.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    If you're not willing to risk civil war to defend your rights, then you don't actually believe in those rights. Your ancestors fought and died to have the rights you enjoy now. Unfortunately, you are not willing to carry on their legacy.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    I'm not advocating for civil war. However, it is absolutely imperative that you don't let the threat of civil war prevent you from protecting your rights.

    Rights are worth fighting for. Rights are worth dying for. And no, don't try to "both sides" this. In the original US civil war, there was one side that was objectively on the right side of history. But I imagine if you were alive in the 1860s, you would have been advocating to just let the Southerners keep owning human beings. After all, civil war is just death and atrocities accomplishing nothing. It's better to throw every one of our rights in the garbage before risking civil war.

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  • [+] 19 points 1 year ago (14 children)
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  • [+] 14 points 1 year ago (11 children)
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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    ICE agents are not Americans. They gave up the right to call themselves that the moment they put on that uniform.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Ah yes, pray tell which people have rights and which ones don't

    Matter of fact, let's go balls deep ands tells us who can live or not in your pretty perfect world

    That'll do wonders for everyone

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  • [–] [S] 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Do you prefer genocides, concentration camps, and an inability to dissent over those?

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  • [–] [S] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    It is special how consistently you produce a bad faith response with the intent to absolve you from providing a valid justification for your point of view

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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  • [–] [S] 6 points 1 year ago

    Kinda getting an increasingly strong troll vibe ngl. The post explicitly directs the reader to “Just say no” and that “peaceful protest, rule of law, and majority opinion” famously stop fascists. Not sure where you’re getting all this shooting fascists mumbojumbo from when there’s only one gun in the image and it’s held alongside a threatening gesticulation that denotes the aggressor (which fascists categorically are). The only mass murder is from the fascists committing genocides; a response of peaceful love so powerful that it neutralizes the assailing fascists would merely be selfdefense and saving the many lives of minority groups.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Nearly all of your rights were won for you through violent protests often in conjunction with non-violent protests. Winning concessions from a violent state requires violent action.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Ahh yes, another call for sucking the balls in-between the shaft.

    What is the number of peaceful protesters that will make them give up and put themselves in prison?

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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago (21 children)

    If you think your AR-15 is a match for a full on SWAT team, or an armored vehicle, think again.

    This isn't a video game, and there aren't any respawns in real life.

    Ask the folks at MOVE how well fighting back worked for them.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    I own exactly zero guns. Urban warfare is as likely to get massive casualties on both sides. Ever heard of an IED? Freedom isn't free and democracy dies with a whimper, not a howl. You want to whimper and cower, or stand for the future of your country? Nazis didn't go away because we asked politely.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Ask the folks at MOVE how well fighting back worked for them

    Are you giving the class an example of what happens when we dont stand together?

    Because we all already know how cops act when they have the guns and numbers.

    We know when they have the guns but not the numbers they escalate and use violence.

    But when they dont have the numbers and protestors visibly are carrying rifles, suddenly the cops aren't escalating to violence anymore.

    If you aren't familiar with a "visual deterrent" then frankly you're not in a position to be advising people.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Exactly. Armed guards are needed at protests precisely to protect peaceful protesters from being murdered by cops. Yes, it's obvious that you can't legally use weapons against officers. But every officer knows that the moment someone's life is threatened, the law doesn't matter for shit. If a cop is threatening to shoot me, I have no problem with shooting them right back. Maybe I'll go to jail, oh well, better that than being dead. Maybe the cops will still kill me. Oh well, at least I took a fascist with me.

    Cops are able to act with such monstrous inhumanity precisely because there are no armed protesters to deter them. You don't see cops firing rubber bullets point blank unprovoked against armed protesters. Because those cops know that if they try that shit, there's a good chance they're not going home tonight. They can have the whole corrupt legal system behind them, but all none of that matters if you're lying dead on the ground. Every cop should have to attend every protest knowing that if they abuse their power and start actually threatening innocent lives, that they will be among the first dead if violence breaks out.

    Cops are ultimately bullies. High school bullies grow up to be police officers. And like any bully, the only thing they understand and respect is force.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    It's about getting an AR-15 into the hands of every queer person, brown person, and the allies of such. A single AR-15 is no match. A squad of them in the hands of a mobilized neighborhood however...

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  • [+] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    The only reason the Americans won is that they had the French Navy on their side.

    The French went broke supporting the Americans.

    Also, the Brits were willing to cede to the Americans. The Brits kept getting US cotton and they were going to get it cheaper because once the British empire withdrew the Americans could expand into the Native nations the British had treaties with.

    It's not comparable in any way.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    You have totally missed the point of arms being a deterrent. YOU are the one thinking in video game terms.

    Anecdote: There have been two times I would have likely got my ass kicked out in the woods had I not been open carrying. Like magic, this fucker who loathed me was very, very polite.

    For anyone else coming along; Guns are not magical "get off me" totems. You have to put in the time and effort to practice several skills, safety at the top of that list. It is not an easy solution.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Almost as if the other guy didn't have access to many, many more weapons and the legal right to shoot you.

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