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Serious question: at what point is political violence justified? At what point is it defensible to take up arms in defense of one's community? I know we're all ostensibly against violent remedies, but at some point, practical and moral concerns ought to overtake an abstract commitment to the rule of law, yes?
Look at the Catholic just war doctrine, kind of a checklist of criteria violent action must satisfy to be right in the eyes of God: is there a competent authority organizing the armed action? A realistic possibility of success? A just cause for which you're fighting? And is it your last resort?
If so, then one is justified in extraordinary and violent action. The left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence. Is there sufficient cause for resisting them on their own terms?
If not, why? So as to not to break the state's monopoly on violence? To reap the civilizational benefits of settling disputes with words not weapons? After exactly how many presses of the "defect" button do you, too, press "defect"?
And after what point does insisting that people who've experienced "defect" after "defect" continue to play "cooperate" become itself a form of evil, of gaslighting, of denying people their fundamental dignity?
I'm not sure about the answers to any of these questions, but as I see parts of the Internet seething and roiling, and as I see other parts of the Internet gloating, and as I see it all spill over to real life --- the DNA lounge in San Francisco has a "neck shot" special tonight --- I have to wonder whether we're at one of those points in history at which it is less moral to follow man's law than to uphold God's law.
When is violence against a person justified? Usually the legal boundary is immediate threat. So if a politician is advocating for you to be put into camps, then that seems like a reasonable starting point. But then you have to consider 'reasonable fear of immediate threat' and things get much murkier. Is it reasonable to fear that pro-mass migration politicians intend to destroy your community with foreigners?
In America it's still only the crazies/extremely disaffected that are actually willing to go out and kill for politics, usually. People will cheer on the killer but almost none of these people would actually be willing to do something similar.
In a war, do you need to show that each and every soldier you neutralize presented an imminent danger to you personally? Is there a legitimate concept of a movement or an ideology as a whole presenting a grave danger and justifying violence against any of its adherents as self defense?
To mix my metaphors, War is a switch, not a dial. If you have (justly) declared war, then the restrictions on lethal force are much looser. If you haven't, then the original standards hold. You don't get to judge them as 70% enemies and therefore only deserving of 30% of the protections of civil society.
Is it? Is the US at war with Afghanistan? Has it ever been?
The post-911 AUMF was (although it didn’t use the words, and probably should have done) a declaration of war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Does this mean the US is still at war with them?
For the Taliban, no. Donald Trump surrendered in 2020 and Biden rather notoriously botched the implementation of the surrender agreement in 2021.
To the extent that Al-Qaeda still exists, the US is still at war with them.
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