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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.
Never. Or, not as long as you 'live in a society'.
When society collapses, the conversation changes. Sri Lanka is a good example. It started as a stable middle income country. Within a few years, the govt. passed bills that put Sri Lanka on track to become a poor nation again. The nation went bankrupt. There was no plan. There was no democratic process for the removal of the Rajpakshas and peaceful protests had been futile. Here, political violence was justifiable. Political violence begets more political violence. It destroys national morale. It destroys the economy. It destroys institutions. If the current situation is going to cause these negative outcomes outcomes anyway, then political violence is justifiable. Otherwise, it's a net negative.
The US is at peak polarization right now. But, the system is still working. Economy is hanging in there. Broadly, violence is trending down. The average person's life in unaffected. They'd be none the wiser about this wider polarization if they disconnected from social media. That's a working society. At America's GDP, it is a fantastically working society. The narratives don't fit, but A LOT would have to go wrong for political violence to be justified in the US.
Remember, JFK & RFK were shot dead. MLK & MalcolmX were shot dead. Neither of them led to breakdown of civic society. The killings of Charlie Kirk and a young Ukranian refugee are tragic. But, in the grand scheme of things, they aren't politically significant events. I believe the same was true for George Floyd, and the riots were therefore unjustified. Yes, there's some schadenfreude about Kirk death. I don't believe it's an anomalous amount. Weird broken people always existed. Social media just makes them easier to find.
America has bounced back from worse. Yes, It took years. Yes, there were (now missing) responsible men on both sides of the isle who met in the middle. Yes, America wasn't facing a China sized existential threat at the time of these turmoils. But, the nation has shown the capacity to stay civilized in harder times.
I don't think we're even 1% of the way towards a situation that justifies political violence.
It does seem notable that Democrat national politicians seem to be..almost blaming Kirk for being murdered.
I have only seen unequivocal sympathy.
Some Republican public faces have jumped to blaming the left for this. The response by Dems has been silence or carefully phrased clap backs towards those public faces, but not towards Kirk himself.
Can you give me examples of national Democratic politicians blaming Kirk ? Especially in the 24 hour frenzy following his death.
Ilhan Omar
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