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submitted 2 weeks ago by pjwestin@lemmy.world to c/memes@lemmy.world

Seriously though, don't do violence.

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[-] Iapar@feddit.org 279 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

If violence isn't a solution why does the government use it?

[-] Hegar@fedia.io 98 points 2 weeks ago

The state is nothing but a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. To a hammer, everything is a nail. To a state, everything is a target for violence.

[-] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 weeks ago

I figure legitimate in this instance just means they won't have any reason to expect repercussions for their acts of violence.

[-] tisktisk@piefed.social 5 points 2 weeks ago

This sounds super motivational until you stop to think about how the only thing worse than legitimate violence is the endless horrors of ILLegitimate violence. Solidarity is nothing but a stance of pure aggressivity towards those neighbors outside of your community

[-] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 18 points 2 weeks ago

So just because it’s sprinkled with the magic fairy dust of ‘government’ it’s immediately moral and good violence?

Here’s a freebie thought experiment I had to pay a PoliSci professor for; if tomorrow the democratically elected government passed a law that from today forward, all babies with blue eyes will be euthanized at birth, is that legal?

Yes. 100% legal. And 100% morally bankrupt.

Consent of the governed is the bedrock of civil society - the ghouls that run big business seem to have forgotten/don’t care that legality does not equal morality.

[-] tisktisk@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

You win my most obvious strawman award. I really tried to find how any of this pertains to any part of my comment and gave up. I still like your pretty metaphors despite the absence of logical meaning

[-] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

You’re trying hard to be obtuse, or super myopic if you don’t see the through line from state violence, to consent of the governed to accept laws (and the violence required to enforce them) - hence my comment that legality is not morality, and the inference that lobbying has broken that trust and consent by legalizing policies like UHC’s that are not unique to that one company.

You brought solidarity into this, which is distinct from tribalist/sectarian violence like you’re alluding to. Soup kitchens, community legal defense funds, or cooperative farms are examples of solidarity. Not vigilante murder.

[-] tisktisk@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

"Soup kitchens, community legal defense funds, or cooperative farms are examples of solidarity. Not vigilante murder."

I will do what you consistently avoid here(even after I highlighted it, nonetheless) and engage directly with what you are saying rather than engage with a misrepresentation. I don't understand where or how or why vigilante murder is even brought up here? Who said or implied anything about murder. I'm merely specifying the easily missed core of solidarity which is that a background of legitimacy is required to have these soup kitchens and co-op farms. The state and it's "violence" of set rules and consequences must exist as a background before the space can be opened up for these examples you use. Quite hilarious to call me the obtuse and myopic one here, when my whole cornerstone from the start has basically been a suggestion to step back and think about what Solidarity means and how it is effectively sustained before we rush in to believing we can so easily make such harsh distinctions between legality and morality or state vs tribalist violence. We're discussing abstract concepts that don't merely exist as some objective science to be easily concluded--it's all much more complex and arguably too open-ended for such hasty oversimplifications. Please don't triple strawman me here

[-] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I don't understand where or how or why vigilante murder is even brought up here? Who said or implied anything about murder.

The original post is literally about a vigilante murdering the UHC CEO and another company seemingly changing policy afterwards, with OP attaching a comment about ‘not saying it’s good, but maybe violence does work’. You brought solidarity in out of nowhere, and implied it was parallel to sectarianism/tribalism.

That is why I called you out as being obtuse, a vigilante murder is the only reason this comment thread exists - it was there from the very beginning.

I'm merely specifying the easily missed core of solidarity which is that a background of legitimacy is required to have these soup kitchens and co-op farms. The state and it's "violence" of set rules and consequences must exist as a background before the space can be opened up for these examples you use.

You never mentioned legitimacy - I inferred it. That’s called reading comprehension, not strawmaning. Which is why I posted that legal is not inherently moral. Because enforcing laws, not persuasion or incentives to prompt compliance, ultimately requires a state actor to force that law on another person. And if that person still says “no” then that state actor is empowered to use violence to either make that person submit and follow that law, be arrested, or ultimately killed if they continue to resist. A law prohibiting rape or murder is different than anti-vagrancy laws or occupational licensing - but the enforcement is facsimile if met with resistance.

Quite hilarious to call me the obtuse and myopic one here, when my whole cornerstone from the start has basically been a suggestion to step back and think about what Solidarity means and how it is effectively sustained before we rush in to believing we can so easily make such harsh distinctions between legality and morality or state vs tribalist violence.

This is a good explanation. Your initial comment was half-baked and didn’t expound on what you were trying to say, which is why challenged what I inferred your thrust to be. I’m not foolish enough to believe that we can all live in 100% peaceful coexistence, nightly drum circles, and unlimited cooperation and mutual respect. Because there’s always some asshole who doesn’t want to help or respect autonomy, and becomes the aggressor in order to steal/subjugate/dominate/etc. But my thrust was that the social contract is broken, when a company can essentially renege on a financial contract (heath insurance) arbitrarily and capriciously, and faces no legal repercussions. Because lobbying. Because “business friendly” legal environment where the one with the most money almost wins by default, if there even is a legal challenge.

Please don't triple strawman me here

I genuinely don’t think you understand what that means, or are confusing presumptive argument for it. It you feel misrepresented and I am straw manning - explain in further detail. Like you just did now, instead of a snarky “u iz strawman winnar”. We never got to that part of the debate initially because you got huffy and left a drive-by comment at the first challenge.

[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 15 points 2 weeks ago

Those look like sentences but it's weird... I'm not seeing any meaning here.

[-] tisktisk@piefed.social 4 points 2 weeks ago

Precisely what I was trying to highlight--many thanks for the confirmation comrade

[-] podperson@lemm.ee 10 points 2 weeks ago

You’re doing violence to grammar with your “an.”

[-] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

It's A solution, just not the preferred one.

[-] MissJinx@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

My experience with human rights acrivists is that they only fight for the assholes. Never saw a human rights activist in a foundraiser for children, but talk about murderers and rapists they are all love.

[-] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 12 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, because nobody else speaks up for those who’d be railroaded through court otherwise. You don’t ’see them speak up’ because those same people’s voice get lost in the crowd of everyone else’s outrage/support.

It’s trite but true, failure to defend the fringes leaves a smaller and smaller pool of resistance/solidarity:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

[-] MissJinx@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Look I've heard human rights activists say that over and over again but you know what I think? You can look at a CHILD that was raped and say "sorry he deserves to be treated nicely, your values are crooked.

I'm NOT talking about the legal system that is indeed corrupt, I'm talking about people that confessed to murder and rape and you still go out of your way to defend that "he need nicer food". He needs to burn in hell

[-] Pandantic@midwest.social 3 points 1 week ago

So are you talking about prison reform? Because MOST people in prison are not there for rape or murder.

[-] Schmoo@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago

If rights aren't universal they may as well not exist. To defend the rights of another is to defend your own. Remember that next time you see the rights being violated of someone you feel deserves it.

[-] TheBat@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

They fight to keep government overreach in check

[-] MissJinx@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I get that in a lot of circunstances BUT once you have confessed killers what do you want? Them to have a nice life?!

[-] TheBat@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Are you advocating for government sanctioned torture? Wtf is your point? Government should be as bad as cartels?

[-] rational_lib@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Because the US government has more guns than any other entity on the planet. There's no fight it loses.

[-] SuspiciousUser@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 week ago

Afghanistan and Vietnam come to mind.

[-] okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

afganistan, lol

[-] itslilith 3 points 1 week ago

The Vietnamese peasants and farmers beg to differ.

[-] daltotron@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

yeah except for basically all of them

this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
1543 points (100.0% liked)

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