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When is violent protest justified?

When is violent protest justified?

  • Total voters
    56
Thrilla said:
no, the definition does not include systemic threats

system threats call for a different class of response, such as nonviolent protest, civil disobedience, voting.. etc.. a violent response to a systemic threat would be unjustified.
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Okay, thanks for clarifying. With that in mind, what would be your next response if all nonviolent means failed to remove or decrease the systemic threat for ~ 20 years?
 
Amandi said:
Violent protest is pointless in my opinion. If I sympathise with your point of view and you use violent protest you will loose some of that sympathy. Protest I support. Civil disobedience as in sit ins of places that are directly involved with what you are protesting I can "support" but not violence.
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If citizens exhaust nonviolent means of protest and it becomes clear that those in power will not change their behavior, what would be the next step?
 
Peter King said:
certain conditions that are only met under very special conditions which are never met in a democratic society rules by fair laws and civil rights like in the US and in just about every civilized democratic country in the western world.
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What are those conditions?
 
When they cancel your favorite TV series OR video game series, then...RIOT.

Or when the local convenience store is out of low salt potato chips.

Or when they make a Penguins of Madagascar movie and do not include the actors who voiced Private, Rico and Kowalski in the TV series, in the movie.

Or when the Iowa Hawkeyes barely lose to Wisconsin.

Or when I cannot find a justifiable reason to buy a Dodge Challenger Hellcat.

Or when you show up at a friend's anniversary (or birthday party?) and your ex-girlfriend with the breast implants looks better then ever.

...

Hey, wait a minute...I never did grow up (they were right way back when).

Cool.
 
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joG said:
The problem is deciding, when a society is (no longer) civilized. At which point would you have thought about stopping Hitler violently?
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We didn't stop our government from rounding up Japanese and putting them in concentration camps, so it's unlikely we would riot over anything worthwhile.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
What are those conditions?
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Now when I am talking violence, I am not talking violence like is now happening in the US or has happened in the Middle East. I am talking about not allowing the police to stop a demonstration by forcing your way through a barricade or throwing up barricades so that the police cannot remove you from your protest site. Defending yourself from violent attempts to stop a demonstration can also be legal as long as they do not go over the top.

Violence should be attempted to be avoided at all times, but forcing yourself into a government office to get your grievances heard in cases where this is not possible through legal or democratic means, then yes, that is the violence I am talking about. Standing up for yourself with force.
 
Jerry said:
We didn't stop our government from rounding up Japanese and putting them in concentration camps, so it's unlikely we would riot over anything worthwhile.
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That was a little nasty. I do not know that I would use the loaded expression concentration camps. They were not as bad as that. But the Japanese were interned in 1942 and the procedure was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1944 and Reagan actually made payments of $ 20.000 to the survivors. This was extended to their heirs later on.

Whether in war this is acceptable is hard to say. I tend to believe it is not. That is why I am somewhat at odds with the idea of stopping citizens from going to Syria or to Pakistan, if they are not at the moment already criminals.
 
joG said:
That was a little nasty. I do not know that I would use the loaded expression concentration camps. They were not as bad as that. But the Japanese were interned in 1942 and the procedure was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1944 and Reagan actually made payments of $ 20.000 to the survivors. This was extended to their heirs later on.

Whether in war this is acceptable is hard to say. I tend to believe it is not. That is why I am somewhat at odds with the idea of stopping citizens from going to Syria or to Pakistan, if they are not at the moment already criminals.
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I firmly believe our government did it's best to play nice-nice after the fact. So does Germany to this day with it's people.

Point is: we let it happen. We should not have. We should have killed every cop and soldier who came for Japanese citizens. But we didn't, and the German people never stood up to Hitler either, and we won't when it happens again.

What the NRA knows that most of it's membership doesn't is that we don't actually have any intention of overthrowing our government when it inevitably becomes tyrannical. The LA riots are the worst it will ever get in America; maybe another riot on par with the LA Riots but never an armed militia marching on any state or federal building. Rednecks talk a big talk with their yellow snake flag but if they meant a word of it they would have started executing heads of state the instant the Gun Control Act was passed, again when the AFT abused it's new power under the Gun Control Act, and again when Reagan signed the machine gun ban, and again with Clinton's 'assault-weapon' ban, and again every time anyone proposes any gon control law because truthfully all gun control is highly unconstitutional because no, the commerce clause does not give Congress any authority to regulate firearms in the slightest.

No one actually believes any of that crap and if you think pro-gun believes it then they're better lairs then you gave them credit for.

It's just a meme to have some fun toys while we can and make some money in the process. No one actually thinks the US government can be or will ever be threatened by it's populace. That war was fought already and the Confederacy lost. It's over.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Note : While I understand that everyone will respond to this thread through the lens of their experiences, I ask that everyone do their best to put aside any emotions, prejudices or non-intellectual motives that may color how they present their ideas when responding to the thread question and to other posters.

In light of the violent protests in Ferguson as well as the calls for peaceful protests by some Americans, I believe that the question of when violent protest is justified has become a very important one to consider, if not fully answer. Given this importance, I pose the question to the members of DP : When is violent protest justified?

Before you answer the question, I think it's fair for me to do that myself, though I should note that my position on this topic is still developing. In short, I believe that violent protest is justified when two conditions are met : 1. When the human or civil rights of the protesters have been threatened. 2. When all or most nonviolent means of protest have failed to secure the human or civil rights that have been threatened.
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If vegetarians take over governments and ban the consumption of meat you can bet Im gonna violently protest. :bringit
 
Jerry said:
I firmly believe our government did it's best to play nice-nice after the fact. So does Germany to this day with it's people.

Point is: we let it happen. We should not have. We should have killed every cop and soldier who came for Japanese citizens. But we didn't, and the German people never stood up to Hitler either, and we won't when it happens again.

What the NRA knows that most of it's membership doesn't is that we don't actually have any intention of overthrowing our government when it inevitably becomes tyrannical. The LA riots are the worst it will ever get in America; maybe another riot on par with the LA Riots but never an armed militia marching on any state or federal building. Rednecks talk a big talk with their yellow snake flag but if they meant a word of it they would have started executing heads of state the instant the Gun Control Act was passed, again when the AFT abused it's new power under the Gun Control Act, and again when Reagan signed the machine gun ban, and again with Clinton's 'assault-weapon' ban, and again every time anyone proposes any gon control law because truthfully all gun control is highly unconstitutional because no, the commerce clause does not give Congress any authority to regulate firearms in the slightest.

No one actually believes any of that crap and if you think pro-gun believes it then they're better lairs then you gave them credit for.

It's just a meme to have some fun toys while we can and make some money in the process. No one actually thinks the US government can be or will ever be threatened by it's populace. That war was fought already and the Confederacy lost. It's over.
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I do not really think that is quite right. There was a difference between what happened to the Japanese Americans and the Jews. The reasons were quite different also. I think that it is rather a bad idea to equate these two occurrences, though, I do see why you might do so. They do look similar and there is race involved. What is certainly true is that most of the Japanese were not dangerous to the US, though, their neighbors might have been dangerous to persons of Japanese origin. You might also say that the Germans were at war with the Jews' allies, which was wrong but probably to a certain extent believed by the Germans.

But certainly that does not mean that populations are allowed to let their government commit atrocities. But I do not think you are saying that.
 
joG said:
I do not really think that is quite right. There was a difference between what happened to the Japanese Americans and the Jews. The reasons were quite different also. I think that it is rather a bad idea to equate these two occurrences, though, I do see why you might do so. They do look similar and there is race involved. What is certainly true is that most of the Japanese were not dangerous to the US, though, their neighbors might have been dangerous to persons of Japanese origin. You might also say that the Germans were at war with the Jews' allies, which was wrong but probably to a certain extent believed by the Germans.

But certainly that does not mean that populations are allowed to let their government commit atrocities. But I do not think you are saying that.
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Americans have before and will again allow the United States to act in direct opposition to the Constitution. We have before and will again allow our heads of state to perform treason right in front of us. For example: Not only did Nixon live to see the end of the day after violating President John Adams's 1797 Logan Act by interfering with the nearly successful Vietnam peace talks, but we elected him into office. We The People are to retarded to keep our Republic.

When is violent protest justified? Doesn't matter because we won't do it when it's called for anyway.
 
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Jerry said:
Americans have before and will again allow the United States to act in direct opposition to the Constitution. We have before and will again allow our heads of state to perform treason right in front of us. For example: Not only did Nixon live to see the end of the day after violating President John Adams's 1797 Logan Act by interfering with the nearly successful Vietnam peace talks, but we elected him into office. We The People are to retarded to keep our Republic.

When is violent protest justified? Doesn't matter because we won't do it when it's called for anyway.
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It certainly is not an easy call, when to rise against authority. But the Blacks seem to have done so just now, independent of whether they were right or wrong.
 
Gaius46 said:
In a society of laws with mechanisms to change said laws violent protest is never justified.
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That's nice, but naive... in the sense that it presumes the system is always pure and just and above board.

Or, are you saying that we only have such a system on paper and not in reality?
 
ThePlayDrive said:
If your human or civil rights are being attacked and your legal means haven't yielded results for ~20 years, what do you do next?
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That's the thing: I'm often going to be critiquing your bona fides. You may claim that your civil rights have been violated, but am I and everyone else just expected to accept that as you resort to violence (which could be directed at us or our communities)?

It's one thing to advocate for your cause and feel the need to be violent, but it's an entirely different thing if we're expected to in turn condone or accept violence directed toward us or our society. More often than not, I'll be standing on the opposite side hoping that we clamp down on your violent intentions.
 
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ThePlayDrive said:
If citizens exhaust nonviolent means of protest and it becomes clear that those in power will not change their behavior, what would be the next step?
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A lot of extreme if's to answer this question however it would have to get pretty bad for me to get violent and once I got violent it would no longer be to protest, it will be me trying to change those in power.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
If citizens exhaust nonviolent means of protest and it becomes clear that those in power will not change their behavior, what would be the next step?
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Go off on your own- start a war, and fight it until one side comes out the victor. Make your violence legitimate- violence and destruction upon those within your own society is not acceptable. I have absolutely no urge to accept your violence against me otherwise. If I can legally take up arms against you, because you are determined to get your way, then lets do it all the way.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Okay, thanks for clarifying. With that in mind, what would be your next response if all nonviolent means failed to remove or decrease the systemic threat for ~ 20 years?
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that really depends on the severity and scope of the threat...but it's very possible that , at some point, folks would cease to care about justifiably altogether and just do what they gotta do.

humans are pretty decent about sticking to principles... but we're also pretty good at tossing them aside when it become a matter of urgency.
 
Fiddytree said:
That's the thing: I'm often going to be critiquing your bona fides. You may claim that your civil rights have been violated, but am I and everyone else just expected to accept that as you resort to violence (which could be directed at us or our communities)?

It's one thing to advocate for your cause and feel the need to be violent, but it's an entirely different thing if we're expected to in turn condone or accept violence directed toward us or our society. More often than not, I'll be standing on the opposite side hoping that we clamp down on your violent intentions.
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I didn't ask you about my civil rights, I asked you about your civil or human rights. This means that civil or human rights that you have already accepted as being threatened. I'll ask the question again and I would appreciate it you would answer it directly : If your human or civil rights are being attacked and your legal means haven't yielded results for ~20 years, what do you do next?
 
lizzie said:
Go off on your own- start a war, and fight it until one side comes out the victor. Make your violence legitimate- violence and destruction upon those within your own society is not acceptable. I have absolutely no urge to accept your violence against me otherwise. If I can legally take up arms against you, because you are determined to get your way, then lets do it all the way.
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Thrilla said:
that really depends on the severity and scope of the threat...but it's very possible that , at some point, folks would cease to care about justifiably altogether and just do what they gotta do.

humans are pretty decent about sticking to principles... but we're also pretty good at tossing them aside when it become a matter of urgency.
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Good points. Thanks for being patient and answering all of my questions.
 
Amandi said:
A lot of extreme if's to answer this question however it would have to get pretty bad for me to get violent and once I got violent it would no longer be to protest, it will be me trying to change those in power.
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I think that's a good articulation of the line that is cross when protests transform into violence - the motives start to shift. People are no longer just trying to express disapproval.
 
Peter King said:
Now when I am talking violence, I am not talking violence like is now happening in the US or has happened in the Middle East. I am talking about not allowing the police to stop a demonstration by forcing your way through a barricade or throwing up barricades so that the police cannot remove you from your protest site. Defending yourself from violent attempts to stop a demonstration can also be legal as long as they do not go over the top.

Violence should be attempted to be avoided at all times, but forcing yourself into a government office to get your grievances heard in cases where this is not possible through legal or democratic means, then yes, that is the violence I am talking about. Standing up for yourself with force.
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"Standing up for yourself with force" is a good way to put it and I appreciate your specification of the sort of violence that you consider, for lack of a better word, legitimate. I think I lean towards your perception of this.
 
Jerry said:
It's called "insurrection" and you should only try it when death is literally better than living within the system.
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What about when the system and death are equal?
 
PoS said:
If vegetarians take over governments and ban the consumption of meat you can bet Im gonna violently protest. :bringit
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I don't think you'll have to violently protest. I don't think the vegetarians would survive the first millisecond in office. :lol:
 
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