You haven't bothered to read and understand Baden or @StreetlightX. — boethius
If you just want to shout and insult, you can do that in youtube comments. — boethius
he peaceful protesters are laudible only insofar as their belief in peaceful protesting ability to influence a fair (enough) political process is actually true. — boethius
American's today do not condemn the Boston riots and looting that birthed America, but the privileged classes that owned the tea did so at the time; so, from a moral perspective, this maybe all that we are seeing, and nothing else. — boethius
And can we not forget that giant retailers like Target almost always destroy local independent shops by way of displacing them? They're a market ecosystem killer, like a pesticide. Targets monopolize and offer poverty wages in retrun - they ruin, not nourish, local economies. — StreetlightX
None of these last-minute parachuters here to virtue signal their "care" and "concern" give a shit insofar as this is the only thing they can't shut up about. — StreetlightX
If the mechanisms by which peaceful protesting was effective in the past, which is debatable as otherwise why would society come to such a point, then peaceful protesters are less laudible than the looters and indeed the police; for at least the looters and police have some sort of realistic political understanding. — boethius
Baden was making a more reasonable argument. — Marchesk
That sums it up for me and why most of the objections to what's happening are ill-founded. In a situation where there is no justice, there can be no legitimate appeal to some neutral foundation of law. The law itself and its enforcers are agents of violence, both overt and systemic. The system that allows Target to exploit workers by paying them less than a living wage (half the minimum wage of most western European countries) is far more nefarious than anything a few rioters can do to their physical property. In fact, there is a good argument to be made that looting such businesses is fair reappropriation if not full recompense for the looting they've done of the labour of those under their control. (And with no good alternative options provided so will it remain).
So, regardless of specific rights and wrongs, the imposition of a skewed perspective that makes the perpetrators of major systemic violence into victims where only minor instances of localised violence forms the 'crime' against them turns the conversation into a worthless back and forth where the forest is missed for the trees. Yes, some of the localised violence is uncalled for and counterproductive and even carried out for completely the wrong reasons but that does not negate the justification for fighting back and fighting back hard against a system that wants its victims forever on their knees feeding its greed and cruelty. — Baden
They have been successful before. That doesn't mean everything can be fixed at once. So more are needed. — Marchesk
And do you really care about the outcome, or are you just here to signal your revolutionary credentials? — Echarmion
So you encourage looting liquor and TVs from stores? But for the distance, you'd be in the streets burning cars? Why do you sit idly behind your computer when your morals demand throwing rocks at police and stealing from stores? — Hanover
I'm not quite sure where I differ in my analysis, but please point it out — boethius
. MLK's logic was that segregation civil disobedience (which is not peaceful protesting) forces the state to do it's violence in broad daylight for all to see. — boethius
What's changed, the understanding of politics or simply who's side is using violence to pursue their idea of justice and legitimate state power? — boethius
I'm here to try and make sure the discourse around legitimate protests don't get co-opted by pearl clutching liberals who couldn't give a rats ass about systemic injustice while pretending they give a shit about violence against property. — StreetlightX
So, which peaceful protests have actually succeeded in the past in an American context? — boethius
And that is a useful way to spend your time? — Echarmion
I'm here to try and make sure the discourse around legitimate protests doesn't get co-opted — StreetlightX
I don't fully agree with Baden (or yourself), but he wasn't turning this into a revolution against capitalism. — Marchesk
But, regardless of Baden, I did not mention the word capitalism in my analysis. — boethius
at the conclusion that the state has lost legitimacy and that people have good reason to pursue their own idea of justice rather than participate in the common idea of justice that is (well enough) expressed through the state intellectual structure and it's agents. — boethius
idk maybe you can call the cops on me or something for not being productive enough for you. — StreetlightX
Which violent protests have? Just saying what doesn't work isn't enough. — Echarmion
What it does mean though is that you can't argue morally from the perspective of the social contract holding as normal. There is the possibility that actions that are not normally justifiable become justifiable. And if you're going to have the debate, you have to be willing to contemplate a different ethical playing field than normally holds. — Baden
That's a separate argument with other posters in this thread who want an actual revolution because they view capitalism as the root of all the injustice in the world, or much of it anyway. — Marchesk
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