You shouldn’t but you do. Turn the other cheek, as they say.
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Also threats of violence are just as criminal as acts of violence. Uttering threats is on the books as a crime pretty much everywhere. So I don’t get this weird “it’s just a picnic with guns” argument at all… so confused…
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I agree. But the feds say this all of the time, so it’s not as if they have any moral high-ground here.
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See i think that should be that you’re not the one threatening to initiate the violence.
They aren’t threatening to initiate violence. They are threatening to respond in kind to violence initiated by the government. There’s a big difference.
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Turning the other cheek just gets you punched twice.
They threatened violence. Period. Full stop.
This is not a sit in. Or peaceful protest. It is an armed insurrection and they want a violent response.
Hopefully everyone will just ignore these numbnuts and arrest them one by one as they try to sneak out.
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Well arming themselves worked out pretty well for the Bundy’s the last time. It might be pretty reckless to arm yourself and occupy a mall, but in the middle of nowhere it seems to be a pretty good way to garner media attention and not get pepersprayed etc.
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Do you think you have a right to defend yourself from violence initiated by the government?
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Drive Angry. It’s one of those ‘Crazy Nicholas Cage’ movies that ends up being pretty entertaining drunk. William Fichtner totally steals it.
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You’re confusing shoot-out with shoot-in.
Kent state was a shoot-IN. None of the shot people had weapons.
That is, in fact, why “Kent State” is remembered today as a widely known cultural reference and not just another suburban campus.
Thsee other guys, not likely remembered by history.
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Generally speaking I think getting into a shoot out with “the government” falls into the category of “really very bad idea”. One reserved for bank robbers and terrorists and Branch Davidians. I am none of those.
Encountering violence as perpetrated by the state during a peaceful protest is something I would endure as it seems to me to be part of the entire point of a peaceful protest.
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Usually because the target site has misconfigured their OpenGraph or oEmbed settings. Try using a tester like http://iframely.com/debug
Sitting peacefully in protest is the same as sitting while literally on fire?
I suspect there may be some emotional regulation / limbic system issues to consider here.
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“I had to shoot him! He was attempting to enforce the law by trying to make me leave this building I’ve been illegally occupying!”
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Maybe they don’t, but the point of peaceful protest is kind of to take the moral high-ground. Being on equal moral footing with the feds won’t get you far since they already have a huge advantage of you in all other areas (firepower, ability to communicate their message, etc.).
Um… Yes it does? Like, that is precisely the point. That is a peaceful protest, it is being hit and being willing to be hit again and again and again. I’m not saying that’s the only correct way to ever protest anything - time will tell if these guys are going to be effective - but that is the standard if you want to be called a peaceful protester. When the cops come you go limp. Peaceful doesn’t mean hasn’t-happened-to-be-violent-yet.
These people have said they are willing to be killed for their convictions, but you are saying it is too much to ask of them to be willing to be pepper sprayed, beaten or arrested? Peaceful protesters are ready for these things. It’s hardly just that these things happen to them, but they take it either because they are committed to pacifism or because they think it’s the most effective strategy.
See, I’m happy to call this a protest, and I don’t even think they are terrorists (I can get behind calling them terrorists to highlight the absurdity and racism of the way we talk about terrorists). But there is no way it is peaceful.
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To my very Canuck eyes they are terrorists. And I find them horrifying.
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Not sure what you mean by ‘invalid’. Protests are what they are, a demonstrated reaction against something. Unless it’s a group of peace protesters punching police (alliteration— what fun!), I don’t know how one would deem it ‘invalid’.
I agree with @Brainspore: escalation is a tactic— sometimes a necessary one. Would-be-American colonists in support of declaring sovereignty in the late 18th century knew that it was extremely unlikely that a nicely written letter would be sufficient to convince King George III that this was a best-outcome arrangement, which is why many rebel sympathizers started practicing for the main event by tarring and feathering the living f–k out of every Loyalist they could find.
Not sure that’s the case here.
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Well hey, you never know when you’ll have to defend yourself from someone who’s trying to grab your Quran!
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Don’t feed the troll, people. He’s clearly willfully misunderstanding you (or he’s just an idiot).
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