U.S. Political news and discussion. International news and politics also welcome.
When the Left Glorifies Violence Against People It Dislikes, Trump Wins
A lot of people experience a sense of visceral joy when someone they hate gets punched in the face. But there's a body of social science research that suggests they won't like the long-term public policy results.
When the Left Glorifies Violence Against People It Dislikes, Trump Wins
reason.com
(Sorry if the tag is incorrect. I wasn't sure what to put)
So, I thought this was an interesting perspective to post here especially because they reference a study on the effectiveness of violent protests. It's from this past January.




To be fair, I don't see much of the left glorifying violence. The larger majorities of both the left and the right are promoting peaceful protests. It's easy to lose sight of that because the press largely only cover the extreme.
The article is very much correct about the efficacy of violence. It's very rarely a useful mean to an end.
What gives you that impression? I'm not saying you're wrong. You're probably right, actually. I'm just curious as to how you wound up at this majority/minority conclusion. I'm always curious when people say stuff like that and I rarely ask what has affected their view, but ::shrugs:: I thought I should give it a shot this time.
Well, look around you. We had around 5 million globally participating in the January 21 peaceful protest. How does that compare to a few hundred (an exaggerated number) in Berkeley?
Ok. Thank you.
The problem is that the small core of violent protesters create a backlash against both them and the nonviolent protesters. The article gives the example of the conservative backlash in the late '60s and '70s that brought Nixon to office. The vast majority of anti-war and civil rights protests in the '60s were peaceful. But the small subset of violent protesters convinced people that the country was going up in the flames and that they needed someone like Nixon to restore order.
I think that's one of the reasons why I found this piece interesting. I hear a lot about how the majority of people prefer non-violent protests, but then I hear contradicting sentiments that seem to directly or indirectly show support for violent protesting. So, being exposed to both is a bit confusing, but it's also interesting to me because what I often get told is emotionally fueled. So I'm thinking: Are we looking at this rationally? Is there something wrong with the study that can be argued without an emotional slant?
Reason.com, aka the Randroid Smugzone, is a way way suspect source to be listening to on anything, particularly on the subject of how the Left should be behaving. This is the same site that presumably also got the memo telling right-wing outlets to needle Obama over not using the phrase "radical islam" and which is currently pushing the "but what about women in Saudi Arabia" vein of antifeminist bullshit.
Reason clearly likes the conclusion that supporting violence against nazis is bad, because it aligns with their ideological predispositions. From there, it's easy as hell to call up two academics that agree with you and make sure not to include opposing views in your article.
It also fails to observe, for the millionth time, that the Berkley protesters succeeded. Their goal wasn't to make Milo look bad; everyone with sense knows Milo is a colossal piece of shit. Their goal was to stop Milo from inciting harassment on campus, including encouraging students to rat on undocumented people to ICE. This, they achieved with a restrained show of coordination and force; something that would never have been necessary if the campus administration wasn't asleep at the wheel.
Furthermore, so far the tally of leftist violence in America is one nazi piece of shit with a sore jaw and some broken windows. The tally of far-right violence in America includes a few actual fucking shootings and of course the godamn government which is in the process of displacing and detaining people on racist grounds.
The truth is, libertarian dipshits like Reason's writers are fascist fellow travelers to the bone because between the primacy of capital that fascism offers, and any real leftist alternative, they will side with capital every day of the week. They think fascists will respect their property (the only thing that matters in their mental universe) and not send them to a camp because they're all fucking white people, so they're happy to enable fascists because they know fascism will suppress the left, which libertarians view as a threat. I wouldn't trust a libertarian for a nanosecond in the present climate.
Ok. You don't like reason.com. There's an article from 4 years ago from the Washington post that sites the same study. (Are they not a good publication either? Are they libertarian dipshits?) I'm wondering if there is a study that says just the opposite. That would be interesting to read too. Anyway, this one is an interesting read because it's separate from the Berkeley protests, which are very often defended. So maybe this one will be less incendiary to some? Idk.