At what point do you think violence is Justified?

Submitted by succtales_backup in Anarchism 

I've been thinking about this question quite a bit lately,

and I know that the answer varies greatly from person to person. On one extreme you have people who don't feel a need to justify violence, and on the other extreme, people who think violence cannot be justified.

I myself think that violence, like hierarchy, must meet a burden of proof to be considered justified, and that is if it is social violence, if Noncombatants are left unharmed, and if said noncombatants are proletariat. If it does not meet all three, than I don't think it's justified.

Now that My stance on the matter is out of the way, what's yours?

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Comments

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dele_ted wrote

The way i see it, there's defensive and offensive force (violence is a form of force). Using force to suppress, exploit or dominate others classifies as offensive, while protecting yourself against this by fighting back (with violence or other types of force) classifies as defensive.

Defensive force is justified. Offensive force is not.

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AudibleAnarchist wrote

For something to be justified, there has to be someone to justify it too. Who is that and do we really care about their opinion.

Ex: A Pig witnesses a altercation between a fash and a decent human being. To him the fash is justified and the decent person isn't even thought they both punched the other once.

They can do this because they are the authority to whom the violence has to be justified.

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surreal wrote

The violence of the oppressed.

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jaidedctrl wrote

I think any violence that has a positive or neutral result is moral— like destroying capital (good praxis), immediate self-defense (restrained and minimal as possible), or attacking fascists (good praxis; self-defense [they'll use much more violence when in power, so attacking them to stifle such ambitions helps lead to a comparatively positive result]).

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Cosmicsloth42 wrote

I think if people want to use violence to defend themselves that's fine. Personally I am a pacifist so I would never use force, but violence and more specifically self-defense is a personal decision.

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dele_ted wrote

Do you think that attacking a cop, destroying a government building or similar acts of offensive defense against state and capital is justified?

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Franz_trashka wrote

That's a pretty good standard. Personal take is that violence is justified when you can justify it to yourself. I have no qualms throwing a punch if words fail to defuse or If someone commits violence against someone in my group.

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tamarack wrote

To paraphrase the proposed Constitution of the Atlantic Republic (publication forthcoming, along with a book outlining the policies and theories of Northern secession, later this year):

"Everyone has the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, for the defense of family and property, for the defense of the community, and for the taking of game; and while this right shall not be abridged, so too shall anyone asserting it be responsible for its abuse."

Put another way, punching up (i.e., committing violence against those higher than you on the power ladder) is always justified. Punching down (i.e., using a superior position on the power ladder to inflict violence) is never justified.

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ConnieCommie wrote

When your idealogy would directly kill and harm more people than me beating you up would.

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