First, not sure where you live that you believe general strikes will result in the use of force against? certainly not in most civilized societies, no? Second, while US history has provided examples where use of force might have been necessary to bring about the change same history does not have (m)any examples where such violence wasn’t preceded with long attempts at bringing about needed changes without violence. also, violence against human beings is different from setting shit on fire, if violence against human beings is justifyable (regardless of how vile the said person/people are in your and even some majority opinion) who is to say that someone tomorrow might decide that same violence is justifyable against you or even worse - someone in your family?! think of it this way - if your claim is that violence is justifyable - who makes the determination for such justification?
I live in the US. There is a history of armed forces being used against the people generally striking. If you include large protests, even more.
> If your claim is that violence is justifyable - how makes the determination for such justification?
We authorize people in governments to make this determination, and increasingly machines. Should we? Do you think that it is acceptable to let a police officer justify force on behalf of the state? How about a machine? Mostly just trying to understand what you think is acceptable here.
But to answer...violence against human beings is indeed different than setting shit on fire, though the law certainly does not allow for the use of force against personal property either. And this difference is indeed the crux of the issue, depending on what your values are (though we seem to be in alignment on "life is valuable"). If for example (probably a bad one, but hopefully it gets the idea across), a group of people is committing a genocide, and you ask them to stop, and they do not, and so you interfere with the use of force...limited at first, maybe, but they do not stop: is their continued involvement not the justification for use of force, assuming other strategies are off the table? Different example than the thread, I realize, but my thought experiment is not tied directly to it, just at the sentiment.
> I live in the US. There is a history of armed forces being used against the people generally striking
[citation needed]
> a group of people is committing a genocide
if you are asking if violence is OK to fight violence, it always is. I guess I personally did not think that needs justification but 100% you can (and should) fight violence with violence
> if you are asking if violence is OK to fight violence, it always is. I guess I personally did not think that needs justification but 100% you can (and should) fight violence with violence
I wasn't asking that, but you were (sorta) vis-à-vis the justification question ;) My main point was to say that it seems strange that a crowd of folks that consider themselves "thinkers" would simply table the discussion of the use of force. I do not like discussions tabled simply because they seem indecent - that tells me they're probably important to have.
But to your point: if it is ok to 100% use force against force, why? If a federal agent were to show up at someone's door to and force them into a labor camp, where they would probably meet their death slowly - if the person decided to try to use force to fight the federal agent and take a chance on a better life than the camp, would their use of force be justified in your eyes? And taken a bit further and sort of building on the first example, what is the difference between someone using force against an employee of a company pursuing a goal whose technology is being used to aid in the use of genocide against others for reasons _the company can justify_ (money) but they can't? Are they not complicit in the devaluation / loss of other people's lives? In Grug's terms, "why ok for us to hurt people if we think we right, but not ok for people to hurt us if they think they right?" (or something like that)
