Okay here's an opinion that'll get me down voted to oblivion but here goes:
Violence is like symptom management. If you're hurting, seriously injured etc. get that morphine. But keep using it and it becomes dependency. It's a short term solution to one specific problem and rarely solves the underlying causes. Unless you can do that, you'll be back to using violence as symptom management. Only the next time you'll need more of it, just like heroin.
sips tea Ah … come, sit with me for a moment. The tea is hot, and such questions are best answered slowly, with a warm belly.
It is natural to feel anger when one has been wronged. Even the gentlest river becomes violent when dammed for too long. But we must be careful, my friend, not to mistake the force of our feelings for the wisdom of our actions.
You ask why one should not kill their oppressors. The answer is not because they are strong, nor because they deserve mercy, nor because the world would punish you. It is because when you choose to do evil in the name of justice, you quietly invite that evil to live inside you. And once it is settled there, it does not leave easily.
You may believe you are striking only your enemy, but violence has a poor sense of direction. It spills into the soul, changing the person who wields it. The moment you decide that a “good reason” excuses a cruel act, you teach your heart that cruelty can be justified. Soon, it will begin to justify itself.
Oppression is a heavy chain, but hatred forges a second one, but this time around your own spirit. If you destroy another to feel free, you may discover that freedom never arrived, and only the destruction remained. True victory is not standing over your enemy’s body. True victory is refusing to become what hurt you. It is choosing a path that allows you to look at yourself in the mirror without turning away. The right reasons lose their meaning when they are carried by wrong actions. Like tea made with poisoned water, no matter how fine the leaves, the cup will only bring sickness.
So no - do not kill your oppressors. Not for their sake, but for yours. Because the most important battle is not against them, but against the part of yourself that believes goodness can be built from blood.
Nah, fuck that. What are they supposed to do? Roll over and continue being oppressed? End your oppression not just for your sake but for the sake of everyone else whom they may oppress too.
Yeah, those in power always preach peace to preserve the status quo. But what about the suffragettes? The black Panthers? What about the Italian resistance? What about the Warsaw ghetto uprising?
Sometimes it's not about our souls, not about our own psychical wellbeing. It's about the liberation of all. About justice. About making the bastards pay. About showing the world that there's a limit to what people can be made to do and suffer.
Violence is the last resort of the desperate, no doubt. It's not fun. It does taint. It's fucking tragic.
But we are living in increasingly desperate times. Who can deny that? And its just not about us as individuals anymore. That's the message here.
Mostly I disagree that violence taints your soul permanently. I believe it is this line of thinking that has led the repetition of violence throughout history. Those who wish to do harm are never treated with strongly enough and so they persist. They are readily allowed access to others to harm as they please. Perhaps we can stave off states doing it with the right government types but there will be those in the general populace that desire harm for others and they will strive to upend that government at all times.
My opinion is: oppression deserves reciprocal violence an order of magnitude above and immediately.
This is a fantasy land take that has no basis in reality or human history. At some point, it becomes a matter of physical well being for yourself and those around you. Telling people to just suck it up and take a beating/killing for the benefit of their "soul"...my god. Rejoin the real world buddy. It can be a scary place, but at least it's real, not whatever bizarro world you are speaking from.
You let bullies walk on you, and they will keep doing it. The only thing that will stop them is letting them know that they will pay a real price if they keep at it. Trying to spin this "peace at all costs" worldview is intellectually dishonest and counterproductive.
This is silly. Everyone knows, historically, you stop opressors by asking nicely. Maybe go into the street in a funny costume or something, organize a singalong. Violence is what the baddies do.
Bruh, you dont even have to use violence, if everyone stopped working, paying taxes and consuming anything that the bare minimum for survival, the country would collapse in less than a month.
There's a reason it's pushed so hard, and it's because people in power don't want to lose the golden goose that is American apathy. They can oppress us as much as they want, and we think having the moral superiority of taking it on the chin makes us strong. It doesn't.
spoilersOrion Pax and D-16 just lead a revolution to overthrow the state, and are deciding what to do with the old head of state. D-16 wants to kill him and burn this motherfucker to the ground. But Orion reminds him that they're creating a new government with their actions right now, and they need to embody the principles they want to see. D-16 doesn't want to hear it because he's angry. Orion gets in the way, and D-16 shoots him.
And that's how Orion Pax gets the Matrix of Leadership and becomes Optimus Prime. By thinking about the future and what sort of world his actions are creating.
It's the difference between defense and vengeance. In Transformers One they had already defeated the big bad and had the support of the other transformers, so killing him then was an unnecessary act of revenge. It's different when you're still fighting and the big bad's death could make a difference in the outcome.
Like we never tried this shit before...
So who is the one deciding who gets taged as oppressor? Designate a "benevolent" dictator, or you vote on it, or just give everybody guns and make it a free for all?
Do you murder the oppressor's children as well because they benifited from their perents behavior?
Where do you draw the line, who is an oppressor? Your boss, the cop doing her job, the train ticket expecting dude, someone stoping desperet people from shoplifting from her store?
What is wrong with you people? This is how some of the worst atrocities start.
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