So...Trump is officially our president. I don't like it. Its gonna be a long four years, but the time is now to resist him and his agenda. And resist him we shall. Any bad legislation trump or the republicans out forward should be vigorously opposed. And we need protests in a mass scale like we've been seeing to voice opposition against him. Make no mistake, I support using every legitimate means possible to oppose a trump agenda.
But...we need to have a talk about something first. Some people seem to think violence is the answer. The amount of people I see supporting and advocating for violence against a Trump administration and supporters is too darned high. Learn from the women's march yesterday. Millions of people protesting and you know what? They did it peacefully. And they outnumbered the amount of people to support Trump at his inauguration. That is great. That is what a real show of force from a peaceful perspective looks like and everyone who participated should be proud.
What isn't okay though is the use of violence. I watched some of the protests against Trump get violent where people did things like threw stuff through Starbucks' windows and set cars and trash cans on fire. And I've also seen people assaulting white supremacists as well.
This is not okay. Keeping our discourse civil and respecting people's right to their views is important for the future of freedom of speech in this country. There can be no freedom of speech if people are afraid to speak up for fear of being assaulted. It is fundamentally dangerous for an angry mob to start burning things in response to an election outcome they don't like. The rule of law is an important part of our society and without it we are just bands of raving lunatics who need to live in fear of one another. The first imperative for society is to push for an environment in which people are safe. If we don't have that, we have nothing. And when you advocate and support political violence against other human beings, you are disrupting that first imperative of civil society.
You are not moral if you supporting "bashing the fash" or breaking things. You are threatening the order of society and bringing it dangerously close to a full scale breakdown. And not in a good way. As Bruce Willis once pointed out in Die Hard 4, the "system" is people, and bringing it down means bringing down the people.
I have a lot of grievances against our society. And people who oppose the alt right and other similar movements have their hearts in the right place. And you know what? We deserve to air these grievances. We have a right to protest, make our voices heard, and try to change the system in a peaceful way. There is a lot to oppose to a Trump presidency on all fronts. Socially, economically, morally.
Socialists, social democrats, etc. Our views are outside of the political spectrum. People fear us. They do. How would you like it if the alt right started beating us up for holding the views we do? Well, by beating them up, you're confirming that we are something to be feared, something that threatens the order and fabric of civil society. And people will fear us,and people will fight us. The American public does not have a stomach for violent protests. They don't sympathise with the causes of the agents acting violently. And they just make things harder for the rest of us, who want to change the system from within. Who respect law and order and civil society. Because now we have to deal with the idea that we are violent extremists.
Even worse...the critics of violence are correct. Since most of this violence takes place on the left, let me remind people what happens when the militant left gets its way. Russia, China, Cuba, north Korea. What do they all have in common? They were all born of left wing revolution. The people rose up, acting as a mob, overturned the system, killed the dissidents, the people in charge formed dictatorships, and became repressive toward the people. When I see the far left advocating for violence, I see the seeds of a violent communist revolution that only will end in violence and repression. This is not the path I wish for society to take. We must make our change a peacefully, incrementally, in the stability of a civil society. And we must never act violently against those who disagree with, as repulsive as they may be. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. Those who live by the law generally live long peaceful lives. Our system is flawed, but its not so unbelievably tyrannical and broken it warrants violence to correct. The risks and costs simply outweigh the benefits.
As such, protest, oppose trump, oppose the alt right as you feel is right. You have a right to do it. Call them out on their bs. Protest by the hundreds of thousands. Filibuster them, organize against them, run for office. But don't advocate for violence. Violence is bad. Violence is a threat to the very fabric our society is built on. It is sometimes a necessary evil, but this is not one of those times.
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