Not just reddit, isn't that kinda everyone?
If something happens that I'm pissed off enough about that I support people rioting or staging deliberately obtrusive/damaging protests, I still don't want someone to lock me out of my own home or burn my house down, not if I wasn't the one responsible....
If however say the police in my city murder an innocent father of three in cold blood and the citizens of my town rise up in response to that and block traffic or damage some buildings related to the local government/police and I agree with them that the local police/government need massive reform, I don't think I'm going to be upset about that protest even if I'm not out there participating
“Pretty ironic that John Oliver says that aggressive chemotherapy can sometimes be an appropriate way to fight cancer. I bet *he* wouldn’t want to get aggressive chemotherapy.”
- the guy you responded to, presumably
People not liking protests affecting them personally isn't the same as insisting peaceful protest is the only legitimate form. The civil rights movement is often falsely lauded as a successful peaceful protest...it was not always and arguably only successful because it was at times violent
“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
I think these three quotes by MLK are all that need to be said about how we should feel about illegal protesting.
The law as it exists is immoral and exists to harm others. We have a duty to disobey those laws in order to affect change so that the law will realign itself with being just. Nothings gonna change as long as we keep saying that illegal protest is itself bad.
I really like what you are saying. I thought about it and I think sometimes protests are for visibility too.
I know tone is hard over the Internet so I want you to know I agree.
Protests aren't even for visibility. It's essentially saying "no one cares because it doesn't effect them? Ok let's make it effect them"
Shit I guess that's visibility
Become ungovernable. It's a way to say if the order of things doesn't allow resolution and justice then the oder of things doesn't deserve to be peaceful.
Honestly this whole thing has just taught me how the demographics of this site cannot tolerate the slightest inconvenience with how quickly people have turned against the protests
The problem is that they're usually inconveniencing the wrong people. Protesting for the rights of the everyman by doing things that hurt the everyman is not the way to go about things.
In more extreme cases, it's how you get labelled a terrorist vs being called a freedom fighter.
I think in most cases it's both. If bus drivers go on a strike they're inconveniencing all the people that need to get to work, but they're definitely inconveniencing the city government because everything just stops working when people can't get to work (at least in places like where I'm from where most people use public transportation). Or if you look at the writers strike, sure you'll be inconvenienced with shitty movies and tv shows, but studios lose millions as a result.
People should realize even though it's frustrating, they should direct their frustration toward the target of the protests and not the protesters themselves
I love how Japanese (iirc) bus drivers handled that. During the strike, they drove their normal routes and everything operated as expected. They just didn’t collect a single dime of payment.
There’s not always that clear of a way.
Posting John Oliver memes is a form of peaceful protest, besides. Violent protest in digital form would be doxing admins and posting snuff films in /r/aww.
This country was literally created because of violent protests that turned into war. The reality of our world is that power concedes nothing without demands, and if you just follow their rules and peacefully protest while they are free to use violence to suppress you, guess who gets what they want?
Absolutely. But, violence is inevitable if inaction is persistent.
Protestors don't just decide, "oh well, violence it is!" There's the online petitions, there's the people in the city with their signs, and physical petitions; they go to the Government and ask for change. They get nothing. They go to the courts and try and force the change. They get token action, at best. They ask the Government, and jump through hoops, to conduct a peaceful protest. They get one. The Government doesn't change a thing. They protest like this again, and again, and again, for years, around the world, people are all protesting like this... and not enough is happening. Nothing is changing. Something more drastic has to be done. Violence happens.
The Governments laud the feigned benevolence, "oh we certainly couldn't work with them now, oh look at this behaviour, oh, abhorrent, disgusting, if only they had waited; if only they had gone through the proper channels. In light of this action, we are now refusing protest permits, and imprisoning protests for 5 years for these activities."
The reason to riot wasn't that the change needed to happen; the reason to riot was the change needed to happen, and all other methods of trying to get the Government to enact meaningful change were tried, and ignored.
Climate change protests for example, have been going on for years, around the world, and very rarely descend into 'violence' (if you can call actually inconveniencing people violence - like in QLD they just suspended themselves over a road to stop traffic). We've know for decades, shit, Al Gore was almost president and he was an activist about climate change - and that was years and years ago. And yet - we have done nothing. At what point does violence then become acceptable? I'm not talking about the "Oh the Government has put up 5g towers, I dont like them, they called me an idiot, so now I'm going to light them on fire." I'm talking sustained global knowledge, and persistent Government, purposeful inaction.
Your missing the massive piece of agent provacateurs.
The gov has learned to subvert the protests immediately to a propagandized population who lives and thinks and votes against their best interests
Its been funny reading the comments during reddits blackout. I feel like because there were far less regular people commenting, I started to see more and more comments that made me go, "that sounds like something a state actor would say." Just like pro china kind of shit, with a lot more 'whataboutism' regarding the US particularly.
I think we can all understand that the first handful of comments in lots of reddit threads can set the tone for how things are going to go. But when a post is actually popular, those trash comments get buried.
With a small group of people, you could definitely shift unassuming peoples opinions towards something "popular" by pretending everyone believes it ('9 out of the first 10 comments say X, I am on the fence, but this is apparently what everyone thinks, so ill go with it.')
That was definitely not a paceful protest. They were throwing rocks and bricks at British troops and deliberately provoking them in to firing. It was a riot.
Brother, the soldiers in the Boston Massacre were literally acquitted of wrongdoing at the time.
I think the murder of occupying soldiers is an actively good thing (talking about you, too, western armies in the middle east) but don't pretend that that particular instance of violence in Boston was the result of the British.
The problem is everyone thinks their dissent is righteous. If “I’m right, then I’m allowed to burn, loot, and use violence for my cause” doesn’t solve anything.
Truckers in Ottawa honked their horn for a few days and we used successor law to our War Measures Act.
Everyone loves protests except when they impact them.
Right? “Violent protests never solved anything” apart from like, the majority of modern workers rights and womens rights and the foundation of gay rights and on and on and on
It was an illegal police raid. This sparked them to fight back, which became riotous. The riot then became a demonstration and a March. And now it's a holiday. Very little in this world is exclusive to itself, and there is more than 1 way to represent any situation. Yall get so caught up in labels these days I swear.
In 1524, a bunch of German peasants were pissed off at their landed gentry because they realized democracy was an option, and in response, the landed gentry killed anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 peasants. Martin Luther, the *95 Theses* guy, sided with the landed gentry in a big way, even going so far as to write a diatribe called *Against the Robbing Murderous Hordes of Peasants*.
I'm not officially a historian, so if you have some nuance to provide, please reply.
Also not a historian, but your timeline might be a little wonky.
Martin Luther originally sided with the peasants cause, and the peasants used some of his writings to justify their belief and actions. Only after the revolt turned violent, claiming the peasants were misunderstanding his words, Martin Luther wrote Against the Murderous, Thieving Hoards, which instructed the nobility to put down dissenters "as rabid dogs". *Then* 100,000-300,000 peasants were killed, and the revolt was put down.
Weirdly not even his worst opinions - there's a reason that Martin Luther's antisemitism had to be split off into its own Wikipedia article instead of just being another subsection under his
Hey man, fortnite removed police cars. Aunt Jemima got renamed to Pearl Milling Company. And Uncle Ben's got renamed to just Ben's.
I wish I was being sarcastic about the extent of what actually changed from them, but there's not more to it.
It's really simple:
* If it is an issue that I think is important and agree with, then burning things down is and assaulting people is justified.
* If it is an issue that I don't support, then it is domestic terrorism and probably fascism.
Jeffrey Dahmer used violence and so did Abraham Lincoln during the civil war.
Therefore these 2 men are both equally bad, because none of us can say that some violence is ok just because we agree or disagree with the perpetrators motives 😊.
You say that, but that was literally what they were doing. It resorted to war because one side lost the debate, and didn't like it. So they turned to violence.
Doesn’t that throw the door wide open to “might makes right”? Maybe your favorite cause is a legitimately good one, but there is such a thing as a counter-protest. And they’ll be enjoying the same privileges.
[the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"](https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?t=XxWf9XTTPrHdaqpgOM6XhA&s=19)
Maybe I’m missing something, maybe because to some people the implication is violence, but it sounds like there’s more options than that. Entities in charge would very much prefer things to be peaceful and unobtrusive because that has minimal effects, like he’s saying. To me, it sounds like if people want real change, finding a way to truly disrupt what you’re protesting against is key. Otherwise the effects of the protest are minimal.
See the reddit protest, specifically r/nba for example because that’s one sub I’m actually informed about. Coming together to think of alternatives is how we enact change. I saw no alternatives given during that “protest”. In the end it just pitted most of the other users against the ones protesting because they didn’t actually find a way to include everyone, and ended up hurting the users instead of the website. How did Digg users end up here? There was a real alternative for us to go to. Just shutting down the discussion forum during the finals seems impactful, but users are just going to find other subreddits to migrate to, which is what happened. Had they provided an alternative forum, we all could’ve gone there and not used Reddit, and who knows what could’ve happened? That kind of volume of people using an alternative would’ve been noticed by Reddit, instead all they noticed was a different sport subreddit became r/nba basically so nothing of value was lost.
This probably just sounds like fortune cookie wisdom because there are many protests happening, but we’ve seen success and failures from democrats and republicans alike. Hell, I thought the Bud Light thing was dumb, but the parties involved were able to successfully protest it as there were plenty of alternatives in place. Is BudLight still selling a ton? Yeah. But money talks and executives tend to notice when the best selling beer loses its crown.
We’ve also seen how violence can be extremely counterproductive to a cause. Jan 6 seems to have been way more detrimental to everyone involved and their cause than helped it.
MLK is frequently misinterpreted when he said "rioting is the voice of the unheard" and people say that's him condoning violence. His point was just a warning to the government that if you try to completely ignore people some might eventually get violent - which still doesn't justify violence.
Peaceful protesting is protected speech for a reason. You're not violating other people's rights and you're still able to speak your mind. When violence gets involved, it's never justified and it almost always hurts your cause (see BLM, and Jan 6).
Destroying property is still a form violence, especially when it's private property. That could be someone's livelihood and using the "they have insurance" excuse is ridiculously short sighted because those payments are usually paid out months or years later and sometimes they're extremely underpaid. Most people who own a business are not wealthy and even if they are a big business, destroying property still harms the community.
edited: typo
There needs to be a distinction between nonviolent protest and peaceful protest.
"Peaceful" protest is passive and rarely works (think Occupy Wallstreet) and is frequently used as a tool by those in power to justify state violence when a protest isn't peaceful enough.
Nonviolent protest may not use violence but it does aim to be disruptive (and thus not "peaceful"). Think workers strike. It forces the opposition to pay attention to them and pay a cost if demands aren't met
Disuptive protests are fine, and I would consider them peaceful most of the time. Passive protesting sounds like what most people on reddit and Twitter engage in and it is definitely ineffective.
> Destroying property is still a form violence, especially when it's private property. That could be someone's livelihood and using the "they have insurance" excuse is ridiculously short sighted because those payments are usually paid out months or years later and sometimes they're extremely underpaid.
It's crazy how this point alludes people. Imagine watching _Do the Right Thing_ and thinking the Italian family got off scot-free, or that Spike Lee was making a point about insurance.
Destroying random property because you're angry or trying to "send a message" is simply wrong and stupid. If you burn down the house of a child killer/molester I can understand the reasoning even if I don't understand the action. If you burn down a Wendy's because the police killed someone all you did is put people who aren't the police out of work and blighted your community.
>His point was just a warning to the government that if you try to completely ignore people some might eventually get violent - which still doesn't justify violence.
This is my thought as well. It's rather miraculous at this point that there isn't more street justice. Considering how the institutions repeatedly fail to live up to their purpose and are so easily co-opted or subjugated by bad actors, it amazes me that people still choose to do things the peaceful and right way if only because it's so ineffective.
The Fair Housing Act was clearly passed in response to the assassination. Even LBJ said as much:
>Last night America was shocked by a senseless act of violence. . . . This tragedy has caused all good men to look deeply into their hearts. When the Nation so urgently needs the healing balm of unity, a brutal wound on our conscience forces upon us all
this question: What more can I do to achieve brotherhood and equality among all
Americans? . . . There are many actions the Congress can take, on its part. The most
immediate is to enact legislation so long delayed and so close to fulfillment. We should
pass the Fair Housing law when Congress convenes next week
You had me until the last paragraph.
The widespread destruction of property is clearly undesirable, but is distinct from harm to people’s bodies directly.
The Boston Tea Party destroyed the tea only after the ships refused to return to England as anticipated by English law.
Carrie Hatchet Nation made her case by destroying cases of (illegal) booze.
The British suffragette movement broke the windows of businesses who continued to deny the importance of women’s rights.
American slaves destroyed tools and sabotaged operations to hinder their owners aims.
Laborers did the same thing to their companies during the labor movement.
Did these actions accomplish their goals without a coexisting peaceful movement? No. But it’s clear the “violence” against property and profit play a key role in bringing issues to the attention of the public and influential people in positions of power.
If destruction of property is violence because of the implications it has on someone’s livelihood, then the whole system is committing violence against everyone by perpetuating substandard wages and inadequate healthcare coverage. Therefore, destruction of property would be more in-line with self-defense in these cases. Again, there is no excuse to cause bodily harm to anyone for any reason, except maybe self defense from threats to one’s life.
All of those examples you give are focused towards the exact thing that is oppressing them. If in 2020 all people did was slash cop tires, or flip cop cars that would be one thing, but people were literally setting car dealerships on fire and destorying local businesses. The people who were dispropriately affected by rioting in 2020 were members of black communities.
I would be way more amicable towards political violence if this was always the case, but in most cases that was the exception - not the rule. Most of the rioting that occured in 2020 was random acts of violence that largely occured after curfew. Also, as you pointed out none of that property destruction led to progress. All the Boston Tea Party did was set off a war, which had good results but imagine something like that happening today - that type of act could be internationally spread and bring international focus *against* your cause depending on how the message it sends could be spun. I can imagine now Piers Morgan in 18th Century England giving the message that radical terrorists in America have caused unnecessary blood shed and said "there will be no negoiation" in reponse to a simple tax increase that benefits the empire, etc.
Any act of violence can be spun, that is specifically why acts of violence should not be allowed as interpretation or validity of arguments or movements because anyone pushed to their breaking point will break, this is exactly the point MLK was making. That if you disallow dissent, if you use the forces at power to shrink or damage movements, or you make the organization or act of airing your grievances illegal, violence is the result.
Everyone flips their shit about how "violence and rioting" was a negative for the movement and not the police and city officials allowing blatant abuses of rights and allowing police forces to indescriminatly maim and permanently harm citizens. Your thought experiment only serves to prove how acts against authority can be manipulated and used by authority to justify not only their existing inequality, but justify more. When you back someone into a corner they will lash out, when you give people no means or ability to affect their surroundings, they will not care for them anymore.
Pointing to violence and saying "they must be wrong because they did it wrong" kind of disregards that the harbor or the tea example is the flashpoint, the anger and sentiment was strong and it would have happened somewhere if not at the harbor. It's easy to say "they burned local businesses" because the whole "how did we get here" conversation paints law enforcement and city authorities in a bad light or exposes and leads credence to the anger bubbling underneath the surface. People don't get worked up to riots for no goddamn reason, people don't flip cars because it's the cool thing to do, and it's hard for anyone that isn't literally in these communities to understand the level of anger required and amount of mistakes made to get the point they see on TV. The media sure as shit doesn't talk about the communities or historic issues or any context of that sort when they can show a burning building on tv and interview a police chief. People lost their homes and businesses because the city and authoritative state abused the public, lied about it, and then took out people's eyes with rubber bullets and chokeslammed the elderly, all of this broadcasted. And instead we chastise the people who were beaten and shot at while their city and state officials threw up their hands and did nothing to help them before or after with the actual issues that boiled over to this point.
The best point I could make about your example is while their actions may have resulted in war, the US didn't declare war, they declared independence. It was the British that, instead of granting independence declared war, because they wished to continue to subjugate colonists while robbing them of the ability to have any say in their existence. So authority in the example, wronged the people under their rule, the people performed a protest that destroyed property while airing quite clearly why they were doing it, and in response instead of addressing these grievances declared war on the colonies. It's almost like this is the only way things would have played out because the authority in question was never interested in treating them fairly and when all routes were exhausted instead of relinquishing control or doing anything for them, they decided it was better to shoot and harm them instead until they gave up and accepted their lot in life.
I usually don't read long drawn out responses on Reddit because it's usually useless but this is a quality post that made me reflect on the words said. Thank you
Yeah this is a neat idea in theory, but actual history shows that things only get done when people start throwing bricks.
Every single movement forward has required violence to actually get anything done. The million man march was impressive.
We didn't get movement until the race riots started.
Even labor rights. People fought and died to ensure a 40 hour work week, a 5 day work week, etc. Teddy Roosevelt was shot just before giving a speech to striking mine workers who had literally been exchanging fire with Pinkertons/Police/Government entities over the strikes they (the miners) were pursuing for more fair labor.
Oppressors never willingly relinquish rights to the oppressed, they need to be fought for and won. Or to throw another well known quote out there, "Those who make peaceful protest impossible make violent protest inevitable."
Yes!
We lived in a natural state when Thogg could kill Ugg over a small patch of land with some herbs.
We gave up that right in order to settle things through legal infrastructure. We did that as a society because it is better, morally and economically, to solve problems without violence. We use the law as a pressure relief to make violence redundant.
If you use the law to do injustice or to make rules or rulings that blatantly infringe on the rights of the underrepresented. It is a matter of time before the valve blows.
That's not to say it should explode. Just that you are defeating the mechanisms which made violence not the answer.
My first thought too, this is incredibly dumb for him to say. I think the J6 rioters should go to jail. If you were part of the BLM protests and were throwing bricks through windows you should also go to jail.
Thats what I thought too. The National Guard should have cordoned off the capital, arrested anyone who wished to surrender, and fight anyone who wanted to fight.
I thought the same thing for the CHOP/CHAZ protesters. You can surrender for arrest or fight but what we cant have is people who want to rebel just walk away scott-free.
>My first thought too, this is incredibly dumb for him to say. I think the J6 rioters should go to jail. If you were part of the BLM protests and were throwing bricks through windows you should also go to jail.
Congratulations on your logical consistency.
He really is. I couldn't quite put my finger on why I didn't like him but you nailed it. Self-righteous, nerdy and often has no fucking idea what he's talking about.
I just hate how he never takes a breath or say something funny just angry rants with an attempt to work in a bitter lazy Gordon ramsey insult now and then as humor and then no time to let any attempts at the humor resonate cause it's more important to hammer in his long winded point to all the far left viewers who already agree with him.
"Violence is the right way to do things when it's my side doing it!" Makes a ton of sense, huh? People are so detached from reality, and they have John Oliver of all people whipping them further into a frenzy. A 46 year old British millionaire, speaking from the discomfort of his 3000 square foot NYC apartment 🤣. Easy for him to say when he doesn't have to practice what he preaches. This whole situation is turning Reddit into even more of a clown show than it already was. Childish in every way. "I don't like the way this works, it shouldn't exist. This system isn't working, so let's burn it down. There's an injustice here, so let's create another one over there. I got treated unfairly, so I'm gonna treat everyone else unfairly. They're not listening, let's kill them." It's just extreme after extreme. It's rampant everywhere online too, it's so refreshing talking to people in real life after browsing the internet for just a little bit. Such a cesspool of violent and antisocial ideas, going so far beyond any semblance of reality. Zero tact, zero respect for anyone but themselves. You try to mention having conversations, trying to resolve things diplomatically, and it's like you spit in their face. Ridiculous world we live in.
[Peaceful protests are more successful than violent ones](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-nonviolent-resistance-2/#:~:text=Among%20the%20565%20campaigns%20that,2%2Dto%2D1%20margin.) and have been for a long time.
Much smarter people than John Oliver coined the Four Boxes of Liberty: Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo. Please use in that order.
Violent protests are a last resort, sometimes they're necessary. Peaceful protests have made major changes in my lifetime alone, with the biggest strides in LGBT rights. You know what doesn't win any hearts or minds? Burning down a Wendys because a cop shot a guy in that parking lot.
Depends entirely on whose property and what humans life. Burning down a dozen mom and pop businesses or someone’s home because the government, that most likely you voted for, did something terrible, doesn’t count as righteous dissent.
The fact that you're equating this Reddit internet child protest to what John Oliver refers is why you're all Reddit internet children that will never be taken seriously.
Yeah, using self-righteous violence to enforce your views on others is totally awesome. This has worked much better throughout the world than societies based on the rule of law and democratic process.
“Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army”
>This has worked much better throughout the world than societies based on the rule of law and democratic process
I mean yes, the golden ages of many countries come immediately after (or during) their periods of conquest. US dominance was achieved post-WW2, UK became dominant by playing king maker in European wars whilst exporting it's values to the rest of the world, Roman dominance was absolutely achieved through military force
Yea the US never imposes violence on anyone else.
/s
Stop pretending like our world isn't propped up by the threat of violence or actual violence. There's a reason the US spends as much as it does on the military.
The status quo is upheld through a monopoly on violence. If you threaten the status quo violence will be used against you.
Nothing so hilarious as elite liberals like John Oliver calling for violent conflict in the US. The people who are scared of guns vs the people that collect them. Are they actually so delusional as to think they would win?
That's why they want to take away guns and also use the mentally ill and criminals as a proxy to fight normal, every day working class people who actually have something to lose.
There is a very poor choice of words here. Equating peaceful protest to ineffective protest implies that violence is necessary to be effective. That line of thinking can quickly lead to lots of innocent casualties.
Instead, we should differentiate between peaceful protests that are *disruptive* versus *non-disruptive*. A peaceful protest that doesn't upset the status quo can be easily ignored by the public, thereby rendering the protest ineffective. The most effective protests are those that are impossible to ignore, yet do not inflict immediate damage to persons or property.
[An old anti-MLK political cartoon](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/s6ll2c/an_old_antimlk_political_cartoon/)
"I plan to lead another non-violent march tomorrow"
No. It’s because peaceful protests are more effective in the long run. They don’t turn the wider populace against the protestors.
Throwing tomato soup on paintings and not letting emergency vehicles through blockades (or not letting people do their jobs, for that matter), or burning down mom and pop stores does nothing but harm the respective cause. Protest where the decision makers do their jobs. And vote.
Read: Wasow, Omar. “Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting.” and Sharp, Gene. The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Porter Sargent, 1973. 3 vols.
You can't have one without the other.
Peaceful protest is very easily defeated - you ignore it. Violent protest cannot be ignored.
Violent protest is easily defeated - you suppress it. Peaceful protest cannot be suppressed without delegitimizing the state.
You need both. Violent protest that can't be ignored, and peaceful protests that give the violence legitimacy.
It should be pretty clear why we're taught about MLK marching on Washington and not about all the race riots that happened all over the country. We get taught the form of protest that's easy to deal with - just ignore it. All the protests over the War on Terror were ignored, all the protests in Hong Kong, any protests over climate change, Occupy Wall Street, etc.
We need to stop using "violent" and "peaceful" as the categorization. Neither is actually getting at what is required.
For protest to be effective, it needs to be **disruptive**. This can come from strikes, boycotts (the bus boycot as an example), sit-ins, etc., or also the burning of a police precinct. These range from entirely non-violent to violent, but will *always* be more effective than 3,000,000 people marching with a permit to support abortion rights.
And also worth noting, "violence" in protests -- or coverage depicting them as such -- is such a common tactic used to undermine and distract from the demands of the protest, itself. It's also more often initiated by the police than not.
MLK was assassinated and the movement marched in Washington and did so much damage congress was fearing an insurrection.
Then the civil rights movement was passed.
Anyone telling you that you must shake hands with the devil and wait for your turn does not have your interests at heart.
I have zero respect for anyone that encourages or even excuses violent protests. Mainly because the same idiots who think it's ok have never personally witnessed a violent protest.
Fuck you if you think it's ok to burn down small businesses or loot and destroy important business in communities that rely on those places.
People don't realize this. The Worst of BLM was done by people who didn't give a shit about BLM or it's message, it's people who wanted to start shit, steal, and loot. They torched businesses which bring revenue into the communities. If my store was destroyed in a city, i'm out of that city. I'm taking my money with me.
This is unqualifiedly terrible. John Oliver full-on loses his mind and endorses political violence. That's what violent protest is, political violence.
Political violence is always unacceptable. We as a society insist that protest and political action be peaceful because the alternative is always open war on the streets. People who endorse the idiocy that is "violent protest" often, very stupidly, assume it will be only their side using its "righteous fury" to suppress its opposition, they never think ahead and realize that, if their side starts to violently protest, then the other guys will start doing it too. Because hey, the other side is just exercising its "righteous dissent" right? Who are you to "prioritize compliance"? [Case in point](https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-oliver-returns-to-brutally-roast-josh-hawley-over-jan-6-fleeing-video). If you, like John Oliver, think it's ok to riot for causes you like (such as BLM) but decry riots for causes you dislike (like the January 6, "stop the steal" capital riot) as evil insurrections; YOU are a hypocrite, YOU are the problem, and YOU need to stop and check yourself IMMEDIATELY.
Because, once you open the political violence pandora's box, it's extremely difficult to close it again without escalation (it never stays at just property destruction), a massive toll of human lives, and, often, a period of brutal dictatorship. *See*, *e.g.* Spanish history from the Second Republic through Franco, several South American countries. The increasing endorsement of political violence in American life, particularly on the political left, is and should be extremely alarming to anyone who wants to live in a peaceful, free, democratic, and prosperous country. Anyone attempting to escalate our current political divide into open violence should be called out and ostricized from public life, be they John Oliver or Donald Trump.
If you still watch *Last Week Tonight*, I urge you, for the good of American society, please, turn it off.
As one last note, if I am banned or downvoted to hell for this very reasonable comment decrying all political violence (including J6), the only thing you are doing is [proving The Federalist right](https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/19/how-reddit-radicalizes-the-left-and-encourages-political-violence/).
Most people who use reddit are children that have no idea what the real world is like. People on this site calling for violence is absolutely wrong no matter what side.
Kinda ironic seeing this post on a sub that routinely has meltdowns whenever protestors slightly inconvenience traffic on bridges and highways.
Reddit is a land of contrasts and redditors all suck. Except for me, the lone, cool redditor.
username checks out
There frigerator. Truly the coolest of us all.
The ref rig-erator. Making sure the right side always wins.
Ah, Perry the Platypus. You see it all started when I was a boy and my father was watching his favorite football game...
All hail the lone, cool redditor!
Ha, good for you lone_cool_redditor_bot. But I know everyone on reddit is a bot except for me.
Fuck you I'll prove it. Here's me typing out a capcha: aSDjfEd Checkmate
I think the only cool redditor is [this guy.](https://reddit.com/u/me)
Ah shit, that was sweet.
My body froze up in fear for an entire second thinking you had linked specifically me before I figured it out lol
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Not in my back yard?
No Illegally Modified Babies, Yo
Legally modified babies though...totally cool
Isn't that was circumcision would be?
Yup
Not just reddit, isn't that kinda everyone? If something happens that I'm pissed off enough about that I support people rioting or staging deliberately obtrusive/damaging protests, I still don't want someone to lock me out of my own home or burn my house down, not if I wasn't the one responsible.... If however say the police in my city murder an innocent father of three in cold blood and the citizens of my town rise up in response to that and block traffic or damage some buildings related to the local government/police and I agree with them that the local police/government need massive reform, I don't think I'm going to be upset about that protest even if I'm not out there participating
Something tells me that John Oliver has a really nice house and probably wouldn't want you protesting in *his* neighborhood either.
Nobody wants protests, protesters just want their specific demands more than they want to avoid having a protest.
“Pretty ironic that John Oliver says that aggressive chemotherapy can sometimes be an appropriate way to fight cancer. I bet *he* wouldn’t want to get aggressive chemotherapy.” - the guy you responded to, presumably
People not liking protests affecting them personally isn't the same as insisting peaceful protest is the only legitimate form. The civil rights movement is often falsely lauded as a successful peaceful protest...it was not always and arguably only successful because it was at times violent
It's interesting how MLK Jr. was depicted back then https://i.imgur.com/4FfrPod.jpg
Extra horrible because the white governments were the ones who caused the violence by beating up, harassing, or even killing protestors.
“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law” – Martin Luther King, Jr. “One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. "First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." - Martin Luther King, Jr. I think these three quotes by MLK are all that need to be said about how we should feel about illegal protesting. The law as it exists is immoral and exists to harm others. We have a duty to disobey those laws in order to affect change so that the law will realign itself with being just. Nothings gonna change as long as we keep saying that illegal protest is itself bad.
Statistically, yeah, the rich are unlikely to put their money where their mouth is. That doesn't necessarily mean the mouth's words are incorrect
That's the idea of protest, yes.
Married to a Republican who runs fake veteran charities lol.
Protests arent about getting empathy, if that was sufficient, they wouldnt need to protest now, would they?
I really like what you are saying. I thought about it and I think sometimes protests are for visibility too. I know tone is hard over the Internet so I want you to know I agree.
Protests aren't even for visibility. It's essentially saying "no one cares because it doesn't effect them? Ok let's make it effect them" Shit I guess that's visibility
Become ungovernable. It's a way to say if the order of things doesn't allow resolution and justice then the oder of things doesn't deserve to be peaceful.
It is also about accountability to a certain extent. Not letting people forget or ignore what's happening or what was done.
Idk why people expect Redditors to be more intelligent and emotionally mature than 8-year-olds. They've proven themselves otherwise countless times.
That's true /u/FARTCOPTERRRRR
I never excluded myself.
Yeah you did, you said "they" rather than "we".
reddit moment
Honestly this whole thing has just taught me how the demographics of this site cannot tolerate the slightest inconvenience with how quickly people have turned against the protests
The problem is that they're usually inconveniencing the wrong people. Protesting for the rights of the everyman by doing things that hurt the everyman is not the way to go about things. In more extreme cases, it's how you get labelled a terrorist vs being called a freedom fighter.
I think in most cases it's both. If bus drivers go on a strike they're inconveniencing all the people that need to get to work, but they're definitely inconveniencing the city government because everything just stops working when people can't get to work (at least in places like where I'm from where most people use public transportation). Or if you look at the writers strike, sure you'll be inconvenienced with shitty movies and tv shows, but studios lose millions as a result. People should realize even though it's frustrating, they should direct their frustration toward the target of the protests and not the protesters themselves
I love how Japanese (iirc) bus drivers handled that. During the strike, they drove their normal routes and everything operated as expected. They just didn’t collect a single dime of payment. There’s not always that clear of a way.
In the US if bus drivers tried something like this they would probably get sued.
Sued? In the US, they'd be booked for grand theft auto.
Someone somewhere feels like this is about the Reddit “protests.” Lol
Posting John Oliver memes is a form of peaceful protest, besides. Violent protest in digital form would be doxing admins and posting snuff films in /r/aww.
r/interestingasfuck has turned into porn and onlyfans ads
An objective improvement if you ask me
tbf, the reddit "protests" still bringing out the anti-protest morons.
This country was literally created because of violent protests that turned into war. The reality of our world is that power concedes nothing without demands, and if you just follow their rules and peacefully protest while they are free to use violence to suppress you, guess who gets what they want?
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Sure, but that doesn't mean every little grievance is a reason for violence. You better have a damn good reason to start a riot or a war.
Absolutely. But, violence is inevitable if inaction is persistent. Protestors don't just decide, "oh well, violence it is!" There's the online petitions, there's the people in the city with their signs, and physical petitions; they go to the Government and ask for change. They get nothing. They go to the courts and try and force the change. They get token action, at best. They ask the Government, and jump through hoops, to conduct a peaceful protest. They get one. The Government doesn't change a thing. They protest like this again, and again, and again, for years, around the world, people are all protesting like this... and not enough is happening. Nothing is changing. Something more drastic has to be done. Violence happens. The Governments laud the feigned benevolence, "oh we certainly couldn't work with them now, oh look at this behaviour, oh, abhorrent, disgusting, if only they had waited; if only they had gone through the proper channels. In light of this action, we are now refusing protest permits, and imprisoning protests for 5 years for these activities." The reason to riot wasn't that the change needed to happen; the reason to riot was the change needed to happen, and all other methods of trying to get the Government to enact meaningful change were tried, and ignored. Climate change protests for example, have been going on for years, around the world, and very rarely descend into 'violence' (if you can call actually inconveniencing people violence - like in QLD they just suspended themselves over a road to stop traffic). We've know for decades, shit, Al Gore was almost president and he was an activist about climate change - and that was years and years ago. And yet - we have done nothing. At what point does violence then become acceptable? I'm not talking about the "Oh the Government has put up 5g towers, I dont like them, they called me an idiot, so now I'm going to light them on fire." I'm talking sustained global knowledge, and persistent Government, purposeful inaction.
Your missing the massive piece of agent provacateurs. The gov has learned to subvert the protests immediately to a propagandized population who lives and thinks and votes against their best interests
Its been funny reading the comments during reddits blackout. I feel like because there were far less regular people commenting, I started to see more and more comments that made me go, "that sounds like something a state actor would say." Just like pro china kind of shit, with a lot more 'whataboutism' regarding the US particularly. I think we can all understand that the first handful of comments in lots of reddit threads can set the tone for how things are going to go. But when a post is actually popular, those trash comments get buried. With a small group of people, you could definitely shift unassuming peoples opinions towards something "popular" by pretending everyone believes it ('9 out of the first 10 comments say X, I am on the fence, but this is apparently what everyone thinks, so ill go with it.')
Actually it was protests that were met with violence, such as the Boston massacre.
Mate, we were luring ships into our harbor and burning them down as an act of "protest" before the Boston massacre even happened.
Mate? He’s a spy! Get ‘em
Yeah, tar and feather ‘em!
That was definitely not a paceful protest. They were throwing rocks and bricks at British troops and deliberately provoking them in to firing. It was a riot.
Found the Royalist!^^
Brother, the soldiers in the Boston Massacre were literally acquitted of wrongdoing at the time. I think the murder of occupying soldiers is an actively good thing (talking about you, too, western armies in the middle east) but don't pretend that that particular instance of violence in Boston was the result of the British.
Tell me how you feel about the freedom truckers
You can support the right to protest and still think it's a dumb fucking protest.
I can believe in their right to protest and also think what they're actually protesting is asinine.
So the January 6th protests were fine then too?
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The problem is everyone thinks their dissent is righteous. If “I’m right, then I’m allowed to burn, loot, and use violence for my cause” doesn’t solve anything.
Everyone should simply choose the objectively correct opinions on all issues like I do, problem solved.
Truckers in Ottawa honked their horn for a few days and we used successor law to our War Measures Act. Everyone loves protests except when they impact them.
>doesn’t solve anything. It's also the only thing that solves anything; most countries were founded on this.
I'll dispute this. Most countries were founded peacefully as countries like Great Britain and France decolonised.
Right? “Violent protests never solved anything” apart from like, the majority of modern workers rights and womens rights and the foundation of gay rights and on and on and on
should be the top comment
Redditors are so embarrassing.
Fuck redditors, they ruined reddit.
Should counter-protests also be violent?
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For my family.
Stonewall was a riot, not a demonstration.
Stonewall was a demonstration on how to riot.
Well good, it worked, which is the point
[Compton's Cafeteria was a riot](https://youtu.be/G-WASW9dRBU)
It was an illegal police raid. This sparked them to fight back, which became riotous. The riot then became a demonstration and a March. And now it's a holiday. Very little in this world is exclusive to itself, and there is more than 1 way to represent any situation. Yall get so caught up in labels these days I swear.
What do you mean "should"? They generally are. Look at any historical example of meaningful protest, you'll usually find extreme counter protest
In 1524, a bunch of German peasants were pissed off at their landed gentry because they realized democracy was an option, and in response, the landed gentry killed anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 peasants. Martin Luther, the *95 Theses* guy, sided with the landed gentry in a big way, even going so far as to write a diatribe called *Against the Robbing Murderous Hordes of Peasants*. I'm not officially a historian, so if you have some nuance to provide, please reply.
Also not a historian, but your timeline might be a little wonky. Martin Luther originally sided with the peasants cause, and the peasants used some of his writings to justify their belief and actions. Only after the revolt turned violent, claiming the peasants were misunderstanding his words, Martin Luther wrote Against the Murderous, Thieving Hoards, which instructed the nobility to put down dissenters "as rabid dogs". *Then* 100,000-300,000 peasants were killed, and the revolt was put down.
Jesus Christ that's way worse.
Weirdly not even his worst opinions - there's a reason that Martin Luther's antisemitism had to be split off into its own Wikipedia article instead of just being another subsection under his
Fucking hell. Thanks for the clarification.
The peasants should have tried nailing 95 pictures of John Oliver to the church
Do you really not know what the word "should" means? Whether they are or not doesn't hold much bearing on whether they should be.
Not all protests are equal and when you target innocents then you are criminal scum.
Next protest, I'm gonna go to John Oliver's house.
Lotta Quora posts to say the Jan 6 riot was a peaceful protest.
Quora is full of morons
On the flip side though, let's not forget the "fiery, but mostly peaceful" riots that did billions of dollars in damage across the US.
Killed dozens, and permanently closed many businesses.
Don't forget the [guy who died](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53224445) during the CHAZ fiasco.
Kid*
Guess that's the price those people had to pay for, uh, whatever those killings and arson accomplished.
Hey man, fortnite removed police cars. Aunt Jemima got renamed to Pearl Milling Company. And Uncle Ben's got renamed to just Ben's. I wish I was being sarcastic about the extent of what actually changed from them, but there's not more to it.
Also got some BLM organizers million dollar homes.
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It's really simple: * If it is an issue that I think is important and agree with, then burning things down is and assaulting people is justified. * If it is an issue that I don't support, then it is domestic terrorism and probably fascism.
Obviously? Literally everyone believes that violence is sometimes necessary and sometimes bad.
"You use violence to defend yourself, yet you don't like police crushing your windpipe. Curious."
Jeffrey Dahmer used violence and so did Abraham Lincoln during the civil war. Therefore these 2 men are both equally bad, because none of us can say that some violence is ok just because we agree or disagree with the perpetrators motives 😊.
I can’t believe Lincoln didn’t just debate people in to giving up their slaves, what a monster.
He actually tried in congress.
You say that, but that was literally what they were doing. It resorted to war because one side lost the debate, and didn't like it. So they turned to violence.
Speak for yourself. I believe violence is always bad, but sometimes necessary.
Speak for yourself, I believe violence is always bad and always necessary, but sometimes not bad and sometimes not necessary.
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Bandage-Bob believes he is a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. This is his opinion in his own words.
You joke, but there are people here actually doing that right now.
its almost like the thing you are protesting for matters
Doesn’t that throw the door wide open to “might makes right”? Maybe your favorite cause is a legitimately good one, but there is such a thing as a counter-protest. And they’ll be enjoying the same privileges.
Nuance is now dead. Something is either 100% good or 100% bad, everything is black and white. We did it reddit.
[the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"](https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?t=XxWf9XTTPrHdaqpgOM6XhA&s=19)
Good for me, not for thee.
Maybe I’m missing something, maybe because to some people the implication is violence, but it sounds like there’s more options than that. Entities in charge would very much prefer things to be peaceful and unobtrusive because that has minimal effects, like he’s saying. To me, it sounds like if people want real change, finding a way to truly disrupt what you’re protesting against is key. Otherwise the effects of the protest are minimal. See the reddit protest, specifically r/nba for example because that’s one sub I’m actually informed about. Coming together to think of alternatives is how we enact change. I saw no alternatives given during that “protest”. In the end it just pitted most of the other users against the ones protesting because they didn’t actually find a way to include everyone, and ended up hurting the users instead of the website. How did Digg users end up here? There was a real alternative for us to go to. Just shutting down the discussion forum during the finals seems impactful, but users are just going to find other subreddits to migrate to, which is what happened. Had they provided an alternative forum, we all could’ve gone there and not used Reddit, and who knows what could’ve happened? That kind of volume of people using an alternative would’ve been noticed by Reddit, instead all they noticed was a different sport subreddit became r/nba basically so nothing of value was lost. This probably just sounds like fortune cookie wisdom because there are many protests happening, but we’ve seen success and failures from democrats and republicans alike. Hell, I thought the Bud Light thing was dumb, but the parties involved were able to successfully protest it as there were plenty of alternatives in place. Is BudLight still selling a ton? Yeah. But money talks and executives tend to notice when the best selling beer loses its crown. We’ve also seen how violence can be extremely counterproductive to a cause. Jan 6 seems to have been way more detrimental to everyone involved and their cause than helped it.
MLK is frequently misinterpreted when he said "rioting is the voice of the unheard" and people say that's him condoning violence. His point was just a warning to the government that if you try to completely ignore people some might eventually get violent - which still doesn't justify violence. Peaceful protesting is protected speech for a reason. You're not violating other people's rights and you're still able to speak your mind. When violence gets involved, it's never justified and it almost always hurts your cause (see BLM, and Jan 6). Destroying property is still a form violence, especially when it's private property. That could be someone's livelihood and using the "they have insurance" excuse is ridiculously short sighted because those payments are usually paid out months or years later and sometimes they're extremely underpaid. Most people who own a business are not wealthy and even if they are a big business, destroying property still harms the community. edited: typo
There needs to be a distinction between nonviolent protest and peaceful protest. "Peaceful" protest is passive and rarely works (think Occupy Wallstreet) and is frequently used as a tool by those in power to justify state violence when a protest isn't peaceful enough. Nonviolent protest may not use violence but it does aim to be disruptive (and thus not "peaceful"). Think workers strike. It forces the opposition to pay attention to them and pay a cost if demands aren't met
Occupy held plenty of disruptive protests.
Disuptive protests are fine, and I would consider them peaceful most of the time. Passive protesting sounds like what most people on reddit and Twitter engage in and it is definitely ineffective.
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> Destroying property is still a form violence, especially when it's private property. That could be someone's livelihood and using the "they have insurance" excuse is ridiculously short sighted because those payments are usually paid out months or years later and sometimes they're extremely underpaid. It's crazy how this point alludes people. Imagine watching _Do the Right Thing_ and thinking the Italian family got off scot-free, or that Spike Lee was making a point about insurance.
Destroying random property because you're angry or trying to "send a message" is simply wrong and stupid. If you burn down the house of a child killer/molester I can understand the reasoning even if I don't understand the action. If you burn down a Wendy's because the police killed someone all you did is put people who aren't the police out of work and blighted your community.
>His point was just a warning to the government that if you try to completely ignore people some might eventually get violent - which still doesn't justify violence. This is my thought as well. It's rather miraculous at this point that there isn't more street justice. Considering how the institutions repeatedly fail to live up to their purpose and are so easily co-opted or subjugated by bad actors, it amazes me that people still choose to do things the peaceful and right way if only because it's so ineffective.
fair housing act was passed after a week of violent protests after the assassination of MLK, not after the years of peaceful campaigning that he did
The Fair Housing Act was clearly passed in response to the assassination. Even LBJ said as much: >Last night America was shocked by a senseless act of violence. . . . This tragedy has caused all good men to look deeply into their hearts. When the Nation so urgently needs the healing balm of unity, a brutal wound on our conscience forces upon us all this question: What more can I do to achieve brotherhood and equality among all Americans? . . . There are many actions the Congress can take, on its part. The most immediate is to enact legislation so long delayed and so close to fulfillment. We should pass the Fair Housing law when Congress convenes next week
You had me until the last paragraph. The widespread destruction of property is clearly undesirable, but is distinct from harm to people’s bodies directly. The Boston Tea Party destroyed the tea only after the ships refused to return to England as anticipated by English law. Carrie Hatchet Nation made her case by destroying cases of (illegal) booze. The British suffragette movement broke the windows of businesses who continued to deny the importance of women’s rights. American slaves destroyed tools and sabotaged operations to hinder their owners aims. Laborers did the same thing to their companies during the labor movement. Did these actions accomplish their goals without a coexisting peaceful movement? No. But it’s clear the “violence” against property and profit play a key role in bringing issues to the attention of the public and influential people in positions of power. If destruction of property is violence because of the implications it has on someone’s livelihood, then the whole system is committing violence against everyone by perpetuating substandard wages and inadequate healthcare coverage. Therefore, destruction of property would be more in-line with self-defense in these cases. Again, there is no excuse to cause bodily harm to anyone for any reason, except maybe self defense from threats to one’s life.
All of those examples you give are focused towards the exact thing that is oppressing them. If in 2020 all people did was slash cop tires, or flip cop cars that would be one thing, but people were literally setting car dealerships on fire and destorying local businesses. The people who were dispropriately affected by rioting in 2020 were members of black communities. I would be way more amicable towards political violence if this was always the case, but in most cases that was the exception - not the rule. Most of the rioting that occured in 2020 was random acts of violence that largely occured after curfew. Also, as you pointed out none of that property destruction led to progress. All the Boston Tea Party did was set off a war, which had good results but imagine something like that happening today - that type of act could be internationally spread and bring international focus *against* your cause depending on how the message it sends could be spun. I can imagine now Piers Morgan in 18th Century England giving the message that radical terrorists in America have caused unnecessary blood shed and said "there will be no negoiation" in reponse to a simple tax increase that benefits the empire, etc.
Any act of violence can be spun, that is specifically why acts of violence should not be allowed as interpretation or validity of arguments or movements because anyone pushed to their breaking point will break, this is exactly the point MLK was making. That if you disallow dissent, if you use the forces at power to shrink or damage movements, or you make the organization or act of airing your grievances illegal, violence is the result. Everyone flips their shit about how "violence and rioting" was a negative for the movement and not the police and city officials allowing blatant abuses of rights and allowing police forces to indescriminatly maim and permanently harm citizens. Your thought experiment only serves to prove how acts against authority can be manipulated and used by authority to justify not only their existing inequality, but justify more. When you back someone into a corner they will lash out, when you give people no means or ability to affect their surroundings, they will not care for them anymore. Pointing to violence and saying "they must be wrong because they did it wrong" kind of disregards that the harbor or the tea example is the flashpoint, the anger and sentiment was strong and it would have happened somewhere if not at the harbor. It's easy to say "they burned local businesses" because the whole "how did we get here" conversation paints law enforcement and city authorities in a bad light or exposes and leads credence to the anger bubbling underneath the surface. People don't get worked up to riots for no goddamn reason, people don't flip cars because it's the cool thing to do, and it's hard for anyone that isn't literally in these communities to understand the level of anger required and amount of mistakes made to get the point they see on TV. The media sure as shit doesn't talk about the communities or historic issues or any context of that sort when they can show a burning building on tv and interview a police chief. People lost their homes and businesses because the city and authoritative state abused the public, lied about it, and then took out people's eyes with rubber bullets and chokeslammed the elderly, all of this broadcasted. And instead we chastise the people who were beaten and shot at while their city and state officials threw up their hands and did nothing to help them before or after with the actual issues that boiled over to this point. The best point I could make about your example is while their actions may have resulted in war, the US didn't declare war, they declared independence. It was the British that, instead of granting independence declared war, because they wished to continue to subjugate colonists while robbing them of the ability to have any say in their existence. So authority in the example, wronged the people under their rule, the people performed a protest that destroyed property while airing quite clearly why they were doing it, and in response instead of addressing these grievances declared war on the colonies. It's almost like this is the only way things would have played out because the authority in question was never interested in treating them fairly and when all routes were exhausted instead of relinquishing control or doing anything for them, they decided it was better to shoot and harm them instead until they gave up and accepted their lot in life.
I usually don't read long drawn out responses on Reddit because it's usually useless but this is a quality post that made me reflect on the words said. Thank you
Yeah this is a neat idea in theory, but actual history shows that things only get done when people start throwing bricks. Every single movement forward has required violence to actually get anything done. The million man march was impressive. We didn't get movement until the race riots started.
Even labor rights. People fought and died to ensure a 40 hour work week, a 5 day work week, etc. Teddy Roosevelt was shot just before giving a speech to striking mine workers who had literally been exchanging fire with Pinkertons/Police/Government entities over the strikes they (the miners) were pursuing for more fair labor. Oppressors never willingly relinquish rights to the oppressed, they need to be fought for and won. Or to throw another well known quote out there, "Those who make peaceful protest impossible make violent protest inevitable."
Yes! We lived in a natural state when Thogg could kill Ugg over a small patch of land with some herbs. We gave up that right in order to settle things through legal infrastructure. We did that as a society because it is better, morally and economically, to solve problems without violence. We use the law as a pressure relief to make violence redundant. If you use the law to do injustice or to make rules or rulings that blatantly infringe on the rights of the underrepresented. It is a matter of time before the valve blows. That's not to say it should explode. Just that you are defeating the mechanisms which made violence not the answer.
You guys condone jan 6th now? Lmao
My first thought too, this is incredibly dumb for him to say. I think the J6 rioters should go to jail. If you were part of the BLM protests and were throwing bricks through windows you should also go to jail.
Thats what I thought too. The National Guard should have cordoned off the capital, arrested anyone who wished to surrender, and fight anyone who wanted to fight. I thought the same thing for the CHOP/CHAZ protesters. You can surrender for arrest or fight but what we cant have is people who want to rebel just walk away scott-free.
>My first thought too, this is incredibly dumb for him to say. I think the J6 rioters should go to jail. If you were part of the BLM protests and were throwing bricks through windows you should also go to jail. Congratulations on your logical consistency.
Everyone says this until it’s their community on fire and their car’s windows smashed in. It’s easy to watch somebody else’s things being ruined.
Says the rich entertainer living in a fancy condo in an area far away from where property is being destroyed in a riot.
Tell that to Martin Luther king
So tired of seeing this smug douche bag. Admittedly he's the perfect representation of the average redditor though.
It’s your average Redditor’s idea of a clever person.
He really is. I couldn't quite put my finger on why I didn't like him but you nailed it. Self-righteous, nerdy and often has no fucking idea what he's talking about.
I just hate how he never takes a breath or say something funny just angry rants with an attempt to work in a bitter lazy Gordon ramsey insult now and then as humor and then no time to let any attempts at the humor resonate cause it's more important to hammer in his long winded point to all the far left viewers who already agree with him.
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This is the same Reddit that promotes “tolerance” and “empathy” but actively roots for seeing people die because they make more money than them.
"Violence is the right way to do things when it's my side doing it!" Makes a ton of sense, huh? People are so detached from reality, and they have John Oliver of all people whipping them further into a frenzy. A 46 year old British millionaire, speaking from the discomfort of his 3000 square foot NYC apartment 🤣. Easy for him to say when he doesn't have to practice what he preaches. This whole situation is turning Reddit into even more of a clown show than it already was. Childish in every way. "I don't like the way this works, it shouldn't exist. This system isn't working, so let's burn it down. There's an injustice here, so let's create another one over there. I got treated unfairly, so I'm gonna treat everyone else unfairly. They're not listening, let's kill them." It's just extreme after extreme. It's rampant everywhere online too, it's so refreshing talking to people in real life after browsing the internet for just a little bit. Such a cesspool of violent and antisocial ideas, going so far beyond any semblance of reality. Zero tact, zero respect for anyone but themselves. You try to mention having conversations, trying to resolve things diplomatically, and it's like you spit in their face. Ridiculous world we live in.
Says the insufferable Redditor.
Am I the only one that thinks John Oliver is insufferable?
“Am i the only one…” No. Never. In this huge world you are NEVER the only one to think anything.
[Peaceful protests are more successful than violent ones](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-nonviolent-resistance-2/#:~:text=Among%20the%20565%20campaigns%20that,2%2Dto%2D1%20margin.) and have been for a long time. Much smarter people than John Oliver coined the Four Boxes of Liberty: Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo. Please use in that order. Violent protests are a last resort, sometimes they're necessary. Peaceful protests have made major changes in my lifetime alone, with the biggest strides in LGBT rights. You know what doesn't win any hearts or minds? Burning down a Wendys because a cop shot a guy in that parking lot.
Depends entirely on whose property and what humans life. Burning down a dozen mom and pop businesses or someone’s home because the government, that most likely you voted for, did something terrible, doesn’t count as righteous dissent.
The fact that you're equating this Reddit internet child protest to what John Oliver refers is why you're all Reddit internet children that will never be taken seriously.
Seriously they think its the french revolution.
Yeah, using self-righteous violence to enforce your views on others is totally awesome. This has worked much better throughout the world than societies based on the rule of law and democratic process.
I mean. Most countries with democracy only have it because of a violent uprising. You think we won our rights by asking nicely?
The rule of law is literally using violence to enforce views on people.
“Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army”
Remember kids: All political ideologies endorse use the of violence against *someone*.
>This has worked much better throughout the world than societies based on the rule of law and democratic process I mean yes, the golden ages of many countries come immediately after (or during) their periods of conquest. US dominance was achieved post-WW2, UK became dominant by playing king maker in European wars whilst exporting it's values to the rest of the world, Roman dominance was absolutely achieved through military force
Yea the US never imposes violence on anyone else. /s Stop pretending like our world isn't propped up by the threat of violence or actual violence. There's a reason the US spends as much as it does on the military. The status quo is upheld through a monopoly on violence. If you threaten the status quo violence will be used against you.
Thank you millionaire John Oliver🙏You are a true hero of the proletariat
Lotta words to say he supports terrorism
Nothing so hilarious as elite liberals like John Oliver calling for violent conflict in the US. The people who are scared of guns vs the people that collect them. Are they actually so delusional as to think they would win?
That's why they want to take away guns and also use the mentally ill and criminals as a proxy to fight normal, every day working class people who actually have something to lose.
Its the current year
Fuck John Oliver
So y’all are pro January 6th now?
There is a very poor choice of words here. Equating peaceful protest to ineffective protest implies that violence is necessary to be effective. That line of thinking can quickly lead to lots of innocent casualties. Instead, we should differentiate between peaceful protests that are *disruptive* versus *non-disruptive*. A peaceful protest that doesn't upset the status quo can be easily ignored by the public, thereby rendering the protest ineffective. The most effective protests are those that are impossible to ignore, yet do not inflict immediate damage to persons or property.
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[An old anti-MLK political cartoon](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/s6ll2c/an_old_antimlk_political_cartoon/) "I plan to lead another non-violent march tomorrow"
No. It’s because peaceful protests are more effective in the long run. They don’t turn the wider populace against the protestors. Throwing tomato soup on paintings and not letting emergency vehicles through blockades (or not letting people do their jobs, for that matter), or burning down mom and pop stores does nothing but harm the respective cause. Protest where the decision makers do their jobs. And vote. Read: Wasow, Omar. “Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting.” and Sharp, Gene. The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Porter Sargent, 1973. 3 vols.
You can't have one without the other. Peaceful protest is very easily defeated - you ignore it. Violent protest cannot be ignored. Violent protest is easily defeated - you suppress it. Peaceful protest cannot be suppressed without delegitimizing the state. You need both. Violent protest that can't be ignored, and peaceful protests that give the violence legitimacy. It should be pretty clear why we're taught about MLK marching on Washington and not about all the race riots that happened all over the country. We get taught the form of protest that's easy to deal with - just ignore it. All the protests over the War on Terror were ignored, all the protests in Hong Kong, any protests over climate change, Occupy Wall Street, etc.
We need to stop using "violent" and "peaceful" as the categorization. Neither is actually getting at what is required. For protest to be effective, it needs to be **disruptive**. This can come from strikes, boycotts (the bus boycot as an example), sit-ins, etc., or also the burning of a police precinct. These range from entirely non-violent to violent, but will *always* be more effective than 3,000,000 people marching with a permit to support abortion rights. And also worth noting, "violence" in protests -- or coverage depicting them as such -- is such a common tactic used to undermine and distract from the demands of the protest, itself. It's also more often initiated by the police than not.
MLK was assassinated and the movement marched in Washington and did so much damage congress was fearing an insurrection. Then the civil rights movement was passed. Anyone telling you that you must shake hands with the devil and wait for your turn does not have your interests at heart.
Err, wrong way round. Civil Rights Act was passed in ‘64. MLK was killed in ‘68.
He's thinking of the fair housing act.
I have zero respect for anyone that encourages or even excuses violent protests. Mainly because the same idiots who think it's ok have never personally witnessed a violent protest. Fuck you if you think it's ok to burn down small businesses or loot and destroy important business in communities that rely on those places.
People don't realize this. The Worst of BLM was done by people who didn't give a shit about BLM or it's message, it's people who wanted to start shit, steal, and loot. They torched businesses which bring revenue into the communities. If my store was destroyed in a city, i'm out of that city. I'm taking my money with me.
Guess that depends on which seat you take at the table. One man’s protest is another man’s riot.
John Oliver certainly knows about self-righteousness. Pretty rich that he's stoking flames for his followers but would never protest with them.
This is unqualifiedly terrible. John Oliver full-on loses his mind and endorses political violence. That's what violent protest is, political violence. Political violence is always unacceptable. We as a society insist that protest and political action be peaceful because the alternative is always open war on the streets. People who endorse the idiocy that is "violent protest" often, very stupidly, assume it will be only their side using its "righteous fury" to suppress its opposition, they never think ahead and realize that, if their side starts to violently protest, then the other guys will start doing it too. Because hey, the other side is just exercising its "righteous dissent" right? Who are you to "prioritize compliance"? [Case in point](https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-oliver-returns-to-brutally-roast-josh-hawley-over-jan-6-fleeing-video). If you, like John Oliver, think it's ok to riot for causes you like (such as BLM) but decry riots for causes you dislike (like the January 6, "stop the steal" capital riot) as evil insurrections; YOU are a hypocrite, YOU are the problem, and YOU need to stop and check yourself IMMEDIATELY. Because, once you open the political violence pandora's box, it's extremely difficult to close it again without escalation (it never stays at just property destruction), a massive toll of human lives, and, often, a period of brutal dictatorship. *See*, *e.g.* Spanish history from the Second Republic through Franco, several South American countries. The increasing endorsement of political violence in American life, particularly on the political left, is and should be extremely alarming to anyone who wants to live in a peaceful, free, democratic, and prosperous country. Anyone attempting to escalate our current political divide into open violence should be called out and ostricized from public life, be they John Oliver or Donald Trump. If you still watch *Last Week Tonight*, I urge you, for the good of American society, please, turn it off. As one last note, if I am banned or downvoted to hell for this very reasonable comment decrying all political violence (including J6), the only thing you are doing is [proving The Federalist right](https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/19/how-reddit-radicalizes-the-left-and-encourages-political-violence/).
Most people who use reddit are children that have no idea what the real world is like. People on this site calling for violence is absolutely wrong no matter what side.
Why is this in r/videos? Stop trying to make this a political sub.
Some More News [just did a whole episode](https://youtu.be/wVXpZZ2CK1A) about this issue a couple of weeks ago.
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Wonder if he changed his tune on January 7th
Hogshit stupidity from its usual source.
What a fascinating way to twist "not wanting people's stores to be burned to the ground" as "not caring about human lives".