In response to the last part, I can’t think of many examples of law enforcement refraining from using physical violence against political opponents who are peaceful. Am I wrong?
2 great quotes come to mind:
“You can’t comply your way out of tyranny”.
“insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.”
Clearly, what we’ve been doing for decades is not working.
Do you agree with non compliance?
If cops arrest all of us, should we just fight in court and hope to find a judge who likes freedom more than government?
In Orson Scott Card’s book, Empire, he wrote that non-violent resistance only works when you have a free press.
If you don’t have a free press, ie a fourth estate that presents the facts with honesty and integrity, aren’t you simply suffering needlessly? In silence and isolation?
Do you really think non-violent resistance is the correct method for the Uyghur muslims?
Australia is building camps for people that peacefully choose not to take the Covid vaccine. Old people and children are being beaten and their new agencies are calling them a threat to society.
At what point does a nation or culture cross the line to the point where non-violent resistance doesn’t work?
What if the person you are talking about is not an activist? What if he or she never intended to be political? What if she was just minding her own business when one day a government thug broke into her home one night and she decided to fight back?
What happens when this tool of political change goes too far and becomes a world view? Do you think the Woke cult became obsessed with being the victim simply by accident?
We got where we are today because blacks and hippies used non-violent resistance in the '60’s and gays used it in the '80s, etc, etc until millions of people spent their entire lives thinking of themselves as victims and everyone else as oppressors until all they had was a hammer and everything looked like a nail. Then one day, Occupy Wall Street happens. All those Ancaps and Ancoms get together and the establishment gets a little nervous, what happens after that? Identity politics just so happens to develop. Cancel culture, MeToo, BLM, Antifa, Proud Boys, etc. Everybody is fighting each other again instead of the authoritarians in power. Mass scale violence orchestrated by government, old media and social media.
Which is what you are trying to avoid, I get it. I’m just saying that non-violent resistance is not so obvious a solution for everyone.
It’s all violence. Forcing someone against their will is violence, hence the word “force”. However, I get the idea that some people will not respond to requests to be put in cages, therefore they will have to use violence. Doesn’t make it right. They could just issue a summons, and then come get you after a warrant was issued for failure to appear. At least there is less.violenxe that way.
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The problem is violence. You can’t claim the high ground when you beat someone up. We could choose violence as a response to violence, and lose the high ground. However, men with guns typically respond to that violence with guns. Now these men with guns also have a special status in our society that “allows” them to use their guns against violent people, their justification of course is “they were being violent”. I’m really over simplifying things, of course.
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Violence against people should be reserved for foreign invading militaries and pirates. There are much better options against one’s own government, and over the last 120 years they have been 2x as effective at achieving independence. Unless you think you know better than Erica Chenoweth, which you don’t. She used to think like you and the data changed her mind.
Between the moment they grab you, and the judge, here is a Gene Sharp style menu of peaceable monkey-wrenching measures:
" Amplifying NH independence from jail "
for example, the arrestees at the Exec Council meeting who walked out with the cops at normal speed… should have instead walked very slowly. a couple had the sense to get dragged out , creating a scene.
The problem with violently fighting back is (in addition to Erica Chenoweth’s discoveries of movement-undermining) the public can’t easily tell where the fight started, who started it, etc. And they instinctively will often side with the one that has the aura of legitimacy and bully pulpit… i.e. pretty much any government.
Here’s another inspiration for pushing back in a manner that captures the enemy rather than harming him:
Eventually the Bull Connor types were won over and George Wallace himself found himself standing (well, sitting) before a civil rights gathering admitting they were right and he was wrong. Nonviolent reaction may requires more courage than resisting; you have to be a soldier without the option of gunning down the enemy advance. Do each of you have what it takes or will you crack under pressure and open fire?
so far … you have been peaceful
so far … law enforcement has refrained from using physical violence
it is possible
that is why
Non-violent non-compliance is important
do you think Dave Ridley wants to do the same thing as everyone has the last few decades?
I do not think we should even fight in court.
Ridley,
You aren’t listening. I’ll clarify; in this country we can no longer assume we have a free press that will accurately report the facts. We have had many peaceful protests in the last few years that we deemed violent and full of extremists. Last year we had violent riots that were called “mostly peaceful”. There are many places in this country where it doesn’t matter if you resist peacefully or with force because you will be presented as evil either way. The corporate media will never let you have the ‘high ground’.
We still have a mostly free press here in New Hampshire, so non-violence resistance is the best method HERE. But it is not the best method in China and North Korea or NYC or California, etc.
I don’t know where you originally came from, but not every regime is as respectful of people’s rights as New Hampshire. Many of us in the liberty movement came from much worst places. Please stop pretending this is a one size fits all solution. You’ll have much better luck convincing everyone if you remind people that NH is different than where we came from and it requires different methods.
Well I was listening but wasn’t able to respond immediately. I read Empire in 2008. Yes, nonviolent resistance will double the chances of the Chinese Muslims, but some of their resistance is violent. Were you listening to me? Did you google Erica Chenoweth? You’re arguing from your heart, but she did the statistical research on what works. Refute her if you can, but don’t dismiss her.
Actually we don’t have a real free press in New Hampshire but that does not change the viability of peaceable resistance, which continues to outpace violent resistance in its effectiveness.
In answer to your questions about my background, although I was born stateside and am obviously an anglo-American, I am also technically a Bosnian war survivor and learned to speak Serbian during the conflict… I was an unimbedded videographer and medicine smuggler there, in 1992 and 1995. You can decide whether that imparted sufficient knowledge of humanitiy’s capacity for cruelty. Speaking of which…Even the heroic and successful defense of Sarajevo did not bring down Milosevic or end the Balkan Wars… Some lighthearted college students in Serbia did that without firing a shot.
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I see, well thanks for responding. I’ll do some reading on the research this Erica Chenoweth person conducted, but so far I’ve very skeptical. The link below says she did studies on the impact of gender-inclusive movements and democracy and her preferred pronoun is they. That sounds really woke. Intersectionality/CRT is a cult and people that believe in it have a faith based approach to science. That is to say, they don’t understand science, so I’m already suspecting her. However, I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve read more.
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I trust her, mainly because so many other historical precedents seem to agree with her. Maybe I’m wrong. Being left leaning on gender issues does not exactly give her a dog in the fight when it comes to grading Catalan or Sudanese independence movements. The conclusions she reached were apparently a surprise to her, as she was previously in the camp that believed nonviolent resistance was ineffective and only violent revolutions had a chance. She is a sometime guest on Free Talk Live and is really interesting if you listen to her detail this stuff.
But ya, if her name is Erica then I’m not planning on calling her “they” lol.
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I would personally advocate non-violence even in the most violent societies.
Some of my heroes were killed for their beliefs and actions, but they made the right decision.
https://librivox.org/foxes-book-of-martyrs-vol-1/
Since Ridley is referencing our current situation, maybe let him spend most of his time detailing our time and our place in history. What should we do here and now?
If you learn the means and ends of non-violence … it will not be done swiftly. It will take much study and observation. It took me a long time.
I don’t hear any compelling arguments from you. You know you can’t convince people by just saying non-violence is always best right? Rational people don’t simply accept statements as fact. At least Dave referenced someone with data.
And what do you mean we shouldn’t even fight in court? We should just give in to tyranny? Are you trolling?
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if I don’t believe in using government force … then I can’t fight them in court
it is possible none of my arguments will be compelling to you … I won’t convince everyone
Russell’s message is his life, not hours of forgotten research. You should google him and see how much publicity and support he got when he disobeyed the feds in a series of civil disobedience activities around New Hampshire in the 2007 era. Unless it’s already been erased from history.
Remember that scene in Wild Palms where the Jim Belushi character plans a deadely raid on a government run TV station …then reads Sun Tzu and decides instead he will just sneak some video on the air which incriminates the government.
“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting”
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and I do realize that I will probably not get through to most people with just facts, reasoning, and argumentation.
I need to step up my game … and hopefully win over more hearts and minds.
We will soon be revealing the (US) gun in the room and people will have to choose sides and the means they will use to cooperate or fight.
This is one of the reasons I don’t believe there is free press in this country:
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But the good news is, it looks like we have another anarchist to add to the fold.