Reply #204: Is somebody that gets in a fist fight the same as a serial killer?

[Downtown Hound]

Basically what you're saying is that all violence is the same. First of all, anarchists don't commit violence against people. They commit vandalism against certain targets, often very oppressive ones if one was to look into their practices.

The attitude being displayed by you is one shared by many liberals. Mainly that a human being has no right to use any kind of force when standing up to oppression. If one crosses the line from "peaceful" civil disobedience into property destruction, then that person is really Atilla the Hun underneath. I call bullshit. I think that's an attitude espoused by those that use pacifism as a cover to hide behind and justify not taking any real direct action or face any serious consequences.

For what it's worth, I don't agree with the anarchist's tactics of property destruction. Oh, sometimes I blow off steam and say, yeah, go ahead, break that mother fucking window, but deep down I don't think it really solves anything. But I don't condemn those that do either. Of all the protesters I've marched with, the anarchists are the ones that risk the most and have done more to oppose Bush and his tyranny than any peaceful protester passively holding a sign that I've ever seen. And this idea that an anarchist that breaks the window of a bank is the same as a dictator that invades another country for resource extraction is total horseshit. It's simplistic thinking done by those that are uncomfortable with the idea that violence just might be acceptable from time to time.

And another thing. Civil disobedience is often not peaceful. Liberals love to pretend that there's no violence in blocking an entrance to Halliburton or General Dynamics or the gates of the RNC, but there is. If you infringe on the free movement and rights of others to assemble as they choose, then you are, in effect, committing violence against them. Now personally, I have no problem with that. As far as I'm concerned, the Republicans and the war whore corporations deserve not only that but a hell of a lot more. But don't pretend that it's all peace and love, because it ain't. The line between blocking an entrance or a street or trespassing and refusing to leave and breaking a window is very thin.