Reply #39: I for one perceive a significant difference between violence and mayhem

[ProgressiveProfessor]

You may consider it a hair split, but in my experience it is significant. It’s a concept many do not look at, but is critical in this debate. IMO being violent is an attitude and mayhem is damage that occurs.

I am a martial artist. I have been since I was single digit years old. It includes the complete suite of the martial arts; weapons including firearms, tactics, logistics and not just hand to hand stuff in a dojo. I am quite capable of a great deal of carnage and mayhem. Over the years I have used my skills when I believed the situation called for it. Does that make me violent? I think not since it has never been my intent to use mayhem to further my political, professional, or personal goals.

I have known people on both sides of the political spectrum that call for violence and mayhem. Most who declared their desire to do mayhem on behalf of their cause in my presence have tended to be young and inexperienced, a malevolent form of misdirected youthful energy. It also tends to be on left since young people tend to be more left wing and get more conservative or at least more practical as they get older. They are not intrinsically violent, but misguided, thinking that mayhem will change things. They are wrong and some have paid a stiff price. While some will disagree on the split, it valid in my experience.

Being violent is an attitude of the soul. It’s the willingness to harm another for gain whether it is personal or political. It’s the ultimate ends justify the means. No side has a monopoly on it. Both sides rationalize it. Neither is right. The good news is that those who are violent are often ill equipment to do all that much mayhem.

Left wing organizations such as the Black Panthers, Weather Underground, SLA, ALF, ELF, etc, have been fairly impotent in their attempts at violence and revolution. Rife with traitors and lousy at operational security, they tend to do little and get caught. Their only left wing successes (in terms of mayhem) have been riots. I will not claim any specific riot was caused by a left wing group, but certainly some have cheered and claimed validation via them. Regardless of origin, riots and even mass demonstrations are not effective as motivators for change in the US. Smaller events, mostly property damage, for which credit is claimed and due, are similarly ineffective in motivating change and often result in a backlash.

Right wing violence is much the same. The vast majority of the time it is just as ineffective and their groups are as full of infiltrators as the left. However, with McVeigh being the best example, sometimes the righties get things right and do a fair amount of mayhem. IMO their success is based on their maturity, their knowledge of effective techniques, and better OPSEC, not numbers, ideology or fervor.

However in the end it is well nigh impossible to really create a calculus that allows us to adequately compare relative violence across the political spectrum. Body count, $$$ in property damage, kind of events, time in history all make those kinds of comparisons specious and destined for failure. More over being violent is an attitude and and willingness, and that is even harder to measure.