That sounds familiar...Where is that quote from?

I know i've heard it before, and remembered it because it was so elegantly true

You come back here and say that when someone has a gun to you or your family. Slogans like that sound great as ideals..in reality they often sound as unrealistic as things I might read off the back of a cereal box. The confusing part is that it is true, but not necessarily.

Don't get me wrong..I do believe in non violence as an ideal..I just don't see it happening in reality. You have to assume you are dealing with sane and rational individuals for them to somehow care to respond to your non violent protesting.

Like I said before..how many of the people posting here about non-violent protesting have ever been in the situation where they watch non-violent protesters simply beat to shit by the police? Stand back and do nothing all you like..I have seen the outcome of that personally.

Go tell all the starving children who have been displaced from they're land by force that they should just do a little more non violent protesting and see how they respond.

Maybe the people in the middle east being shot up by the US military in a war based on false pretences should just do a little peaceful protesting too.

Im not saying you are all wrong. I am just saying peace comes at a cost in my view. Both sides have to stop shooting..when one side decides to stop while the other just shoots them all I can only come to the conclusion that the tactic has failed.

If everyone simply stopped paying taxes and decided to take back they're rights collectively things would get ugly. It might be over quick if everyone decided to do this but do you honestly think there would not be some people lost along the way? You think the whole entire military industrial complex and police force who protect wallstreet are just going to give up without any fight at all?

I have chosen to not idealize people like Ghandi or Martin Luther. I have a lot of respect for them and they were obviously very honerable and intelligent people..but they were just people and I don't take what they said as Gospel and I don't necessarily agree with everything they said. In principle I might agree but when it comes down to it actually happening I tend to have different feelings. When you are watching the police beat on people in front of you, you tend to have a slight change of heart. I have seen enough police violence towards innocent peaceful people.

It gets more complicated when you consider that many of these actions are enforced by people who may or may not even understand the actuality of the situation. I don't outright blame all the young American troops for what is going on in the middle east..but still I don't blame the people there who are defending themselves against the people who are shooting at them, reguardless of how many lies they have been told etc. It's a shitty situation, it is sad and depressing and I don't think some little slogan about peace is going to be the instant solution to the problem.

I would like to think that things are just that easy, and I think peace is the answer..I just think that we are not at the stage where both sides are willing to back off and let the other one simply live, obviously. It sucks, it's life.

What if we had simply peacefully protested against the NAZI's? If you all really, I mean REALLY believe in the idea that there is not any just cause for violent reactions towards oppression than you should stand by that, even in such cases as NAZI Germany, the inquisition, attempted genocide of the native americans, black slavery etc..otherwise it is just an ideal but not always relevant when applied to reality.

quote was MLK jr, but it was aegle's (iirc) sig for a while..


do i?
i am unconvinced

yes, i am sure a run in with a violent psycho will render me an advocate of violence, lmfao.

You guys are kind of creating bad karma for yourselves by getting bogged down in "tit for tat" details. Spare yourselves the discomfort.

Voltaire Said: To Learn Who Rules You, Find Out Who You Can't Criticize.

Enough said, it's so delicate in fact, that the esteemed mods of this very site will boot my ass out quicker than you can say " Jack Robinson" if I so much as broach the subject.

I don"t understand this but i find it intriguing.
I see tit for tat details as the meat and veg of debate. In the case of any debates between myself and Art Van D"Lay (and others of his ilk), we have a mutually agreed upon "safe" word that either one of us can use in the event that one of us feels that the banter is getting too close to the bone. We find that this strategy can help to avoid karmic dissonance.

As far as non violent protest goes, i am not promoting it hand over fist, just playing angel"s advocate. I really don"t know what i would do if my family were being held at gunpoint. I don"t dwell upon these scenarios very much. Perhaps it is because i have grown up in a country where guns are heavily controlled and it is less of a problem.

Surely, if existence is violence, the need to take on the ideas of messrs Ghandi and King are amplified in order to evolve. In terms of idealising people they would be in my top 5. I think Jesus would be up there too (if all the stories about him are true).

i live in a country with no gun control, and i think it is more rational to be afraid of death by bicycle than by gun-wielding maniacs.
let alone let that infinitesimally small possibility affect your position on non-violence

as for whether there should be a sane audience: it is my opinion that morality is entirely selfish, and as such behaving morally requires no audience - sane or otherwise.

also i believe arcanum was hinting at CT

I find the idea of a bycicle holding my family against their will even less likely than a gun toting madman. I really think you need to cut down on the ole deemsters Parshvik.

Maybe Arcanum is right about the tit for tat. I am not going to bang on about Ghandi,non violence and guns any more. I will leave this thread with a link, and if that doesn"t convert the naysayers, i wash my hands of you all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTp0AlTuPNA

At least he is doing something other than liking a post on Facebook about some issues, while being an idiot.

More unneeded, unwanted attention.

Havent been on the nexus for a while but i'll probably be off and on over the next couple weeks. Anyways, just wanted to chime in and said that i was watching youtube LAST NIGHT and had the very specific thought "How has this a-hole not been raided yet?" I keep waiting for him to blast off in a video and get yanked out of there mid trip. That would be an "enlightening" moment to say the least.

Bad spokesman. I don't even click on the dudes links after seeing his SR videos getting drugs on the internet a while back. Seems like messing with him is all bad.

assuming you weren't facetious: that isn't the kind of death i was referring to (think riding a bike, in a high traffic area). i was not suggesting sentient bikes with the intent of murder, lmfao.

i was talking about the statistical improbability of both events.

i mean, more people die every year from aspirin than from guns (that is ALL gun deaths, murders, accidents, etc)

Yes i was being completely facetious (but don"t try and tell me the idea of sentient bicycles didn"t appeal to you). I cannot see bicycles and guns in the same light. If you have a loaded gun and a bycicle next to each other and a child has the choice to pick one of them up and play with it. You don"t shout at the child "Don"t pick up that bicycle! They are very dangerous!". But the same cannot be said for a loaded gun. They have one purpose only and that is to cause damage to flesh.

For those that feel they need a gun for protection, i understand. But i am almost 100% percent sure that if you lived in a country where guns were controlled you would not have these fears.

define gun control..do you mean a country where only the police and military force are allowed to have guns while everyone elses right to arms is taken away?

A country like England. Where most of the police do not carry arms and control laws for the general public are strict compared to the States (thank christ). Given the choice i would prefer that policemen didn"t carry guns, but if you start trying to convince me of the argument that any old nutter should be allowed to own a gun because the police do i will go out and buy a gun and shoot myself in frustration.

Not to push this thread even more off topic, but i think when you are comparing the gun restriction legislation and gun related deaths, more gun control/restriction is not necessarily a requirement to have a low homicide rate when guns are involved.

The example being Switzerland, where they have one of the highest gun ownership per capita rates in the world (~ half of the United states), but a whopping 275x lower rate of gun related deaths (40 for Switzerland, ~11,000k for the us).

I think the key difference here, is that the process to obtain weapons, and the programs offered by the government, along with the mandatory peoples militia training/conscription for citizens, ensures the owners of said weapons use them appropriately.

If there's any country that serve as a model for gun legislation its Switzerland. They successfully have one of the lowest gun related homicide rates in the world, but the second highest gun ownership per capita, 46 per 100k people, vs 89 per 100k people in the US.

As well, they don't heavily restrict certain types of weapons, (semi-auto/automatic), but require more training, and control who's allowed to have what guns, or carry them in what manner, based on what the owner declares the need for such permits.

All that, along with the mandatory militia training, and involvement, (meaning alot of those weapons are issued by the militia and kept at home in the event a call to arms was put out), shows you don't have to have super-restrictive gun legislation to reduce gun homicides, it can be done through education, and balanced regulation/restriction based on reasonable policy.

It's just such a shame it had to be this way. Intelligence, education and above all subtlety is the key for change in a system which operates on information. Violence or armed resistance is for last resorts, I don't think even the United States has reached that level yet.

YET.

Protect information, resist all that you can without drawing attention, educate and be educated, pass it on and let time do the rest. The system is too engrained, too far-reaching and too televised to take down as a martyr now. Blow the whistle, pass around some spare whistles, just don't get seen giving it a toot, or you, my friend, are busted.

It's too bad Kokesh had to make such an example of himself, his heart was in the right place. Maybe upon release he may be more cunning and not so LOUD about it.

Subtlety is key.

orion hit the nail on the head


only in this instance, the truth is less scientific.

Will you be voting for him A1pha????

/me stirs pot

Jesus he"s got a nice big house. This protest,gun waving, public DMT smoking malarkey must pay well! I might change careers.