"It sounds like you would be all right with terrorism as long as the cause was just. Despite the fact that most worthwhile change is accomplished by nonviolent resistance -'within the system.' If you strike out against injustice, but then drop to your knees when they catch you, nobody will respect you and you will have accomplished nothing."
Terrorism as long as the cause is just?
Well, sure.
That's what the atomic strikes on Japan and the firebombing of Germany were: terrorism. Effective terrorism: they brought the enemy to his knees and saved lives. I am for winning, with as few casualties to my own people as possible. That means terrorism. The American Indians were defeated through terrorism: destroy their food supplies, destroy their farms, harry them through the winter. The political will of the people of the Deep South was destroyed by Sherman's March to the Sea, an act of pure, intentional terrorism on a grand scale. Terrorism works. Obviously if the enemy uses it, that's evil, because the enemy is evil. Once I am at war with him, though, anything that it takes to destroy him is fair game. Terrorism is how the will of populations to fight is broken.
Most worthwhile change is brought about by non-violent resistance? The Continental Army, the Union Army and the 101st Airborne all beg to differ. All of the important fundamental changes in the human order have been wrought by massive violence and upheaval. People do not surrender power willingly. To change things for the better, such as ending slavery, or ending foreign rule, requires massive violence and bloodshed. You have to kill the existing rulers, because they never cede power willingly, at least not on anything important.
If you strike out against injustice, and the injustice is evil enough, you lie to live and fight another day. Respected? The Resistance movements across Europe, both against the Nazis and against the Soviet Empire, lied through their teeth every day. The CIA operatives in foreign lands lie through their teeth. Respected? Yes, they are respected, at least by anybody who has his head screwed on straight.
Truth is, there is very little in the way of practical injustice that is really worth killing over in America today. Which is why I say that it is fortunate that the issue so rarely comes up. The sort of things protestors in the US are out there protesting about, things like necessary foreign wars, or wanting people to stop wearing fur, is silly crap. Of course those folks need to have a boot put on their neck if they lapse into violence. But then, we in the majority are the rulers, and rulers never voluntarily cede their power. Of course the protestors who are overwrought about silly shit will apply the usual rules of warfare against evil and oppression...they think that we meat-eating Americans are the evil ones. Of course they lie. The difference is that they are the maggotry, doing stupid things in the service of stupid causes. The causes I get angry about - real oppression - are the sort of things worth killing over. The maggotry are not willing to kill, and their form of peaceful disturbance will never change anything, because we all know we can disregard them, and do.
Um, no. First of all, the civil war was not about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation was just another tool of war for Lincoln. Europe ended slavery without bloodshed and did it prior to us. The half a million dead soldiers in a pointless war never made anyone or anything better.
"If you strike out against injustice, and the injustice is evil enough, you lie to live and fight another day. Respected? The Resistance movements across Europe, both against the Nazis and against the Soviet Empire, lied through their teeth every day. The CIA operatives in foreign lands lie through their teeth. Respected? Yes, they are respected, at least by anybody who has his head screwed on straight. "
Yes, but the Resistance never acknowledged any power of the Nazis except the gun. When these students write 'letters of apology' (however tongue-in-cheek) they are acknowledging that their cause is not important enough to go to prison over. Dying is one thing - you can't keep fighting after you're dead. While you're alive and in prison you are a very important symbol. Like Nelson Mandela.
"The maggotry are not willing to kill, and their form of peaceful disturbance will never change anything, because we all know we can disregard them, and do. "
Nonviolent resistance never solves anything? See India, the civil rights movement, the Soviet Union's fall, and all of the positive actions of the Nazi Resistance (the violent resisters simply died gloriously; the nonviolent ones saved thousands of lives). Almost all major positive change has been perpetrated by bloodless coups. Which is why I have no respect for terrorism. I have never seen a terrorist act in a case where all peaceful alternatives have been exhausted. And, given terrorism's propensity to propagate even more violence, it is doubly unforgivable.
Great posts. I want you on my team or to be on your team whenever a war might break out.