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So I know this isn't a traditional poll, but I'm not sure it really can be due to the subject and how varied of a scale I think we are looking at. Clearly there is a lot of disagreement in the EE and PP forums about the protests. Strange as it may sound, but it occurred to me that everyone concerned may not actually be on the same page in regards to what is 'peaceful' and what is 'violent'. Obviously the opposite ends of the scale are well, obvious, but where does one cross over and become the other?

Since there is no poll to vote on, I'll at least lay out the outer limits...

On one end you have the obvious extreme violence: fire bombs and fist fights, etc.

On the opposite end is simply a person standing on a street corner in silence holding a sign.

My intention is for this not to be a who's right and who's wrong kind of thing. I'm just curious to know how everyone defines when peaceful turns to violent in their own words. purposefully left out property damage and speech in the extremes as I suspect that some posters may have gradations to their "line". For example: one may be ok with pulling a statue down, but not be ok with destroying a store front. For some a protester could be screaming about slitting the throats of a cop and their family but if they aren't actually doing anything in the moment, chalk it up to free speech.


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IMO, there's a fair amount of grey area even in my understanding of violent vs forceful bu peaceful.

Really, it all comes down to the hurt you're causing by your protest. Looting a store obviously hurts the owner, a local businessperson. Pulling down a statue will probably hurt someone's feelings, but I'm ok with that. I acknowledge that protests, by their nature, are not intended to have everyone come away feeling comfortable. In another way, if you're protesting and nobody has had their feelings hurt, you're probably doing it wrong.


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I think the word violence is obvious and has a definition for the word that explains it well.

Quote:
behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something


If your actions do not include things that fall under this definition you are not being violent. But the bigger question here is criminal. Crimes are also being committed that while not violent, are certainly criminal acts and as such those people should be caught and convicted.


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I think property destruction, theft, physical violence and blocking roadways should be off limits. I realize that protestors have to make an impact and it can be done without resorting to violence or harm.


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What?!? You want people to obey laws and treat their fellow citizens decently?!?

That's crazy!!!

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J/C

Some context

Quote:
On Saturday, as protests mounted across the country following the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed explained the large police presence at downtown protests to reporters: “Dr. King would never take a freeway.”

Reed’s claim was historically absurd. Martin Luther King Jr. took many a highway—most famously, perhaps, in the Selma-to-Montgomery march.

Reed is not the only one trafficking in dangerous and distorted ideas of the civil rights movement. Across the political spectrum over the past two years, as Black Lives Matter burst into national consciousness, many commentators—from former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (who said that King would be appalled by BLM) to Oprah Winfrey (who told young activists “to take note of the strategic, peaceful intention if you want real change” ) and the Rev. Barbara Reynolds (“We were nonviolent activists who won hearts by conveying respectability and changed laws by delivering a message of love and unity”)—have invoked the history of the civil rights movement to chastise Black Lives Matter. They and many others have cast today’s protesters as dangerous and reckless and not living up to the peaceful, respectable, unified legacy of the civil rights movement.

These framings misrepresent the movements that BLM activists are building across the country and the history of the civil rights movement. Such historical revisionism is both dangerous and comfortable—dangerous because it grossly distorts how the civil rights movement actually proceeded, and comfortable because it allows many Americans to keep today’s movement at arm’s length. This repeated comparison has become one of the ways that many justify hand-wringing on the sidelines—as if they would act, given a righteous movement like King's, but today’s activists are simply too excessive, too disruptive and too unrespectable.

Calling out these myths is more than setting the historical record straight. The “propaganda of history,” as W.E.B. Du Bois reminded us a century ago, becomes a way of “giving us a false but pleasurable sense of accomplishment”—for soothing and justifying inaction in the face of persistent racial inequality.

Myth 1: The civil rights movement wasn’t disruptive.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a disruptive consumer boycott that sought to use the power of black consumers to hurt the bus company and force the city to address black demands. The Birmingham, Ala., campaign that King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference waged in 1963 was a campaign of mass civil disobedience designed to overflow the jails and cripple downtown businesses and city function. Key to the work of many civil rights organizations, from SCLC to the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was mass civil disobedience because they understood that injustice would not be changed without disrupting civic and commercial life.

Myth 2: The movement's righteousness was apparent.

The civil rights movement made most Americans uncomfortable. From presidents to ordinary citizens, many regarded it as “extremism.” People regularly called MLK and Rosa Parks communists and traitors, not just in the South but also in the “liberal” North, for their critiques of police brutality and their support of housing and school desegregation. Although our public imagination focuses on Southern-redneck racism, both Parks and King came to see the white “moderate” as key to the problem. As King wrote from a Birmingham jail in 1963, “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens' Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice […] who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.’”

Myth 3: “Respectable” activists like Rosa Parks were publicly appreciated.

Parks spent many decades grappling with how hard it was to be a “troublemaker,” and with the stigmatization and punishment of black people who dissented endured. She noted how those who challenged the racial order as she did were labeled “radicals, soreheads, agitators, troublemakers.” Politically active for two decades before her bus stand (and four decades afterward), Parks despaired for years before the boycott that no mass movement was emerging.

“Such a good job of brainwashing was done on the Negro,” Parks observed, “that a militant Negro was almost a freak of nature to them, many times ridiculed by others of his own group.” She struggled with feeling isolated and crazy, writing how she felt “completely alone and desolate, as if I was descending in a black and bottomless chasm.”

Myth 4: Most well-meaning Americans supported the civil rights movement.

The majority of the American public did not support the civil rights movement while it was happening. In May 1961, in a Gallup survey, only 22 percent of Americans approved of what the Freedom Riders were doing, and 57 percent of Americans said that the sit-ins at lunch counters, freedom buses and other demonstrations by Negroes were hurting the Negro’s chances of being integrated in the South.

Lest we see this as Southerners skewing the national sample, in 1964, a year before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, in a poll conducted by the New York Times, a majority of white people in New York City said the civil rights movement had gone too far: “While denying any deepseated prejudice, a large number of those questioned used the same terms to express their feelings. They spoke of Negroes’ receiving ‘everything on a silver platter’ and of ‘reverse discrimination’ against whites.” Nearly half said that picketing and demonstrations hurt black people’s cause. In 1966, a year after Selma and the passage of the Voting Rights Act, 85 percent of white people and 30 percent of black people nationally believed that demonstrations by black people on civil rights hurt the advancement of civil rights.

Myth 5: The federal government was a key supporter.

The history of the March on Washington is revealing of the federal government’s approach to the movement. Now celebrated as one of the most American events of the 20th century, the march was feared at the time. In a poll a few days before the march, 63 percent of Americans surveyed had an unfavorable opinion, and numerous congressmen denounced the march as decidedly “un-American.”

The FBI surveilled the march’s organization for many months preceding the event. The march was policed like a military battle; in Operation Steep Hill, the Pentagon put 19,000 troops on standby. Five thousand local and suburban police, National Guard troops and Army rangers were given riot-control training and were on duty that day. The Kennedy administration had rigged the microphone so that it could be turned off if that was deemed necessary. In the wake of the march’s success and King’s galvanizing influence, the FBI, with the Kennedy administration’s approval, expanded its surveillance of King.

Myth 6: The movement focused on the South.

Forced to leave Montgomery for Detroit in 1957, Rosa Parks found Detroit the “Northern promised land that wasn’t” and continued her activism fighting the racism of the Jim Crow North till her death in 2005. She repeatedly lamented how black movements challenging school and housing segregation, urban renewal, economic injustice and police brutality were opposed in the 1950s and 1960s, and this “resistance to change long beforehand” laid the groundwork for the uprisings of the mid-1960s.

Following the 1965 Watts uprising, King took to the pages of the Saturday Review to criticize the “surprise” evinced by California officials, given long-standing movements in their own backyards. “In my travels in the North,” King said, he had grown “increasingly … disillusioned with the power structures there … [who] showered praise on the heroism of Southern Negroes. Yet when the issues were joined concerning local conditions only the language was polite; the rejection was firm and unequivocal.”

So let’s be clear: Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and their many comrades were persevering, courageous and disruptive, and they made America uncomfortable—just like many people engaging in BLM movements across the country today. But we have stripped them of this history. By turning civil rights heroes like King and Parks into Thanksgiving Day parade balloons—happy, larger than life and stripped of their substance—we make them “unavailable for where we are now,” as the late Vincent Harding put it, “so we can keep ourselves comfortably distant from the realities [they were] trying to grapple with.”

King certainly did take a freeway. What are we doing?

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Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
I think the word violence is obvious and has a definition for the word that explains it well.

Quote:
behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something


If your actions do not include things that fall under this definition you are not being violent. But the bigger question here is criminal. Crimes are also being committed that while not violent, are certainly criminal acts and as such those people should be caught and convicted.


I don't think violence is as straightforward as you believe/desire it to be. Much like "protest", it's not as simple a concept as you try to paint it.

The problem isn't an inability to "define" violent protest. The problem is people don't seem to understand what peaceful means. Just because someone isn't being physically "violent" doesn't mean they are being peaceful. Emotional/verbal abuse are still "violence." Spray painting that the only good cop is a dead cop on a wall is "violence." Threatening violence is violence (i.e, "no justice, no peace.")

Any violence generally leads to more and worse violence.

This is one of the reasons I hate that people insist on using the verbiage "fight for" justice/peace/whatever. I wish more people were willing to work for justice/peace/etc. Fighting implies violence which leads to more violence.

People thinking they have to fight to change things leads to people being angry. People being angry leads to people doing stupid things. Violence begets violence and on and on it goes.

There's nothing wrong with the emotion of anger, but when it consumes people and is their constant driving motivation, it's not good.

Screaming in someone's face isn't peaceful protest, it's "violence."


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Originally Posted By: jfanent
I think property destruction, theft, physical violence and blocking roadways should be off limits. I realize that protestors have to make an impact and it can be done without resorting to violence or harm.

I agree with this but "blocking roadways" falls into a gray area for me.

It is inherently "non-violent" but it is very effective at getting people to notice what you are doing because in an urban area it can be extremely disruptive... whether or not that disruption leads to sympathy for your cause is very debatable though..

I lived in Northern Virginia where there are only 3 or 4 bridges to get you into DC.. block 1 or 2 of those and it can ruin the entire day for hundreds of thousands of people... I'm yet to meet anybody at a standstill that was expressing sympathy for the protestors blocking the bridge.


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Originally Posted By: RocketOptimist
J/C

Some context

Quote:
[Article that doesn't answer the question]

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Completely ignoring the question is halfway to admitting you've spent a lot of time on the wrong side of it. Not that you'd ever do that.


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My main concern was with emergency vehicles being unable to reach victims.


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That is the main concern.

And while I realize that many will not agree w/this, I think it is also a problem when people can't get to their jobs and when businesses such as my daughter's can't get to the houses/businesses to perform scheduled jobs and then get negative reviews for not showing up on time.

I think a husband driving his pregnant wife to the hospital and being late is a problem. I think a person going to a clinic for chemo treatment and not being able to make it is another problem. I could go on and on and on. My point is the protestors who block roadways don't give a crap about the circumstances that other citizens are facing. It's all about them and their wants.

I think there are ways to protest. I think it's okay to make folks uncomfortable w/your message, but when you actually harm other citizens, you have crossed the line.

These are just my opinions and I don't expect others to agree. What I do know is that my experience has taught me that more people think the way I do than the way the protestors do and our votes do matter.

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j/c

Some pretty constructive stuff so far, so thank you all.

I get and fully understand that sometimes a protest needs to be inconvenient for other people. However, just because you wish to inconvenience me, it does not mean I have any obligation whatsoever to be willfully subject to it.

Let me ask you guys this since blocking roads has come up:

Do you guys see a difference between several people locking arms across all lines of the roadway and people surrounding a car en masse, pounding on the car, jumping on the hood, trying the door handles, and screaming and yelling at the occupants?


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Originally Posted By: oobernoober
IMO, there's a fair amount of grey area even in my understanding of violent vs forceful bu peaceful.

Really, it all comes down to the hurt you're causing by your protest. Looting a store obviously hurts the owner, a local businessperson. Pulling down a statue will probably hurt someone's feelings, but I'm ok with that. I acknowledge that protests, by their nature, are not intended to have everyone come away feeling comfortable. In another way, if you're protesting and nobody has had their feelings hurt, you're probably doing it wrong.



I completely understand what you are saying here. On its face I can't say I'd disagree with the sentiment. But let me ask you this: do you see any value in maintaining a consistent standard? Yes tearing down a statue at worst might hurt someone's feelings, but in the initial days of the rioting there were several people who rationalized the damage to the businesses saying "its ok, they have insurance".

And also if I may, how much of you being ok with a statue coming down has something to do with how you personally may or may not feel about what it represents?


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Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
I think the word violence is obvious and has a definition for the word that explains it well.

Quote:
behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something


If your actions do not include things that fall under this definition you are not being violent. But the bigger question here is criminal. Crimes are also being committed that while not violent, are certainly criminal acts and as such those people should be caught and convicted.


How do you, if at all, factor in that from the criminal aspect "imminence" of those actions or outcomes is legal grounds to take action and is the equivalent of them actively occurring?


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I want to address the statue thing, if I may?

I don't approve of the things Jim Brown did. He abused women. I don't approve of some of the things that guys like Malcolm X have done. I don't approve of many things many people have done.

However, I do not think I have the right to tear down or deface a statue that honors those people. I am open-minded enough to know that we all have our own individual opinions and that my opinion is not more important than any other opinion. I will never destroy public property. I will never deface public property. My parents raised me to be respectful and I have raised my children to be the same way.

We don't destroy things. We might not agree w/certain things, but we practice tolerance and believe that people have the right to believe as they so choose, as long as they are not harming others.

Here is what kills me.............one of the main reasons I was always a Dem and leaned left was because I thought the right and the Republicans dictated things too much. Now, the opposite seems to be true. The left is all about think like we do or you are the enemy.

Okay. As you wish.

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Originally Posted By: DevilDawg2847

Do you guys see a difference between several people locking arms across all lines of the roadway and people surrounding a car en masse, pounding on the car, jumping on the hood, trying the door handles, and screaming and yelling at the occupants?

Yes. One should bring a simple Kidnapping charge and the other False Imprisonment.

Actions like these are the best example of how ridiculously stupid these people are.

"Hey Fred, how do you suppose we can get a bunch of people to endear themselves to our cause?"

"I don't know Charlie, maybe we can figure out a creative way to make them hate us and want to spit in our faces?"

I don't know who the leaders of these groups are, they seem to be mostly nameless and faceless anymore... but they would be well served to find some people with a huge bump in intelligence quotient.

#sodumbitbringsmetotears


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So here's where I stand on the statue issue...

I don't have a problem that some of them are gone per say. I totally accept that times do change and that certain memorials may not longer be appropriate or relevant and may not in of themselves justify standing in perpetuity.

My problem is with the way that they were removed. Their is a process and I do understand that going through the process hasn't brought about the changes some have called for as fast as they'd have liked. These statues were brought down under mob rule. I think we have gotten in to very dangerous territory now that we've validated and legitimized mob rule as an acceptable way to force change.

Is process slow? Yes, and when it comes to government, it is intended to be so. The reason is, when we as a Nation DO get something right, it can't easily be undone.

Its a bit interesting that in NC Gov. Cooper ordered the removal of several statues from State property. That authority falls under the Legislature. He was able to make the order claiming executive power under a state of emergency. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how several days of "peaceful protesters" qualifies as a state of emergency. But that's for another thread I suppose.


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Originally Posted By: FATE
Originally Posted By: DevilDawg2847

Do you guys see a difference between several people locking arms across all lines of the roadway and people surrounding a car en masse, pounding on the car, jumping on the hood, trying the door handles, and screaming and yelling at the occupants?

Yes. One should bring a simple Kidnapping charge and the other False Imprisonment.

Actions like these are the best example of how ridiculously stupid these people are.

"Hey Fred, how do you suppose we can get a bunch of people to endear themselves to our cause?"

"I don't know Charlie, maybe we can figure out a creative way to make them hate us and want to spit in our faces?"

I don't know who the leaders of these groups are, they seem to be mostly nameless and faceless anymore... but they would be well served to find some people with a huge bump in intelligence quotient.

#sodumbitbringsmetotears




You illustrate a problem that I think we are likely to see more and more as we continue down this trajectory.


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Just to be clear, Devil. I am not saying that some of those statues should not be removed. I was simply saying that I don't believe the public should destroy or deface them. If they want a statue of a Confederate general removed, do it legally.

And I know some won't agree w/me. But, we all have our opinions.

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I don't believe you can take actions for things claimed to be "imminent". The judicial system dictates that law enforcement arrest criminal behavior. If no crime has been committed there is no cause for actions other than curfews that I know of as not infringing on the rights of the innocent. I believe that would fall under needing reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed.

We also disagree on the definition of violence. Yelling at someone is not violence. Graffiti is not violence. We may find the message contained in that graffiti disgusting or enraging but no violence occurred.

If what you said is to be considered accurate, that would mean that any march or protest conducted by the KKK of its very nature is violent considering the things they say. Yet they too have the same right to free speech and are protected just like any other group.

And I guess that's the bigger point here. Laws dictate what a crime is. They define penalties for criminal behavior. Maybe I'm mistaken but I do not think the law puts hateful graffiti as a violent act.

Where we need to be careful is to not neglect to separate those breaking the laws form those who are not. We should stand against the criminal element and also stand with those who are not committing crimes.


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Many states in our nation nation have been under a state of emergency since March first due to Covid 19. I agree with you that it's quite a reach for a governor to use that as a reason for removing statues. However, it wasn't issued a state of emergency over the protests.


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Originally Posted By: DevilDawg2847
Originally Posted By: oobernoober
IMO, there's a fair amount of grey area even in my understanding of violent vs forceful bu peaceful.

Really, it all comes down to the hurt you're causing by your protest. Looting a store obviously hurts the owner, a local businessperson. Pulling down a statue will probably hurt someone's feelings, but I'm ok with that. I acknowledge that protests, by their nature, are not intended to have everyone come away feeling comfortable. In another way, if you're protesting and nobody has had their feelings hurt, you're probably doing it wrong.



I completely understand what you are saying here. On its face I can't say I'd disagree with the sentiment. But let me ask you this: do you see any value in maintaining a consistent standard? Yes tearing down a statue at worst might hurt someone's feelings, but in the initial days of the rioting there were several people who rationalized the damage to the businesses saying "its ok, they have insurance".

And also if I may, how much of you being ok with a statue coming down has something to do with how you personally may or may not feel about what it represents?


Having insurance isn't an excuse to do damage. Never will be.

In general, I'm not ok with tearing down statues. I think statues are a part of history, and history is supposed to teach. Sometimes it teaches us what to do, and sometimes what not to do. Perhaps having a statue of a person that fits the latter shouldn't be in a place of honor. That makes sense. But deleting the statue doesn't remove what they did, only allows people to forget what they did. I don't see that as a positive.

On top of that, many of the people these statues honor are from a long time ago. I have a hard time judging someone that doesn't have the benefit of however many years of progress like I do. These are complex people, and the more we find out about them, the more complex they seem to be.


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Quote:
Do you guys see a difference between several people locking arms across all lines of the roadway and people surrounding a car en masse, pounding on the car, jumping on the hood, trying the door handles, and screaming and yelling at the occupants?

100% different. One is inconvenient but non-threatening, the other could easily be interpreted as a threat, or assault... especially "trying the door handles, jumping on the hood, and pounding on the car".

I think a driver has a reasonable responsibility to NOT attempt to drive through a large active protest.. but if one does, I think the protesters have a responsibility to let them out the other side safely..


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Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
I don't believe you can take actions for things claimed to be "imminent". The judicial system dictates that law enforcement arrest criminal behavior. If no crime has been committed there is no cause for actions other than curfews that I know of as not infringing on the rights of the innocent. I believe that would fall under needing reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed.

We also disagree on the definition of violence. Yelling at someone is not violence. Graffiti is not violence. We may find the message contained in that graffiti disgusting or enraging but no violence occurred.

If what you said is to be considered accurate, that would mean that any march or protest conducted by the KKK of its very nature is violent considering the things they say. Yet they too have the same right to free speech and are protected just like any other group.

And I guess that's the bigger point here. Laws dictate what a crime is. They define penalties for criminal behavior. Maybe I'm mistaken but I do not think the law puts hateful graffiti as a violent act.

Where we need to be careful is to not neglect to separate those breaking the laws form those who are not. We should stand against the criminal element and also stand with those who are not committing crimes.



From N.C. General Statute on using Force 15a-401.... (this statute mirrors statutes in other States as well as passes Constitutional muster..

"(d) Use of Force in Arrest. –
(1) Subject to the provisions of subdivision (2), a law-enforcement officer is
justified in using force upon another person when and to the extent that he
reasonably believes it necessary:
a. To prevent the escape from custody or to effect an arrest of a person
who he reasonably believes has committed a criminal offense, unless
he knows that the arrest is unauthorized; or
b. To defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes
to be the use or imminent use of physical force while effecting or
attempting to effect an arrest or while preventing or attempting to
prevent an escape.
(2) A law-enforcement officer is justified in using deadly physical force upon
another person for a purpose specified in subdivision (1) of this subsection
only when it is or appears to be reasonably necessary thereby:
a. To defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes
to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force;
b. To effect an arrest or to prevent the escape from custody of a person
who he reasonably believes is attempting to escape by means of a
deadly weapon, or who by his conduct or any other means indicates
that he presents an imminent threat of death or serious physical
injury to others unless apprehended without delay; or
c. To prevent the escape of a person from custody imposed upon him as
a result of conviction for a felony.
Nothing in this subdivision constitutes justification for willful, malicious or
criminally negligent conduct by any person which injures or endangers any
person or property, nor shall it be construed to excuse or justify the use of
unreasonable or excessive force"



I highlighted just a couple portions where it talks about "imminent". Being a 2A supporter, I'm actually kind of surprised you said you didn't believe you can take actions for things claimed to be "imminent". If that were the case when a stranger kicks your door in to your home at 3:00am you would be required to either have a conversation with him to discern if he was there to hurt your family (and to what extent) or if he was just there to steal your silverware (a non-violent act) before you took action. Ok, you may be able to at least say breaking the door is violent act, but he did what? Maybe $100 worth of damage to a replaceable object. Certainly no one deserves to be executed for breaking an inanimate object right?


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I think we have a huge disagreement on what the circumstances are as it pertains to what constitutes imminent.

When looking at the vast majority of protests around this nation and when looking at the minority of protests and protestors that are violent, using an imminent threat as an excuse to gas hundreds of innocent people in the process seems to ring hallow. The actual numbers would tend to suggest just the opposite. The only thing thus far that has proven itself to be imminent at this point is that it has been used to harm a lot of people that have not been violent.


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Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
I think we have a huge disagreement on what the circumstances are as it pertains to what constitutes imminent.

When looking at the vast majority of protests around this nation and when looking at the minority of protests and protestors that are violent, using an imminent threat as an excuse to gas hundreds of innocent people in the process seems to ring hallow. The actual numbers would tend to suggest just the opposite. The only thing thus far that has proven itself to be imminent at this point is that it has been used to harm a lot of people that have not been violent.


A personal belief of what constitutes imminent doesn't override the legal definition.

Looping back to the purpose of this thread, I was hoping it might be an opportunity to help break the repetitive cycle we see in the forums. It seemed to me that everyone had their own definitions or interpretations of the same thing. Maybe it will be useful.

Another area where I see the subject getting bogged down is culpability and parties being complicit. I understand your position that people shouldn't be arbitrarily and unjustly lumped together. I think, and I would suspect some others as well, that the position you've stated so far (I'm not assuming its complete) doesn't sufficiently hold enough people responsible.

Take this scenario for example, its pretty realistic:

On one side you have the police line

Across from them you have:

Group A: about 20 people locked arm in arm. That action in of itself is peaceful

Group B: about 100 people behind Group A who are holding signs, chanting, yelling anything from "can't we all get along?" to "F the police". That action in of itself is peaceful.

Group C: about 10 or so people scattered within Group B throwing bottles, bricks, bottles of piss, shooting fireworks, molotov cocktails, etc. That action in of itself is violent.

Group A and B clearly know that Group C are doing these things because they have a front row seat. I think most people would agree that the police have a legitimate reason to go and handle Group C. But in order for them to do that, both Group A and B have to disperse or otherwise clearly get out of the way.

When Group A refuses to move their wall, and when Group B begins to swarm officers and pull them off of those they try to arrest from Group C, they ALL become complicit in the violence perpetrated by Group C, even if the members weren't doing anything violent per say as an individual.

Now what should have been 10 people to deal with becomes 130.


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Only none of the coverage we have seen shows anything like that. What we have seen on film and in pictures is group C going up and trying to climb that fence, tear down that fence and confronting the federal troops.

You can't tear down a fence or write Graffiti on a federal building standing behind rows of other people.


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When the government is sending in jackbooted thugs to abduct people off the streets in protests, I'd say they need to be as violent/destructive as it takes to make that crap stop.

I support BLM but I don't like everything that every protester says or does... that doesn't take away from the message that the senseless killings of blacks by police needs to end. These freedom fighters are playing the role of social unrest guerilla warfare against a system that has stacked power and laws against them and oppressed them for 400 years. If they throw crap at cops after being shot with rubber bullets and tear gassed, then they are fighting for what's right in these situations. If they just randomly vandalize and destroy property, that's wrong. If they deface racists statues or government buildings, even though I don't agree, I don't condemn it.

I also think much, not all but much, of the damage was done by outside instigators. You can't blame the BLM movement for that. The looting was terrible and I don't condone that either. But again, I don't lay that on the BLM.

So the variables are too numerous to really define in a few words where I draw the line, but if I have to error in my judgement, it will be on the side of people not institutions.


Your feelings and opinions do not add up to facts.
DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk K-9 Consensus Peaceful vs. Violent... where is your line?

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