Currently I am going a little crazy over the whole debate relating to “Political Violence”, mainly due to how Political Violence is happening all the damn time without anything really being done about it ever, and WHEN IT HAPPENS the discussion mostly revolves around how it is never supposed to happen rather than the hows and whys of it happening.
The term also isn’t properly defined, where does violence begin and end? A Klansman walking up to a black person and threatening them or spewing dehumanising slurs, in my view would already be violent. Rhetoric wise, we have political statements which are essentially veiled threats. “Eat the Rich” would be an example, a subtle reminder of what may happen to the rich if they squeeze the poorer societal castes a little too much. “Don’t Tread on Me” is another one, accompanied by an illustration of a rattlesnake, the message being clear, “If you become a Tyrant, I will shoot you.”
Whenever there is some fuckass political motion against anything in the states specifically, it always is framed as a “War on” something. That nation is such a maniacal warmongering beast, that even drug epidemics are framed as “Wars to be Waged”, a violent frame applied to a humanitarian issue. Is that political violence or not now? Yes? No? I don’t know dude.
Some people also bring up the whole “Monopoly on Violence” thing, which I somewhat agree with in parts, and don’t in others. Assuming your society is somewhat functional for instance, in a majority of cases the force police have to exert on their subjects, isn’t political at all. Dealing with drunks, apprehending criminal suspects, writing a ticket for a busted tail-light, not that political I would say. Where the violence does turn political, I think is more reflected in crime statistics and bias, where some minority groups seemingly “commit more crime” than others, which not seldom is the result of racial profiling, over-policing in certain districts over others and also from misinterpreting the statistics themselves. The German crime ministry for instance let’s you know how to interpret their data and gives disclaimers that the data is not conclusive, nor to be taken at face value due to factors such as bias and disproportionate targeting of “at risk groups.”
Obviously, a country doesn’t like it when it’s citizens are a threat to it, as it wants to self preserve. Even the least nationalistic countries on earth value existing, thus certain movements and groups, symbols and speech, websites and guns or even individuals get banned from them. Some examples…
- Palestine Action being designated a Terrorist group in the UK, when all they are really are just angry Genocide hating vandals
- Swastikas and the glorification of people such as Adolf Hitler being made illegal in Germany, due to our countries’ history
- Both Nazi and Communist symbolism being banned in Hungary due to that countries’ history
- Russia punting anyone who protests or criticises his moronic war efforts for way too many years into a jail cell
- America’s antics against anything anti-zionist, deporting immigrants en masse of which many actually are American citizens, abortions being outlawed, requiring all classrooms to display the 10 commandments…
Every country upholds different kinds of values and standards, like European countries being generally secular while, to bring up America again, these guys love to pretend to be devout Christians and all that, loving their neighbours so much they make sure they stay out of their home. Every country has something in common though, which would be that no government wants to get picked off by random snipers and car bombs and the like. In order for them to make sure to not get to that point, any country could act in a variety of ways, with the seemingly most difficult route being “doing what the citizens want 🤯” and a far easier one being “pretending to do what the citizens want” and another interesting one being “gaslighting, gatekeeping and girlbossing the citizens”.
Maybe TBC…