"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."
- Angela Davis, for those who didn't know the reference
"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."
I love Angela Davis. I really need to learn more about her. I saw this video posted somewhere during 2020, and for folks who can resist the urge to impatiently skip past what she's setting up in the beginning, the payoff at the end of her response to the banal question of whether she supports violence for her cause is (IMO) exceptionally powerful.
An armed left is like base level marxism, how are people still surprised by that at this point?
Because American media keeps pushing the idea that the Democrats are "the left" and because Democrats oppose guns because the Republicans promote them, they equate owning a gun with being a part of "the right".
Also far right conservative men are given all the permission in the world to threaten violence whereas many groups of people on the left, and leftism in general are defined by conservatives as inherently dangerous which both makes it practically much more dangerous to own guns and carry them (because you will just got shot by a cop and the cop won't even get in trouble they can just say "they looked dangerous") and also makes a culture of responsible gun ownership way harder to grow because the societal conditions around it are aggressively hostile to leftwing people owning guns.
Listen to the way centrists talk about the threat of violence from the far left and far right in the US, of course there are shitty, dangerous people on the left, but to compare the two as if there were similar amounts of violence coming from both is a ridiculous misstatement of reality.
Yeah - in non US places gun ownership only means one thing: you own a gun. It says nothing about your politics. And yes, US democrats being referred to as “left” is ridiculous. The Democrat party wouldn’t even be a centrist party in most (western) democracies.
Republicans "support" guns up until black people start marching with them.
Democrats "oppose" guns except for the police who shoot black people.
Democrats don't oppose guns. Democrats are for base-level gun control. Republicans are insane, NRA-supporting fools who would rather 5 year old children get massacred weekly instead of have any potential gun controls.
An armed left is like base level marxism
And then what?
Suppose you get falsely charged by the state because of your politics, what are you going to do? Get into armed conflict against the police officers coming to arrest you?
Is that what Steven Donziger should have done?
It's not like armed insurgencies don't happen in modern countries. Look up the IRA. Even if you are not keen on blowing up billionaires, you can still shoot meal team six as they try to bring back lynching and the KKK.
That said, disarming the country including the police, especially the police, would be more conductive to a peaceful life. So would actual democratic representation.
It's never been about left and right. It's always been a war with the owner class and everyone else.
We occasionally forget; until everything falls apart and greed ruins everything. That's when the fight starts again.
Spoiler: it's an Israeli settler on her way to the West Bank
Unlike Ukrainians they don't have kalashnikovs, nice try
Average U.S. school trip.
True story for Americans: You should exercise your 2nd Amendment right unless you want only the Right to have guns.
If you actually listened to the Right's leaders, they're openly telling you that you should be picking out your favorite at the shop now.
Yeah I'm becoming increasingly nervous with the blue states systematically trying to disarm everyone and the red states are trying to whip everyone into a traitorous frenzy over the dumbest shit while arming everyone with a pulse.
Otoh, and this probably sounds absolutely fucking nuts, I've found republicans tend to understand "strength" and they are strangely respectful of liberal and leftist gun owners because that's a dynamic they can comprehend. It's not a good state of affairs but it's better than them believing they can just run things because they're the only ones with "strength"
If I only had the guts lol.