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Comment by maxerickson | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what your point is with the quote. That part of the comment is about how it can be problematic to misremember history.

And I don't think it is condoning violence to be unsurprised if some people involved in some movement resort to violence.

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My point is if you want to defend blacklivesmatter, do so on the basis that they reject violence, not because some historical movement was also associated with violence.

But rayiner isn't making a defense of blacklivesmatter there, he is making a comparison to a present day movement that is largely nonviolent but has had some violence associated with it.

The argument isn't that other movements were violent so violence is fine, it is that falsely painting historical movements as pure creates the problem where the actions of an extreme few can be used to dismiss the work of the many.

Also, those "extreme few" could be undercover for a different party with a different agenda (e.g. secret police but not exclusive to that). Wouldn't be the first time.

If anyone wants to dismiss a movement because a few of its adherents are violent, that's obviously unjustified, because no one can control who agrees with them. Just like we can't condemn the entire anti-abortion movement because a few people bomb clinics. I think the more interesting and larger point is to reject violent tactics.

> If anyone wants to dismiss a movement because a few of its adherents are violent, that's obviously unjustified

Nevertheless, that's what the comment referred to. For you it's an obvious non-issue, but not objectively so, and they were referring to that issue.

If you find something else more interesting, make that point without twisting what someone else said. Otherwise that whole stuff about rejecting violence sounds kind of hollow.

> If anyone wants to dismiss a movement because a few of its adherents are violent, that's obviously unjustified, because no one can control who agrees with them.

Exactly. That was rayiner's point from the beginning, so I'm not sure what you were disagreeing with there.

I (perhaps mis-)read the subtext as being that violence is a historical, hence tolerable and perhaps even inextricable, part of reform movements. The literal point seemed obvious, so it didn't occur to me as a possible topic of discussion. In retrospect it's not obvious, as leaders of movements are regularly blamed for the shortcomings of a few followers.

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