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Comment by loggedinmyphone | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

> 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.

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