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Comment by wildrhythms | Hacker News Reader

What's the point of this comment? Some violence is justified. Violence against the Nazis was justified. The destruction of the Berlin Wall was justified. Jesus overturned the tables of the money exchangers, violently I suppose, and that was justified. The focus on the broad term 'violence' without any additional analysis is completely useless.

And it's interesting to me that when 'violence' is used on this specific topic, it seems to only be used to label the reaction of the protesters and not the underlying issue they're protesting about, which itself is also a form of violence.

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The point of the comment is that there is no such thing as 'good violence' just as there is no such thing as 'hate speech'. There is just violence. There is just speech. You try to muddle those simple things and you end up with where are today: confused population unable to reason through their way through otherwise simple reality.

Taking black and white thinking so far you're considering dropping one of those colors even!

> the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"

I want to offer you a moment to reconsider this comment. It adds nothing to this discussion. It does not refute my point. It does not undermine it. It does nothing really except maybe confuse the reader.

Unless the latter is the point, consider an edit that addresses my point directly. I am only human. It is possible that there is a flaw in my reasoning. It is possible coffee did not hit me yet.

As written, this is not an argument at all.

Thank you for your generous offer but I will decline.

What the comment does in its original form is draw attention to the nonsensical cowardice of refusing to take a stand on any issue. "There's no such thing as good violence" has you condemning slave revolutions for example. "There's no such thing as hate speech" refuses to acknowledge the forces and choices that led to historical atrocities and abdicates power to notice and prevent them. There's no future in this enlightened centrism, nothing to refute because it refuses to take a stand.

My friend, word is word. Violence is violence. Adding moralistic value to either solves nothing, but adds problems for the society as a whole. If anything, it is cowardly to run from the lingua franca that is violence and try to excuse it by the current equivalent of 'gott mit uns'. Good luck out there.

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