SleezyDizasta @ SleezyDizasta @lemmy.world

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A more accurate comp would be some American trying to assassinate George Washington because he didn't like him.

The ends don't justify the means politics, that's how you end up with terrorism, tyrannical governments, and atrocities. I'm all for bringing Trump to justice, but it has be done through civil and democratic means via the established criminal justice system. If Trump goes through trial and is found guilty, which has already happened for one of his crimes, then our criminal justice system will punish him accordingly. If the punishments aren't deemed harsh enough then we reform our punitive laws. We can't have self righteous assholes going on terrorism crusades assassinating political candidates they don't like. That's a sign of a failed state.

But these are vastly different situations. For the record, all three of these individuals used political violence to achieve political aims, that's one of the reasons why history doesn't remember them fondly. The constantly killed people they didn't like under the justification that it's for the greater good or self defense. Saddam Hussien did that when he genocided the Kurds in Iraq and the invasion Kuwait, Hitler did that with the Holocaust and the invasion of Europe, and Bin Laden did that with 9/11 and the other terrorist attacks he launched.

Keep in mind, we actually have a justice system in this country that actually works. If we want Trump to face justice it has to go through the justice where he faces trial and is found guilty based on evidence... which has already happened btw for one of his crimes. That's how justice is handled in a civil democracy. We can't have randos going on self righteous terrorism crusades killing political candidates they don't like. If someone tried assassinate Biden, would you being say the same? Probably not, and rightfully so, but the terrorist who tried to kill would be making similar justifications to what you're trying to make right now. The very idea is wrong.

If by rights you mean you human rights then normalized widespread violence tends to do that, that's the whole reason why tyranny isn't exactly good.

Wtf are you even talking about? There's a very big difference from bad policies and what this is. For example, Obama involved the US in the Saudi Arabia led coalition against the Houthis in Yemen, and this one policy led to the deaths of tens of thousands. Does that justify somebody trying to assassinate Obama? No, of course not. Bush started two wars, does that justify somebody trying assassinate him? No, it doesn't. Biden, is helping Ukraine defend itself from Russia which has also led tens of thousands to die, does that justify assassinating him? Again, no.

If you want to bring any of them to face justice, that's fine, but it has to be been done through our justice system where they go through trial... like we did with Trump. We can't start a precedent inside the country that legitimatizes and normalizes political violence to achieve political violence at the cost of our democracy. That is the reason why everybody was in uproar over Trump's Jan 6th insurrection. The democratic process has to be maintained, the peaceful transfer of power has to be preserved, and civil society has to be protected. We can't have self righteous assholes going around on terrorism crusades killing anybody they don't like. This is common sense, it's insane that I have to even defend such a position.

When it's used as a means to achieve power in a democracy. Normalizing violence is not okay in general, but especially during democratic elections, and this applies to everybody regardless of who does it.

I'm not saying that you are, I'm just pointing out that, in general, lack of sympathy doesn't justify political violence. We're in agreement here.

The reasonable conservatives have already jumped off ship a long time ago and are now mostly either apolitical, independent, disenfranchised Democrat, or still a minority Republican opposing Trump. The only ones left that support Trump are his cult, and they will never see reason. However, we can't get rid them with violence. It's like what America tried to do with the Taliban or Israel is trying to do now with Hamas or what Saudi Arabia has tried to do with the Houthis, you can't use violence to get rid of ideologies. The way to get rid of ideologies is to make them irrelevant. This can happen either by defeating them in democratic elections or using their track records to delegitimatize them or ignoring them or providing better alternatives or whatever. Political violence will only fuel them, and that is something I don't want to see.

Oh ffs, this is such a terminally online take. You're not the equivalent of a Jew during the Holocaust nor is Trump Hitler and MAGA Nazis. Don't get me wrong, Trump is vile person to his core. He has no redeemable qualities and his policies have done a lot of harm. His supporters are also brain dead morons who operate like a cult. I'm with you there, BUT despite that, we have to operate within the context of our reality.

The reality is that Trump and MAGA aren't the equivalent of the Nazis, not everything you don't like is Nazi equitable. This is the problem with modern discourse, our education system is rotten that people literally cannot comprehend history outside of WWII. History did not stop and end there, and the vast majority that happens in the world is not comparable to those specific time period. There are a lot of other wannabe dictators in history like Orban or Modi or Erdogan or Yeltsin or Haftar or whatever. Worst case scenario is that Trump does become a dictator, however, 99.99% of dictators of History aren't like Hitler, he was uniquely evil.

With that being said, Trump isn't a dictator now, and we have a very real chance of defeating him democratically. We have a very large and powerful coalition against him, we have all the dirt against him, we are using the national due process, and we are using legitimate means to achieve power in this country. All that political violence would do is give Trump and his supporters the rationale to justify that they are right, that Trump is a martyr, and that it is okay for them to use even more violence. We can't stoop down to their level and become like them. We have to shut down that type of behavior, not normalize it.

Do you know why? It's because we want to live in a civil society where peaceful democratic power transfers is the one and only legitimate means of gaining power. We can't go on self righteous moral crusades where we use violence on people we don't like to achieve political goals. Do you know why? Because that's terrorism by definition, and to use something you're familiar with, it's what the Nazis did. Political violence is wrong on principle. It's wrong when Trump and his cult do it, it's wrong when we do it, it's wrong when anybody does it.

It's wrong when they do it, it's wrong we do it, it's wrong when anybody does it. That's because political violence is wrong on principle. I'm not exactly sure what you're goal is here, do you think two wrong would make a right? Do you perhaps think an eye for an eye is a good concept to live by? Stop trying to justify violence as a legitimate means of achieving political goals, that's literally terrorism.

There's nothing wrong with what I said. You can't give criminals motives nor can you give different crimes connections based on your personal opinions. The matter of fact here is that despite numerous investigations, we still don't know why the Las Vegas shooter did what he did. If evidences surfaces that he was indeed motivated and inspired by the congressional shooting that happened shortly prior then we can establish such a connection, but until that happens we can't.

I disagree, I think their names should be known and their crimes studied. We can't erase what they did, nor should we. We have to discuss and research these fucked up individuals otherwise how are we going to come up with a solution for the root cause of the issue?

No, I'm just pointing out that your comparison is flawed. We didn't know about the Holocaust until the war was almost over. The Soviets were the first to discover and liberate the camps back in 1944 (too bad they ended up having their own brutal camps) and the Americans liberated the first camp they discovered (Ohrdruf) in April 1945... the war in Europe was over in a month. That's when the then general Eisenhower ordered the American soldiers to find the other camps, free the captives, and take pictures of everything they came across so Nazi crimes can be thoroughly documented and the American public can be made aware of them.

My point is that we didn't intervene in the war because of what the Nazis were doing like you seem to imply, we intervened because we got attacked and declared war on.

Everybody thought that Ukraine would fall within a week but it's been able to go toe to toe with Russia for over two years. Ukraine has every right to defend itself, destroy Russian forces invading it, and join whatever organization it wants. It's a free sovereign nation. If spending a few billion dollars means we destroy Russia's capacity to wage war and help Ukraine defend itself, then so be it. Russia can get fucked. They're the aggressors and they deserve what they're getting.

We didn't join WWII because the Nazis were bad, we joined because Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and then Hitler declared war on the US.

We literally have no idea what Stephen Paddock's motivation was. The Las Vegas shooting was not a reaction to the congressional shooting

I don't have any sympathy for him either, but that's still not a reason to abandon my principles and start cheering for political violence

I doubt it. Something like this already happened before in 2017. A deranged Bernie supporter went to a congressional baseball game and tried to shoot as many Republicans as he could. He ended up killing 6 people. However, despite that, there were no reactionary shootings. It was an isolated incident. I think this will be the same, or at least I hope.