Originally posted by rebeldog
reply to post by Wrabbit2000
Violence MAY be necessary... Are you one of those "Violence is never the answer" people?
I'm about as far from 'Violence is never the answer' as one gets without serving active duty in the Military. However, I'm interested in
situations that have even an outside chance of winning. I am CCW qualified and permitted. I carry every day. Knowing I have that on my hip and having
gone through training well beyond that joke of a CCW class they require, I still wouldn't consider pulling that to use if I faced a dozen gang
bangers at once. Defense works...Suicide by stupidity, doesn't. (That all changes if my family is with me...the only choice is to go down fighting
and buy them a chance to run. That situation simply leaves no other option)
So, violence may come at some point, I am well aware of that. I'm also realistic. If I am with a protest group that goes up against a professional
law enforcement force, the outcome is never a question. We lose, and that is that. The only remaining question is, how many protesters walk away, how
many go to jail and how many just go straight to the Emergency department of the local hospital. In that situation, getting the upper hand was never
even a possibility.
If there are 20 cops and SOMEHOW the group gets the upper hand, 200 more will show up. If somehow those 200 feel threatened, mutual assistance calls
will immediately go out to every city within reasonable distance to respond and HUNDREDS will be there in the time it takes to drive the distance as
fast as thier cars can physically make it. It's a 100% No-Win, Period.
If you see a viable way that outcome is different and can articulate it in a real world way we can understand, I'd seriously like to hear it. You'll
be the first I've ever asked who could.
Likewise, setting out with the idea of violent confrontation is simply insane. Many will disagree here, but I'll ask those people directly, where
they've been in violent protests or in honest to goodness street situations where people went down with SERIOUS injuries and the fighting was for
real, not simply some bumps and bruises in the process of a messy arrest.
Now, for what it's worth, there aren't any major protests I care to be at within easy distance this weekend and my city doesn't have anything going
I'd take seriously, so I'll be travelling several hundred miles to my spot for Saturday. I hope to get a far better idea of what this whole thing is
about by spending a couple days in one of the major camps. In doing this, I'm well aware of the fact I could be arrested and I could be beaten if my
timing is off and things go badly there. It's something I have to come to terms with in simply being at a major location. I'm NOT looking for it and
I WILL avoid that outcome if at all possible.
I'm having a very hard time understanding the mindset of the people who DO want to see things go that direction and just what sequence of events they
foresee that leads anywhere but a hospital bed or a morgue. Perhaps you can enlighten me on how one gets from peace to violence and doesn't end the
day in one of those two places?