[Please click on the date tab, above for today's News & Notes.]
By Todd Lassa
Blue and red speakers in Braver Angels’ National Community Debate Thursday, “Resolved: Citizens threatening violence against oppression is a crucial part of our political process” were not as far apart -- and a bit more nuanced -- than The Hustingspreview might have predicted. [Go to https://thehustings.news/braver-angels-debate-the-place-of-violence-in-our-political-system/, https://thehustings.news/life-liberty-and-please-no-violence/, https://thehustings.news/peace-through-strength/.]
“We must reserve the right to use violence against the most extreme oppression only,” Mike Morton began, as the first-affirmative (in favor of the resolution) in the debate. “
His comments led to the obvious question: Who gets to decide what oppression is worthy of violence? A tough question, Morton acknowledged, noting that leaders in the American Revolution had to convince many fellow colonists to resist King George III.
The first negative, Russian immigrant Michael Abramson, spoke of how nearly 30 years ago he participated in anti-Kremlin demonstrations in his hometown of Yetkaterinburg, as the USSR was crumbling.
“Resistance can be useful, and even necessary,” he began. “Yet I have serious doubts.”
There are not many examples of violent resistance in the U.S. In other countries, pro-resistance demonstrators did not achieve their goals, Abramson said; the French Revolution resulted in the Emperor Napoleon taking power, and the October Revolution in Russia led to the Red era and Joseph Stalin.
The second affirmative debater, identified only as “Stefani,” said that “Oppressed people should have the right to react with violence if they’re very oppressed by the government. That said, you have to take a long and hard look before you take up arms and start shooting people.”
Stefani called last summer’s riots and what she called Black Lives Matter lootings “appalling.” And although George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer was “terrible,” she said, “But that’s no reason to burn your neighbor’s business down.”
Asked for her opinion on the January 6 Capitol Hill insurrection, Stefani said: “Obviously, a group of people stomping around the halls of Congress was ridiculous,” she replied, but went on to say it was no comparison with what she called last summer’s “riots.”
Erika Munson, the second negative, cited icons of non-violence, Buddha, Thoreau, Gandhi and King.
“Non-violence asks for an active resistance to evil, without resorting to it yourself.”
Affirmative Bill Altmeier said the threat of violence is an early warning that a nation’s politics is not going well. “We need to … conclude that the fight between the right and the left is taking the country to a bad place.”
Luke Nathan Phillips, a negative on the resolution from Stafford County, Virginia (which was central during the Civil War, including the Battle of Fredericksburg) said he is “haunted by the fact that a generation of Americans in the most honorable war … left 600,000 dead and shell-shocked a generation. … The result [ending slavery in the U.S.] was great but left us with many wounds we’re still working on.”
Silas Kulkarni, like Phillips, a Braver Angels staffer, said those who knew him would be surprised that he was an affirmative on the debate resolution.
“I’m a committed believer in non-violence resistance,” morally and philosophically, but he noted, Gandhi was not an absolutist on non-violence; he offered a hierarchy. At the top was non-violent resistance, Kulkarni noted, and next was violent resistance. Lowest was “passivity and acceptance” to repression.
Perhaps counter-intuitive regarding the January 6 Capitol Hill riots, and violence in some demonstrations last year, the fourth negative, Harry Hirsch, said the pandemic shutdown has made non-violence resistance easier.
“Peaceful methods have a better chance of succeeding, as of last year,” he said.
What do you think? Email The Hustings with your thoughts, at editors@thehustings.news, or leave a comment at thehustings.substack.com.