On Violence

[John 6IX Breezy]

Progress can't follow from violence? So, I take it we're not familiar with the American Civil War and how it led to the abolition of slavery?

The Civil War is perhaps the best example of why progress does not follow from violence. 

Consider the fact that slavery had already been abolished by peaceful means in many other nations. This demonstrates that violence was not a necessary (though certainly justified) condition for abolition. Perhaps more persuasive is the fact that almost no other nation has struggled with the aftermath of abolition more than America. The Civil War paved the way for Southern racism—the lynchings, the inequality, and the discrimination that exists to this day. This seems to me a direct consequence of the violence by which abolition was achieved. Another example is Haiti—no other island in the Carribean has existed with as much stigma and deprivation as Haiti. And this is true despite abolition being universally achieved across the Carribean, though none as violent as Haiti's.

And so, my point stands: Wherever there is a nonviolent alternative, it will outperform the violent one.