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Comment on I've wondered since I was a youngin

realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

sips tea Ah … come, sit with me for a moment. The tea is hot, and such questions are best answered slowly, with a warm belly.

It is natural to feel anger when one has been wronged. Even the gentlest river becomes violent when dammed for too long. But we must be careful, my friend, not to mistake the force of our feelings for the wisdom of our actions.

You ask why one should not kill their oppressors. The answer is not because they are strong, nor because they deserve mercy, nor because the world would punish you. It is because when you choose to do evil in the name of justice, you quietly invite that evil to live inside you. And once it is settled there, it does not leave easily.

You may believe you are striking only your enemy, but violence has a poor sense of direction. It spills into the soul, changing the person who wields it. The moment you decide that a “good reason” excuses a cruel act, you teach your heart that cruelty can be justified. Soon, it will begin to justify itself.

Oppression is a heavy chain, but hatred forges a second one, but this time around your own spirit. If you destroy another to feel free, you may discover that freedom never arrived, and only the destruction remained. True victory is not standing over your enemy’s body. True victory is refusing to become what hurt you. It is choosing a path that allows you to look at yourself in the mirror without turning away. The right reasons lose their meaning when they are carried by wrong actions. Like tea made with poisoned water, no matter how fine the leaves, the cup will only bring sickness.

So no - do not kill your oppressors. Not for their sake, but for yours. Because the most important battle is not against them, but against the part of yourself that believes goodness can be built from blood.

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lightnsfw@reddthat.com ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Nah, fuck that. What are they supposed to do? Roll over and continue being oppressed? End your oppression not just for your sake but for the sake of everyone else whom they may oppress too.

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orwellianlocksmith@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Yeah, those in power always preach peace to preserve the status quo. But what about the suffragettes? The black Panthers? What about the Italian resistance? What about the Warsaw ghetto uprising?

Sometimes it’s not about our souls, not about our own psychical wellbeing. It’s about the liberation of all. About justice. About making the bastards pay. About showing the world that there’s a limit to what people can be made to do and suffer.

Violence is the last resort of the desperate, no doubt. It’s not fun. It does taint. It’s fucking tragic.

But we are living in increasingly desperate times. Who can deny that? And its just not about us as individuals anymore. That’s the message here.

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maga_is_death@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This is a fantasy land take that has no basis in reality or human history. At some point, it becomes a matter of physical well being for yourself and those around you. Telling people to just suck it up and take a beating/killing for the benefit of their “soul”…my god. Rejoin the real world buddy. It can be a scary place, but at least it’s real, not whatever bizarro world you are speaking from.

You let bullies walk on you, and they will keep doing it. The only thing that will stop them is letting them know that they will pay a real price if they keep at it. Trying to spin this “peace at all costs” worldview is intellectually dishonest and counterproductive.

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HasturInYellow@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This is beautiful and I want to agree with you.

Mostly I disagree that violence taints your soul permanently. I believe it is this line of thinking that has led the repetition of violence throughout history. Those who wish to do harm are never treated with strongly enough and so they persist. They are readily allowed access to others to harm as they please. Perhaps we can stave off states doing it with the right government types but there will be those in the general populace that desire harm for others and they will strive to upend that government at all times.

My opinion is: oppression deserves reciprocal violence an order of magnitude above and immediately.

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- CentipedeFarrier@piefed.social ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  I disagree that violence taints your soul permanently.
  
  This depends upon your own morals, personal justifications, and probably a ton of other factors.
  
  I think the idea is that it’s something you are going to have to live with, one way or another. You might hurt an innocent by accident, do more damage than intended (most people would struggle to live with having killed someone, for example), or even harm yourself irreparably. You might cause people to look at you differently, you might have the wrong information, you might change the course of your life permanently.
  
  Violence is a very complicated subject, but perpetrators of it are, indeed, always marked in some way by it, just like every other experience you have.
  
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  - WarlockLawyer@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Our whole system is based on the systematic oppression and violence on marginalized groups and countries. Taking direct violence on perpetuators of the system of exploitation and death is just directly addressing it, instead of allowing ourselves to continue to benefit from unseen pain and suffering. It seems allowing yourself to continue benefiting from evil would be more soul tainting than using violence to help others.
    
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Silic0n_Alph4@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Cor, it’s a good job Hitler killed himself instead of somebody having to live with that evil, init?

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Furbag@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Thanks Uncle. I’ll meditate on your wisdom.

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- Cargon@lemmy.ml ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Can’t kill your oppressors if they kill you first! You won’t have to worry about ectoplasm-based chains when you’re dead!
  
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