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RE: Anarchists of Steemit, Do You Support the Violence at Trump's Inauguration Protests? How Do These 'Anarchists' Fit in With What Anarchism is to You?
Thanks for your lengthy reply. Very insightful.
"How is that again? How did the owner of that specific window they broke aggress against them and how did their actions represent a defensive use of force?"
Well if I had to take a crack at defending these violent actions I would probably pick from a list of policies or actions that I disagreed with, maybe a violent event and construe that into the original act of aggression for which this violence is a defense.
The problem with "violent" defense is it's inconsistent with my understanding of "violence" as it relates to the non-aggression principle. Standing guard with a gun isn't a violent act. There's no initiation of force. If someone violently aggresses, that guard might then act, which would be reactive and a direct response to the specific violence. It wouldn't be an initiation.
But even if we could get around that, it's still completely inconsistent. If person A aggresses against person B, then person B is not justified aggressing against person C or the property of person C because of person A. Where is the logic in that? Randomly destroying windows is primitive, tribalistic, mob mentality. It's not anarchist in a philosophical sense. Not that I can see, anyway. There are some early proponents of the "Propagation of the deed" who aligned with early anarchist thought (which was also anticapitalist thought at the time), but I see that as a small minority within what is becoming a larger peaceful, voluntaryist, relational anarchist movement.