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Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

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Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#301
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't say sadly. Don't further the indoctrination that violence is bad. It is a tool, it cannot be good or bad. States are the most prolific users of violence (even more when you also count potential/threatened, not yet materialized). Anyone who wants to claim that violence is bad has to oppose the existence of states. Violence is risky, dangerous, unpredictable, costly, etc. But those are practical and legal, not mo…

Some tools are definitely better than others. Also some tools are not "the right tool" for the job. Fundamentally though I'm not sure I agree with you. Violence is often an emotional reaction. When violence is used as a tool it is usually (always?) used by bad people. If it helps you reconcile my worldview, I absolutely oppose the existence of states.

> the right tool

Keep in mind this needs to be judged separately in the legal, practical and moral dimension. For example a state might determine that a person _legally_ deserves to spend 10 years in prison. But the same state will attack you in turn if you abduct that person and hold them for 10 years in similar conditions to prison because _practically_, it weakens the state's monopoly on violence, even if _morally_ that action can be justified (i.e. because if a punishment is just there is no moral reason why it should matter who carries it out).

> often ... usually (always?)

I think the crux lies in how we quantify this. If you live in a western democracy, almost all of the violence you come into contact with or hear about is in fact used by bad individuals (thiefs, gang members, drunks, etc.) or the mentally ill. But even then you have the right (moral and usually legal) to defend yourself.

If you live in other places, that violence might more often be used be institutions (such as states or religions) and might not be materialized (it is potential/threatened/implied). E.g. what happens to a muslim woman who refuses to cover her face - the violence usually never happens because she knows it would and therefore doesn't break the rule. It is still violence used to achieve a goal though and she has the same (moral but usually not legal) right to defend herself - even if any practical defense is beyond her ability to do so because the aggressors are too numerous and dispersed.

I would argue that billions of people live in countries where violence is used against them every day because it is a threat which for example stops them from freely accessing information.

In that regard you're right that it is usually used by bad people. But it says nothing about its morality. The way I see it, violence being used by bad people is a stable equilibrium but it can be used by good people during a transition to a different stable state. It is usually not used by good people in a prolonged because materialized violence tends to reduce the number of people on both sides and cannot be sustained forever.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived through regime change in Eastern Europe in 1989. A year before the change, one cannot imagine the regime change. And yet, it did happen. Bloodlessly (except Romania). Any external meddling would have probably made it much bloodier. You can be assured most Iranians do NOT want US to intervene. How many Americans want China/Russia to intervene to 'help' you get rid of Trump? Get off your high horse and use…

Equating Trump to the systems in China/Russia is absurd. You have no concept of what losing free speech really means if you think that's an accurate comparison. Not saying that what's happening with ICE is okay. But it's a very sheltered view to think that is at all equivalent to what happens in those countries if you actively protest against the govt.

I am not equating Trump to China/Russia.

For Iranians, USA is strong foreign country that is hostile to them.

For Americans, Russia/China are (relatively) strong foreign countries that (they think) are hostile to them.

As Americans would NOT like if Russia/China was influencing their internal matters (Russia gate ?), so would Iranians NOT like if USA was deciding who is going to govern over them.

First, they are a proud nation with long history. Second, they have a very good reason (many historical precedents) to believe USA will not act in the interests of Iranian people, but in their own (and Israel's) interests.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right -- it's not really the genesis per se on #2, just one of the modern weapons used. Civil rights act is one of the main weapons used today to explain why we can't wind back interstate commerce clause, creating a sort of legal suicide pact where the interstate commerce clause interpretation is held hostage if you want to keep your civil rights. That is, the CRA was arguably one of the most import…

> when I mention rolling back the interstate commerce clause one of their main go to is that they're afraid I will destroyed the CRA and that's why they can't do it I'll be honest, I've literally never seen this argument in any hall of power. And I know quite a few folks who believe in overturning Wickard . The CRA, as currently interpreted, is more than fine on equal-protection grounds.

Overturning of CRA of 1875 ruled equal protection under 14th amendment doesn't bind private actors, that's why the CRA of 1964/68 depending on expanded ICC. The equal protection amendments (basically the 14th) of relevance haven't changed since the overturning of the 1875 CRA.

  The Reconstruction era ended with the resolution of the 1876 presidential election, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was the last federal civil rights law enacted until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In 1883, the Supreme Court ruled in the Civil Rights Cases that the public accommodation sections of the act were unconstitutional, saying Congress was not afforded control over private persons or corporations under the Equal Protection Clause. Parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were later re-adopted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, both of which cited the Commerce Clause as the source of Congress's power to regulate private actors.[]
of particular note: were later re-adopted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, both of which cited the * Commerce Clause as the source of Congress's power to regulate private actors.

* my note: now expanded

[] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1875

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#304

“To simplify greatly, the strategy of non-violence aims first to cause disruption (non-violently) in order both to draw attention but also in order to bait state overreaction. The state’s overreaction then becomes the ‘spectacular attack’ which broadcasts the movement’s message, while the group’s willingness to endure that overreaction without violence not only avoids alienating supporters, it heightens the contrast…

> the only viable solution becomes giving the movement its demands. This interpretation reeks of Western naivete. Students were not merely arrested — they were gunned down en masse in the streets and even in hospitals. They were provoked by the U.S. president, who promised support to take on the institutions, but that support never materialized. The likely endgame of this current gunboat diplomacy is similar to Venez…

”This interpretation reeks of Western naivete.”

The essay you are responding to was written by a historian.

The ideas actually described in the essay were not developed by a Western person. They were first implemented successfully by a non-Western person.

Mahatma Gandhi.

And Gandhi developed these ideas from reading the writings of another non-Western person. Leo Tolstoy.

More information can be found here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_to_a_Hindu

As you can see in this article the non-Western Tolstoy was influenced by many non-Western religious and philosophical figures. Tolstoy then influenced the non-Western Mahatma Gandhi to successfully implement these ideas.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is on my to-read list and I am a great fan of Mr. Devereaux's work. But I also feel like promoting non-violence outside the context of western democracies is misleading and potentially dangerous. Maybe he addresses it somewhere in the article but I have yet to read it so forgive me if he does. But how does he explain the failure of peaceful revolutions in Belarus or China? My understanding of social dyna…

> feel like promoting non-violence outside the context of western democracies is misleading and potentially dangerous The article discusses "efforts, in a sense, directed against the state itself, both violent approaches (what we might call ‘terroristic insurgency’) and non-violent approaches (protest)" ( Id. ). > Maybe he addresses it somewhere in the article but I have yet to read it "The ‘center of gravity’ – the…

Thanks, looking forward to reading the full article myself.

Hopefully there's more about how these regimes have failed in the past and how to make them fail in the future. Because AFAICT at that point, violence is the only possibility apart from waiting for the dictator to die from natural causes and the system to disassemble itself as potential successors fight each other.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only viable solution becomes giving the movement its demands. This interpretation reeks of Western naivete. Students were not merely arrested — they were gunned down en masse in the streets and even in hospitals. They were provoked by the U.S. president, who promised support to take on the institutions, but that support never materialized. The likely endgame of this current gunboat diplomacy is similar to Venez…

”This interpretation reeks of Western naivete.” The essay you are responding to was written by a historian. The ideas actually described in the essay were not developed by a Western person. They were first implemented successfully by a non-Western person. Mahatma Gandhi. And Gandhi developed these ideas from reading the writings of another non-Western person. Leo Tolstoy. More information can be found here. https://e…

…against a western government.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#307

I see the war propaganda slop is in full swing. Does anyone buy this nonsense anymore? It is going to be quite interesting when the midterms put the Democrats into power. I don't expect it to change anything, because the whole system is just a fake democratic ruse, a facade, but it will surely introduce even more volatility when the blue team starts also realizing that it's just lies and the agenda of the parasitic E…

[dead]

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This works against relatively liberal governments. It didn’t work for the Tiananmen Square protestors in 1989 or for the intermittent Iranian protestors of the past couple decades because those regimes were willing to suppress those protests with overwhelming force. Fortunately, the Iranian protestors are likely to have some overwhelming force on their side soon.

I don't think the other governments that collapsed in 1989 in the face of public protest could be honestly described as "relatively liberal".

Fair. I think a better way of putting it is that they lacked the unity to agree to just keep firing on people until they won. A relatively liberal culture is one reason government forces won't do that; in the case of someone like Ceausescu it was more that the generals tended to think his last few years had been a disaster and the rebels had a point.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two nations had good relations until 1979, which is a problem for this person's world view.

I have no dog in a fight, in which you seem to really care about Iran, which is totally irrelevant, meaningless, and inconsequential to the USA or its national interests or national security; but the war machine relies on fools to fun smoothly. You do realize though that you are morally and ethically and spiritually culpable and responsible for the murder of the people that will die due to the support you provide to…

  but the war machine relies on fools to fun smoothly
There is nothing new under the sun. Interwar pacifists made these arguments 100 years ago. They have some merit, but they weren't then and aren't now the full picture.

  You do realize though that you are morally and ethically and spiritually culpable and responsible for the murder
Inaction also results in death.

  colonial puppet Shah regime
There is no point arguing from here on. To my liberal brain, it just comes off as Baader–Meinhof nonsense. We are not going to agree about anything.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#310
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran is totally and completely irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of people in the West.

Iran is the major cause of political instability in the the ME. They are the primary funders for the 3 most active terrorist groups in the ME if not the world. Every single westerner pays more for things because of the instability Iran funds.

Which things?
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