You have definitely fallen into a radicalization pipeline, my dude. But you're in good company.
There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror —that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
"He that is angry without cause, shall be in danger; but he that is angry with cause, shall not be in danger: for without anger, teaching will be useless, judgments unstable, crimes unchecked." Therefore to be angry is not always an evil.
-Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologae, misattributing a quote from Opus Imperfectum to St. John Chrysotom
I happen to be a pacifist, but if I had had to make a decision about fighting a war against Hitler, I may have temporarily given up my pacifism and taken up arms.
There are reasons we celebrate righteous violence. To suggest that all violence is the same is pure liberalism. Literally. The worst type, the zeroeth:
We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within the Party and the revolutionary organizations in the interest of our fight. Every Communist and revolutionary should take up this weapon.
But liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations.
...[I] must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice....
There are reasons we celebrate righteous violence. To suggest that all violence is the same is pure liberalism.
This is true. I've heard the environment of media, education, and all the other parts of the superstructure that drills anticommunism deep into the populace's brains described as psychological warfare, and that characterization of bourgeois indoctrination is the most accurate I've ever heard. Armies of newspeople, creatives, and academics (including the historians the linked redditors would consider credible), under the direction of their capitalist generals (i.e. their employers) work overtime to sow the kind of doubts I expressed in my original comment.
It also doesn't help that my immense privilege has me conviced I have a lot more to lose than just my chains (which are already significantly lighter than what non labor aristocrats have).
You have definitely fallen into a radicalization pipeline, my dude. But you're in good company.
-Mark Twain, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, chapter 13"
-Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologae, misattributing a quote from Opus Imperfectum to St. John Chrysotom
-MLK, The Other America
There are reasons we celebrate righteous violence. To suggest that all violence is the same is pure liberalism. Literally. The worst type, the zeroeth:
-Mao, Combat Liberalism
-MLK, Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Horseshoe theory is a centrist trap. Don't fall into it.
-dril, Tweet
This is true. I've heard the environment of media, education, and all the other parts of the superstructure that drills anticommunism deep into the populace's brains described as psychological warfare, and that characterization of bourgeois indoctrination is the most accurate I've ever heard. Armies of newspeople, creatives, and academics (including the historians the linked redditors would consider credible), under the direction of their capitalist generals (i.e. their employers) work overtime to sow the kind of doubts I expressed in my original comment.
It also doesn't help that my immense privilege has me conviced I have a lot more to lose than just my chains (which are already significantly lighter than what non labor aristocrats have).