LogFAQs > #925552901

Talking about political violence is kind of awkward because there are a lot of people out there who think (perhaps rightfully) that ALL politics is violent. States/laws are enforced through... well, force. So the question is not so much violence/non-violence, but when/where/what kind of violence is acceptable. See my example on the death penalty.
.
Antifa's primary defense against accusations that they are violent/just as bad as fascists/etc is that antifascist action is defensive in nature. In order to understand THAT position, you have to understand fascism which... I'll spare you the history lesson (god we'd be here forever), but to state it very generally, the problem with fighting fascism is that fascism uses the rights given by their democracy/republic in order to dismantle those very systems. If you want more information, I highly recommend watching videos made by Youtuber Three Arrows, who makes great videos on the history of fascism and German fascism in particular.

If you understand how fascism works, then you understand why Antifa behaves as it does. In general, most of our standard political systems are not really equipped to deal with fascistic attempts to dismantle the systems... using the systems. However... Antifa is. Antifa tactics have been shown to be highly effective against fascism... and non-violent protest has been shown to be highly ineffective against fascism, conversely, which is... not a very comfortable thing to admit. Violent protest was at its height of effectiveness during the era of fascism (late 30's to mid 40's) and declined sharply due to the shift in protest goals/targets.

(basics on Antifa thought, and this video specifically addresses the "is antifa terroristic?" at about 29 minutes in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ" data-time="

(three arrows)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCT8a7d6S6RJUivBgNRsiYg/videos

I will try and find some other interesting things on this topic for you... I watched a really interesting one that went into the statistical effectiveness of various forms of protest against fascists in history, but I am not seeing it anywhere... >_<

Anyway, hopes that helps you understand where they're coming from.

Edit: I forgot to explain stochastic terrorism. Uh, so you know how there are a lot of mass shootings going on right now? No small number of them actually came from people who were encouraged by others online to commit those shootings. That is stochastic terrorism; those people didn't pull the triggers, but they encouraged people to commit random acts of criminal violence for political reasons. It's like the terroristic equivalent of convincing someone to kill themselves or someone else. That makes it very hard to stop, because, again, they're using the rights afforded to them under their States to commit violence against people in order to undermine the State.

Edit2: Forgot to mention... Germany's history is really worth looking into when talking about this. Because of their history, Germany took specific pains in order to weaken any potential efforts to bring back fascism. Three Arrows talks about this a decent amount in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX8Iw37srmY" data-time="
---

Hi