In the wake of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, we have been subjected to the obligatory “violence in the political realm should never be tolerated” cliche, by the established press, political actors, and others. The statement is correct; violence in the political arena should not be tolerated, or justified. The statement, however, rings hollow when one considers the seemingly nonstop political violence, through acts of war, engaged in by the U.S. and other Western powers.
The provocation and prolongation of the war in Ukraine, support for Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians, along with Western preparations for war with China, are the current examples of state engagement in, and preparation for, political violence. War is a political act.
Over the course of the past two and half decades the Western powers have engaged in war and military actions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya. What example is set by the state, to its citizens, in its near non-stop use of violence in war? Do these military actions not justify violence as an appropriate means to resolve conflict? Why is the non-tolerance of political violence in the domestic realm not extended to the international realm?
The response inevitably will be that war results from a defensive action against an aggressor. The “aggressor”, however, will argue that military action is also necessary as a matter of defense, e.g. defense of democracy, defense of a persecuted group, defense against a perceived threat to one’s national borders, and the list goes on.
So you see the problem; few believe they go to war for offensive purposes. Both sides act in defense of something.
Purveyors of violence in the domestic political realm will also undoubtedly argue that violence is necessary in defense of an ideology or other important values. It is difficult to counter this argument when the state repeatedly engages in violent activity in defense of its ideology and other perceived important values.
The justification of violence under any circumstance is a slippery slope that spreads to many areas of interest. The spirit of violence, if allowed to grow unbounded by morality, reason, or common sense, will, in its most evil incarnation, justify nuclear war.
Negotiations with words, not arms, should be our overriding objective. Rather, we rapidly resort to arms. This, likely the result of decades of militarization culminating in the 2024 U.S. “Defense” budget of $841 billion–a budget larger than roughly the next 10 largest national military budgets combined.
As I think has been said, “if one has a hammer, one uses a hammer”.
War seems to be the near inevitable consequence of an outsized military build-up. In a nation’s portfolio of assets, the military’s oversized portion within this basket, will require a return on investment in order to offset the loss of returns from elsewhere, due to the diversion of capital away from the non military sector of the economy in order to support military growth. Militarization feeds on itself and then justifies its own use in alleged noble quests for ideological and economic supremacy. Outsized military investments’ requisite returns, consciously or unconsciously, encourages conquest and consequent free market plunder.
This begins to lay bare the structural component which motivates the state’s contradictory position of simultaneously justifying and condemning political violence. A nation’s advancement of ideological and economic positions through military means apparently justifies political violence in war, but domestic political violence serves no similar purpose.
Violence in the domestic political realm should be condemned, but the condemnation of domestic political violence by the established powers strikes one as highly contradictory when one considers the state’s regular use of violence in the political act of war. Violence should never be justified or glorified, and if engaged in, it should at least be recognized for what it is: the result of our flawed humanity and our inability, or unwillingness, to live up to our highest ideals.
That, at least, would allow us to begin to deal with the problem.
Comments welcomed, civility requested, please no partisan politics.