His point was that once the physical power individuals/governments hold exceeds a threshold, a pluralistic society cannot coexist with violence being an acceptable option.
In the context of the 1960s, governments and nuclear weapons. But more broadly the same holds true for individuals.
Either we learn to live together despite our differences, or we use our newfound great power to annihilate each other.
Society can be shockingly resilient to personal violence especially if it’s primarily people at the top in terms of status, wealth, or political power are regularly getting assassinated. Recently gangs have been shockingly stable despite relentless violence but historically duals between gentlemen etc where quite common.
By historical standards we’re living is a near paradise of non violence and that’s worth persevering at significant cost.
ethbr1 says "...or we use our newfound great power to annihilate each other."
That isn't possible without bio-warfare. I sometimes hear people foolishly speak of a shooting "race war" in the USA but always remind them that the active phase of such an event would last about 15 minutes.
The tragedy is that several players in the transformer market went out of business because they ramped up due to the building boom before the financial crisis.
If I weren’t busy I’d go buy one of those old factories and open it back up. Great boring business to be in.
I think when it becomes normal for 10% or more of the citizens of a country to say they wouldn’t be upset if some member of the opposing political party were to die or when it becomes normal for that portion of the people to make fun or celebrate the death of someone from an opposing party or their murderer, everyone needs to take a step back regardless of which side you’re on and say “Why?” Because these people are not murderers or accomplices, and they are generally good people. These aren’t people that would lynch anyone or burn a cross in someone’s yard.
It’s awful that anyone dies.
Let’s not escalate this on either side. We don’t need another Hitler, and we don’t need a French Revolution either. We just need people that stop trying to outdo each other.
> everyone needs to take a step back regardless of which side you’re on and say “Why?”
It's easy to get sucked into a learned helplessness doing this, though. We know exactly why it happens - Charlie Kirk explained it himself:
"You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death. That is nonsense, [...] But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational."
America means guns. It's written in our constitution, reinforced through our history, reflected in our multimedia franchises and sold to American citizens as a product. The only way out of this situation is through it - we can't declare a firearms ban in-media-res without inciting even more violence and dividing people further. At the same time, America cannot continue to sustain this loss of our politicians, schoolchildren and minority populations. The threat to democracy is real, exacerbated by the potential for further "emergency powers" abuse we're familiar with from both parties.
When people push for firearms control in America, this is the polemic they argue along. You can say they're justified or completely bonkers, but denying that these scenarios exist is the blueprint for erasing causality.
> despite the involvement of the FBI and other agencies.
Many such cases. We're still looking for D. B. Cooper, aren't we? Did the FBI ever dig up Hoffa's body? The feds are hardly a panacea with these things.
This is quite backwards. Right now revolts in France are useless. When they were useful back in the days, a lot of citizens had guns. Guns laws changed to reduce their powers
They are not useless in the sense that they are visible and at some point the state cannot only respond with more violence from police force forever or else the dictatorship becomes assumed.
But current protests aren't revolts nor violence anyway. There is side/peripheral violence but that is not the point of the protests
We are 68 million and between hunters and sport shooters we have 5 million firearms owners for 10 million firearms. It's not on par with the US of course but I'd say firearms are pretty common (and it's not even counting illegal ones) and frankly it's not difficult nor long to acquire a good bolt action rifle and learn to shoot an apple at 200m. Long story short: I don't think lack firearms control is the issue in the US, there must be something else.
Many people here will tell you that cartoons represent violence, some types of speech represent violence etc. France no longer has free speech rights unless it is coming from the left
In the context of the 1960s, governments and nuclear weapons. But more broadly the same holds true for individuals.
Either we learn to live together despite our differences, or we use our newfound great power to annihilate each other.