i describe the issues with the January 6 insurrectionists and the peaceful transfer of power within the republican (government structure, not party) state in similar terms to the paradox of tolerance. it’s a paradox of pacifism, or more accurately, a paradox of anti-violence. in a society that values non-violence, violent threats to pacifism cannot be allowed to stand. the reason this is is that pacifism is a social contract, not a virtue. we can have a long conversation somewhere else about that ashlii babbit and her friends did get one thing right: that the american system of structural violence will only ever be ended with a violent uprising that opposes it.

the problem lies in what ashlii babbitt and her friends were using violence to establish. they wanted to end the tradition of the american non-violent transfer of power in order to give more authority to a central autocracy to strengthen the police state. this central autocracy and strengthened police state would later go on to kill Renee Nicole Good via the hands of jonathan ross.

i can empathize with being saddened at the loss of life of a deluded human being. however i cannot sympathize with being saddened at a man defending the non-violent transfer of power killing a woman who wanted to intensify the structural violence of the system she lived under. ashlii babbit was not the victim of police violence. he death was the result of a desperate effort to keep a violent status quo from getting more violent.

i don’t think the cop that shot her understood that the status quo is violence, but i think he understood that ashlii babbitt represented more violence than a non-violent society can be allowed to tolerate.

Part of an armed mob beating cops and forcibly entering a building where the mob was chanting that they would hang members of the government?

You are right. I’ve got nothing beyond that.

The most common definition of a victim is someone who dies from a crime, and the word carries an underlying meaning of the harm coming from something not justified.

She wasn’t killed because the police overreacted or because they are trained to shoot first, she was breaking through a barrier in pursuit of committing violence and had to be stopped. Previous non-lethal attempts to stop the violence were attempted, and she was part of a crowd that could overwhelm the security. Lethal violence was needed to defend lives and therefore she is not a victim.

This is not comparable to police overreacting with disproportionate violence.