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.