When is Political Violence the Answer?

Never. Political violence does not solve anything that peaceful protests, forms of civil disobedience, and, in some cases, conventional forms of political participation cannot solve. Instead, political violence makes the situation worse by causing many people who may have joined the cause in the first place to reconsider due to the violent nature of the group. As we talked about in class, the most important thing to do today is to gain attention and support for your cause. It is obvious that this can be done without getting violent with rioting, forms of terrorism, and/or guerrilla warfare tactics. If someone were to cause a violent disturbance in a way of trying to communicate to me that their cause was valid and important, I would probably disregard the group all together because of the immature ways in which they were going about drawing attention to themselves. I am all for unconventional forms of political participation, but please, can we act mature and keep it peaceful?