I am suggesting that in this case there is “there is no ethical justification for causing the death of one 73-year-old man...”
1) I still believe in the legitimacy of American democracy—I don’t it has failed yet on a large scale. Encouraging assasinating a leader democratically elected undermines the whole democracy and gives legitimacy to Trump’s supporters in possible future anti-democratic actions. The future harm caused to democracy could greatly overshadow any possible short term gain.
2) This would set a terrible precedent for the future and make justifying violence vs. leaders easier across the world. Non-violent norms towards leaders are super important to keep intact—Not just for America but the rest of the world as well.
3) There are so many other non-violent options which have not been taken to resist here, even though they seem have sadly faded into obscurity these days. Martin Luther King and co. stood against tyranny arguably worse than Trump’s through massive non-violent protests, harnessing the rightness of his position and the will of the masses to create change.
I respect approaches on this front like that of Bonhoeffer. I think political situations need to be disastrous and non-reversible through other means before these kind of extreme actions are even considered. It was many years into Hitler’s regime before Bonhoeffer even considered this kind of drastic action—we are barely a month into Trump’s.
I also disagree with this “But it’s becoming ridiculous to work on our initiatives to help climate and to fight poverty and disease and so on while we have Mr. Trump in the White House actively and vindictively making them worse far faster than we can fix them.” How is saving lives ridiculous, regardless of what others are doing? I’ll keep trying to save them on my end, and I doubt the white house can make the situation worse faster than we can fix it. USAID is a big factor, but still a small percentage global aid and development at the moment—and an even smaller percentage of cost-effective aid. Its not ideal but we can manage without it.
I’m sure there’s much more too, that’s just my top-of-head thoughts.
I fully agree with you. In fact, after I re-read the post, I realised I urgently needed to edit it. I had intended the idea of actual assassination to be provocative, but instead it read as if I was actively proposing it.
What I’m hoping for is, indeed, non-violent options, protests, etc.
What I’m objecting to, though, is him feeling he can break laws and accepted conventions at will, but everyone else blindly following them to enable him. For example, this is the moment when the EU could take a strong, moral stance. We could propose, in the short term, to literally replace the US—fund US Aid, pay the workers, etc., which could be both helpful for those who need help and a really powerful rebuke of Trump. But we could also just refuse to treat him seriously.
For example, I’m Irish. On March 17th, St Patrick’s Day, traditionally Irish leaders visit the US president and give him some shamrock. Many Irish people want us to skip the visit this year, and to instead make a very public point about wanting nothing to do with Mr. Trump—while still having massive respect for all the great things the US stands for. But it looks like it will go ahead as normal, he’ll get a nice photo-op, and everything will seem normal.
It’s not normal. We shouldn’t normalise it.
But I totally agree with you, assassination is not the literal answer. Hopefully you are one of the few people who read it before I edited it :D
I am suggesting that in this case there is “there is no ethical justification for causing the death of one 73-year-old man...”
1) I still believe in the legitimacy of American democracy—I don’t it has failed yet on a large scale. Encouraging assasinating a leader democratically elected undermines the whole democracy and gives legitimacy to Trump’s supporters in possible future anti-democratic actions. The future harm caused to democracy could greatly overshadow any possible short term gain.
2) This would set a terrible precedent for the future and make justifying violence vs. leaders easier across the world. Non-violent norms towards leaders are super important to keep intact—Not just for America but the rest of the world as well.
3) There are so many other non-violent options which have not been taken to resist here, even though they seem have sadly faded into obscurity these days. Martin Luther King and co. stood against tyranny arguably worse than Trump’s through massive non-violent protests, harnessing the rightness of his position and the will of the masses to create change.
I respect approaches on this front like that of Bonhoeffer. I think political situations need to be disastrous and non-reversible through other means before these kind of extreme actions are even considered. It was many years into Hitler’s regime before Bonhoeffer even considered this kind of drastic action—we are barely a month into Trump’s.
I also disagree with this “But it’s becoming ridiculous to work on our initiatives to help climate and to fight poverty and disease and so on while we have Mr. Trump in the White House actively and vindictively making them worse far faster than we can fix them.” How is saving lives ridiculous, regardless of what others are doing? I’ll keep trying to save them on my end, and I doubt the white house can make the situation worse faster than we can fix it. USAID is a big factor, but still a small percentage global aid and development at the moment—and an even smaller percentage of cost-effective aid. Its not ideal but we can manage without it.
I’m sure there’s much more too, that’s just my top-of-head thoughts.
Hi Nick,
I fully agree with you. In fact, after I re-read the post, I realised I urgently needed to edit it. I had intended the idea of actual assassination to be provocative, but instead it read as if I was actively proposing it.
What I’m hoping for is, indeed, non-violent options, protests, etc.
What I’m objecting to, though, is him feeling he can break laws and accepted conventions at will, but everyone else blindly following them to enable him. For example, this is the moment when the EU could take a strong, moral stance. We could propose, in the short term, to literally replace the US—fund US Aid, pay the workers, etc., which could be both helpful for those who need help and a really powerful rebuke of Trump. But we could also just refuse to treat him seriously.
For example, I’m Irish. On March 17th, St Patrick’s Day, traditionally Irish leaders visit the US president and give him some shamrock. Many Irish people want us to skip the visit this year, and to instead make a very public point about wanting nothing to do with Mr. Trump—while still having massive respect for all the great things the US stands for. But it looks like it will go ahead as normal, he’ll get a nice photo-op, and everything will seem normal.
It’s not normal. We shouldn’t normalise it.
But I totally agree with you, assassination is not the literal answer. Hopefully you are one of the few people who read it before I edited it :D
Cheers
Denis