I just came across a comment from a Hexbear user criticizing Walz’s record on calling in the National Guard during the BLM protests as state-sanctioned violence against Black people. And I kind of agree with their point tbh.

I mean, I agree that Walz’s record on policing is a valid angle of criticism, but they immediately escalate everything from anyone in the out-group to “No principles and literal genocide” and downplay everything from anyone in their in-group to “Necessary for AES”.

Not accusing you of disagreeing with that, just musing, I suppose.

But, if opposing state-sanctioned violence is a firm principle of ML political ideology, like it is for Anarchism, then how come nearly ever tankie I’ve ever talked to seems perfectly ok with state-sanctioned violence when it’s being carried out by Maduro, Putin, Xi, or any number of authoritarian leftists? They only ever seem to have objections when the West employs state-sanctioned violence, funnily enough.

Mood. I may not always be on the same side as anarchists, but I respect their principles. MLs, who rarely have done even a cursory read of Lenin, ironically, are just… exasperating.

God, I’m glad my instance isn’t federated with Hexbear. What a bunch of tiresome twats.