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Great thoughts, Jon. As a classroom history teacher, I've argued passionately to my students that free speech quells violence. But that's contingent upon free speech having at least the *potential* to be effective in change. Unelected and therefore (largely) unaccountable bureaucracies make a mockery of free speech in this light, which does help explain the violence. Left with no other effective means by which to be heard, people often resort to force.

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You're correct on speech and violence. Great work trying to get this message across to young people. They're so often told the opposite.

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Thank you for this thoughtful post. I will read the book and probably pick up my old copy of Adolph Berle's tome, "Power." There is much to the notion that powerless triggers or inspires violence (hate in general), but so does victimhood - the absolution of personal responsibility, accountability, and broken promises. That is not only a trait of bureaucracies, but now ingrained in our culture, with false promises of how creating our own reality (e.g., transgenderism) will lead us to happiness that often includes subtle if not outright acts of violence against "privilege." It doesn't take much research to find out how pervasive suicide is among transgendered individuals.

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"There is much to the notion that powerless triggers or inspires violence (hate in general), but so does victimhood..."

Totally agree. And it's sad to watch, because as you say, so much of this is now ingrained in the culture. I'll need to check out "Power."

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A friend of mine just read Arendt's "On Totalatarianism". - love the insights you share here Jon

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She was brilliant.

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Isn't it clear that many mass shootings are ginned up by the intel agencies (maybe MK Ultra) in order to may a pretext to take guns away from the public?

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