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Don't talk tough

This is a common pattern in political discourse, from all factions:

I saw it often from the anti-abortion crowd when I was in it with my family. Allies who were trying to motivate us would describe our peaceful protests as "fighting". I remember one of the times we went to the national yearly protest in DC, we were pep talked with some stupid video with animated text that said something like "They want to murder millions of babies, and the only thing standing in their way is... YOU". And it played some kind of action music. Utterly disgusting. Protesting is not fighting, if you're standing right next to what you believe is ongoing murder and you're not using your fists or a weapon, you're not being brave, you're being pathetic. Maybe pathetic in a strategically justified way, but pathetic nonetheless. At this time I believed the morally right course of action *was* to fight (I clashed with my family over that); I withheld out of cowardice, which made this self-aggrandizing rhetoric from people who advocated *against* fighting all the more disgusting.

I think it's most common with libertarians. They often say things like "I submit to no government!1!" "We have to draw a hard line at X (eg. vaccine passports)!" "I train with my guns every day so I can defend my loved ones from the state!". What do you think these people do during tax season? When they get pulled over for a speeding ticket? When X gets passed? When their loved one is kidnapped by the state? If they were ever going to "draw a line" at a certain level of tyranny and *use* those guns they keep bragging about, they would have done it a long time ago.

I've also heard it from leftists, who often say the same kind of things that libertarians say about "drawing a line" and "defending your loved ones" with regard to eg. anti-trans legislation getting passed... after which of course none of these people pick up a weapon nor feel ashamed for not doing so.

Stop it, all of you, you're not tough! If you think fighting is the wrong course of action, own up to it. Don't talk tough if you aren't and don't want your audience to be.

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