Not much info at time of posting what prompted the man to do so

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    It’s your face and your tattoo, so if this is how you feel you need to express yourself I support it.

    I owed Aaron Bushnell the time to listen to him and understand his message, even if I think I probably already agree with them.

    Likewise, I think I ow this person the time to listen to them and understand their message, even if I think I probably don’t agree with them.

    Unlike many people who think they are on the left, I actually do believe and am fully committed to the principle of individual liberties being inviolable. That includes gay rights, trans rights, religious rights, political views, an most importantly, that your body and mind are your own and there is no authority that can remove that agency from you.

    Look if this is a rightwing conspiracy theorist and they believe this passionately in a fiction, consider that half the time when these nut jobs go off they shoot up a school or a sporting event. This person did the most extreme form of protest imaginable. But they also decided that they didn’t need to take others with them to make their point. We should try to understand why they made the conclusions they did, even if, especially if we don’t agree with how they arrived at them.

    • venusaur@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      yeah, it’s called mental illness. they have all the right in the world to do what they did. more power to them, but it’s definitely not healthy behavior and I would question their state of mind and beliefs to react in such an extreme manner.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.worldOP
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          7 months ago

          I think you have to be mentally ill to protest via self immolation. There is much more you can do alive than you can do dead. Bringing attention to a cause in this manner is very effective… But ultimately pointless if everyone is already aware of it.

          That monk did succeed in becoming a symbol of protest. But I don’t think he created a profound change that was worth his life.

          Basically – suicide is never the answer. And as protest it’s rarely effective.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            You might consider that you simply have a shallow experience of what it means to believe something. It’s not that different than signing up for the military in a time of war or running into a burning building to save a life.

            It’s your decision, but it takes character to be willing to sacrifice yours self for something you truly believe in, for better or for worse.

            • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.worldOP
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              7 months ago

              Those are completely different.

              What is gained by sacrificing yourself in this case? What are you accomplishing that you could not accomplish alive? Saving or protecting people is one thing. What does this do?

              I don’t have disdain or disrespect for people who’ve done this. I just have pity.

          • prole@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            I don’t think desperation is necessarily mental illness. They often come hand in hand, but one doesn’t necessitate the other.