A third of Americans now believe that violence for political reasons is justified

[PeterGriffin]

You are obviously new to Carlin. Go see what he thinks about God for starters.

[Samson_Corwell]

@W_and_C

@Samson_Corwell

@W_and_C

Opinion | Americans Increasingly Believe Violence is Justified if the Other Side Wins - POLITICO

And look how much that has grown in last three years:

Before everyone predictably jumps to their battle stations - “It’s Trump’s fault !!” , “It’s liberals fault !!” “Yeah but what about blah blah blah”, it’s worthy of note that the percentage of these is remarkable equal on both sides of the aisle.

And if you dive deeper into the analysis, it’s those who identify on far ends of the spectrum “very liberal/conservative” who are most likely to take that position. It supports something that I’ve read a while ago from Alan Watts and that is the most dangerous people in the world are those who are most convinced that they are right and others are wrong.

So one-third of Americans are honest with themselves and two-thirds are still fooled into thinking that the policies they like aren’t backed with violence. We still have work to do.

“Policies I like are backed with (usually implicit threat of) violence” is not at all the same as “I think it’s fine to be violent against those who don’t agree with my politics”

That wasn’t the poll question though. The poll asked if they felt it was justified to use violence to advance political goals, which is much broader than violence against dissenters.