Violent Direct Action
Violent direct action is any direct action which utilizes physical injurious force against persons or property. While groups such as Animal Liberation Front and Sea Shepherd claim that destruction of property is not violence, US and international law include acts against property in the definition of violence. Examples of violent direct action include: destruction of property, rioting, lynching, terrorism, political assassination, graffiti, freeing political prisoners, fighting against wartime occupation, interfering with police actions, self-defense, and armed insurrection.
However, under this definition Jesus, Muhammad and Nelson Mandela are examples of individuals who have practised violent direct action. The Christian pacifist group, the Plowshares Movement, and the women's right-to-vote group, the Suffragettes, would have also used violent direct action to advance their aims. Historically, the Boston Tea Party is an early example of American violent direct action. An example group that promotes direct action against property is the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which boasts of having sunk several whaling or fisheries vessels, though intentionally without loss of life.
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Famous quotes containing the words violent, direct and/or action:
“It was a cruel city, but it was a lovely one, a savage city, yet it had such tenderness, a bitter, harsh, and violent catacomb of stone and steel and tunneled rock, slashed savagely with light, and roaring, fighting a constant ceaseless warfare of men and of machinery; and yet it was so sweetly and so delicately pulsed, as full of warmth, of passion, and of love, as it was full of hate.”
—Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938)
“Parliament must not be told a direct untruth, but it’s quite possible to allow them to mislead themselves.”
—Norman Tebbit (b. 1931)
“It is most pleasant to commit a just action which is disagreeable to someone whom one does not like.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)