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:
“His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“At the utmost, the active-minded young man should ask of his teacher only mastery of his tools. The young man himself, the subject of education, is a certain form of energy; the object to be gained is economy of his force; the training is partly the clearing away of obstacles, partly the direct application of effort. Once acquired, the tools and models may be thrown away.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)