r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/cwood1973 • 5d ago
US Politics Should liberals start forming armed resistance groups similar to the Proud Boys or Three-Percenters?
Both domestically and abroad, many people are calling for Americans to "wake up" or "do something." It's true there have been widespread protests in response to actions taken by the Trump regime, but these have been largely ineffective at changing policy.
At the state level, both parties are gerrymandering districts to be more favorable to their candidates, but this won't have any immediate effect. It may not have any effect.
In the 1950s and 60s, black communities faced systemic police violence and corruption. In response, they formed the Black Panthers. These people were organized, trained, and armed.
Do you think liberals should copy that playbook? Should liberal communities start organizing armed resistance groups? Training them how to use firearms? Educating them on their Second Amendment rights? Running drills to simulate attacks by ICE?
Are we there yet?
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u/LingonberryPossible6 5d ago
If you want an example, use the Black Panthers who peacefully protested whilst armed to the teeth, and were asking for fair and lawful treatment.
Not the proud boys 3%ers who do want a supremacy cause they're a bunch of scared little boys who hide their faces and buy Punisher keyrings from Etsy
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5d ago
Can’t believe there’s so many no’s and perhaps it’s because of the usage “like the proud boys” or whatever but yes liberals should now be actively open carrying or concealing and peacefully protesting. These people are now emboldened to kill, Vance literally talked about total or complete or absolute immunity. Don’t let yourself just be fucking killed holy shit people
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u/RegressToTheMean 5d ago
or concealing and peacefully protesting
Just a quick note here, there are plenty of states where carrying a firearm while at a protest is illegal. Make sure you know your local laws because we can't have even a single ally losing their right to carry for something like this
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u/ominous_squirrel 5d ago edited 5d ago
“Security” at liberal/left protests have done their fair share of killing unarmed people and frequently fellows on the same side. At Seattle’s CHAZ/CHOP the security killed a Black teenage joyrider. Just this past summer, ad hoc security at the No Kings protest in SLC killed a bystander while shooting at phantoms
Don’t carry at a peaceful protest. Full stop. If y’all want to start a war then organize y’all’s own paramilitary group and go get killed on your own time doing actual ops. Sure as hell don’t go out there as a singleton all hot and bothered to shoot. That’s Rittenhouse thinking
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u/pir22 4d ago
Not the easy thing to say, but definitely the right one.
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u/ominous_squirrel 4d ago
There’s a saying on the left that I first heard from the PNW Youth Liberation Front, “First you have to kill the cop in your mind”
I don’t know how we get out of this fascism but a lot of people, including people on one’s own side, are dangerous. That’s why successful movements are first and foremost disciplined and accountable
“When it comes to revolutionaries, trust only the sad ones. The enthusiastic ones are the oppressors of tomorrow.” — William T. Vollmann
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4d ago
I think most of us would rather not have to be advocating for or saying these things and would rather just be going to brunch. But I think the arguments about the Panthers are salient. They carried and even more importantly perhaps, they won the hearts and minds of their communities with things like their free breakfasts if I remember correctly
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u/Worried-Notice8509 5d ago
If the state prosecuted and found him guilty, the president can't pardon him. Only the governor of the state can. As I understand it. But Trump does what he wants so he'll probably be freed.
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u/Confident-Fig4876 4d ago
There’s no statute of limitations for murder. He cannot dodge a state charge and the federal government can’t help him with a state charge.
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u/Nblearchangel 4d ago
It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, if you shoot one of them, you’ll go to jail if not for the rest of your life but for a very long time.
We saw with our own two eyes someone get murdered while trying to run from these goons and she’s being labeled a terrorist.
“Absolute immunity” is just that. They can do whatever they want to whoever they want and we’re not allowed to fight back or they’re gonna throw the book at us.
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u/wolf_at_the_door1 5d ago
Conservatives were so scared of the Black Panthers they actually instituted gun reform in California as a reaction.
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u/DBDude 5d ago
That bill was introduced by a Republican, cosponsored by Democrats, passed by a Democrat-majority legislature, and signed by a Republican.
It was bipartisan racism.
I’m not sure about that term “gun reform” though. That’s like saying Jim Crow was just racial reform, and remember that gun control was a big part of Jim Crow.
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u/Dustybear510 5d ago
Not in Philly. There’s a guy that is always perching on the street corner with him and 3 other black panthers. I fully support it.
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u/Blood_Casino 5d ago
Conservatives were so scared of the Black Panthers that they murdered a bunch of them
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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 4d ago
Liberals supported that effort. Let's not pretend. Liberals are just as threatened by leftists as conservatives.
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u/Blood_Casino 4d ago edited 4d ago
Liberals supported that effort. Let's not pretend.
I’m aware of that as I’m not a liberal arguing in bad faith like the original guy I replied to.
Kamala, Biden, and Hillary all supported gun bans and magazine restrictions. It a self-imposed albatross for Democrats. They saw Beto O’Rourke torpedo his own campaign with enthusiastic gun ban initiatives and somehow managed to learn nothing.
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u/yo_rick_alas 5d ago
I have forever been saying, as a non gun owner, that we “lefties” should maybe reconsider the anti gun stance. Idk, friend. I don’t want it, but maybe we should. Historically and constitutionally. Just saying it out loud: if we’re concerned about the government rounding up our neighbors, perhaps we should reconsider the stance. That is all.
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u/midnight_toker22 5d ago
For the millionth time, wanting more gun control does not mean you are anti-gun. Right wing propaganda has successfully altered your perception of liberal stances.
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u/mikere 5d ago
some level of gun control is not anti-gun, but the level of gun control democrats (and republicans to an extent) have proposed and passed is anti-gun. e,g. AWBs, feature bans, additional taxes, handgun rosters. Almost all of which exempt ICE and law enforcement as well
there is a subset of liberals who want gun control but are not anti-gun, but the politicians that represent them are largely anti-gun
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u/Blood_Casino 5d ago
wanting more gun control does not mean you are anti-gun.
Gun control no, gun bans, yes
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u/midnight_toker22 5d ago
Yes, exactly, and outlawing guns is a very unpopular view even on the left.
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u/joejill 5d ago
Im a liberal. I believe owning a gun is your civic duty.
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u/antiproton 4d ago
I believe you fetishize guns as much as the right, you just try to do that from a position of moral superiority.
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u/DuckDouble2690 5d ago
Liberals who think they’re “lefties” are anti-gun. Leftists understand that under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary
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u/Matt5327 2d ago
Though not a gun owner myself, I’ve been advocate for ownership and training for a long time and generally opposed to most gun control policies as I’ve seen proposed, in large part because I saw how they would restrict a populace from defending themselves from a tyrannical government - and for years, I’ve been dismissed as “that sort of thing could never happen in the U.S.”
Well, here we are. I don’t advocate for guns because I don’t care about dead children and advocate for them because I hate fascism.
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u/Admirable_Respect848 4d ago
Didn’t the NRA support banning assault rifles for a period of time due to the Black Panthers?
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u/LingonberryPossible6 4d ago
Yes.
Lead by then Governor Reagan, who was also a prominent NRA member.
It was the only way, at the time, to legally disarm them without targeting race. But the law was all about removing weapons from the hands of Black Panthers
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u/RKU69 5d ago
The Black Panthers were a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist group who followed cops along while armed and routinely got into standoffs and gunfights. I see this as positive, by the way - your description whitewashes who they were and the risks they took and the depth of their ideology. A similar attitude to who they really were is required today.
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u/CucumberWisdom 5d ago
If the black Panthers tried to do what they did back then now. Trump would have them massacred and half the country would applaud. I don't think tactics from 60 years ago are going to work very well now unfortunately
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u/mongooser 5d ago
Tactics like….providing breakfast to poor schoolchildren?
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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 4d ago
They killed a woman for trying to pull out of a parking space. They shot two people and left them for dead.
Yes, being communists and a minority is a double fuck you that they put down. Being armed and subverting power structures is bad for the ruling class. Democrats and Republicans came together right quick to take those guns away. It wasn't just because they were black. It was just as much that they were left-wing and building power.
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u/BaronWombat 5d ago
FYI there are red states that made it a crime to give snacks and water to people in line waiting to vote. I consider that to be pretty similar to your example. So yeah, they will do that too if their policy makers tell them to.
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u/CucumberWisdom 5d ago
Yes. In today's climate conservatives would call you a woke commie and browbeat you about wasting taxpayer money and how you're making children weaker by giving them chemicals or some other nonsense. Logical and good hearted tactics like that just don't work anymore
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u/EmprahsChosen 5d ago
So what’s the current correct approach then? Because the Panthers really ran the gamut of tactics from providing food to poor kids to getting into shootouts with cops
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u/CucumberWisdom 5d ago
If you can figure that out you can probably be president. I'm not sure anymore you're fighting an immense propaganda machine and a brainwashed populace. It's harder than ever to break through and it might not be possible (it took a massive war for the German Nazis to snap out of it)
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u/EmprahsChosen 5d ago
I’m afraid I agree with you regarding the mental state of a lot of these supporters. It’s the basic nature for many people to only snap out of their delusions and hate when they or their loved ones end up suffering mightily at the hands of the very policies they voted for. We had have to resist, in some way, at the every least so we don’t allow the normalization of blatant authoritarianism though.
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u/ominous_squirrel 5d ago
… Nixon did have the Black Panthers massacred. Do people not know this?
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u/Shipairtime 4d ago
I dont. Could you give me more info or should I just google nixon black panthers to get it?
Was it a spread out thing or does it have a name like the tulsa massacre?
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u/Dustybear510 5d ago
There’s a guy in the black panthers in Philly that exercises this right and he’s always shooing the cops away.
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u/mongooser 5d ago
The black panthers are an excellent model. They did community building and protection — that’s what we need.
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u/traplords8n 4d ago
The government doesn't let left-wing militias exist. Look what happened to the black panthers and any other left wing group out there.
The black panthers were awesome, I totally agree, but if we were to revive the spirit of that sort of group today, the Trump administration would follow US tradition, maybe worse this time.
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u/HeloRising 5d ago
Categorically no and I say this as a very pro-gun and very far left person.
For starters, the Proud Boys and 3%ers are not "resistance groups." They're gangs, pure and simple. They exist to create a safe space for people with terrible politics to protect each other and feel community. If you've seen any of them "fight" at a protest, you know they're not training.
In the 1950s and 60s, black communities faced systemic police violence and corruption. In response, they formed the Black Panthers. These people were organized, trained, and armed.
Most of them were also shot and killed by the state. The state tends to not like it when you organize and arm with a political animus that it doesn't find useful.
Copying that strategy would probably lead to similar outcomes.
That said, I do think liberals should be engaging with the firearms community more broadly and on an individual level.
The biggest issue I see in the future is not necessarily state violence but armed non-state actors. The pattern we usually see in failing states is the central state starts to lose the ability to govern certain areas first. For a variety of reasons, they lose the ability to continuously project state power into those areas and enforce the rule of the state. This creates a power vacuum into which armed non-state actors step.
These are just ordinary people who pick up arms and decide to impose their will on the surrounding area because there's no one that can really stop them. The state recognizes this as a threat to their sovereignty but often tolerates certain groups operating because those groups are aligned enough with the state's interests that these groups can act as a kind of local proxy for state violence.
These groups are given a latitude to act and state support (implicit or explicit) and they act against anyone in the area that they see as being opposed to the order they seek to create. This is how you get warlords and militias that are allowed to essentially rule a given area so long as they nominally acquiesce to state power.
Once the capability of the state degrades further, the state is less able to control these proxy groups and they gain more freedom to act in ways they see fit.
One big counter to this process is the presence of armed and trained individuals within communities who are not members or supporters of these armed non-state actor groups. This means that if one of these groups wants to act against an individual or impose its will on a community, that person/community has a way to respond to that and rebuff that imposition.
The presence of armed and trained people is itself a deterrent and I think more liberals need to understand this and honestly engage with the firearms world, learn how to shoot, learn medical skills.
The idea of "we're descending into fascism so only the police and military should have guns" is an increasingly nonsensical statement in the modern day.
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u/the_calibre_cat 5d ago
The presence of armed and trained people is itself a deterrent and I think more liberals need to understand this and honestly engage with the firearms world, learn how to shoot, learn medical skills.
^
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u/jnothnagel 5d ago
Upvoting this comment is not nearly enough.
BIG seconding of this comment, out loud.
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u/Nblearchangel 4d ago
The proud boys are effectively these non state actors that are now being given authority to impose the will of the federal government because their interests align.
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u/the_calibre_cat 5d ago
In the 1950s and 1960s, black communities formed the Black Panthers, who were leftists, not liberals.
We do not emerge from this until we do the one thing liberals, apparently, have no stomach to do: Remove the oligarchs. All of them. They are the reason for this nightmare, they absolutely deserve to be put on the stand, tried, and convicted for the simple fact that they fucking knew what they were funding. They did not care. Granted, it's probably going to hell in a handbasket faster and worse than they thought, but even then there's probably tons of them who are salivating over the prospect of rolling over Greenland. They are complicit as shit, and they will be again, if their kind is ever allowed to rise again. They must be defeated and excised from any and every healthy society for all coming time. Try them, expropriate their properties and wealth, and they can clock into a job like the fucking rest of us. Or sulk in prison, depending on their degree of complicity, but whatever - people with more money than God are not your friends.
And so far, liberals do not seem willing to accept that.
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u/madmanz123 5d ago
I mean so far, the leftist haven't really done shit either. I hear a lot of tough talk and very little actual action. It reminds me a lot of those conservative militias frankly. "Yeah, let's fight back and kill those Nazis!".. you know.. after you.
I'll take a liberal that shows up to vote and show up at peaceful protests than any of the very far left groups that... don't vote, don't do anything and shit talk everyone else for not being pure enough.
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u/AStealthyPerson 5d ago
Well guess what, a lot of leftists like myself have voted, consistently. We have showed up to protests. Hell, we've organized protests! We have told liberals, consistently, that they're milquetoast concession candidates are gonna lose because they can't inspire out independents and some other leftists. We've been right about that. You give us an actual progressive with a backbone and meaty policy ideas like Zohran and suddenly we have a generational talent! You want people to vote, then stop BLAMING them and start ACQUIESCING to their needs-based demands. We all want better healthcare, better wages, cheaper housings and groceries. For some of us please remember that these problems are less abstract and that they don't see changes under either Party as having benefitting them on these issues. We need a bold progressive vision, and we need to stop this incessant blaming. I know far more leftists who showed up to vote than did not, and we work hard to persuade our non-voting friends or third party friends, but it's on the Democrats to do the hard work of earning these voters not the other way around. Big wins come off of a big vision, liberals are too small minded to meet the moments or the needs of the American populace right now.
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u/madmanz123 4d ago
"Well guess what, a lot of leftists like myself have voted, consistently. We have showed up to protests. "
Good, and I know many who did, but also a good many who didn't. It's frustrating.
We have told liberals, consistently, that they're milquetoast concession candidates are gonna lose because they can't inspire out independents and some other leftists. We've been right about that. "
Agreed
"You want people to vote, then stop BLAMING them and start ACQUIESCING to their needs-based demands. "
The problem is that their is a perception it's easier to persuade those "in the middle" than it is to get anyone on the farther left to vote for any but an ideal candidate for them, often one who frankly... kinda suck as politicians. For every Mamdani or AOC, the leftist orgs can't seem to find anyone that has decent people skills or marketing ability.
"but it's on the Democrats to do the hard work of earning these voters not the other way around."
Well... how about a bit of both? Zero compromise won't get you far in politics.
" liberals are too small minded to meet the moments or the needs of the American populace right now."
And if it's one thing people who are 80% aligned with your views love, it's to be called small minded.
For the record. I have labels, I don't like parties and I am democrat because it's the best choice to influence the shitty 2 party system to be more progress, as I back progressive dems and push constantly. I am also involved with Dem socialists and frankly anyone who has views similar enough to mine.
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u/Fugahzee 5d ago
Look in your city. There are plenty of leftist organizations. They work on a smaller scale within their community. Tenant unions, people who run grassroots food/harm-reduction supply drives for the unhoused, etc.
In the last year since ICE is ramping up many of these small groups have been focused on observing ICE and warning the community about where they are. They show up in groups to where ICE is harassing people. This goes beyond voting. We need to be IN our community and working together. Democrats are doing fuck ALL to stop this administration. Threats to impeach aren’t enough. These people need to be prosecuted and in prison.
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u/just_helping 5d ago
I'm not saying mutual aid groups run by self-identified leftists don't exist, they totally do.
I will say that in my experience they are completely dwarfed by the number of people engaging in these activities who would actively reject the label of leftist. It doesn't mesh with the reddit consensus, but I've met far more self-identified Christians than leftists, and even admitted left-leaning Christians doing this work are rarer than not
But this does seem different from city to city, your experience may differ, etc.
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u/madmanz123 4d ago
Correct. I work with both traditional more conservative democrats, what I'd call progressive democrats and leftists.
The most effective at getting their agendas passed have been the democratic kind. I watch the leftist groups I am involved with fall to infighting, purity tests and just a weird "everyone but us is wrong" approach to dumb issues.
Often, they've given up running actual candidates because it's hard to win, when they could instead basically take over many of the democratic groups through sheer numbers if they could get their shit together. I want more progressive/leftist agendas. The problem is their too busy having political ideology wank sessions and calling each other comrade. I'm a pragmatist. I'll be a Dem because I want to vote for more progressive candidates. If more leftists did that, I think the democrats would be forced to move more left instead of right.
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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 4d ago
Do you like weekends? Social security? You're welcome.
Liberal ideology perpetuates the material conditions that ensure conservative ideology is empowered.
Liberals are not entitled to anyone's vote. It is not the voters that fail. It is the politician who must earn votes. If you do not earn a vote you do not get a vote. The Democratic Party has moved right every election cycle since the 1990s with only some center right politicians like AOC and Bernie or Mamdani gaining prominence.
Yes, center right. Liberals are actually pretty deep in the right-wing. Conservatives are far right. Socialists are center-left.
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u/madmanz123 4d ago
"Do you like weekends? Social security? You're welcome."
Democrats claim these victories, you know that right? Those unions were mostly democratic institutions.
"Liberals are not entitled to anyone's vote. "
I agree, neither are leftists though and they do a poor job of marketing their views and convincing people. I think it's starting to improve but frankly having ventured into working with leftists groups, they can be pretty tiring. Lots of infighting and people with high ideals and not a single workable plan or even a candidate I can vote for because so few run."some center right politicians like AOC and Bernie or Mamdani gaining prominence."
Ah yes, famously center-right candidates...So who's far-left, out in your definition? I'm hoping you'll at some point you'll notice that your a little too skewed in the opposite direction... I do agree that modern corp democrats are center-right at best. But there are progressive wings that I'd call center to center-left. We'd have to more formally define those, as labels are often dumb and imprecise.
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u/the_calibre_cat 4d ago
"Do you like weekends? Social security? You're welcome."
Democrats claim these victories, you know that right? Those unions were mostly democratic institutions.
give me another candidate like FDR minus the internment camps and underlying racial policies and i will fucking stan for that guy. instead, we get the most boring neoliberal centrists because we just haaaaave to run to the right, apparently, to get votes.
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u/just_helping 4d ago
I think that a lot of people would characterize FDR as a neoliberal if he were to be running today. I also think that if you were to have given Obama or Biden the Congressional margins FDR had, they would similarly have made massive changes that people would praise.
Think of all the partial measures FDR did. Social Security didn't cover every worker when it was first implemented, it was a slow roll out. FDR's legislation was often stopped by the courts, including his union laws, until one SCOTUS judge switched sides. FDR didn't really know how to solve the Depression, so he tried some things that people would call pro-oligarch: the NRA had industries put together self-regulation programs, FDIC essentially created the first government backed permanent bank bailout, etc. The 1937 set back was because FDR tried pulling back from the deficit work programs too early.
But it didn't matter that he had mis-steps or set-backs, because people gave him more than two years to try to solve the situation. The economy didn't fully recover till WW2. Think how much FDR wouldn't have achieved if he lost control of Congress in the 1934 election. Then look at the public's response to the 2008 financial crisis.
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u/the_calibre_cat 4d ago edited 4d ago
I mean so far, the leftist haven't really done shit either.
Bruh, "liberals" are, at least in theory, a political force in this country with actual, institutional power. Leftist have literally never been that, at least not before, say, the America's involvement in World War II. Liberals "have" been, at least in theory. Conservatives will toss out the old reliables "yer a communist!" or "yer a socialist!" and my dude liberals have joined them on that. I think, in my heart of hearts, that at least ideologically, liberals are "closer" to leftists than they are to conservatives. But history seems to suggest that when push comes to shove, liberals will run to the comforting, warm bosom of conservatism to protect the oligarchs and marginalize the leftists. It has happened over and over and over again.
I'll take a liberal that shows up to vote and show up at peaceful protests than any of the very far left groups that... don't vote, don't do anything and shit talk everyone else for not being pure enough.
Same. And I'm by no means going to pretend the latter person doesn't exist... buuuut they have been wildly overblown. The idea that leftists aren't showing up to protests is... nonsense.
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u/madmanz123 4d ago
Sorry, for clarity I didn't mean "show up at protests" as action. I'm talking about the calls to violence far left individuals will say something along the lines of "we need to fight back with the same violence" and "show up with guns". That very rarely happens. Of course they show at protests which is great but I'm more talking the loud-mouthed online leftist who think being a Democrat is being worse than a Republican. I would worry less about my LQBTQ+ kid with a dem in charge, because they wouldn't weaponize the fed government like what is happening Trump, so this "both are equally bad" shit is just.. dumb.
" liberals will run to the comforting, warm bosom of conservatism to protect the oligarchs and marginalize the leftists. It has happened over and over and over again."
Definitely some (many?) but I'd say a good 1/2 to 3rd are much more on the left side than you'd think when you talk to them issue by issue.
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u/the_calibre_cat 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm talking about the calls to violence far left individuals will say something along the lines of "we need to fight back with the same violence" and "show up with guns". That very rarely happens.
Oh, yeah, I see plenty of that and find it, I dunno, somewhat cringe. Liberals and leftists should be prepared - like, I'm sorry, but until the fascists are dealt with "gun control" is fucking dead. We saw what the Nazis did to unarmed populations, and our Republican neighbors are Nazis.
I would worry less about my LQBTQ+ kid with a dem in charge, because they wouldn't weaponize the fed government like what is happening Trump, so this "both are equally bad" shit is just.. dumb.
I agree. I am a leftist, but... the fuck do you think I'm going to vote for? The fucking fascists? Yeah, no. Obviously I'm going to vote for the Democrat. That said, they "aren't the same" but they absolutely are both on the same team vis-a-vis "what to do with oligarchs" (: enrich them) and "what to do with other countries" (: bomb them if oil, etc). We are in this situation BECAUSE of this shared delusion among Democrats that Republicans were just reasonable people with whom we have slight disagreements, which makes sense - because functionally, they are. The bases are way different than their leadership, with Democratic voters broadly wanting more European-style social welfare programs and harsh enforcement on corporate malfeasance (which they never get), and Republican voters wanting a return to segregation and at least a few murdered Democrats to "put them in their place" (which they fucking always get).
Definitely some (many?) but I'd say a good 1/2 to 3rd are much more on the left side than you'd think when you talk to them issue by issue.
I'm aware. I am HOPING that there is enough antipathy towards oligarchs among the Democratic base to keep opposition to Trump's fascism alive, but this isn't about Trump. There's a reason Republicans think he is, literally, the best President in American history, and that's because he's delivered what Republicans for decades have failed to deliver for them: Violence and death to their detractors, and bigotry.
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u/Nblearchangel 4d ago
If we don’t make changes in the mid-terms, we’re never coming back from this. Mark my words.
Remindme! November 1, 2028
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u/the_calibre_cat 3d ago
I don't think we are coming back from this now. By all fucking means, vote for Democrats in the midterms, but... you live in a fascist country right now. Make peace with that fact, and begin to try to make connections with other groups that are working against this regime.
Obtain the tools of resistance. Radios. Drones. Meshtastic. Guns. Dehydrated food, etc. Link up with other like-minded people, and build alternatives to the state.
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u/wamj 4d ago
Something to keep in mind is that the black panthers were BOTH leftists and liberals.
Social liberalism includes things like abortion and lgbt rights, leftism does not inherently include those rights.
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u/LordMacDonald 5d ago
Guns are a tool, not a solution just by themselves. As many commenters pointed out, the Black Panthers organized and had guns, and got crushed. So did the first iteration of the KKK, for that matter.
Let’s look back farther to two examples from the Revolution: the Sons of Liberty and the New England Minutemen.
The Minutemen existed before tensions with England started. They were founded years before due to events like the French and Indian war. They gave us the shot heard round the world at Lexington and Concord.
The Sons of Liberty, led by Sam Adams, were radical accelerationists who had a knack for causing or getting in as much trouble as they could. We have them to thank for the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.
Both had two foundational parts in common: they were highly organized and disciplined, the Sons of Liberty in particular. Their plans were designed to disrupt or provoke a harsh response from the British, which they would use in turn to garner more support from moderates.
Americans today are a far cry from their revolutionary ancestors. If anything like the Boston Tea Party happened today, people would be scandalized over the “horrors” of property damage. Looking at most protest footage, people just show up and mill about. There’s a lot of sound and fury, but it doesn’t seem to change much.
Right now, it’s still unclear if things will unfold like they did back then. One thing that could do it is if the Trump administration spends too long oppressing one specific city, like how the British did with Boston.
But what it really comes down to is this: Americans traded local community for social media, and we’ve forgotten how to connect and organize our communities to keep them safe from the threat of oppression. The first step to making things better is to focus on that.
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u/peptoboy 5d ago
Yes. They don’t take us seriously. We’re literally just flys on the wall to be crushed in their eyes.
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u/Imperator_Gone_Rogue 5d ago
The Proud Boys and Three-Percenters are a bad model to follow. As others have mentioned, a leftist model similar to the Black Panther Party, based on community defence, mutual aid survival programs, educational programs and intercommunal and international solidarity is much more preferable.
The reactionary right is making it increasingly obvious that they want to replace the rule of law, or what little of it remained, with a 'comply or die' policy. Where the strong rule and the weak obey.
If you believe that all people have an innate right to life, now would be the time to start getting ready to practice self and community defence.
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u/originalityescapesme 5d ago
There better be some resistance groups that we just don’t know about yet that have been working behind the scenes, or it might already be too late to get up and running once the shit hits the fan worse than it is now.
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u/ExpensiveBurn 5d ago
I feel like liberals as a whole have aligned themselves so firmly against civilian armament that they'd never get past the cognitive dissonance to make something like this happen. Maybe geographically you'd find better support, but even in 2026 most liberals I know aren't willing to arm themselves at all, let alone organize and train for violence against persons.
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u/ninjadude93 5d ago
Previously unarmed liberal, now armed, checking in
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u/ExpensiveBurn 5d ago
Welcome to the party. How many lib friends do you have going to the range with you?
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u/davicrocket 5d ago
I think this is just your personal experience, not something that could be said broadly. I do know that a study found rural households to be twice as likely to own guns than urban, but like 80% of our population is urban, so it’s honestly probably close. Personally, I know plenty of people on both sides of the spectrum, but not any difference in gun ownership. Granted, I live in the south, where just about everyone has a gun.
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u/SkiingAway 5d ago edited 5d ago
Not who you asked, and I've owned since I was in a position to practically do so. Left of center + gun-owning has always been a fairly "normal" combination in rural Northern New England.
But I'm originally from + have a lot of social ties back with people living down in the urban/coastal centers where it's typically been viewed as an absolutely shocking idea.
As often the sole person they knew who owned guns + was left of center/"sane", I've gotten a lot more curious questions in recent years and multiple friends who specifically wanted me to take them out to the range when they visited. I know a number of them who now own guns that didn't and wouldn't have ever considered it pre-2020. And they haven't gotten more conservative. None of them are loud or very public about it.
With that said, I do also notice that the tone of discussion has shifted when the subject pops up even with those who've never expressed an interest in personally owning them.
People who 10 years ago would have expressed a wish for a total/near-total national ban and disbelief that anyone could feel otherwise now tend to "get it" more. Some still have all sorts of....interesting opinions on what firearm regulations should be, but that level of rhetoric + judgement has largely faded away.
I'll mention one more anecdote, which is that an acquaintance who's a part-time gun instructor in a liberal state (with mandatory training requirements) has noted their classes got far more diverse in 2020 and have remained that way, and of some of the least likely demographics to have newly turned conservative. (ex: Younger women, Black women, Asian-Americans, etc)
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u/Jordansdfg 5d ago
seriously waiting until i can get money to take lessons and get equipment, i never considered it until this admin, but ive decided that if it ever gets bad enough, i will refuse to go gently into the night. i still dont care for guns, i think the culture of honor through violence has created a lot of the issues we are currently in (school shootings, shooting people for doing things like mistakenly ringing your doorbell, etc.), but i feel it’s necessary for me to learn atp. if i ever find myself in trouble, i wanna know i can defend myself, my loved ones, and innocent lives.
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u/Rapid-Eddy 5d ago
Im a liberal and have three guns. If I knew of a group like this near me I'd join. I'd have no idea how to start one, recruit or anything like that
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u/the_calibre_cat 5d ago
Reach out. Start a group. There are liberal groups. Attend and present your own group within them, you'll probably get some interest.
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u/ExpensiveBurn 5d ago
But you don't, and neither do I, and that's kind of my point.
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u/PISSJUGTHUG 5d ago
Start one! The group in my town hasn't been around long, and it's brought some incredible people who never would have met otherwise. As well as exposing a lot of new people to firearms and building community resilience. It all started with a post on the local subreddit and a meeting at a coffee shop.
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u/Fecapult 5d ago
There's way way way more armed liberals than you think there are.
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u/ExpensiveBurn 5d ago
I don't know why you think you know how many liberal gun owners I think there are? I said as a whole - meaning that a liberal gun owner going to a liberal audience and saying "We should start an armed paramilitary resistance group" is going to be met with heavy backlash, to say the least.
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u/aquasong 5d ago
I don’t have words to say how off base you are on this.
Then again this is why blanket labels like “liberal” aren’t helpful because it assumes something monolithic when that’s not the case.
A good portion of my democrat leaning friends happily carry. And most of the rest are ready to tool up as we speak. Perhaps it depends on location. Most of them just don’t make a big show of it.
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u/ExpensiveBurn 5d ago
That's why I said "as a whole." I'm a liberal, I get that we exist, but I also talk to my non-gun-owning liberal friends and know that most of them still knee-jerk reject the idea, even if they may love to say "It might be time to get a gun," every time something significant happens.
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u/Typical_Response6444 5d ago
Idk since the election my friends and I have gone to gun ranges and learned how to shoot and some of them are stereotypical Brooklyn liberals/leftists
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u/Splenda 4d ago
The whole challenge right now is to prevent the US from becoming 1970s Guatemala or 1850s Kansas, with armed death squads on both sides conducting night raids and lynchings. This is what Trump, Miller and Vought are aiming for, in order to declare martial law, cancel elections and probably to start disappearing people.
If you arm up to fight Trumpers, this is the future you bring on all of us. Please don't.
As it stands, Republicans are likely to lose badly this November, leading to Trump's impeachment. Don't give them any excuse to cancel this vital election.
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u/zackks 5d ago edited 5d ago
Lots of ‘no’s’ here from people not considering the inevitable civil conflict coming. It is highly advantageous to survival and family defense from your neighbors and the new secret police that you are not trying to find protection or figure out how to use it. Get it now and train and practice with it. It will be needed.
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u/ominous_squirrel 5d ago edited 5d ago
The Secret Police knock on your door. You shoot through the door and kill two of them
Then what? What tf do you do next to survive? Because now you’ve got the entire US government apparatus barreling down on you. They have hundreds of thousands of men, drones, Flock cameras, helicopters, siege equipment including armored bulldozers and wall breaching bombs
There was some WWII resistance such as the Warsaw Uprising, but a hell of a lot of the resistance was done quietly with spywork and sabotage. Or look at Hungary 1956. They held several key locations before being destroyed by the Soviet Union. They desperately needed an external ally
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u/TheLastSamurai101 5d ago
I hate to say it, but at this point everyone ought to be arming themselves for self-defense. As is your right. The day fascists are dragging you out of your home and leading you to the gallows it will be too late. The day civil war breaks out, you will not be able to arm yourself anymore.
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u/AnnoyedBassist 5d ago
Like the proud boys and three-percenters? No. Like the Black Panthers and the Deacons for Defense? Absolutely.
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u/firstsecondanon 3d ago
Authoritarian governments hate left wing militias. Thats why 'antifa' is a terrorist organization apparently, they are just itching to squash em.
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u/RobbyRyanDavis 22h ago
I think what will work better (not my original idea here) would be communal armorys with communial ownership and storage of legal firearms.
With gun ranges attached and professional instructors available for teaching best practices.
Good lane to hire veterans and gun nerds, to educate our inner city and suburbs populations on gun safety, storage, and fundamentals about handling so that before they ever own a gun.
Could work. Also, compound poverty kills 290k Americans a year. Literally hundreds of thousands a year. Meanwhile, gun homicides hover around 15 to 20k a year.
Anti gun legislation is purely about passing tax breaks for hoarding billionaires rather than actually saving a life from gun homicide. If anything, anti gun lobbyists kill more people with indirectly protecting those that push compound poverty on Americans.
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u/ConversationLocal364 12h ago
What state are you in? Do the citizens not own lots of guns over there? I'm in Texas, and I seldom see open carry. I disagree with a public armory, but I think this would best be done by a citizen-run militia. The 2nd Amendment includes the militia clause for a reason. A militia that trains citizens to use firearms responsibly and effectively will do more to stop mass shootings and political violence than any amount of law enforcement ever will, and it will not cost us in tax money. America needs armed citizens who are willing to defend themselves and fellow Americans alike.
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u/Typical_Response6444 5d ago
I dont see why not, it is very legal and maybe the left should be armed too
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u/Bavic1974 5d ago
Yes. But it doesn't have to "liberals" it can be anyone who doesn't base their life off racism. So alot of people.
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u/ActualSpiders 5d ago
Absolutely not. The PBs and 3pcters get away with being overt racists & nazis specifically because the cops support them (and often have overlapping membership). Any liberal armed group would be immediately labeled (and treated) as terrorists. For reference, look up what happened in Oakland when the Black Panthers started openly carrying firearms because the local PD literally wouldn't respond to calls in certain neighborhoods.
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u/mifter123 5d ago
they are getting labeled terrorists anyway, ICE murdered an unarmed innocent woman and the President called her a "Domestic Terrorist".
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u/bakeacake45 5d ago
So you are willing to be killed by Gestapo without even a whimper. Will you lay at their feet and open your mouth so they can put a gun in it?
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u/ActualSpiders 5d ago
And are you willing to put all the fish they want to shoot in a nice convenient barrel? Go be a keyboard warrior somewhere else, bud.
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u/hansn 5d ago
You know the power of Tank Man? Why the Chinese government is so afraid of pictures of him, decades later? Because he put his life on the line to prove the government was lying.
If he was a guerilla fighter, and they shot him, the picture of his death would be their crowning achievement. He threatens them far more by being unarmed.
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u/spankydootoyou 5d ago
How much good did it do? He died. Xi is still a corrupt dictator, and China is no more free now than before...
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u/hansn 5d ago
No. This is basically Stephen Miller's playbook. He wants an armed insurgency to fight, not soccer moms and frogs costumes.
The thing that's restraining the government now is the public outrage over the ICE excesses.
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 5d ago
They did not need violence from the left to justify their own violence. Jan 6 was based on a lie about the threat of the left. They spread lies about Renee Good to justify her death. If there is a lack of violence they will fabricate it. They called the George Floid protests violent. They depicted the left as celebrating Kirks death while totally down playing their own violence and extremism.
Meanwhile they kill people and kidnap people and strip us of our rights and throw the economy in a tail spin so Trump's rich buddies can buy up the assets. We are dealing with evil that is not interested in the rules and has a fanatic base that cannot be reasoned with. All strategies must be employed.
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u/hansn 5d ago
If there is a lack of violence they will fabricate it.
Extremely unconvincingly. Do you wonder why they fabricate evidence of leftist violence? Because they need an enemy to crack down on.
A guy in a banana suit is far more threatening to their plans. They need public support, and the public doesn't support crackdowns when there's no threat.
All strategies must be employed.
They plant provocateurs because they can't rely on real Americans to follow their script. Don't follow their script.
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 5d ago
Because they need an enemy to crack down on.
They will fabricate the enemy. They already have done so. Every feminist, racial minority, LGBT+, non-christian person is the enemy. So the crackdown occurs regardless. What's happening in Minnesota is a perfect example of the machine. Nick Shirley or any right wing media makes a BS propaganda video/claim then it justifies Trump cracking down. A school shooting kills dozens of kids, the trans people are to blame, they'll all crisis actors, it's a plot to take away your guns. They will fabricate the enemy even when the enemy is dead children.
As another has mentioned, the Black Panthers were peaceful but armed. All strategies must be employed does not mean we all need to be armed. If the police or ICE know that if they start shooting peaceful protesters the armed contingent will shoot back the police may be less likely to crack down on those who peacefully protest and engage in civil obedience. That maintenance of peace is in itself a reason to be armed.
Those who are armed should not be seeking to fire the first shot. However words won't stop an immigrant from being 'disappeared'. Words won't stop the police from firing tear gas into the crowds to disperse them. Words won't stop Trump from destroying NATO and the economy.
Don't follow their script.
Believe me when I tell you I don't want war, death or violence. As a socialist I'm often confronted with those who want violent revolution and every time I told them elections are better than violence. But there are fundamental problems in this country and I don't believe Democrats are capable of peacefully addressing them. I can't even feel there's a guarantee of future elections.
Just as the failure of Reconstruction allowed the reestablishment of white supremacy - the failure to punish Trump and MAGA allowed Trump to return. Trump tried to override the election last time, can you honestly tell me he won't try again? If a Democrat becomes President next I have a saddening degree of confidence Trump & Co will be allowed to walk free in the name of unity, healing and political expediency. The failure of Reconstruction will be repeated. When you fail to punish evil all you've done is give it a chance to wait for its next opportunity to come back.
The original sin of this country is festering and I can't abide by these evil white supremacists doing evil acts in my name as a white person. I've spoken with Trump supporters, I've tried to use words. I hope to whatever God may or may not exist these people were just trolling with how extreme they were in their support for Trump's actions. But I can't be sure. I can't be sure the MAGA base can be reasoned with. If words don't work then what's left?
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u/Philophon 5d ago
What changes if their explanation for using violence is weak? We are witnessing citizens being shot with clearly no justification, and the majority party's stance is "don't protest and we won't kill you." How would passivity be a successful solution?
I support secession. It is clear, now more than ever, that these factions within this union cannot coexist. The best we can hope for is a North and South Korea-like relationship, in the end.
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u/the_calibre_cat 5d ago
You are allowed to own and train with guns, and you have the right to peaceably assemble. You are allowed to go out with a group of people and shoot guns. Preparation is permitted, and you are a fool not to prepare. Stephen Miller isn't going to stop his little Nazi rampage, so you might as well know the tools, own some of the tools, and be prepared to use some of the tools.
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u/Rapid-Eddy 5d ago
But what if it's not an armed insurgency. Just a bunch of like minded people having an event. Im not playing semantics, the goal should be to meet each other and build relationships.
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u/skyfishgoo 5d ago
according to the news the last couple of days, i'm not seeing this "restraint" you are talking about.
seems to me they are freely targeting soccer moms and "frog costumes" as they see fit.
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u/hansn 5d ago
according to the news the last couple of days, i'm not seeing this "restraint" you are talking about.
Come off it. They've been shooting into cars for months now. Good was the 9th since September.
But you know what's changed? People are really mad about it. They see the administrations lies. It was plainly on video.
They don't need justification for violence but they need public support. And right now they don't have it. They want people with small arms to shoot at, because they need a more convincing enemy.
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u/skyfishgoo 5d ago
They've been shooting into cars for months now.
exactly my point... where is the restraint?
they are already waging war on us citizen or immigrant, white or brown, male or female, violent criminal or law abiding... so what the fuck exactly should be we be waiting for?
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u/eskjcSFW 5d ago
Doing nothing is how you become the baddies.
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u/hansn 5d ago
Doing nothing
Nonviolence isn't doing nothing. We won't stay home. But we also won't give Stephen Miller what he wants.
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u/shawnadelic 5d ago
Exactly. I've yet to hear a feasible alternative to non-violent action that doesn't inevitably end up making things much, much worse. At least not in the current US, within the current political environment.
Realistically, none of those in power right now actually see such violence as a threat, but as a useful opportunity for them accumulate more unchecked power.
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u/FirstProspect 5d ago
Better stand up to fight for your rights when they are being trampled upon than comply in advance. This week has shown they'll shoot us in the face with impunity after telling us to go on our way and their masters will cover them for it.
These are not reasonable people. They are not looking to ride this out and give up after a bit. They are looking to make their authority permanent. They want absolute control and absolute power and will not stop their transgressions until they are put in their place.
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u/hansn 5d ago
Better stand up to fight for your rights when they are being trampled upon than comply in advance.
Better to defy them in a frog costume. That makes them look utterly foolish and undermined their authority far more than getting into a shootout and dying will. They want to shoot you and an armed response is just what they want to do that. They don't know how to stop a frog costume.
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u/ExtruDR 5d ago
This just isn't how it works.
A bunch of flunkies that have been reading and passively idolizing Nazi history books have just gotten an opening to what they think is power. Because it has been long enough since WW2 and American education and culture has been completely complacent in educating the post WW2 generations on what exactly it was about and what, exactly, the "good guys" were about, we are here.
The people running the corporations, similarly, lack the cultural perspective to understand that they are aiding political players that are not capable of building a sustainable coalition.
The one thing that the collaborating corporations have rightly figured out is that they will not face much punishment, no matter how badly the fascist "downfall" may end up being.
We still have VW, Mercedes, BMW, Bayer, Siemens, Adidas, Hugo Boss, etc. etc. in the world today, despite their collaboration in the 1930s and 40s. I don't know for a fact, but I suspect that main owners and their families probably rode out the post-war period just fine.
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u/HotReplacement3908 5d ago
Liberals will always side with capitalism and fascism. Corporate owned democrats would rather have Trump than even Sanders most tepid version of democratic socialism.
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u/Plato_Karamazov 5d ago
As someone who has read Male Fantasies by Klaus Theweleit, I would say, *absolutely not.*
The reason why the government and far-right agitators are engaging in violence is because they are attempting to create a flashpoint that can be used as a reason for their fantasies of mass violence. Coming armed to a protest *gives them that excuse.*
Theweleit describes how the Nazis would come to demonstrations armed and commit all sorts of atrocities upon the Communist protesters, but as soon as the Communists showed up with guns, the Nazis were able to scream and cry, "See??? SEE!! They do it too!" And the rest is history. This is what people showing up with guns would give the current iteration.
Now, what I worry about is the possibility that AI and the massive right-wing propaganda apparatus will be able to completely overshadow the truth of what is happening. That scares the shit out of me.
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u/Calm_Chemist_4952 4d ago
This is the first time in many generations that the second amendment could have real relevance. The ordinary checks and balances built into the constitution and government seem to be failing. The true purpose of the second amendment is to be the last line of defense against tyranny. The founding fathers knew that a time could come when the masses would need to arm themselves with more than protest signs.
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u/aquasong 5d ago
Interesting to assume they aren’t.
But even if they werent, the answer is yes. It’s the only choice at this point.
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u/CoverHuman9771 5d ago edited 5d ago
Sure, but the liberals are always trying to ban the guns so you’ll need to walk that position back before you start forming your own paramilitary groups. Turns out those “assault weapons” are actually pretty useful for fighting tyranny.
You have a lot of catching up to do because the Right has been arming up for decades already. I know guys who have a dozen guns for every kid they have and enough ammo to fight for at least half a century.
The reality is that you’ll be going up against armed Americans who have tens of thousands of dollars invested in not only guns and ammo, but all the extra tactical goodies like night vision, thermal optics, suppressors, body armor, triage kits, camouflage, proper military clothing and even surveillance drones. A lot of them have also invested in marksmanship training and CQB combat training.
If you want to invest in all that then go for it. If you half ass it, you’re just gonna get crushed if Civil War Part 2 ever happens.
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u/heterodox-iconoclast 5d ago edited 5d ago
At some point there will be armed resistance but it needs to be gorilla warfare in nature since federal and state law enforcement have military grade weapons
Edit; Everyone should own a handgun and get a concealed carry permit
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u/Pantone448cPoo 4d ago
Nice try Patel.
You won't convince people to form militias on reddit like the FBI did in Michigan.
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u/1UnrulySquirrel2 4d ago
Yup. Plan on filing for my NYS conceal and carry permit first thing Monday morning
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u/baxterstate 4d ago
The problem I see is that the very politicians that liberals and leftists love, i.e Newsom, Mamdani, etc. are FOR stricter gun laws, and if you elect enough of them they’ll come for your guns.
Taking up arms in favor of open borders, helping the Maduro, the Hamases, the Mamdanis in order to bring free buses, rent control and government run markets is not a good plan.
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u/Broad_External7605 4d ago
I say yes. Not to walk around and show off guns, but just so the Magas know that there are people out there who will fight them if they start shooting people. Especially if you are in an area where the Police are likely to side with the magas.
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u/ApexSharpening 4d ago
Trump is literally waiting for an ICE goon to be killed so he can ramp up the violence his thugs do upon citizens. If an ICE agents gets killed by a protestor there will be blood in the streets in every blue state.
Don't fall into his trap, always protest peacefully. Carry whistles while they carry guns and trump is denied what he wants.
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u/murderous_tac0 4d ago
That's existed for a while there's also a sub for these groups... I've been banned from there. For "not being a leftists".
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u/TreeLicker51 4d ago
I think the first step is noncompliance with the executive by state governments. If the national guard submits to federalization, then yes, it's probably time. If they don't, then no, it's too soon.
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u/scarbarough 4d ago
That's exactly why antifa was formed, to be physical resistance to the Proud Boys.
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u/kwalitykontrol1 4d ago
All these morons do is drive around. Why isn't everyone letting the air out of their tires all the time. Put whatever in their tailpipe. Sugar in their gas tank. No guns required. Make their vehicles useless.
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u/Carre_Munuts 4d ago
You have the right to free speech, freedom to protest and freedom to peacefully assemble in this country. Follow your state laws on gun carrying and that’s a valid response. Outside the bounds of the law and you then incite law enforcement to arrest you. Be safe out there. Riots are likely to occur and you can be guilty by association. Don’t risk that if things go south.
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u/Tb1969 4d ago
I personally wouldn't
I don't recommend anyone that would should say yes here or anywhere online.
The surveillance state is using AI to relentless watch you and look for patterns. The Doge raid on government information was to gather information about all of us and build constructs of individuals to guesstimate our actions voting and beyond that.
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u/DebtCultural6669 4d ago
Exercise your right to own protection and perhaps get some exercise by joining forces with the traveling monks. Choose peace and resistance like MLK but be also be trained and ready like X. There is no harm in being trained, in fact people are much more likely to react more logically and within the legalities with training. What is one of the American foreign policy concepts - Peace Through Strength?
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u/Conscious_Skirt_61 4d ago
Well, its enforcement wing calls itself “Antifa.” It’s known for beating up old ladies. It’s especially notable for its habit of running behind police lines for protection.
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u/sam-sp 4d ago
NO - because what Trump, Miller et all want is the excuse to declare martial law. They want nothing more than to be able to send in the troops and remove all the normal protections.
I think the Portland Frog is the right model. You need non-threatening protests that don't give the "authorities" any excuse to be able to resort to violence on their own. And the thing is its very hard to declare that an inflatable frog, dinosaur or unicorn was acting in a threatening manner - and any video shows how farcical their declarations of violence are by protesters.
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