Violence should be avoided at all costs.
The threat of violence is at times a necesasry tool.
That tool must occasionally be used in order to maintain its effectiveness.
As a tool, violence should only be directed upwards: from the opressed to the oppressor.
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Egg

“If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals . . . We are all human beings, individuals, fragile eggs. We have no hope against the wall: it's too high, too dark, too cold. To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength. We must not let the system control us — create who we are. It is we who created the system.
— Haruki Murakami, Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, 2009

The threat of violence — and the acting upon that threat — is the only reason we have a 40-hour work-week, the only reason that unions historically have had power.
State-sanctioned violence, including the death penalty, is abhorent and should never be used against its citizens.

Egg

See Also