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Comment by waterhouse | Hacker News Reader

> Gibson’s home country of Ireland is hoping to belatedly recognize her legacy, reports Orla Barry for public radio program the World. The Dublin City Council recently passed a motion giving initial approval for the installation of a plaque in Gibson’s honor.

Is it a good policy for a nation to glorify and honor an attempt at assassinating the leader of a nation? Compare to John Brown the abolitionist, who raided a federal armory in an attempt to start a slave revolt (and was executed for treason). Might it be better to say "don't do these things no matter how important you think your cause is"?

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Yeah I agree, glorifying political violence, even against a fascist dictator is a slippery slope

John Brown has memorials, it is not like he would not be celebrated. Also, are you trying to claim radical pacifism Because you mentioning John Brown opens interesting questions. At which point is it ok to respond to violence with violence? At which point is it ok to defend others with violence? The time at which he did what he done was already violent and the slavery itself was hold by violence.

Brown claimed that slavery is war (and violence) against own people and therefore it is ok to use violence to fight it. Does the expectation of non-violent opposition holds for anti nazi partisans too? What would be difference? What about other war heroes?

Just because you can't tell precisely when the sand becomes a pile doesn't mean piles or grains don't exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox

In 1926 Fascist Italy was no worse than the UK and French empires in terms of evil committed and potential to commit more evil. Heck even the Netherlands was comitting more evil at the time.

Fascism as an ideology had an outsized impact on the European political discourse. Partly because many democracies on the continent were young and fragile, partly because radio and cinema had started to spread the news faster than ever, partly because mass-education started at the end of the previous century had resulted in more and more people reading newspapers, partly because it was a reaction other continent-wide movements (socialism and communism) - fascism was observed/fought/supported very keenly across most of Europe since 1920. It generated very strong opinions, as you might imagine, in a context where the role of violence in political life was already hotly debated “on the other side” (leftists had been violently repressed for decades already, so there were demands to respond in kind with terrorist actions and so on - and of course the USSR had taken that to the next level). And it was effectively a negation of representative democracy systems, which were often seen as ineffective in times of deep crisis.

Fascism was heralded by some as “the next step” in political evolution, which rightly horrified a significant number of people who could see the inevitable results. It was not judged by the same parameters of an expansionist foreign power, but by the potential for “evil” in one’s own country.

Shooting fascists is always a good idea, unless there's some strategic reason to postpone it.

Didn't Churchill have fascist sympathies as well. Do you think he should have been shot as well?

And what about the billions of people that sees the US as a fascistic imperialistic hydra? Would it be cool to pick of Obama as well?

What if these guys are falsely accused for being fascists by teenagers who never read a history book in their life.

That being said posts like this doesn't belong on HN and cries for murder most definitely don't. A real shame might as well head over to reddit or 4chan for this parroting of slogans.

There are lots of gray areas in life, and lots of complex questions which require nuanced well thought-out answers.

It's often useful to problematise simple statements, to draw out different implications and to shed light on what might be un or under considered aspects.

I don't think your comment does this though. Mussolini was a fascist. Not someone with some fascist sympathies, or someone who someone else accused of being fascistic.

Maybe my response was a bit glib. Violence is certainly not something to be undertaken lightly but I think political violence against fascists is justified, and can be considered self-defence.

There is nothing wrong with an attempt of assassination of a fascist genocidal dictator. There is actually no other way of improving things.

I don't see either why one should oppose a plaque for John Brown.

So, how many current world leaders would be on your "justifiable to assassinate" list? Kim Jong-un, perhaps? Should it be official U.S. policy to have the CIA working on trying to kill him? Kim Jong-un presumably thinks we're just as evil as we might think he is; should he feel justified in trying to assassinate the leaders of Western countries? How about Putin, people say he jails his political opponents and rigs his elections, does he count? Should there be a Cold War of Assassination going on?

Why not start with the leaders of the USA, Israel and the West for their notorious war crimes?

At least North Korea hasn't invaded anyone for the last 60 years. As they said in the Nuremberg trials, aggression is the ultimate war crimes, a capital one.

To kill the leaders of democracies would be genocide.

"USA, Israel and the West"

What is the point of including the USA and Israel if you are going to append the West?

Or was it too hard to list the individual perpetrators and just went for what felt good?

[PS. Not a westerner]

Killing Kim Jong Un will not make anything better. Foreign state assasinations especially never work out.

Homegrown assasinations of fascist leaders whose basis for power is a projection of strength and a cult of personality, with strong existing domestic oppositions?

That's very different in outcome.

I didn’t realize Violet Gibson was Italian.

She had been living in Italy for 4 years at that point.

Hardly home grown, also I’m 99% sure she had been in Italy for less than 2 years before her attack (November 1924 - April 1926).

By that measure 9-11 was home grown!

According to this [0] she had moved to Rome in 1922. Unlike 9-11ers, she didn’t move to the country explicitly to perform the action; she likely grew to dislike Mussolini by spending time in the country. By that metric, I’d call it home-grown.

[0] https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/profile-viole...

https://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a10139

Says 1924, and that she was already toying with the idea of martyrdom.

Also says:

> In her room at the convent Gibson had amassed a collection of newspaper cuttings critical of Mussolini, and others outlining his movements. She also had a box of bullets. The origin of the revolver, her second, was never determined. The lead detective investigating the case believed Gibson was feigning madness and had not acted alone but possibly in collaboration with catholic modernist dissidents from the poor Trastevere neighbourhood. [...]

> In June 1926, succumbing to immense pressure, Gibson made a confession. Her story was that she had committed the crime to impress an Italian duke named Giovanni Colonna, who she had fallen in love with years before in Switzerland. Vehemently opposed to fascism, she claimed Colonna had communicated his desire for Mussolini's death through a series of clues before gifting her with gun and bullets, that led her to the assassination site that fateful day. The duke was under surveillance for anti-fascist activities, and his movements at the time of the shooting could not be accounted for, lending plausibility to Gibson's account.

Clearly this was not the work of a foreign faction, there was a clear element of Italian involvement.

Words placed into the mouth of a crazy woman (implicating an enemy of the people asking the questions) who was determined to kill -somebody- it’s mentioned elsewhere that she may have wanted to target the Pope.

Not home grown.

The authorities did not even believe her, so I don't see why they would "plant" words in her mouth...

Anyway, there is no point arguing about this.

Because the ‘authorities’ are not a single person, factions within organizations often pull in different directions.

Will you at least concede the point that she’d been in Italy for less than 2 years?

To be clear: Violet Gibson was in no way Italian or connected in any meaningful way to Italy.

One might also observe that the violent attack in a foreign country might almost be ‘Imperialist’.

And if the attack was politically motivated (I personally think she was a few sandwiches short of a picnic), then she’s down for some political violence.

In that case she’s a bit more facist than anti-facist.

I mean sure, and they're certainly welcome to try. But the balance of world power, and all the things those powers do to ensure that power, almost certainly guarantees failure.

But at the time she pulled the trigger, he was neither a dictator or genocidal.

Perhaps violence is the right way to address all people who have politics we don’t agree with?

Thomas Mair agrees with you.

> at the time she pulled the trigger, he was neither a dictator or genocidal

Historians typically mark the official beginning of Mussolini’s dictatorship in 1924, when, following the assassination of socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti by fascists and the subsequent clamour, he went to Parliament and basically told MPs to “shut up or else”. And let’s not forget that he had been appointed Prime Minister with a de-facto coup in 1922.

As for “genocidal”, I’m not sure what parameters could be used. The infamous invasion of Ethiopia with chemical weapons had not happened yet, and obviously the Racial Laws were a long way away, but he had already begun the “pacification” of Libya (war started in 1923). Also, political violence against the opposition was already large-scale, as shown with Matteotti.

By 1926 it was pretty clear he wasn’t a simple political leader for sure, and he had already spoken at length against representative democracy. Whether that deserved an assassination attempt, is debatable; but there is little question that by 1926 he could be defined as a violent dictator.

Whether political violence is warranted rests upon three factors. Firstly, one must consider if you are initiating political violence or simply reacting - which sadly is necessary. Mussolini obviously had instigated political violence much before.

Then, one must consider efficacy - if it's going to be useless then why bother?

Finally, one must consider the presence of altermatives. If you can at all avoid it, then political violence is not really justifiable.

In this case, the three elements converged, and it's in those cases that political violence can be warranted if done for good. This isn't even controversial, people defend the violence of the US Founding Fathers which engaged in much more violence for much, much, much less.

I fundamentally disagree. On such a basis a white supremisist could justify murder against the ‘violent’ state in the absence of the possibilty of being elected.

Presumably on that basis you see the killing of Jo Cox as justified?

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