Defensive argumentation of the Left

[Invincible Summer]

I've just noticed that a lot of arguments that we Leftists use to defend armed revolution, violence against the state, the PRC, USSR, Che, etc are always defensive.

What do I mean by this? Well, for instance, when defending the use of violence against the state, we say "Well, the state inflicts violence against us!" Similarly, when people say "Mao/Stalin/Che/other Communist killed XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX people!!" we say "Capitalism kills just as many or more!"

I'm definitely guilty of doing this too, but I was thinking: how is this rhetoric supposed to help us? It's very possible that it makes Communism seem "just as bad" as capitalism, and therefore, to the average person, it could sort of debunk our claim that a revolution is needed. It's not a really convincing argument, really.

So how do we change the discourse without sounding: 1) Evangelical and 2) Defensive?

[Psy]

That the end justify the means due to capitalism being far more violent then armed revolution, as armed revolution would be a relative short phase. The capitalists simply can't fight a prolonged class war as the proletariat are the ones that fuels their war machine and if workers are busy killing their soldiers it means they are not making ammo, fuel or food to support their war effort.

[ZeroNowhere]

One should avoid bringing up something about capitalism unless one can point out how this flows from capitalism itself. If one begins to explain that, then one's argument becomes offensive. I also generally find it better to try and get to the point where I am asked to explain what communism is, in which case I will start from the current crisis and how it shows capitalism to be something of a 'rule of things over people', give some more examples, and then contrast this with communism. It's always best if you explain why the things follow from capitalism itself rather than any particular manifestation, as otherwise generally the person will just think, "Yes, that's because we need reform," rather than, "Revolution sounds cool."

Also, when the person is a dedicated cricket fan, always bring up the IPL. Always.

[mikelepore]

It's called a "tu quoque." It's a logical fallacy that has the general form: your proposition that I am doing a bad thing is invalid, because you do it also.