I wish people wouldn’t destroy priceless artifacts, buildings, and works of art as a means of protest. Destroying history in an act of passion makes no sense.
I still fully support the French and hope they guillotine some fucking billionaires and their collaborators. Everyone, everywhere is feeling the pinch and it’s heartening to see people fighting for justice.
Though I agree that it’s sad these things are being destroyed, the people rioting were not being listened to. If the people in power care about these buildings but not your problems, then the only sensible solution is to make your problems affect these buildings.
The idea that a protest or march that inconveniences no one gets anything done has been largely disproven. I don’t live there, but according to articles I’ve read the schools have active mold and pest infestations and are visibly leaking. If the students are mandated to be in buildings that are unsafe then the government should as well. I don’t know know if this was an intentional act, or if it was just an agitator, but I am not going to shed a tear over the destruction of a building being used to protect officials who are unwilling to help the people they are serving, regardless of how irreplaceable the building may be.
When peaceful action accomplishes nothing, people rightly (and smartly) turn to violence. I can’t blame the French for going all ‘Battle of Blair Mountain’ because these fat bastards in power aren’t doing their jobs.
Intentional or no, buildings like that are priceless and irreplaceable. I wish people had better sense, but poverty and oppression will rob people of good sense.
Not to press the issue, but you seemed to suggest murder as a viable solution. In my opinion, destroying a building, regardless of it’s age or significance, is not as bad as murder. I get that we’re anti billionaires here, but would you legitimately have preferred that this crowd drag the wealthy out of their homes (likely damaging the homes in the process) and executing them in the street? Would that have seemed more like “good sense” to you?
It seems like we both agree it was time for something drastic, but you seem to suggest this was senseless rather than directed violence.
I’m not making a statement on murder specifically, but I’ll indulge this as an intellectual exercise.
I don’t think it’s a matter of opinion that violence against billionaires is a net good, and we’ve seen it empirically. Remember in 2025 when a health care CEO was murdered in the street in New York? That single act led to tens of thousands of health insurance claims being approved that otherwise would have been denied, potentially saving tens of thousands of lives. These were lives who PAID for a service, only to have it denied so the money could be pocketed.
Tens of thousands of lives that the law and billionaires saw fit to be murdered via private enterprise, to fatten wallets that are already sufficiently fat for their bearers’ permanent economic security.
Why should billionaires expect safety when they’ve created this state of violence for the poor and middle class?
Just so you know, I wasn’t attempting to attribute anything to you unnecessarily. I was mainly going off this from your original comment, which might have been hyperbolic:
hope they guillotine some fucking billionaires and their collaborators
I totally agree with the “no justice no peace” argument, I just was trying to understand why you were suggesting it wasn’t “good sense” to make the legislators scared by attacking their place of work and instead attacking the billionaires. Obviously billionaires are a huge problem, but they are mostly a symptom of a broken political and economic system that does not hold them to account. The issues the protesters seem to have are mostly related to school funding. Billionaires, to my knowledge, cannot personally decide to fund the construction of public schools and increase teacher salaries. They can certainly lobby to have that done, but they are not directly able to change that. Maybe things are really different in France, but the people who can actually make the change now are the officials currently working in government. Scaring THEM into either raising taxes or somehow finding the budget to fix schools seems like the most immediate way to fix the problem. Sure, billionaires may be paying them off, but if they’re worried that these people are going to burn your home next, they’re more likely to do what they want than what the billionaires want. Maybe if you suggested attacking the government officials it would feel different, but the actual problem can be solved by the government so I feel like that is a great place to start. It seemed like you thought it was stupid to attack a government building, but it makes sense to me. Attacking billionaires seems like attacking the symptom of the problem, where the problem is actually that the government no longer works for the people. It may be because they are being bribed, but then the solution seems to be to make the government fear the people again. Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending billionaires, but it seems like the wrong outlet in this case.
The healthcare situation you described improved because the billionaires had direct control over those decisions. Mind you, some people were still not helped, but the issue was with the actions of private companies not the government. If we took it out on officials standing in the way of M4A, think of the lives that could be saved there.
Two things can be true at once.
I wish people wouldn’t destroy priceless artifacts, buildings, and works of art as a means of protest. Destroying history in an act of passion makes no sense.
I still fully support the French and hope they guillotine some fucking billionaires and their collaborators. Everyone, everywhere is feeling the pinch and it’s heartening to see people fighting for justice.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
Though I agree that it’s sad these things are being destroyed, the people rioting were not being listened to. If the people in power care about these buildings but not your problems, then the only sensible solution is to make your problems affect these buildings.
The idea that a protest or march that inconveniences no one gets anything done has been largely disproven. I don’t live there, but according to articles I’ve read the schools have active mold and pest infestations and are visibly leaking. If the students are mandated to be in buildings that are unsafe then the government should as well. I don’t know know if this was an intentional act, or if it was just an agitator, but I am not going to shed a tear over the destruction of a building being used to protect officials who are unwilling to help the people they are serving, regardless of how irreplaceable the building may be.
I get all of that.
When peaceful action accomplishes nothing, people rightly (and smartly) turn to violence. I can’t blame the French for going all ‘Battle of Blair Mountain’ because these fat bastards in power aren’t doing their jobs.
Intentional or no, buildings like that are priceless and irreplaceable. I wish people had better sense, but poverty and oppression will rob people of good sense.
Not to press the issue, but you seemed to suggest murder as a viable solution. In my opinion, destroying a building, regardless of it’s age or significance, is not as bad as murder. I get that we’re anti billionaires here, but would you legitimately have preferred that this crowd drag the wealthy out of their homes (likely damaging the homes in the process) and executing them in the street? Would that have seemed more like “good sense” to you?
It seems like we both agree it was time for something drastic, but you seem to suggest this was senseless rather than directed violence.
I’m not making a statement on murder specifically, but I’ll indulge this as an intellectual exercise.
I don’t think it’s a matter of opinion that violence against billionaires is a net good, and we’ve seen it empirically. Remember in 2025 when a health care CEO was murdered in the street in New York? That single act led to tens of thousands of health insurance claims being approved that otherwise would have been denied, potentially saving tens of thousands of lives. These were lives who PAID for a service, only to have it denied so the money could be pocketed.
Tens of thousands of lives that the law and billionaires saw fit to be murdered via private enterprise, to fatten wallets that are already sufficiently fat for their bearers’ permanent economic security.
Why should billionaires expect safety when they’ve created this state of violence for the poor and middle class?
Just so you know, I wasn’t attempting to attribute anything to you unnecessarily. I was mainly going off this from your original comment, which might have been hyperbolic:
I totally agree with the “no justice no peace” argument, I just was trying to understand why you were suggesting it wasn’t “good sense” to make the legislators scared by attacking their place of work and instead attacking the billionaires. Obviously billionaires are a huge problem, but they are mostly a symptom of a broken political and economic system that does not hold them to account. The issues the protesters seem to have are mostly related to school funding. Billionaires, to my knowledge, cannot personally decide to fund the construction of public schools and increase teacher salaries. They can certainly lobby to have that done, but they are not directly able to change that. Maybe things are really different in France, but the people who can actually make the change now are the officials currently working in government. Scaring THEM into either raising taxes or somehow finding the budget to fix schools seems like the most immediate way to fix the problem. Sure, billionaires may be paying them off, but if they’re worried that these people are going to burn your home next, they’re more likely to do what they want than what the billionaires want. Maybe if you suggested attacking the government officials it would feel different, but the actual problem can be solved by the government so I feel like that is a great place to start. It seemed like you thought it was stupid to attack a government building, but it makes sense to me. Attacking billionaires seems like attacking the symptom of the problem, where the problem is actually that the government no longer works for the people. It may be because they are being bribed, but then the solution seems to be to make the government fear the people again. Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending billionaires, but it seems like the wrong outlet in this case.
The healthcare situation you described improved because the billionaires had direct control over those decisions. Mind you, some people were still not helped, but the issue was with the actions of private companies not the government. If we took it out on officials standing in the way of M4A, think of the lives that could be saved there.