January 6 2021 chaos, how to practice the Jedi Way under conflict?

All we can do is set as a shining example to the public.
The question is how to go about it, and you have made a wise and on point response. Kudos Zero. It’s unfortunately a folly that Biden and Trump had made; calling the roiters to stop the violence. Trump Ultimately conceded defeat this morning after his call for pacifism failed.

Unfortunately I’m not being given an option to edit the first post. You may edit as you so wish however I appreciate that there are no Sith-like responses; like charging out of vengeance for example. My sincere kudos also.
It’s not the Jedi way to charge out of vengeance and when they pull out the lightsaber, even in the trilogy it’s usually out of self-defense. I’m afraid we have crossed the rhubacon already.
Politically I’m on the Milktoast fence-sitter and have been raised that way. But I admit it’s scary to be neutral during these times.

Quite frankly I’m afraid that unless if you are living in the woods; like Master Yoda in the original trilogy, with things going the way they are I dread that there will likely be no escape from the violence. Lot’s of families are having hard conversations currently.
I’m afraid we Americans have crossed the Rhubacon, the Left and Right’s world is just too different. All we can do is set an example.

As a side note. It’s really weird when your Birthday marks a day in American history.

An Ode to the Sitters of Fences:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

-Credited to Martin Niemöller 1892–1984

OB1Shinobi wrote: Of course we should always be willing to offer the olive branches of empathy and two-way, open dialogue with those who recognize the value of such interactions but for those from whom no quarter will be offered, none should be given (I am not encouraging physical violence, here - im simply pointing out that the "nice guy" approach only works with those who are willing to play nice, themselves).

I appreciate the input, and agree with you. I am in no way advocating doing nothing out of some sentiment for a moral high ground. Nor am I naive enough to expect everyone to play by the book.

What I intended to point out, is the whole "to someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail". You (the proverbial "you", not you Obi1) set out in some crusade to defeat oppression, and suddenly everyone looks like an oppressor to you. Gross generalizations, the media telling the story, and social media filtering what you only want to be showed, feed the mob mentality that cements tribalism, and suddenly everyone in a given group ("the left", "the right", "the patriarchy", "the rich") is deemed an enemy.

We should be vehement about our individual activism, but be on guard about this "dark side" that is quick to join us in battle.

I agree with Manu. Just know you're going to catch flack for standing against both extremes. I've been catching it for a long time, and yet somehow this time around many people have straight up forgotten that I take a hardline against violent outbursts from either group.

Despite it being an opinion of many people, it's not at all popular to stand in the center and tell everyone off. Even in the Jedi Community it's not popular because we have so many people that think the fiction is calling us to arms as part of the Rebel Forces against the oppressors.

It's not. There are a number of key differences between how the Empire & First Order acted and how our real life government acts today.

The Empire committed Genocide (best word I've got for it, the Jedi weren't really a race of people or from a particular country, but even after they were wiped out the Empire sought to kill off Force-Sensitives, or recruit them to the cause...soooo Genocide). They also worked on better methods to coerce people.

While America has done really awful things, our collective governments are trying to sort through and listen to reason. It takes time and effort though. Because getting the model right requires a lot of moving parts- financial, theory vs. practice, figuring out what is wanted by the people, what is humane, what the risks are, etc. Sure we have some very hardline people that won't budge, fortunately that's what voting is for- but people need to actively get interested in determining leaders from the highest office to the lowest office they can vote for. People who have a vision need to get the courage and encouragement to run for an office, so that communities aren't trying to pick between a couple of people with big egos, but public servants. The system, on paper, isn't what's broken- it's the people running the system that are breaking the people.

We Jedi can do a myriad of things.

Zero, you said we aren't police officers. Not as a whole, but there are individual Jedi which ARE police officers. Jedi can become police officers and work towards a LEO method of restoring order. But as a group, no- it's not the role of the Jedi Community to be Police Officers.

But in this, I can point out that we individually all have our strengths. We've been talking about what the Community as a whole can do- we can do a lot if we promote that everyone's hero's journey is personal and there is a role you can play in the healing of your respective nations. It may be a small role, but a summer's rain is made up of a lot of drops of water falling from the sky and making an impact upon the earth by joining together.

As a group, the one thing we can all do is curb our language on social media. Instead of yelling at one side or the other, treat them equally. Erase harmful words in your vocabulary that only incite more emotions amongst your detractors. Recognize that such language pushes people further to the other side, and you're simply creating more enemies than friends to whatever cause you believe in (as long as the cause isn't against the Jedi Path). Don't share the funny memes which serve to embolden extremists. Watch some videos on Mind Hacking to get an idea of what the social media environment is doing to us and the friends around us so you can work on countering it (PBS has a fantastic series called "Hacking Your Mind", I think you can find it on Amazon too).

But as individuals, we can do a lot more with our sphere of influence. It may take time and patience to get the skills for it, in order to ensure we're not taking dangerous shortcuts. But hey! We're Jedi! Patience is kinda our thing .

/rant/unpopular opinion

Thank you Alethea for your wise words
I’m sure that a lot of us practicing a Jediism are neutral politically to the annoyance of the crowd. You are in good company.

Manu wrote:

OB1Shinobi wrote: Of course we should always be willing to offer the olive branches of empathy and two-way, open dialogue with those who recognize the value of such interactions but for those from whom no quarter will be offered, none should be given (I am not encouraging physical violence, here - im simply pointing out that the "nice guy" approach only works with those who are willing to play nice, themselves).

I appreciate the input, and agree with you. I am in no way advocating doing nothing out of some sentiment for a moral high ground. Nor am I naive enough to expect everyone to play by the book.

What I intended to point out, is the whole "to someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail". You (the proverbial "you", not you Obi1) set out in some crusade to defeat oppression, and suddenly everyone looks like an oppressor to you. Gross generalizations, the media telling the story, and social media filtering what you only want to be showed, feed the mob mentality that cements tribalism, and suddenly everyone in a given group ("the left", "the right", "the patriarchy", "the rich") is deemed an enemy.

We should be vehement about our individual activism, but be on guard about this "dark side" that is quick to join us in battle.

I would like to like this post many many many times.
Carefully researched and understood activism is to be commended on an individual and group level. What I've seen (from my point of view) is tribalism and silo creation

The best we can do, I think, is practice compassion and understanding for all those involved.

I might be alone in saying this, but I was not particularly concerned when the rioters entered the capital. I have heard a thing or two about DC security and there wasn't a doubt in my mind that every single person working there that day would be just fine. Delaying what amounts to a ceremonious count of already counted votes does not bother me much at all. Additionally, there have been several instances in recent history when protesters stormed political rallies, federal courthouses, and even the senate; everything was fine.

What does concern me about all of this is the extrajudicial killing of an unarmed woman who was then decried as a terrorist by our media and our representatives in government.

A woman bled out in the capital. She didn't have to. She didn't harm anyone. Her name was Ashli Babbitt. She was an Air Force veteran, a mother, unarmed; the only crime she committed was entering public property when she wasn't supposed to. Maybe she broke a window, maybe not -- imo nothing she did deserved a death sentence. And certainly she doesn't deserve to be called a terrorist.

Neither does the officer who shot her deserve to be decried as an evil villain, nor a hero. As far as I can tell, he was a man with a gun who was afraid. When our decisions are clouded by fear, they're often not very good decisions. I'm sure he genuinely thought he was in danger, even if he wasn't.

There will be times when the actions of some people will challenge our ability to be compassionate towards them, and times when we are expected to cast judgment on others -- often people we don't even know, people we've never interacted with even once. Choosing to be compassionate towards everyone involved in these situations is, I think, the most virtuous path available to us.

Please don't run into crowds of angry people with a lightsaber.

Just gonna add a couple points to the Ashli Babbitt fact pattern:
If you've watched the video of the incident, that checkpoint is one en route to the scif (the place where they chat about aliens etc.), so this isn't just your generic "I'm going to disrespect the nation, threaten our democratic process, and ransacked the capitol" but approaching a much more serious national security threat. It would be prudent to withhold judgment about the incident before more details are available, especially in light of how gentle law enforcement was in general (especially considering one DC police officer was killed)

Additionally, what these people did was not a simple breaking and entering. Being in the capitol itself without permission is a crime. If any level of coordinated premeditation is proven, it would constitute seditious conspiracy. There are a wide variety of charges which could be levied against Ms. Babbitt, so while if she was arrested she wouldn't be given capital punishment, her behavior in concert with the violence of the group was in no matched disproportionately by law enforcement response. Describing her as a terrorist would be accurate in a conventional sense; she was a qanon conspiracy theorist who attempted via violence to influence the democratic process from confirming the results of a democratic election.

How do you know that she was headed towards the SCIF? I'm really asking that question- I don't know where they have their SCIFs up there, so I'm curious how you found out.

One of my college friends is a staffer and talked a lot about it in a group chat. So I have no personal way of verifying it myself, but it makes sense in my totally unqualified opinion