Sometimes actions don't need to be acceptable, they just need to be impactful.

- Carl von Clausewitz

- Asimov

Sometimes it's better to punch someone in the nose Monday to avoid a shootout on Friday.

When it comes to clear cut cases of survival, do whatever you have to do.

The problem is when the scenarios are not nearly so clear cut - even if they may seem to be to the people in the scenario at the time.

The state, perhaps through the police or military, can exercise violence often without consequence. You can legally be violent in self-defence, to varying extents.

Some states will even let you carry firearms around in case you need to apply violence in self defense.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. - Goethe

But also, US gun laws insofar as they pertain to the use of guns for self-defense aren't as anomalous as many people think they are. There are a few other countries in which it's possible for a regular citizen to get a permit to carry a handgun openly or concealed - Czechia, for example.

It's useful to have additional conversational tools to engage positively, such as:

'oh yes, that is an improvement on what I said', or

'I appreciate what you said but I was trying to make a different point, which is:', or

'That's a useful way of capturing what I was trying to say', or even

'Yes, I see that what I said was not quite right, thank you'.

Don't know if this makes me an asshole or a human.

I assume the GP was just abbreviating a more complex phrase that it's easy to guess, isn't it?

I never punched anyone, but people who ruin your life as described by the commenter deserve it, maybe they’ll become better people.

That seems like the logic of a supervillain or sociopath. "When they did something bad, it's because they're a bad person that I'm allowed to hurt, but when I'm violent it's because I'm making the world a better place."

There may be times when that works, or it's the least bad option, but my instinct tells me that the sort of person that most deserves a punch is also the sort of person who is most likely to respond to that violence by doubling down and hurting more people (their victims often being those who can't defend themselves).

I've no doubt violence begets violence in most cases, but it can also improve the situation for both sides in others.

Why are they making other people’s lives miserable? It’s not fair and the law doesn’t protect you.

This won’t change their opinion, but it might very well stop them from acting out again.

IMHO. I have no psychology background.

It's funny to see how in many Western governments the (legitimate!) protest of the people in Hongkong is cheered upon, but BLM, Yellow Vests other domestic protests are discarded...

Saying "violence is unacceptable" is something one can only say as a member of the privileged majority. For minorities, for marginalized people, for poor people though... the lines are way more blurry than blanket black-and-white statements.

And for the record: I'm not a friend of pointless militant acts but I will not dare to judge over anyone not as privileged as I am to come to a different opinion.

P.S.: You have no idea about my gender, skin color, sexual orientation or social class. Please don't just assume things.

The powers that be use the state to inflect violence on people that don't have rights and power and no one thinks that's illegitimate.

To transfer several trillion dollars of US wealth into the military and oil industries?

None of this is in any way a defense of the monstrous collateral damage of the U.S occupation or of the U.S government's reasons for that war, but now that it's happened, the country is better off than it was under Saddam himself.