Suicide as a means of protest

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First off, I'm not in any immediate danger.

I've been thinking off and on about suicide as a means of protest, against a corrupt, evil system that seems to view the little guys as having value only as slave labor, and if we can't be slaves and make the elites rich then we might as well go to the gas chambers.

I know that in medieval England, if you tried to kill yourself and failed you were sent to prison because you were property of the king and if you harmed yourself it was considered a crime against the king, as if you'd taken a hammer to his buggy or killed his horse. Then along came philosophers who said that no, you "owned" yourself, you weren't property of the king.

Well, now it seems that we're going back to where everything and everybody is the property of the kings of today, and if you kill yourself you are tossed in the loony bin and drugged to the gills because the king can't have you harming his "property" (ie you) now, can he? The king doesn't care that you don't like being a slave, you're a SLAVE, remember, so you CAN'T be allowed an independent thought.

All means of protest are shut down, protest movements are suppressed, with hundreds of protesters simply disappearing into the system, people being forbidden from expressing their frustration with being slaves-apparently not only do you have to shut up and plow, you have to be overjoyously HAPPY about it, always smiling and chirpy, and you aren't allowed to unwind, you have to be like that ALL THE TIME!

The only thing is, the media is forbidden from reporting suicides because the king doesn't want it known how many snap under his demands. It seems that if you kill a bunch of people and then yourself, the media goes bananas dissecting your life, but if you just kill yourself, crickets chirp. I don't want to kill innocent people to get a political point across, but if I kill MYSELF in protest, nobody would care. And if I continue living, the king's laws say that that's "consenting" to his system.

So, I'm stuck. I disagree with murder and with the system, but if I kill myself and fail I might be even more dependent on the system than I already am. If I wait it out, the system MIGHT collapse under its own weight, but nobody knows when. I may die of old age before it collapses.

i have thought about publically immolating myself to protest when government doesn't do enough about global warming or income inequality. i have a history of mental illness, though, so might get written off just as a kook.

If you're dead, you won't see the outcome.

How would you ensure your protest had any validity?

Not a very good means of protest...just makes you dead and probably will not stop the issue you are angry/upset/bothered about.

the monks in viet nam got a lot of publicity for their peace protest.

I know that, does not mean I think it was the best course of action...but I get it, just not the course of action I'd take. Even if it does gain attention to a cause I think there are other ways that don't involve directly killing yourself to protest an issue.

If you drink poison, you will only hurt yourself and those who care about you. The system honestly won't register your protest at all.

A better way to go about this is direct political activism for what you believe in. If more people did that, the system would not be as f****d up as it is today.

I know of no legal or economic system that was ever changed due to one person's suicide.

Suicide as a means of protest is merely a waste of life; only this, and nothing more.

Your post is spot on in regards to one reason as to why life sucks.

In my experience the only responses you will get from the majority of the population will be something along the lines of "what kind of sicko does that" and "that's so sad, but oh well look at this duck" and "what an idiot". There will be some people but we're talking a percentage of less than 1% of the population that will 'hear' you so to speak.

Back when the Sandy Hook Shootings happened and everyone was screaming about how the shooter "was a monster" or whatever, I overheard people basically having those listed reactions. In fact someone once just kept going on and on about it and I eventually ended up shutting that person up for "not understanding the situation that could've been actually happening" (what was interesting/frustrating is I live in an area where the people pride themselves on "accepting everyone no matter what" and I don't mean Christians as these people are also very non-religious). I didn't know the situation, and I still don't know what caused that kid to go kill those kids, his mom, and then himself (I'm pretty sure he killed himself. It's been a while since it happened), but I know that after that everyone in there mom wanted loners to be nonexistent becuase "loner = future school shooting perpetrator". Maybe there's many reasons as to why. Maybe he just wanted to kill something, in which case there's nothing you can do about that. Maybe it was in relation to bullying when he was young or something, in which you still can't do anything about that. People are naturally mean. If it was some kind of message, most people if they realized there was a message have forgotten about it already until another one happens.

Basically, people die all the time in violent and in non-violent ways and most people don't bat an eye. It's not important to them regardless if there's some kind of reason or meaning behind it or not. So killing yourself would be pretty much a waste. Then again, life is pretty much a waste.

To that reply about activism and stuff, that stuff doesn't work. All it does it frustrate people and get them mad at the activists for causing a ruckus for no reason. People don't listen even if you say why you're protesting. All they know is you're protesting and it's getting in the way of them getting somewhere or something.

ghandi's hunger strike brought religious tolerance to india.

Then things like the 2002 Gujarat Riots shouldn't have happened.

it helped for the time being.

I understand. Though I doubt it would have the desired effect. Many people die every day caused by their governments, greed, etc but the people at the top do not care. Another death won't make a mark. We are also shown death every day in the news so people quickly become desensitised.

Also an activist is always more useful alive. Dying for a cause is what is done when there are literally no other way to be of use alive, for the cause. I hope you understand.

Where do you live that protesting is being suppressed? Certainly not in the US, because it's every damn where.

As for putting those who attempted suicide in the hospital and giving them meds, they do it to help them. Thank God they did it to me! I'm back to normal now and don't want to die. I'm VERY GLAD I didn't succeed and was given the medication I needed to get over the hump.