Violence is never the solution....

[daleanime]

so of course it must be meet with more violence.


It really simple folks, you don't fight a grease fire with more grease.


Tired, disjointed thoughts. Damn it, I'm going to bed. I don't want to think any more.

[Scootaloo]

1. There's a problem in that logic.

Namely that yes, violence often is the solution.

To take an extreme example - just to make it clear - the Holocaust. That king of peace, Mahatma Gandhi, expressed regret that the Jews of Warsaw took to violent resistance when the Nazis came to eradicate them. he advised that the Polish Jews line up for their executioners until their executioners grew sick of it. The problem was, of course, the Nazis were not going to get sick of it. They were very earnest about eradicating Jews, and Romani, and everyone else who did not fit the Reich's plans for the new world. The uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto was heroic but doomed. Jewish nonresistance in the Warsaw ghetto would have simply been doomed. These people had no option. They could die, or they could fight and have at least a slim margin that they might not die.

And very often, similar options are presented to people all around the world. of course most often far less dire than the unfortunate souls of Warsaw stared down in 1943, but... sometimes not. The commonality however, is oftne a foe that refuses any amount of reasoning. An adversary that is completely non-responsive to appeals to better nature, sound logic, even off-tune protest songs. A system so entrenched as to be immobile, policies so far gone that it would take generations to return to normal - generations that can't afford to live under whatever the problem is.

Sun Tzu had some insight on this sort of thing - in his work, he of course says that the best way to fight a war is not to fight a war, but to win your enemy over. Failing that, to subdue him through alternative means, because it was understood that chopping people to bits was not only pretty inefficient, but hindered diplomacy later on. However, as one might guess by the title ("The Art of War&quot there was still plenty of advice for doing all that chopping. Why? because sometimes diplomacy is already impossible. because suborning the enemy is ineffective. because your allies aren't powerful enough to threaten him for you.

Ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay, is desperate ground. (...) On hemmed-in ground, resort to stratagem. On desperate ground, fight.

Violence should not be the first solution tried, that is true. There are many better, less wasteful ways to engage a problem that leave things much more workable later. But, quite honestly... sometimes those options fail, or aren't options at all. What then> well, you can either fight, or you can give up. And if you're really willing ti give up, what the fuck were you doing bothering in the first place?

[Sparhawk60]

2. Violence is Often the Solution

Violence is often the solution:

Problem: Blacks being bought and sold like cattle in America
Solution: 700,000 dead in the Civil War to end slavery

Problem: Nazi Germany was systematically enslaving and killing tens of millions.
Solution: Millions dead in WWII to end Nazism

Problem: Man breaks in to your house at night with the intent to harm your family.
Solution: .45 hollow point, apply directly to the forehead.

Do you really think we could have talked the slave owners in to freeing the slaves? Or the Nazis out of their plan for world domination? Or the rapist out of his plans? While I would much rather talk than fight, some times violence is the answer, and naively believing talking solves every thing is foolish.

[daleanime]

3. You should never post when tired and soul wored....

but I guess that I should be thankful that only two people showed up to inform me about the viably of violent solutions.


Hint-if people are still dying, you have solved anything.