Sokartawi wrote:Perinquus wrote:
Folks, I am a police officer, and let me tell you, Sokartawi is living in fantasyland.
No, you're living in a fucked-up land.
As I said before, how convenient for you just to be able to write off anyone who falls outside your precious little charmed circle. You have had the sheer luck to be born into a peaceful, stable land, during a peaceful, stable period, and you arrogantly preen yourself over it. Don't uncork the champagne just yet. You might just as easily been born in Rwanda, Cambodia, El salvador, or any of a thousand other trouble spots on earth. You got
lucky. The fact is that violence is something real people are unfortunately required to deal with on occasion. You've never had to because you've ben sheltered. Not everyone is so fortunate. I repeat, for some of us, violence and violent people present a real problem. Your solution to this problem is to do nothing at all. Unacceptable.
Sokartawi wrote:Perinquus wrote:Sokartawi wrote:I do not say you have less right to live. Did you read my statement? It started with "your life is not worth less at all" I think?
Right here, you're talkin' the talk, but you're not walkin' the walk. You say that you don't hold his lfe to be less valuable. Yet the course of action you advise has the practical effect of making his life less valuable, because he would lose that life in any confrontation with a homicidal person if he followed your advise.
So?
I see. He'd get killed, but so what right?
Thank you. You just proved my point. You really
don't consider his life to be especially valuable.
Sokartawi wrote:Perinquus wrote:Sokartawi wrote:
That is correct. Better to suffer a wrong then to cause one.
It's a damn good thing defending yourself from a deadly threat, even with lethal force is not, in fact, a wrong. Again, the fact that you seek to define it as such does not make that definition valid.
Again, I don't see the difference between killing in self defence, killing for fun, killing in war, or killing to 'save' other people. It's all killing. And I call it all murder.
You can call a tail a leg too, it does not make the name fit.
Sokartawi wrote:Perinquus wrote:Sokartawi wrote:I'd say it's courageous and noble to do anything and be willing to sacrifice everything to make the universe a better place.
The problem is that your way DOESN'T make the universe a better place. It makes it a worse one. It allows bullies, thugs, and other violence prone people to act unopposed..
However those people will be greatly reduced in number, and might eventually disappear alltogether.
And if pigs had wings they could fly.
You still do not have a solution to what to do about people who have already turned to violence, or people who turn to violence as their first choice of tactics. You simply pretend such people do not exist. Well, sorry, they do, and making nice and singing "All we need is love" is not a solution to the problem such people represent.
Sokartawi wrote:Perinquus wrote:I see you completely ignored my earlier post, wherein I pointed out that offering no resistance to, or appeasing a violent person may embolden him to further violence, reinforcing his conviction that violence will get him the result he wants, and reinforcing his ego-gratifying feeling of dominance - thus refuting the idea that violence inevitably leads to more violence. On some occasions it does, but on some occasions, what leads to more violence is non-violence, where the threat of retaliatory force, on the other hand, may serve as a deterrent. This has been recognized sine at least the time of ancient Rome (Si vis pacem para bellum), and probably long before.
While threat of force migth "work" for some time, you cannot maintain it indefinately. And if you try, it will only result in tyranny and oppresion, and that's not a situation that's acceptable either.
Sorry, the historical record shows that being strong and willing to defend yourself has a far better record of keeping you safe and secure than being non-violent. Vague generalized assertions (entirely unsupported by any evidence I might add), about how readiness to fight will always end in tyranny are meaningless.
Sokartawi wrote:Perinquus wrote:I see you are ignoring this point. Could it be because it's historically verifiable, and you have no effective answer?
Like I said, I still see war, so it hasn't been a solution for the last 10k years or so. Time for something new.
Again, welcome to the real world. There has always been war, and there always will be. Humans often end up competing with each other for resources, territory, power, etc. This is unpleasant but the world's not perfect. We experience fear, anger, envy, and all these other things because they are survival traits built into us by evolution. Sometimes these things lead us to fight each other. Pious platitudes are not going to change this.
There are no perfect solutions. Military readiness will not guarantee safety, but it has a far better record than complete pacifism. Your absurd statement of "time for something new" is nothing but a stupid fantasy. For one thing, pacifism is
not new. Your choice of Tibet as an example is proof enough of this. It's been tried before AND IT FAILED!
I'll agree that if everyone would just be nice, then we could do without violence. However, this would only work as long as EVERYONE abides by the rules. There has never,
ever been a time in history where this has been the case. So why in the name of hell do you want to base a system of conduct on a condition that does not exist, has never existed, and which the evidence suggests will never exist? Let's see, we can base our system of morality on a realistic understanding of human behavior, or we can base it on wishful thinking about how the world and people ought to be, but historically never have been. Gee, I wonder which approach will work and which one won't.
Sokartawi wrote:Perinquus wrote:Sokartawi wrote:
Pre-occupation Tibet maybe?
And look how effectively such methods served them.
I believe that was necessairy to spread their wisdom throughout the world.
Their wisdom? So it's wisdom to get yourself invaded, occupied, and oppressed?
They're not wise, they were FOOLS. Had they been strong and ready to fight, they might have deterred such an invasion. They got taken over because they were easy targets. Natural born victims. Contrast this the Swiss, who remained free, even though surrounded by Nazi occupied territory, because they
were ready to fight. Hitler probably would have invaded Switzerland as well had they not been willing to do so. But there was nothing in Switzerland that made it worth the price he'd have had to pay. There's nothing in Tibet that would have made it worth a high price to the Chinese either. But the Chinese didn't have to pay a high price because pacifism encourages aggressors, it does not stop violence, and your silly little fantasies to the contrary do not change this.
