Non-violence, Defense, No “Strike First”
by JLRodgers | July 23, 2008 | In green party, politicians, society | No Comments
You’ve heard it before when someone says they don’t believe in violence, “what if someone’s going to kill your family?” Either that or a variant of it. But in many cases, if not most (saying “all” for anything is generally not wise), it’s “non violent — but defense doesn’t count”. Quite simple philosophy really, you don’t go out beating up others, killing, harming, or otherwise initiate violent actions — but if someone were to threaten you or the helpless, they’d step in to prevent the violence (which of course can lead to violence). The real goal of “non violence” is to prevent the initiation of violent acts.
So strike first before they strike at you policies wouldn’t exist.
If no country or person would initiate a violent act, there would be no violence – except in sports, but that’s another thing altogether and isn’t “violent” in a sense. Few political parties out there even promote non-violence, the green party does, not sure about others, but neither the Democrats or Republicans have a non-violence policy — if they do something’s really wrong.
They start wars and develop laws to “protect” the people from terrorism. When a candidate wants a war to end, they’re considered “weak” against terrorism so they go against their so-called beliefs. But even now, there’s reports that neither McCain nor Obama is planning on ending the war; reports that around 90,000 new troops will be sent in, but nothing about really ending it or sending in a troop of diplomats.
Peace can’t be found at the muzzle of a gun, nor at the tip of a warhead.
There’s an old joke about a woman who takes her husband’s boat onto a lake to read in peace and quiet. A game warden pulls up and asks for her fishing license — she says “I don’t have one. I’m not fishing. I’m just reading my book.” Warden says “but you have all the equipment, so I have to fine you if you don’t have one.” So she agrees and says “and I’m charging you with rape!” He asks “Why?!? I haven’t even touched you!” And she replies “But you have all the right equipment.”
Just because a country has the ability to create something doesn’t mean they will create something. Striking first to make sure they won’t do it only increases the chances that they will, for self defense. If you force someone into submission, they’ll defend themselves — then the media and the people will all chant “See! They did what we said!” and in the back you’ll hear a few voices trying to be heard saying “but we forced them to do it.”
There is never a winner in a war. Everyone looses. What’s sad is the people of a country might not want the war — but as long as the leaders want it, war it is. Anytime you hear about a country wanting to put up blockades, force a country into submission, fire missiles into another country, or anything else…. unless you’ve seen proof that the other country started it, the aggressor isn’t the targeted country, it’s the targeting country.
To think that a country and all the people in it just want to kill others is absurd. Now there might be some groups that want that. There might even be countries that will back them. But when violence is the first thing people think to react on, it makes you wonder if diplomacy was ever considered. With some people, you can’t negotiate. That’s just a simple fact of things. But for most people out there, they’d be willing to make concessions.
It makes a person wonder: when billions to trillions are spent to promote the military, how much is spent for diplomacy?
