First be armed

[Lark]

If you have to resort to violence, you've failed the humanity test.

If you never resort to violence you could well have failed the willing to defend humanity test.

 

[Cornerstone]

[video=youtube;YHy06FMsezI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHy06FMsezI[/video]

 

[digitalbum]

If you have to resort to violence, you've failed the humanity test.

If you never resort to violence you could well have failed the willing to defend humanity test.

Yeah, I don't get this. Humans aren't violent? Or violence is NEVER the answer? MANY times, violence is the only answer.

 

[Lark]

Yeah, I don't get this. Humans aren't violent? Or violence is NEVER the answer? MANY times, violence is the only answer.

well I dont think its the only answer, I mean you could have fascism, communism, nazism, slavery and imperialism as answers but given they arent satisfactory people are going to opt for violence instead.

 

[digitalbum]

well I dont think its the only answer, I mean you could have fascism, communism, nazism, slavery and imperialism as answers but given they arent satisfactory people are going to opt for violence instead.

I didn't say it was the only answer, I said MANY times (really should be sometimes) it's the only answer. Some drunk guy starts beating up your girlfriend, I hope you respond with violence and not "hey can we talk about this?" But that's me. I wouldn't hesitate.

 

[Lerxst]

"I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight... I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence." - Thich Nhat Hanh


"Please be peaceful. We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence, I want you to love your enemies... for what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just -- and God is with us" - Martin Luther King Jr.


"If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience and understanding" - Dali Lama


"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man." Mahatma Gandhi


These people saw war, destruction, death and violence yet their message is all the same. Here we are, arguing from the comforts of a chair and a computer.

If you really want to screw with violent people, meet them with the unexpected. I think this clip from Les Miserables sums it up perfectly:

[video=youtube_share;wF3FX43F-7Y]http://youtu.be/wF3FX43F-7Y[/video]

And there's the famous scene from Schindler's List:

[video=youtube_share;K5lQA3bipHc]http://youtu.be/K5lQA3bipHc[/video]

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=2890]Lerxst[/MENTION]

Yeah yeah. Two of those guys were assassinated and the one still living was driven into exile in the Tibetan uprising.

Sure. Get a charismatic leader like King or Gandhi and a few are going to follow it for a while but all you have to do is assassinate this one man and it all falls apart.

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=2890]Lerxst[/MENTION]
Moreover the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi both sparked off intense riots which killed more people.

So it really was something like after the leader died it undid all the lessons. Kill the leader and not only do you get rid of him but you make his people disgrace him as well.

 

[digitalbum]

This thread is confusing me. I feel like some people are saying "Violence is NEVER the answer." Is that even an argument?

What would have happened if America did not get involved in WWII? We'd prolly all be speaking German.

 

[sprinkles]

This thread is confusing me. I feel like some people are saying "Violence is NEVER the answer." Is that even an argument?

What would have happened if America did not get involved in WWII? We'd prolly all be speaking German.

Some people believe that violence is never the answer. Good on them if they actually believe it and understand why.

However I'd say most people don't actually believe it, nor do they understand how that could be a thing. I'd say that 90% of the time it is just a magical fad that gives them good feelings but they don't REALLY believe it or understand it.

This is why when you have one person gluing an entire country together, that is not peace. If it were peace then that person would not actually be needed and it wouldn't matter if they were killed.

That is not peace. That is following the piper. Replace it with a different piper and you get a different tune because the people are just going along with the fad.

Actual pacifists are pretty rare.

 

[Lerxst]

This thread is confusing me. I feel like some people are saying "Violence is NEVER the answer." Is that even an argument?

What would have happened if America did not get involved in WWII? We'd prolly all be speaking German.

If violence was never the answer, WWI would never have happened, leaving Germany a prosperous country that would never have allowed the Nazis to rise to power. Your point?

 

[Lerxst]

@Lerxst
Moreover the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi both sparked off intense riots which killed more people.

So it really was something like after the leader died it undid all the lessons. Kill the leader and not only do you get rid of him but you make his people disgrace him as well.

Would you rather live a long life full of fear, paranoia and wondering who's coming to take what you have? Or live a happy, peaceful (albeit short life in some cases) where the only low point of your life is your death? What's the point of arming yourself to defend against people you're going to become if you resort to the same violence they do?

 

[sprinkles]

Would you rather live a long life full of fear, paranoia and wondering who's coming to take what you have? Or live a happy, peaceful (albeit short life in some cases) where the only low point of your life is your death? What's the point of arming yourself to defend against people you're going to become if you resort to the same violence they do?

I've already died millions of times so what is the point of being here at all? What's the point of living, happy or not?

I already have lived a long life of fear where people did come and take what I have. It was not happy and it was not peaceful, because even while I wasn't being robbed all the time or killed, people everywhere else were. I don't always have to be the one who reacts to violence. Some times seeing it done to others is violence upon me.


It is not all about things and the low point is not your own death. It is some times the suffering of everybody else.

 

[sprinkles]

If violence was never the answer, WWI would never have happened, leaving Germany a prosperous country that would never have allowed the Nazis to rise to power. Your point?

If humans had been wiped out by the plague, this would never have been a problem. Your point?

This ideal is empty without a time machine.

 

[muir]

good summing up there, they're all rapists too

I've never reported anyone before but if you continue to missrepresent me i will speak to the staff

 

[muir]

I think @Lerxst has a point in the sense that you don't fight for peace you peace for peace (to paraphrase david ike)

I think the people do need to use peace to bring about positive change

However i would also point out that by the act of holding guns the public is maintaining what is a powerful dissincentive to the government for carrying out any drastic injustice

So use peace....but hold onto the guns until the threat is past

If the situation goes south big time...at least you then have the fall back of being able to fight for your liberty, which i believe any people under attack have a right to do

 

[muir]

This thread is confusing me. I feel like some people are saying "Violence is NEVER the answer." Is that even an argument?

What would have happened if America did not get involved in WWII? We'd prolly all be speaking German.

No you wouldn't be speaking german!

Germany wouldn't have been able to invade the USA. It wouldn't invade Britain with only a 20 mile stretch of water between britain and the continent because its landing craft would have been bombed

 

[digitalbum]

No you wouldn't be speaking german!

Germany wouldn't have been able to invade the USA. It wouldn't invade Britain with only a 20 mile stretch of water between britain and the continent because its landing craft would have been bombed

Yeah, that was a stretch, but even if we weren't directly involved, we were still giving aid to Britain for those bombs, and perhaps France would be speaking German. Who the hell knows? The point is that someone comes at you with a knife, you don't sing kumbaya.

 

[sprinkles]

I think @Lerxst has a point in the sense that you don't fight for peace you peace for peace (to paraphrase david ike)

I think the people do need to use peace to bring about positive change

However i would also point out that by the act of holding guns the public is maintaining what is a powerful dissincentive to the government for carrying out any drastic injustice

So use peace....but hold onto the guns until the threat is past

If the situation goes south big time...at least you then have the fall back of being able to fight for your liberty, which i believe any people under attack have a right to do

That's right. You don't fight for peace, you cower.

If one would sit there and watch rape and murder over and over and not lift a finger against it then they shouldn't even bother preaching, or doing anything for that matter. May as well be an indolent piece of crap that just throws away the entire world because you love everybody too much to do a damn thing about anything.

You know what they do to passive villagers? People that don't fight? Hmm? Like in Cambodia or Sierra Leone? THEY MAKE THEM WATCH.

Pacifists should be made to watch all violence that happens. If you love everyone so much then watch this one handful of people you love commit murder and atrocities on this other handful of people you love.

No you wouldn't be speaking german!

Germany wouldn't have been able to invade the USA. It wouldn't invade Britain with only a 20 mile stretch of water between britain and the continent because its landing craft would have been bombed

Who would bomb their landing craft if violence is never the solution? How exactly does that work?

 

[digitalbum]

Would you rather live a long life full of fear, paranoia and wondering who's coming to take what you have? Or live a happy, peaceful (albeit short life in some cases) where the only low point of your life is your death? What's the point of arming yourself to defend against people you're going to become if you resort to the same violence they do?

I wear a seatbelt, but I don't live a life a life full of fear and paranoia that I'm going to get into a wreck.