Comments a from Mike Lorrey and Dick Gray.
> >"I do not advocate the initiation of force to promote social or
I do believe it is a fine thing to live ones life after. Furthermore I
believe that in most civilized countries it is the way things happens
allready. But in real life it is not simple as the statement implies. If
somebody comes running at you with a gun it is NOT force. It is an implied
threat of the use of force. Stil I would stop him any way possible if given
the chance.
>Notice the statement reads "to promote social or political goals". This
But it is ok to use force for personal goals then? Either you use initial
force or you don't. A war fought in another country can easily be thought of
as a way to remove an implied threat. A war that might otherwise would have
been fought in your own backyard.
> >political goals."
>doesn't in any way preclude defense of self or others from threat of
>attack.
>As the evidence shows, carrying concealed weapons has a significant
deterrent
>effect on the population as a whole, while openly carrying weapons deters
crime
>from the individual carrying. You don't need to initiate force to have an
>effect.
Carrying a weapon is an implied threat. If not, how else could you see a mugger/carjacker ... as a threat when they havn't touched you yet? I don't see much difference in the threat of using force and actually using it. Se my example above of the gun carrying mugger.
Organised crime probably benefits far more from the threat of violence than from actually violence. Carrying a concealed weapon is an implied threat, or else it would not have a deterent effect.
>As 50 years experience showed, Mutual Assured Destruction did a fine job of
out
>blinking the potential agressors.
Well the jury is stil out on that one. Most of the bombs, or at least enough, are still around and can be put to "good" use yet.
>> I can think of so many exceptions to this rule that it is hard to take
>> seriously. It is a good ideal though, and one that I think many of us
live by
>> whenever we can.
>Please come up with some more concrete examples of why this would not work.
The
>two you cited are obviously inadequate.
The problem is defining "force". Is it only actual force or does it include the threat of force? If it includes only the actual use of force we would have to wait to defence ourself until we are actually attacked. This is clearly not yours or mine idea of intelligent behaviour.
If on the other hand it also includes the threat of force we will be on the
same slippery ground as real life politics are now.
Somebody you know about has initiated violence but you cannot proove that it was them. How are your feelings about revenge here? is it an intialisation or is it a retributal?
The phrase: "I do not advocate the initiation of force to promote social or political goals." is an absolute. I don't support many theories of absolutes. It's usually impractical rethorics and farfecthed ideals.
Real life happens in a grey zone where you can only strive to do your best. and in that situation the above sentence is a good ideal to strive for when possible.
Max M Rasmussen
Denmark