[extropy-chat] Re: Profile the Great Satan?

[Jack Parkinson]

From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Profile the Great Satan?

> Switzerland is peaceful and free because every Swiss is armed with a
> machine gun and the ammo to do damage with it. The willingness to
> commit violence in their defense has kept them free. Their willingness
> to trade with anybody only has made them rich as any banker of a lord
> of war would. We can't all be bankers to warlords.

This makes the Swiss sound like testoterone-crazed, trigger-happy miltants! 
Not so! Switzerland is tiny - and without significant capacity to impose its 
will by force on anyone. And, it would be walk-over for any medium power 
military machine. Your comment is just obscurist.


> There are six million dead in europe who didn't use violence and did
> not live.

Really? What about the uprisings in Warsaw? The histories are full of tales 
of remarkable resistance across the entire theatre of WWII operations...

>There are tens of millions of corpses across Turkey, the old
> Soviet republics, and across China who didn't use violence and did not
> live. You are lying the lie of the pacifist.

Perspective, perspective... I just wear different glasses and look at global 
as well as local implications. Every armed conflict is eventually a disaster 
if you widen your observation of the fallout far enough - from a  dawn 
shootout at the ok corral to carpet-bombing the bad guys in Asia ...

Only the scale of each disaster varies and is revealed over time. Pacifism 
is strength and economy if implemented properly! Nelson Mandela could have 
promoted a bloodbath in South Africa - and showed remarkable resilience in 
restraining himself and his followers. And - he became a true and respected 
international statesman thereby. Gandhi freed modern India in much the same 
way and HE will be admired forever because of that.

The rare pacifist statesmen we do have promote win-win solutions. Know of 
any win-win wars?

There is a fundamental law of nature that tough guys learn the hard way: 
Every act of violence is met with resistance - and massive violence is 
always met with massive resistance.

Jack