NationStates Jolt Archive

The British have better technology(machine guns, tanks, airplanes, and the like could be used to cause destruction). As well, the loss of most things would perhaps drive some but most people are demoralized once they lose everything(or after an exposure to extreme death and cruelty like shown by Vlad the Impaler's forest of the impaled). So long as the British had a good amount of soldiers starting off, they could win through a strategy of total war. What we would have seen in India would be hell on earth and eventually the resistance fighters would have surrendered to the British or to death due to the absolute cruelty.

So are you saying that non-violent, non-cooperation was a superior alternative to "Just War"?

If everyone on earth agreed to avoid war at all costs it could be done. The only thing is that people will not agree to that idea. The european nations decided to take the costs of WW1 out of Germany, that was wrong but no one could stop it other than the leaders of the countries themselves(and no one tells the leader of a foreign country what to do). If everyone agreed to help rebuild Germany it could be done but not everyone agreed that was the right thing to do. Most people said that Germany should pay and a minority that disagree do not mean a thing.

Does this mean you think it was the injustice in the manner the post war diplomacy was carried out that led to WW2?

I've isolated this quote because it reveals why I think "Just War" is unneccessary in order to prevent genocide. Relativley few people actually commit attrocities, the reason why they are successful is because the remaining members of the civilisation are apathetic. If all these "Just War" supporters are really outraged about what is going on in Rwanda or Darfur, why aren't they posting threads encouraging others to actively protest and encourage their own governments to impose sanctions?

What do you think that sanctions will do? If these people are willing to commit genocide then I doubt that they care about their Swedish chocolates or their Mitsubishi motors. Imposing sanctions is not going to do too much because if the actions are being performed by those in power then those without power are not going to speak out due to the fear of losing their heads.(Terror tactics work)

If every country's population chose not to enrol, like us, then war would be a thing of the past. But as long as just one country has an army, then others need one if for no other reason than to prevent tihe initial army from conquering all.

There are people who own guns. I don't have a gun and don't feel the need to own a gun. Owning a gun will not prevent me from being shot.

People are willing to fight to defend their country from invaders. This has been demonstrated in probably every country, and recently in Iraq. People are also willing to commit terrorist acts/freedom fighers/guerrillas once invaded.

Which is why those of us who know better should encourage non-violent, non-cooperation.

Now, if entire societies adopted non-violent, non-cooperation after invasion, then they'd be freed. But, many would be killed by the oppressor, and not everyone would risk death whilst being a pacifist non-violent, non-cooperator. the oppressor could torture families and randomly kill civilians to get people to co-operate. This would breed hatred with the opressed, making them more likely to become violent themselves. This in term could warrent violent reprisals, liek the random Nazi killings in (Czech/Bulgaria?) in revenge for freedom fighter attacks. Ruthless, but ik thikn it was fairly effecitve.

What are you saying?

What i'm saying is once there is an aggressor, if there isn't a war, and occipation occurs, then non-violent, non-cooperation can be counteracted by harsh actions by the oppressor.

So can violent resistence. ie. Vietnam

Now, if the invadors conquered a country with no army, and gave its citizens equal rights to the invaders, effectively making the 2 countries 1, the one of the attackers, but with attacked subjects too, then if the cultures aren't to different there may be no reason to resist, but afaik, this has never happened.

I guess you've never heard of NAFTA

Take Rwunda. One tribe was being massacred by another, they had no army to defend themselves with and there was no option of non-violent, non-cooperation, they were just being killed. it was ethnic cleansing. I assume we're agreed this is wrong. Of course, teh persecuted, in this situation should flee and we (everyone) should accept them as refugees. It's wrong that they should have to flee, but if they can't defend themselves (or are pacifists, but i'll come onto that later), then they must flee from a combat situation. But many could not, and many would be killed, and it would still be a massacre. Diplomacy hasn't worked and isn;t working and the massacre continues. Embargoes (if there were any) aren't working. All other 'resorts' have been tried, and the massacre continues. The persecuted try to flee, but many are caught and killed.

What would you do. Would you not send in an army and watch as genocide happens (as we did), or send in an army, have a war which would cause deaths of soldiers on both sides and civilians of the enemy, but save many more lives of the peoples which were fleeing?

If I was the President of a powerful country like the U.S. or UK I would send a fleet of helicopters and cargo planes and air lift them out of the country.

So are you saying that non-violent, non-cooperation was a superior alternative to "Just War"?

NO!!!!!!! I have been arguing against your non-violent non-cooperation as much as I can.(I just can argue about some very stupid things and get off track)
The situation that you quoted was if the British wanted to keep India and had enough of an army to do so.

Also, I will admit that there was a problem with the post-war diplomacy that actually did lead to WW2 but to expect the entire world to be in agreement on an issue can be sort of impossible. The elimination of war can only happen if everyone agrees and not everyone will agree as long as there is inequitable distribution of wealth. The wealthy will not agree with you taking their wealth. The dictators will not agree with you taking their power. The nationalists will not agree with aiding other nations at a high cost to theirs. The neo-Nazis will not agree that gays should have rights and oppose those who give them rights. The militarists will not agree with you taking away their way of life and with being such an extreme pacifist.

The only way to get people to agree is through oppression, the only way to oppress is through armed forces, the only way to get armed forces to oppress people is to have the armed forces get rid of resistance, and the only way to get rid of resistance is through war.

If I was the President of a powerful country like the U.S. or UK I would send a fleet of helicopters and cargo planes and air lift them out of the country.

Problems may occur due to their armed forces attacking your air forces. As well once the opposition force is gone within the nation those people may resort to terrorism and violence that involves more nations.

What do you think that sanctions will do? If these people are willing to commit genocide then I doubt that they care about their Swedish chocolates or their Mitsubishi motors. Imposing sanctions is not going to do too much because if the actions are being performed by those in power then those without power are not going to speak out due to the fear of losing their heads.(Terror tactics work)

To be honest, I don't know much about Rwanda or Darfur, but in the case of Angola, the militias commiting attrocities are dependent on money from the diamond trade to purchase supplies and pay mercenaries. Remember, that murderers are human beings who rely on food and other supplies. If other countries refuse to provide them with food and the people within their country refuse to provide them with food, then maybe they'll have to turn to farming instead of killing as a way of life.

To be honest, I don't know much about Rwanda or Darfur, but in the case of Angola, the militias commiting attrocities are dependent on money from the diamond trade to purchase supplies and pay mercenaries. Remember, that murderers are human beings who rely on food and other supplies. If other countries refuse to provide them with food and the people within their country refuse to provide them with food, then maybe they'll have to turn to farming instead of killing as a way of life.

Not all nations(or people) are compassionate. Many diamonds hit the market through these war torn countries despite morality issues. Debeers will not buy these diamonds and this is undermining their monopoly status. The people within their country may provide them with food and that could keep these mercenaries and madmen going. Usually it is the common citizen that suffers before the armed forces do. Common people will starve before the armies are allowed to die.

To be honest, I don't know much about Rwanda or Darfur, but in the case of Angola, the s commiting attrocities are dependent on money from the diamond trade to purchase supplies and pay mercenaries. Remember, that ers are human beings who rely on food and other supplies. If other countries refuse to provide them with food and the people within their country refuse to provide them with food, then maybe they'll have to turn to farming instead of as a way of life.

Actually, I think you are partially right. I definitely think other countries should refuse to aid (especially in Africa where the corrupt bureaucracy prevents any measure of improvement), because it is inefficient. A lot of times, people are forced into a certain socio-economic status because of oppressive governments--where the people are subservient to either a government or the few elites, in which case the only solution is for economic independence, which I happen to believe results from true free-market capitalism (which is for another topic). Pertaining to your specific example of Angola, the answer isn't just to "stop giving food/aid" it is actually provide the common person (diamond miners, etc.) a means to generate income, independent of the needs of the and the government. That way, the common person won't need to do what the few say, and the oppressive military will lose funding. Power will shift back to the people and away from the elite.

Actually, I think you are partially right. I definitely think other countries should refuse to aid (especially in Africa where the corrupt bureaucracy prevents any measure of improvement), because it is inefficient. A lot of times, people are forced into a certain socio-economic status because of oppressive governments--where the people are subservient to either a government or the few elites, in which case the only solution is for economic independence, which I happen to believe results from true free-market capitalism (which is for another topic). Pertaining to your specific example of Angola, the answer isn't just to "stop giving food/aid" it is actually provide the common person (diamond miners, etc.) a means to generate income, independent of the needs of the and the government. That way, the common person won't need to do what the few say, and the oppressive military will lose funding. Power will shift back to the people and away from the elite.

Are you saying that democracy (ie. economically empowered majority of the population) is the solution?

I'm glad we're online at the same time, i was hoping to debate with you like this.

Let’s then apply the same principles to the U.S. invasion of the Middle East. If Iraqi insurgents put down their guns and protested the U.S. occupation this might bring to light the injustice of the U.S.'s prolonged presence. Instead their militant resistance only acts to justify some of the atrocities that are going on in military prisons.


It might make people more aware of the injustices, but i think people are fairly aware anyway, there's just not a lot we can do about it. Military resistance is prolonging atrocities on both sides, but it doesn;t justify them. Nothing does. Maybe if they stopped fighting and accepted the government the US has set up for them there would be peace. But all it takes is one man with some reason to commit violence. Not everyone is pacifist, and there are many reasons, even if we wouldn't coz of the views we hold, many people will resort to violence. People hold different views on this spectrum of violence vs non-violence as in any other thing, like left and right, authoritarian or anarchist/libertarian). We can say this is wrong in the same way i could say being republican/tory is wrong, but it doesn;t change the fact that there are many people with views which differ from ours. This is partly due to upbringing, culture, education, experiences, (maybe on some level genetics), many things. And if this one person with a cause who isn;t a pacifist starts making demands and violently going about achieving his aim then he must be stopped. this is difficult without violence. Aikaido (sp) has been suggested (in different context) as a method which could non-violently stop this man, but what if he's armed, or has followers. Is it right that he can set the law by killing people.

I can see how it could be argued that this man is the US fighting Saddam as much as an Iraqi fighting the US, and so the violence continues. My point is, it only takes one non-pacifist nation (of which there are many) to start the killings and killings can force killing in return, as absolute pacifism just allows more pacifists to be killed, whereas fighting back may allow the persecuted to survive. I realise it is a circle of violence, but with just one violent start and no-one fighting back it wouldn;t be a circle, there'd jsut be the violent winner.


We could intervene by bringing about awareness before things get out of hand. Other nations could have prevented the rise of Hitler by helping the Germans to recover from the war instead of imposing an unfair peace treaty on them. But then Europe and the U.S. weren’t exactly anxious to incorporate the Jews into their society prior to WW2.


Yes, and ideally this would happen. We should provide more aid to Africa and other poorer countries, abolish unfair trade rules and help them recover from the crippling economic position we've helped put them in. But whilst we do this, there are times when genocides occur. Kosovo wasn't even that poor, but genocide still occured. If everything we do to prevent the siutuation of genocide occuring doesn't work, or we don't know its going to happen, or it happens very suddenly, and we're in a position where genocide has happened and is happening, what do you (a foreign country) do, do you let it happen or intervene militarily (assuming you already have trade embargoes and are using diplomacy, but while this happens the massacre continues)? Also, if you were the minority against which teh genocide was being commited, and they're not bothered whether you co-operate or not, they jsut want to kill you, what do you do? I assume you would flee (as I would), but many people would feel jsutified in defending themselves, their families, their land, their possessions, their heritage, their religion and their race from teh violent descrimination of the oppressor. Alternatively, they could be viewed as simply fighting to provide more tme and a distraction to help others flee. Would their taking up of arms against the attacker be wrong, and what other option would they have (especially if they're doing it to help others flee)?


A military cannot be conducted it a democratic manner. The success of a military is reliant entirely on the ability of soldiers to follow orders without question.[QUOTE]

You've kinda hit upon my point there. It wont happen, but if it did, then the military would be less likely to fight. It's not a very serious point i made, coz it wont happen. But then equally unlikely is your proposal to educate the world to such a degree that no-one used violence, so that a global pacifist society could exist. Maybe in the future, but in the meen times there are Rwunda's and Kosovos which you need to consider.

[QUOTE=Oye Oye]
For this reason I find it dubious when people propose to preserve democracy through militant means.
[QUOTE]

It is something of a contradiction, but if a democracy is attacked by a non-democracy should the society with the better form of government then become ruled by a violent non-democracy? As i've said before, non-violent non-cooperation only works with a reasonable fairly non-violent government in charge. It works for civil rights issues in democracies (strikes, protest marches, lobbying of MP's, sit ins, etc). It works less well if violently suppressed as is the case in many non-democracies. There is a case for a war in defense of country if attacked (in this example to preserve democracy and the freedom to non-violent, non-cooperation associated with it, in others to preserve something else which is part of the defenders culture but not the attackers). Whether or not that thing is a just thing to defend or whether retreat or non-violent, non-cooperation would be better options, i'd have to consider on an individual basis.

[QUOTE=Oye Oye]
Let’s look at war the way most people might view rape. We both agree that rape and war are terrible things. Yet is there such a thing as a Just Rape? If you take the Muslim edict an “eye for an eye” literally, then it can be interpreted to mean that if a man rapes your wife, then you are justified in raping his wife. There are some people in North American society who might object publicly to a woman being raped but if she is someone they view as being a slut or a tease they might mutter under their breath that she had it coming. Yet as a society we hold rape in contempt and do not praise those who participate in such behavior. The reason we hold rape in contempt is because we want to discourage it and abolish it from our society. I propose we do the same with war.


I think its not just a muslim edict, but a Christian and Jewish one too (correct me if i'm wrong). And the point of it wasn't to inflict an eye for an eye etc, but to not go beyond what the crime commited was in retribution. it was to limit vengeance, rather than to encourage it, as i understand it. If taken literally then everyone's friend Ghandi had a lovely quote, 'an eye for an eye leaves teh world blind'.

Anyways, with your example. Its an interesting way to look at it, especially given some of the views i've seen expressed on this forum about 'she had it coming to her'. It certainly makes a good argument against the death penalty, (there's another good quote i don;t know exactly, along the lines of 'we kill men who kill men to show men that killing men is wrong). I agree that war should be abolished from society and we must be very wary of entering into war. But while the rape victim/husband shouldn't be allowed to rape the rapists partner, the rapist shouldn't be allowed free or to continue raping people, and he isn;t. He is arrested and imprisoned. same with teh murderer (in places without the death penalty, like the UK). However, an invader cannot be arrested and imprisoned, and in almost all cases (India being the one example i can think of where it's not been the case), non-violence wont get the invader removed, whether the violence be war, guerrilla warfare, terrorism or revolution. If one of these things didn;t happen then it would be like your rapist or my murderer being allowed to roam free and attack at will, and you've said yourself that we want to remove rape from our culture coz its a bad thing.


War is only possible because it is socially acceptable. It is socially acceptable because most people adopt the attitude you have just expressed. "War is terrible but..." I propose we make war socially unacceptable and uneccesary by applying "Just Diplomacy", not only when we see a problem arising, but in the manner by which we solve that problem.

Correct. If everyone, absolutely everyone, held your very admirable attitude towards war (one I once held), then there could be no war. I agree that just diplomacy should be used to avert problems and just diplomacy should be used to solve them, and here's teh but which i express, ehat happens where people are being killed because they wont go to war (as would be the case if we lived in a country of pacifists who wouldn't fight) or can't coz they're a minority, and they're being persecuted even as they flee. I've made the point a few times in the thread, what would you do then?

[QUOTE]Not all nations(or people) are compassionate.

Do you think war will improve this?

Many diamonds hit the market through these war torn countries despite morality issues. Debeers will not buy these diamonds and this is undermining their monopoly status. The people within their country may provide them with food and that could keep these mercenaries and madmen going. Usually it is the common citizen that suffers before the armed forces do. Common people will starve before the armies are allowed to die.

In the cases of most mercenary armies, conscripts are attracted to their ranks because of the high pay and these are professional soldiers so they rely on outside sources for supplies. In the case of government's that commit attrocities they are reliant on international trade. Thus economical solutions could be applied to discourage violence. Unfortunately we live in a society were war is a money making industry and human lives are often viewed as expendable.

sheesh, you guys post quickly, another post from me is on teh way, stay there oye oye please.

[QUOTE]NO!!!!!!! I have been arguing against your non-violent non-cooperation as much as I can.(I just can argue about some very stupid things and get off track)
The situation that you quoted was if the British wanted to keep India and had enough of an army to do so.

Also, I will admit that there was a problem with the post-war diplomacy that actually did lead to WW2 but to expect the entire world to be in agreement on an issue can be sort of impossible.

However since WW2 most of the governments in the world have been in agreement that nuclear war is bad. Unless a nuke has gone off that I haven't heard about.

The elimination of war can only happen if everyone agrees and not everyone will agree as long as there is inequitable distribution of wealth.

I agree one hundred percent.

The wealthy will not agree with you taking their wealth. The dictators will not agree with you taking their power. The nationalists will not agree with aiding other nations at a high cost to theirs. The neo-Nazis will not agree that gays should have rights and oppose those who give them rights. The militarists will not agree with you taking away their way of life and with being such an extreme pacifist.

So then it is the task of those who want the human race to evolve intellectualy and spiritually to try and impress the merits of negotiation and diplomacy.

The only way to get people to agree is through oppression, the only way to oppress is through armed forces, the only way to get armed forces to oppress people is to have the armed forces get rid of resistance, and the only way to get rid of resistance is through war.

So you don't believe in democracy?

sheesh, you guys post quickly, another post from me is on teh way, stay there oye oye please.

Brevity is the key.

A riddle from a fool can be no more than a foolish riddle ;)

You insert meaning where none exists. It was a typo, and I was in a mood.

There will be war as long as there is ambition. Of course, people who lack ambition accomplish nothing, so there will also be stagnancy.

-The desire for Wealth,
-the Desire for Power
-the Desire for Revenge

these things are what feeds the war-machine. Even if you distributed all the wealth of the world absolutely equally, it would not remain that way so long as there are human beings, because Ambition is integral to the human species (if not in all members of that species in equal amounts.)

Non-violent non-cooperation, if it works, is preferable to armed conflict. IF being the operative term here-most of the time it doesn't work.
Consider also that the nation Ghandi's actions influenced most, goes to war on a regular basis with Pakistan over border issues, and recently (relative terms) became a Nuclear Power.

HOW you resist is by definition based on WHO you are resisting-Ghandi today would be a Celebrity, but like Ang-san-syu-ki (I can't remember the proper spelling) in Burma/Myanmar, an ineffective celebrity beloved of the glitterati in wealthier western nations.
(INsofar As I Know, she's still in prison and the Junta is still in power. It's been over 20 years...)

[QUOTE]It might make people more aware of the injustices, but i think people are fairly aware anyway, there's just not a lot we can do about it.

Is this because our governments encourage apathy in public affairs? As mentioned before immediate solution to the problem, get the people targeted out of the area and provide them with sanctuary. Long term solution, education, economic sanctions and eliminate any notion of “Just War”.

Military resistance is prolonging atrocities on both sides, but it doesn;t justify them. Nothing does.

My point exactly.

Maybe if they stopped fighting and accepted the government the US has set up for them there would be peace. But all it takes is one man with some reason to commit violence.

But one man committing violence can be imprisoned.

Not everyone is pacifist, and there are many reasons, even if we wouldn't coz of the views we hold, many people will resort to violence. People hold different views on this spectrum of violence vs non-violence as in any other thing, like left and right, authoritarian or anarchist/libertarian). We can say this is wrong in the same way i could say being republican/tory is wrong, but it doesn;t change the fact that there are many people with views which differ from ours. This is partly due to upbringing, culture, education, experiences, (maybe on some level genetics), many things. And if this one person with a cause who isn;t a pacifist starts making demands and violently going about achieving his aim then he must be stopped. this is difficult without violence. Aikaido (sp) has been suggested (in different context) as a method which could non-violently stop this man, but what if he's armed, or has followers. Is it right that he can set the law by killing people.

Not everyone is a pacifist, but then there was a point in our history when not everyone thought the world was round. Education changed this.

I can see how it could be argued that this man is the US fighting Saddam as much as an Iraqi fighting the US, and so the violence continues. My point is, it only takes one non-pacifist nation (of which there are many) to start the killings and killings can force killing in return, as absolute pacifism just allows more pacifists to be killed, whereas fighting back may allow the persecuted to survive. I realise it is a circle of violence, but with just one violent start and no-one fighting back it wouldn;t be a circle, there'd jsut be the violent winner.

If a minority is being persecuted by a well armed majority, no amount of military resistance will save them. With regards to the circular argument, violence breeds violence. Non-violent, non-cooperation seeks to break that circle.

Yes, and ideally this would happen. We should provide more aid to Africa and other poorer countries, abolish unfair trade rules and help them recover from the crippling economic position we've helped put them in. But whilst we do this, there are times when genocides occur. Kosovo wasn't even that poor, but genocide still occured. If everything we do to prevent the siutuation of genocide occuring doesn't work, or we don't know its going to happen, or it happens very suddenly, and we're in a position where genocide has happened and is happening, what do you (a foreign country) do, do you let it happen or intervene militarily (assuming you already have trade embargoes and are using diplomacy, but while this happens the massacre continues)? Also, if you were the minority against which teh genocide was being commited, and they're not bothered whether you co-operate or not, they jsut want to kill you, what do you do? I assume you would flee (as I would), but many people would feel jsutified in defending themselves, their families, their land, their possessions, their heritage, their religion and their race from teh violent descrimination of the oppressor. Alternatively, they could be viewed as simply fighting to provide more tme and a distraction to help others flee. Would their taking up of arms against the attacker be wrong, and what other option would they have (especially if they're doing it to help others flee)?

A lot of arguments for “Just War” theory are raising the issue of genocide but not one has dealt with the most horrible example of genocide in recent history, the genocide of the North American natives. Here is an example in which an entire continent of people was wiped out. Yet no “Just War” theorist will use this example, because it is an example in which the losing side fought back.

You've kinda hit upon my point there. It wont happen, but if it did, then the military would be less likely to fight. It's not a very serious point i made, coz it wont happen. But then equally unlikely is your proposal to educate the world to such a degree that no-one used violence, so that a global pacifist society could exist. Maybe in the future, but in the meen times there are Rwunda's and Kosovos which you need to consider.

This is why we must adopt an attitude that defies war as a solution to problems. So that peace is not a dream of the future, but a reality of the present.

It is something of a contradiction, but if a democracy is attacked by a non-democracy should the society with the better form of government then become ruled by a violent non-democracy?

Non-violent, non-cooperation means that the oppressed population does not follow the edicts of a violent non-democracy and, therefore, cannot be ruled.

As i've said before, non-violent non-cooperation only works with a reasonable fairly non-violent government in charge. It works for civil rights issues in democracies (strikes, protest marches, lobbying of MP's, sit ins, etc). It works less well if violently suppressed as is the case in many non-democracies. There is a case for a war in defense of country if attacked (in this example to preserve democracy and the freedom to non-violent, non-cooperation associated with it, in others to preserve something else which is part of the defenders culture but not the attackers). Whether or not that thing is a just thing to defend or whether retreat or non-violent, non-cooperation would be better options, i'd have to consider on an individual basis.

As I’ve said before, believing that the British or any other Western Empire (including the U.S.) is more benevolent than any other is a cultural bias. Massacres occurred throughout Latin America that were encouraged by the CIA and the Boston based transnational United Fruit Company. There was also the Massacre at Amritsar in India and the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.

I think its not just a muslim edict, but a Christian and Jewish one too (correct me if i'm wrong). And the point of it wasn't to inflict an eye for an eye etc, but to not go beyond what the crime commited was in retribution. it was to limit vengeance, rather than to encourage it, as i understand it. If taken literally then everyone's friend Ghandi had a lovely quote, 'an eye for an eye leaves teh world blind'.

From what I understand it is a quote from the Qu’ran. But this is not an attitude isolated to Muslims, which is why I added the example of North American attitudes. Not to profess a moral superiority, but a Christian attitude is “Turn the other cheek.” Yet this is something that many Christians fail to observe. Having said this the idea of being able to create a doctrine that limits vengeance is ridiculous and is one of the reasons why I find "Just War" theory impractical.

However, an invader cannot be arrested and imprisoned, and in almost all cases (India being the one example i can think of where it's not been the case), non-violence wont get the invader removed, whether the violence be war, guerrilla warfare, terrorism or revolution. If one of these things didn;t happen then it would be like your rapist or my murderer being allowed to roam free and attack at will, and you've said yourself that we want to remove rape from our culture coz its a bad thing

The fact that there is one example provides a precedent. This provides me with the belief that non-violent non-cooperation can work. With regards to the rapist going free, the immediate solution is to lock up the criminal, the long term solution is rehabilitation. I propose we endeavor to do both. Lock up violently aggressive nations by not incorporating them into world trade. A strategy employed by the U.S. and U.K. during the cold war, when diplomacy was preferable to nuclear war. Then rehabilitate them by providing examples of “Just Democracy”.

Correct. If everyone, absolutely everyone, held your very admirable attitude towards war (one I once held), then there could be no war. I agree that just diplomacy should be used to avert problems and just diplomacy should be used to solve them, and here's teh but which i express, ehat happens where people are being killed because they wont go to war (as would be the case if we lived in a country of pacifists who wouldn't fight) or can't coz they're a minority, and they're being persecuted even as they flee. I've made the point a few times in the thread, what would you do then?

Not everyone has to adopt this attitude of von-violence, just the majority. The reason why the Indian Revolution was successful was because an unarmed majority organized themselves against an armed minority. If you review my posts you’ll see that I’ve answered this question. The only thing that remains to be answered is; can the majority of the world’s population overcome notions of racism, elitism, xenophobia and other prejudices to understand that we are all children of the same earth, we breath the same air and have equal capacity for good and evil?

You insert meaning where none exists. It was a typo, and I was in a mood.

There will be war as long as there is ambition. Of course, people who lack ambition accomplish nothing, so there will also be stagnancy.

-The desire for Wealth,
-the Desire for Power
-the Desire for Revenge

these things are what feeds the war-machine. Even if you distributed all the wealth of the world absolutely equally, it would not remain that way so long as there are human beings, because Ambition is integral to the human species (if not in all members of that species in equal amounts.)

The goal of equal distribution, as I see it, is to prevent those who are greedy/ambitious, from exploiting those who aren't. This can only be acheived through democracy, since you cannot impose equality or freedom on a person. Democracy is accomplished through education. As I have asserted, fighting is the lowest form of human behaviour. As a child I got into many fights. As I grew older I learned to control my temper, compromise and negotiate in order to get what I want. As a society we have more to gain from peaceful co-existence than through the kind of barbarism that was demonstrated by fuedal lords during the medeival era.

Non-violent non-cooperation, if it works, is preferable to armed conflict. IF being the operative term here-most of the time it doesn't work.

Most of the time our governments see war as a business venture and lives of soldiers as expendible commodities. In order for non-violent, non-cooperation to work, it must first be applied. This can only occur when corruption in the government is eliminated.

Consider also that the nation Ghandi's actions influenced most, goes to war on a regular basis with Pakistan over border issues, and recently (relative terms) became a Nuclear Power.

The split between India and Pakistan was a failure on Gandhi's part. Something he was on his way to resolve when he was shot.

HOW you resist is by definition based on WHO you are resisting-Ghandi today would be a Celebrity, but like Ang-san-syu-ki (I can't remember the proper spelling) in Burma/Myanmar, an ineffective celebrity beloved of the glitterati in wealthier western nations.
(INsofar As I Know, she's still in prison and the Junta is still in power. It's been over 20 years...)

I agree with the highlighted part. Keep in mind that non-violent resistance takes shape in many forms beyond sitting on the ground with your legs crossed while praying and fasting.

Not everyone is a pacifist, but then there was a point in our history when not everyone thought the world was round. Education changed this.


The earth being round is a fact. Do you have psychological or sociological evidence that your belief is perfect? Even if you did psychological and sociological evidence is too often biased(science has difficulty defining if conclusions are correct or based on what we want to see).

War has some benefits for nations. War can boost economies, war eliminates a nation's enemies or rivals and provides more land for that nation to expand into, war can create technological progress, war makes history intesting :D , war can be used to create peace.

It does not matter how many people believe in war versus the amount that don't. A belief in war would undermine your peace and because it is not likely that you could convince the entire world that war is wrong it is also unlikely that you could create your peace.

I do not trust democracy. People resist democracy, democracy is never perfect or democracy. Ultimately the government where idiots whore themselves out for votes and money while besmirching their opponents in every way possible seems a bit flawed.(It is only good because we have not discovered a better system)

I've isolated this quote because it reveals why I think "Just War" is unneccessary in order to prevent genocide. Relativley few people actually commit attrocities, the reason why they are successful is because the remaining members of the civilisation are apathetic. If all these "Just War" supporters are really outraged about what is going on in Rwanda or Darfur, why aren't they posting threads encouraging others to actively protest and encourage their own governments to impose sanctions?

I'm not posting threads on it coz threads wont do anything. I am involved with various protest groups about various issues, and the only one which has achieved any success is the anti-hunting group. Still I continue to protest. One thing i'm connected with (though unfortunately couldn't go on) was the G8 protests. These aim to improve, amongst other things, the conditions in Africa. I'm not neccessarily encouraging sanctions or war (depending on what exactly the issue is) but help in various forms. Unfortunately, as the campaign for peoples votes continues on issues like education, healthcare, anti-immigration :mad: , crime, terrorism etc. it is obvious that there aren't enough votes in the environment or africa to make it enough of an issue to really act. Iraq is still something of an issue (I'm still voting LibDem, which opposed it, but I'd vote them even if there hadn't been a war, mind you, had they voted for it i'd probaby have been pushed to RESPECT, which is basically a socialist anti-war (or atleast the Iraq and Afganistan wars) party). What I'm saying here is that although i'm advocating just war, i also want the things you want to happen and am active in trying to achieve them, but the nation and the government aren't, so it wont happen.

As for sanctions, they;re effectivness is debatable and variable. US sanctions on Cuba haven't done much as they just trade with other countries. There was, iirc, corruption in the unfair sanctions implaced on Iraq, and the way Saddam dealt with it, it just starved civilians rather than weakening his grasp on power (if this is the right sanctions i'm thinking of).

If what you mean is the Rwandans/Sudanese not commiting the genocides were apahetic, rather than foreign JW supporters, then you may have a point. If we could have made them less apathetic then maybe they could have prevented the genocide. But if the authorities control the forces commiting the genocide and are commited to do it, then there's only so much citizens who don't want it to happen can do. If they really oppose it and there's enough of them it could lead to(and in some cases has led to) civil war.

If you look to US and UK, with the (true) abuse stories coming out of Iraq, and the violations of human rights and the geneva convention going on at guantanamo, and we, enlightened countries know about it. and still we vote in bush and blair again. if we truly opposed these things we'd vote someone else in. if there was a big enough split and people felt strongly enough there could be militancy and civil war here too, but there wasn't, and people don;t feel that strongly. I'll protest all I can, and I'll vote against it, but I can't stop our planes taking off. And now we're policing iraq as much as anything else, i don't know that i'd want to.

Its not that we don't know about the abuses, its that we don't care. some of us do, many of us voted against them, but not enough. that's not a matter of education, that's a matter of peoples morality and where they put their limits. we care more about healthcare, education etc in our own country than we do about invading otehrs. Media has something to do with our apathy, particularly in america, where i understand the news is very distorted with opinions, but its not nearly everything. Simple awareness of populations to atrocities isn;t enough, we need actions, and not just by the people to make the authorities listen, but from the authorities. This means the authorities have to not want genocide/guantanamo, and if they do want them then there's not a lot that diplomacy can do, other than wage war. Now i'm not suggesting we wage war on america coz of Guantanamo, or coz of its invasion of Iraq. Nor am I suggesting that we give up trying to get these leaders out of power. The Iraq and Afganistan wars were unjust coz there weren't genocides going on at teh time (and even if teh regimes were brutal, why pick those countries over North korea, almost any African country, Saudi Arabia or for that matter Israel?). But they were fought and I can see why teh Iraqi army fought, and i can see why the militias fight. But the situation is more complicated, as there are many factions vying for power and not all of them want peace, and until everyone does, or someone is stronger than all the others and subjects their will on them, then there wont be peace. I just hope that the strongest person will subject a good will on others, and not a brutal one once he's in control (and hopefully this person will be the government). But in the mean time terrorists and militias will attack Iraqis and the occupying forces, and police, army and occupyers will fight back.

I don't think we should have gone there, and I do think the bombers should stop and a democracy should end up as government. But as the bombers don't think they should stop and we are there now, I think Iraq has every right to a police force and an army to try to arrest and jail the illigal, violent trouble causers, and unfortunatly as it is a war they must be able to kill them if they're being attacked and can't arrest them any other way. There wont be peace there until the people who don't want it are arrested or shot, as sad as it is for me to say it.

man, i've rambled a lot, and that was just one quote. i have a head full of things i want to express and i'm not very eloquent at doing it. i guess the summary is that i, and otehrs, are doing what we can without war, but where JWT people think that it is neccessary, its despite our efforts to avoid it (essential in JWT anyway), its still wrong, but its less wrong than letting people be massacred in genocide. JWT people obviously oppose wars they see as unjust. If Iraq had had the capability to attack the Allies home countries using JWT guidelines it would have been legit, IMO. Still very wrong, as our war against them was, and another tragedy of war, but that would be them defending themselves and attacking military and political targets. Of course, Iraq didn;t have these capabilities. Maybe is it dod there wouldn;t have been war (cold war), or maybe it would have been far bloodier(WW1 and 2).


The British have better technology(machine guns, tanks, airplanes, and the like could be used to cause destruction). As well, the loss of most things would perhaps drive some but most people are demoralized once they lose everything(or after an exposure to extreme death and cruelty like shown by Vlad the Impaler's forest of the impaled). So long as the British had a good amount of soldiers starting off, they could win through a strategy of total war. What we would have seen in India would be hell on earth and eventually the resistance fighters would have surrendered to the British or to death due to the absolute cruelty.



So are you saying that non-violent, non-cooperation was a superior alternative to "Just War"?

Look at what he's saying. He's saying Britain would have won a war. Whether or not we would have is hypothetical and therefor debateable, but, if we could have won an armed war through cruelty, we could also have beaten non-violent, non-cooperation through cruelty. Neither an arguably jsut war for teh indians or non-violent, non-cooperation would have been good options, but both were available. non-violent, non-cooperation was taken, but always with the possibility of conventional war available. non-violent, non-cooperation in this case. it is the only case i know of where it has won. As has already been stated, several times, it only worked coz the Brits didn't massacre the dissenters. Had it happened at a different time in the empire they would have been massacred.had it happened in soviet russia, nazi germany, saddams iraq or any country which doesn't respect human rights, then it woldn't have worked. non-violent, non-cooperation only works if the occupyer, for whatever reason or as will always be the case, combination of reasons, allows it to.


Does this mean you think it was the injustice in the manner the post war diplomacy was carried out that led to WW2?

Partly, but its never that simple. there were many intertwined reasons for it, both long and short term. was it avoidable, maybe. did it happen, obviously yes. should the countries involved not have fought? Germany peacefully annexed Austria and took part of (IIRC) Czechoslovacia (sp?). It then continued to expand (again for a variety of reasons). eventually it encroached on other countries which were willing to fight, and had alliances of defense with others. rather than fight they could have chosen to flee or be governed by a foreign power. as the jewish situation wasn't known about till later these may have been options. However they suggest to the advancing power that it can do this indefinately. eventually it would hit people who didn't want to flee what was rightfully theirs or to be governened by someone else. I guess this is what happened, Austria didn't resist, Poland did. Should Britain and France got involved? As they were allies of Poland an attack on Poland should effectively be the same as an attack on them, and as Poland resisted, Britain and France probably should have too. Had Poland fled they should have accepted Poles. Had poland opperated a non-violent non-cooperation tactic they'd probably have been slaughtered, based on Nazi tactics. So really they either flee, fight or serve. and as it happens the serve also meant giving up all their jews to be slaughtered, although they didn;t know that at the time. If you were a Pole, what would you have done? Not fight, but flee or non-violent, non-cooperation? If the latter was found out you'd probably have been killed. what would you have the nation of Poland do if you were in charge?


There are people who own guns. I don't have a gun and don't feel the need to own a gun. Owning a gun will not prevent me from being shot.

Same, and i agree. don't see how its relavent though. not that i'm one to talk.


Which is why those of us who know better should encourage non-violent, non-cooperation.

i would. but not if it would get us killed, unless it could be done on the quiet, or i was willing to die for what i wasn't fighting for. Maybe, if the culture was one of non-violent, non-cooperation (I'm gonna call it NVNC, its too much typing as it is) it would have worked in Iraq as in theory at least we respect human rights. But i don't think even in UK or US there's such a culture of pacifism that we'd do NVNC instead of defend ourselves with war, and maybe terrorism/guerilla if we lost. But it does matter vry much who the enemy is as to whether NVNC would work, even if there was a culture of it, which i would happily encourage in situations where it would work.


What i'm saying is once there is an aggressor, if there isn't a war, and occipation occurs, then non-violent, non-cooperation can be counteracted by harsh actions by the oppressor.



So can violent resistence. ie. Vietnam

yes, but violent resistance is war. either side may win, even if the cost is horrendous, from the violence. if NVNC is countered with violence, teh NVNC cannot win, coz the people practicing it will be killed. You replied earlier, to syniks, i think, 'i'm still alive' to a similar point. So am i, but the point is were we a NVNC person in a state where this will get you killed, then you wouldn't be.


I guess you've never heard of NAFTA

Not quite the same thing. Canada and Mexico wern't invaded to become NAFTA. A better example would be the American Civil War, although it would be a better example if it weren't civil, but its not a bad eg given the nature of the states. But of course the south did resist, it had a different culture to the north and was willing to fight to keep it. It's pretty much balanced out now, though i think blacks get paid on avg 10% less than whites, but that's not entirely a North/South thing. The war was a shame, but if you get 2 groups of people with opposing views which conflict and can't be resolved or left alone and they believe (possibly correctly) that NVNC wont work, then war will happen.


If I was the President of a powerful country like the U.S. or UK I would send a fleet of helicopters and cargo planes and air lift them out of the country.

That;s good. i probably would too. What would you do if you were being persecuted, would you flee? I guess so. Its not fair that they should lose their homes etc, but at least it avoids war.

What would you do if these planes and helos were being shot at by the aggressor? Would you return fire? Or would you risk losing the vehicles, passengers and pilots to the aggressors?

Holy Awesomeness makes some good points. Everyone needs to agree that war is bad and to be avoided. everyone. there are too many conflicting views. Not enough people are pacifists for it to work.

The goal of equal distribution, as I see it, is to prevent those who are greedy/ambitious, from exploiting those who aren't. This can only be acheived through democracy, since you cannot impose equality or freedom on a person. Democracy is accomplished through education. As I have asserted, fighting is the lowest form of human behaviour. As a child I got into many fights. As I grew older I learned to control my temper, compromise and negotiate in order to get what I want. As a society we have more to gain from peaceful co-existence than through the kind of barbarism that was demonstrated by fuedal lords during the medeival era.


What is wrong with ambition? Ambition is what created almost everything. Without ambition we would be tribal dung-throwers that would sleep all day and starve half of the time.

What makes you think that democracy is the best government? Corruption in democracy and corruption in any other government would be about as easy to fight(corruption may be less in democracy but to eliminate it requires a shift in human nature). If there is no corruption then I would think that a non-democratic government would be better because these people would be selected on merit not on presentability.

Besides compromise and diplomacy does not always get everything you want or even need accomplished. Some people listen to neither, how will you solve that? Forced education? Murder? People seek their gain at the cost of others, this is shown with the prisoner's dilemma, with the lacking altruism of some people, and even with crime and corruption.

The earth being round is a fact. Do you have psychological or sociological evidence that your belief is perfect? Even if you did psychological and sociological evidence is too often biased(science has difficulty defining if conclusions are correct or based on what we want to see).

I'll take this to mean your question is rhetorical.

War has some benefits for nations. War can boost economies, war eliminates a nation's enemies or rivals and provides more land for that nation to expand into, war can create technological progress, war makes history intesting :D , war can be used to create peace.

War has some benefits for wealthy and powerful rulers who want to expand their control over the world. Wars always come back to haunt nations. ie. refugees, terrorists, outsourcing, war amputees, etc. Regarding aquisition of land, what land has the average U.S. citizen gained since the U.S./Mexican War? Regarding technological progress, wouldn't we be better off as a society if the time and resources spent on developing nuclear wareheads was spent on developing a cure for cancer?

It does not matter how many people believe in war versus the amount that don't. A belief in war would undermine your peace and because it is not likely that you could convince the entire world that war is wrong it is also unlikely that you could create your peace.

A belief in war undermines all peace, not just mine.

I do not trust democracy. People resist democracy, democracy is never perfect or democracy. Ultimately the government where idiots whore themselves out for votes and money while besmirching their opponents in every way possible seems a bit flawed.(It is only good because we have not discovered a better system)

If you don't trust democracy it's probably because you haven't been exposed to a legitimate form of democracy.

What is wrong with ambition? Ambition is what created almost everything. Without ambition we would be tribal dung-throwers that would sleep all day and starve half of the time.

The context of my response was dealing with economics. If you are ambitious economically you are greedy. Whether you consider this a virtue or a vice is up to you. I think it's important to be ambitious in an intellectual and spiritual sense. I think it's important to take pride in the work that you do and aspire to create a better environment for yourself and your neighbors. Not everyone is ambitious because not everyone sees themselves as having the ability to contribute to a productive society. This needs to be changed. I doubt that war will accomplish this change.

What makes you think that democracy is the best government? Corruption in democracy and corruption in any other government would be about as easy to fight(corruption may be less in democracy but to eliminate it requires a shift in human nature). If there is no corruption then I would think that a non-democratic government would be better because these people would be selected on merit not on presentability.

Democracy is the best form of government because it is inclusive. If people are involved in creating and developing the society in which they exist, they are less likely to rebel, commit crimes, or slack off.

It is the issue of presentability that is a symptom, not the cause, of the corruption in the government. The democracy that is practiced today by the U.S. and other "democratic" governments is not true democracy. It is a cult of personality, dictated by transnational corporations.

Besides compromise and diplomacy does not always get everything you want or even need accomplished. Some people listen to neither, how will you solve that? Forced education? Murder? People seek their gain at the cost of others, this is shown with the prisoner's dilemma, with the lacking altruism of some people, and even with crime and corruption.

As you can see this forum is filled with people who don't listen. All I can do is continue to assert my position and hope that eventually I break through, or influence someone else, who will in turn, express my opinions in a more convincing fashion.

We all agree nuclear war would be bad. its not a hard thing to agree on. there wouldn;t be a clear (if at all) winner. Of course we don't want a nuclear war. But to get everyone, with their varied bekiefs to decide not to have war, that would be difficult. As an example of how violent and xenophobic human nature (in general is), there are major genocides on avg every 10 years. to change humans into a spp of pacifists is a good goal, but we're a way off it yet. I agree that education is a key, but i assume even you accept that if it can happen, it will take time. it also needs people like you to become high profile and get your voice heard by more than the 5 of us talking here.

Maybe you can convince the world to become absolutely pacifist, though i doubt it, but while you try, and countries or peoples are attacked, and allies respond, you have to have a policy for dealing with genocide. While deportation from the country of origin sort of works, you need somewhere to house and look after and integrate into society these millions of poor (they left everything behind) people. While it has its advantages, there are problems. the elderly, the young, getting past police checkpoints, affording the transport, getting to teh planes, not being shot...
do you let teh fleet of aircrafts fire back if fired upon?

So then it is the task of those who want the human race to evolve intellectualy and spiritually to try and impress the merits of negotiation and diplomacy.

Sure, and i also agree that we need to redistribute wealth to get peace...but this will take time. It is difficult coz as HA says, the rich wanna keep their riches and the powerful wanna keep their power, and they're the people who decide what happens. I assume give your pacifism you don't want revolution, so you must want evolution of a more balanced world. this will take a long time and a lot of effort from people who want it to happen, and it may not happen, but we should still try.

But one man committing violence can be imprisoned

But one man can gather people to his cause. Or one man may be my messed up metaphor for an organisation, or group of people with a shared belief in something else, better or otherwise, and enough revolutionary/bloodthirsty/patriotic/religious (as they believe it to be)/whateverfervour to use violence to get it.

And while one man can be arrested, 1 armed man is more problematic, 10 even more so, 100 even more. How do you arrest 100 armed men? And there are more than 100 armed terrorists in Iraq, all fighting for causes, many of the causes bein different ones.

violence breeds violence. Non-violent, non-cooperation seeks to break that circle.

agreed, but sometimes it can't. its a flawed world. would you have the diamand workers be effectively slaves all their lives, tehir life forfeit at whim, or support violent revolution which might win, or NVNC which would be crushed by violence? or continued slavery? there isn't really a right answer, its a matter of which is least wrong, and different people will disagree.

The N American Natives were fighting a just war for their homelands aganist colonisers/colonialists/imperialists whatever you wanna call invading powers. if you want the example used i'll use it, its just an example where the just side lost. except of course its not that black and white, but nothing is.


This is why we must adopt an attitude that defies war as a solution to problems. So that peace is not a dream of the future, but a reality of the present.

Beautiful. Sheer poetry and oration. injust wars continue and where we're involved we work to prevent them/repeats, and where we're not involved we should still try to prevent them, with diplomacy. But i still feel where there is a one sided war (not in the sense that one side is militarily superior, eg allies vs iraq) but in the sense that one side isn't fighting, eg ethnic cleansing, then the only way to prevent this is to put troops on the ground, which effectively means war. to airlift the entire population out could also be attempted, but would need some fighting, of that i am sure.

Non-violent, non-cooperation means that the oppressed population does not follow the edicts of a violent non-democracy and, therefore, cannot be ruled.

ok, not ruled. but they can be killed. if the invador isn't reasonably benevolent they could kill you, or your family, or random lots of people, to force you and others to work. if people continue not to work, more friends die. i'm reasonably sure this has been done and is probably a means of control of the population of some countries even today. Under this system, either there's a violent rebellion or the people become ruled.


As I’ve said before, believing that the British or any other Western Empire (including the U.S.) is more benevolent than any other is a cultural bias. Massacres occurred throughout Latin America that were encouraged by the CIA and the Boston based transnational United Fruit Company. There was also the Massacre at Amritsar in India and the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.

You're right, there have been awful things done in the name of both British and American Empires. I was refering to internal civil rights though, which tend to be respected by these countries, although the Patriot Act and some Anti-Terror legislation may threaten it somewhat. NVNC works for internal civil rights fairly well, suffragetes and Martin Luther King spring to mind. At the time of the Indian Revolution, i'm not saying the brinish empire was benevolent, but it was in a state in which it acted relatively benevolently (it beat Ghandi's followers to the ground as they advanced on masse, but didn;t machine gun them down). Eventually, due to a combination of things, as is always the case in politics and history, the NVNC paid off.

To say it sets a precident is true, but a bit misleading. It shows it can be done, but it does need some special conditions. And its still no use as a method against ethnoc cleansing.

From what I understand it is a quote from the Qu’ran. But this is not an attitude isolated to Muslims, which is why I added the example of North American attitudes. Not to profess a moral superiority, but a Christian attitude is “Turn the other cheek.” Yet this is something that many Christians fail to observe. Having said this the idea of being able to create a doctrine that limits vengeance is ridiculous and is one of the reasons why I find "Just War" theory impractical.

Ex. 21:23, 24. I was right, its one of ours, but as we share much of our faith with jews and muslims, its a part of their religion too. How you interpret it is up to you. There will be some christians who interprate it as you feel most muslims do, and likewise for jews. I've yet to meet someone who lives by those rules, of any of those three religions, and the people who come closest to it happen to be atheist, but i wouldn't say its particularly common amongst them either.

Why is limiting vengeance rediculous. as i understand it, its saying a punishment to fit the crime. its saying rather than kill the bloke who gave you a black eye don't give him any more than a black eye, or equivalent. but i'm not gonna argue over its meaning, coz i don't really know. Just don't discount it as a muslim thing, its christian too. I don't think it really applies to JWT, so i don't see why it makes it seem rediculous to you. Maybe if you take my interpretation of it, then you don't want to kill any more than is needed to stop the killing, but i'm not convinced. i'm not sure it applies really.

As for turn the other cheek, don't seek vengeance at all. sure, i'm the only person i know who's been beeten up in fights coz of my reluctance to hit back, but i've had a fortunatly sheltered life where violence hasn't been a major thing. accept insult and even some pain, try to stop it happening by talking or martial arts, but don't hit back. ok. but what if you're attacked with a gun. you can't turn your cheek on it coz it kills you, so i'd advise fleeing rather than turning a cheek in that situation. i can quite see how others might wanna fight back when it gets that serious though. and what about their friend looking out for them? change these people into countries, on the brink of war. the hitter shouldn't be hitting, but the victim isn't doing anything violent about it. But if the hit becomes weaponry rather than economic or whatever, and the country can't flee, should its people be shot at indiscriminately, or can they fight?
What about the friend (read ally)?
Its not easy coz killing is wrong, but not killing but allowing yourself and others to be killed is also wrong.

The fact that there is one example provides a precedent. This provides me with the belief that non-violent non-cooperation can work. With regards to the rapist going free, the immediate solution is to lock up the criminal, the long term solution is rehabilitation. I propose we endeavor to do both. Lock up violently aggressive nations by not incorporating them into world trade. A strategy employed by the U.S. and U.K. during the cold war, when diplomacy was preferable to nuclear war. Then rehabilitate them by providing examples of “Just Democracy”.

This isn't locking up, so much as restricting access to some things. This leaves teh rapist/country free to continue doing its crimes, al be it at a lower rate or with the people suffering more, depending what the country is missing and how it distributes what it has. Often this will lead to starvation, if not coz of lack of food, coz the leaders wont distribute it. Its allowing the rape/genocide to continue, and possibly starving the population too.

I’ve answered this question.

Is your answer, that tehy couldn't achieve anything fighting so they should flee? What if they could achieve something, even if it were just time for the others to escape, without which they might not? would it be wrong for them to fight? Please answer again coz i can't find an answer.

The only thing that remains to be answered is; can the majority of the world’s population overcome notions of racism, elitism, xenophobia and other prejudices to understand that we are all children of the same earth, we breath the same air and have equal capacity for good and evil?

Who knows. i hope so, but with all the bigotry, hatred, fear, small mindedness, me-centric views i dunno. I sincerly hope so.

The goal of equal distribution, as I see it, is to prevent those who are greedy/ambitious, from exploiting those who aren't. This can only be acheived through democracy, since you cannot impose equality or freedom on a person. Democracy is accomplished through education. As I have asserted, fighting is the lowest form of human behaviour. As a child I got into many fights. As I grew older I learned to control my temper, compromise and negotiate in order to get what I want. As a society we have more to gain from peaceful co-existence than through the kind of barbarism that was demonstrated by fuedal lords during the medeival era.

Yes, exploitation must be avoided, and equal distribution is a good thing. Democracy isn’t perfect, but I think Churchill (a man I’m not fond of but a font of quotes) once said something like ‘democracy isn’t a good form of government, but its better than any of the other sorts we’ve tried in between’. I don’t think democracy will come from education (evolution) in many cases, I think it needs revolution, as the current leadership will oppose evolved democracy. But even with equal distribution of wealth, people are different, and will have varying desires and levels of these desires. There will probably always be conflict between people due to this. As Cadillac says, equal distribution probably wouldn’t stay equal. You’d have to have world socialism, by which I mean 1 nation only, where the government keeps many controls on wealth distributions. While I see this as ideal, it’s also unrealistic for at least a long, long time.

Most of the time our governments see war as a business venture and lives of soldiers as expendible commodities. In order for non-violent, non-cooperation to work, it must first be applied. This can only occur when corruption in the government is eliminated.

Spoken like a true punk :D . i have to say, i think there are a few cynical motives behind the recent wars, to look like they're doing something against terrorism, oil, daddy, to keep the nation aware of the ongoing war on terror and its war leader, misplaced revenge, either poor inteligence or criminally poor interpretation of intelligence...Also, a lot of american industry is geared towards the war machine, though i dunno if it actually needs war to be sustained. I do think if our leaders held the lives of their soldiers that dearly they'd not have entered this war. still, it's possible they have info we don't and in 50 yrs it'll be released and Blair will go down in history as he wants to, but i doubt it.

Do you mean NVNC in US or in non-democracies? NVNC can occur in US, and does so, in the forms of direct action, assuming your rules aren't much different to ours (are you american?). If you mean in non-democracies, they can only work if enough people simultaneously do NVNC and the authorities are overwhelmed/their cvil servants etc also NVNC. Otherwise, it could just be brutally supressed and everyone gets back to work.

quite how corruption will be eliminated, i dunno. reduced perhaps. i think there's a lot more of it in american politics where politicians and buisnesses are hand in hand. i'm also getting OT.

What is wrong with ambition?

its fine, as long as it doesn;t interfere with other morals.

A belief in war undermines all peace, not just mine.

If you don't trust democracy it's probably because you haven't been exposed to a legitimate form of democracy.

You are the advocate of peace so therefore the peace is yours.

What is true democracy? Where everyone votes on an issue and the majority rules? I have been in a situation where if the majority voted and ruled they would be wrong while I would be right.

how can any war be just?
its all another war of "just"ifying kicking the crap out of someone who has something you want.
case in point gulf 1 & 2 "OIL"
if kuwait didnt have oil the war never would have happened
and if iraq didnt have oil bush never would have had jr go back in
take a look at all the other fights in the world if there is nothing worth taking no one goes in to help i mean whats a few less people in the world if they dont have any decient resources to steal i mean protect. :sniper:

As you can see this forum is filled with people who don't listen. All I can do is continue to assert my position and hope that eventually I break through, or influence someone else, who will in turn, express my opinions in a more convincing fashion.

The brevety you mentioned earlier to me, although i could use some, doesn't always help your arguments, IMO. some of your responses are to short tom be meaningful.

We're probably going round in circles now, everyone's expressed their opinions, several times. we're even going OT. We're agreed war is bad. We're agreed war should be avoided. I'm assume we agree that war happens (permantly in Africa, other places aside). We're agreed that there will come an end to wars, pacifism, democracy and redistribution of wealth.

we seem to disagree on the in between our utopia and now. you think that all war can and must be avoided, that whole populations can be relocated, and if they weren't they could survive NVNC. I'd differ here and say that the re-location, which i would do, but many wouldn't, would involve fighting. I'd also say that any who didn't flee would be justified to fight, though depending on their enemy they should practice NVNC instead. Also NVNC wouldn't work against a regime not willing to let it work.

One final set of questions, maybe. sounds like you think the Cold War was a success, a diplomatic war. Do you rhink of it as a success? I sort of do, but it wasn't all cold and did set up Taliban etc. But nuclear deterents do seem to be working. Problem is, the moment they stop working we're all fucked.

Do you think nuclear deterents work? if so would you be opposed to more countries going nuclear? If Iraq had had WMD then the war probably wouldn't have happened, as it isn't doing in N Korea.

Regarding technological progress, wouldn't we be better off as a society if the time and resources spent on developing nuclear wareheads was spent on developing a cure for cancer?


War provides an incentive for progress. There is big money to be made off of war as well as prestige. With this high incentive more people research and produce knowledge in order to get success of a nation. As well, new things will have to be engineered for a good ol' war, and this requires research and developement to make these new things work like war machines are supposed to.

that may be a benefit of war, but it doesn't justify it. medical science, particularly surgery techniques, improved greatly on the battlefields as medics took risks they wouldn't normally take as they had to. It's a good thing to come out of war, but it doesn't justify it.

We're probably going round in circles now, everyone's expressed their opinions, several times. we're even going OT. We're agreed war is bad. We're agreed war should be avoided. I'm assume we agree that war happens (permantly in Africa, other places aside). We're agreed that there will come an end to wars, pacifism, democracy and redistribution of wealth.

Well, there might never be pacifism, democracy or redistribution of wealth but war WILL end.(probably because of the earth's population being destroyed in a war, maybe because a dictator takes over and brainwashes the population, possibly because of the abolution of drug laws making everyone too high to fight a war) Other than that, I think I agree with most of what you say.

how can any war be just?
its all another war of "just"ifying kicking the crap out of someone who has something you want.
case in point gulf 1 & 2 "OIL"
if kuwait didnt have oil the war never would have happened
and if iraq didnt have oil bush never would have had jr go back in
take a look at all the other fights in the world if there is nothing worth taking no one goes in to help i mean whats a few less people in the world if they dont have any decient resources to steal i mean protect. :sniper:

certainly the 2nd one wasn't jsut, the 1st i know little about. you have a point that we tend to back away from the jsut ones with nothing in it for us but dead soldiers, like Rwanda and Darfur, but we did go into Kosovo, and that wasn't for oil.

that may be a benefit of war, but it doesn't justify it. medical science, particularly surgery techniques, improved greatly on the battlefields as medics took risks they wouldn't normally take as they had to. It's a good thing to come out of war, but it doesn't justify it.

I am sorry, it is just I was trying to refute the idea of extreme pacifism expressed by Oye Oye and I ended up taking and defending the opposite side.

Well, there might never be pacifism, democracy or redistribution of wealth but war WILL end.(probably because of the earth's population being destroyed in a war, maybe because a dictator takes over and brainwashes the population, possibly because of the abolution of drug laws making everyone too high to fight a war) Other than that, I think I agree with most of what you say.

yay, agreement. i get to celebrate with a paintball gun now :D :gundge: .

yeah, we might well never get pacifism, democracy or redistribution of wealth , but i can hope. i'm not convinced we'll see the end of war, but its another thing to put on my xmas wishlist.

right, its 7.40 am and i've been up all nite on this silly forum, thinking about war. i'm very tempted to go to bed now. nitenite all :) .

A person holding my views does not support Just War theory. But you havent't answered the question which is; how do you ensure that those who do support Just war theory stick to your definition? Especially once the bullets start flying.Oh, well, once the bullets start flying, assuming they've violated Just War Theory, it becomes necessary to go to war. The outcome of that (if "I" win) is that some of the people in the defeated country hold my view, and the rest are too weak to do anything that violates JWT.


Wouldn't a better solution to fighting a just war to stop genocide be to encourage countries to accept refugees and discourage genocide through diplomatic measures such as trade embargos and informing the public as to what is going on? Or do you believe that all Germans knew what was going on in the concentration camps?Encouraging nations to accept refugees and using diplomacy should be part of the idea. But there's no way to say that it will be enough.

But one man can be imprisoned.How do you non-violently imprison a man? Or do your non-violent views on wars not apply to police forces?

I am a war loving individual, I have already planned the war to take over the world, and the revolution to take it back..

To be honest, I don't know much about Rwanda or Darfur, but in the case of Angola, the militias commiting attrocities are dependent on money from the diamond trade to purchase supplies and pay mercenaries. Remember, that murderers are human beings who rely on food and other supplies. If other countries refuse to provide them with food and the people within their country refuse to provide them with food, then maybe they'll have to turn to farming instead of killing as a way of life.
This is precicely why I have, for all intents and purposes, dropped this debate. You have no intention to even look at information that might somehow contridict your viewpoint. I posted a link to an article that specifically addressed the Dafur issue and the ineffectiveness of sanctions, but you blew it off calling it immaterial.

You continually ignore the fact that JWT is an anti-war theory that largely proposes that almost all wars are unjust in their initiation (aggression is unjust).

As for your question whether or not "if non-violent means achieve the same goal as war, is it preferable"? the answer is a firm maybe. The real question is in how many people will die as a result of A or B. If non-violence leads to 1 million innocent deaths by Genocide, whereas the genocide can be stopped with the deaths of only 100,000 - mostly military (in a properly run war) - which is preferable?

The brevety you (OyeOye) mentioned earlier to me, although i could use some, doesn't always help your arguments, IMO. some of your responses are to short tom be meaningful.I absolutely agree. Oye Oye's "arguments" are much like that in the Monty Python "Argument Clinic" sketch. (http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/sketch.htm) :rolleyes:
We're probably going round in circles now, everyone's expressed their opinions, several times. we're even going OT. We're agreed war is bad. We're agreed war should be avoided. I'm assume we agree that war happens (permantly in Africa, other places aside). Which is exactly why I rarely post on this thread any more. I rapidly tire of "automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes" and the blatant disregard of supporting data. :headbang:

[QUOTE]I'm not posting threads on it coz threads wont do anything. I am involved with various protest groups about various issues, and the only one which has achieved any success is the anti-hunting group. Still I continue to protest. One thing i'm connected with (though unfortunately couldn't go on) was the G8 protests. These aim to improve, amongst other things, the conditions in Africa. I'm not neccessarily encouraging sanctions or war (depending on what exactly the issue is) but help in various forms. Unfortunately, as the campaign for peoples votes continues on issues like education, healthcare, anti-immigration , crime, terrorism etc. it is obvious that there aren't enough votes in the environment or africa to make it enough of an issue to really act. Iraq is still something of an issue (I'm still voting LibDem, which opposed it, but I'd vote them even if there hadn't been a war, mind you, had they voted for it i'd probaby have been pushed to RESPECT, which is basically a socialist anti-war (or atleast the Iraq and Afganistan wars) party). What I'm saying here is that although i'm advocating just war, i also want the things you want to happen and am active in trying to achieve them, but the nation and the government aren't, so it wont happen.

This seems to be a defeatist attitude. If you truly believe in something you will always struggle towards that cause, knowing it is the means that justifies the end.

As for sanctions, they;re effectivness is debatable and variable. US sanctions on Cuba haven't done much as they just trade with other countries. There was, iirc, corruption in the unfair sanctions implaced on Iraq, and the way Saddam dealt with it, it just starved civilians rather than weakening his grasp on power (if this is the right sanctions i'm thinking of).

With regards to Cuba, other governments traded with Cuba because they felt that the U.S. was wrong to impose trade sanctions.

If what you mean is the Rwandans/Sudanese not commiting the genocides were apahetic, rather than foreign JW supporters, then you may have a point. If we could have made them less apathetic then maybe they could have prevented the genocide. But if the authorities control the forces commiting the genocide and are commited to do it, then there's only so much citizens who don't want it to happen can do. If they really oppose it and there's enough of them it could lead to(and in some cases has led to) civil war.

This is why democracy must be asserted through non-violent, non-cooperation.

If you look to US and UK, with the (true) abuse stories coming out of Iraq, and the violations of human rights and the geneva convention going on at guantanamo, and we, enlightened countries know about it. and still we vote in bush and blair again. if we truly opposed these things we'd vote someone else in. if there was a big enough split and people felt strongly enough there could be militancy and civil war here too, but there wasn't, and people don;t feel that strongly. I'll protest all I can, and I'll vote against it, but I can't stop our planes taking off. And now we're policing iraq as much as anything else, i don't know that i'd want to.

Victories don’t come easily. But if you give up, then you only have yourself to blame.

Its not that we don't know about the abuses, its that we don't care. some of us do, many of us voted against them, but not enough. that's not a matter of education,

Sorry to interrupt you in mid sentence but the fact that the average U.S. voter believes that being given a choice between Kerry and Bush means they live in a democracy shows a lack of education in public affairs. For the average person to have a greater say in U.S. foreign policy, there must be changes to the electoral procedure.

that's a matter of peoples morality and where they put their limits. we care more about healthcare, education etc in our own country than we do about invading otehrs. Media has something to do with our apathy, particularly in america, where i understand the news is very distorted with opinions, but its not nearly everything. Simple awareness of populations to atrocities isn;t enough, we need actions, and not just by the people to make the authorities listen, but from the authorities. This means the authorities have to not want genocide/guantanamo, and if they do want them then there's not a lot that diplomacy can do, other than wage war. Now i'm not suggesting we wage war on america coz of Guantanamo, or coz of its invasion of Iraq. Nor am I suggesting that we give up trying to get these leaders out of power. The Iraq and Afganistan wars were unjust coz there weren't genocides going on at teh time (and even if teh regimes were brutal, why pick those countries over North korea, almost any African country, Saudi Arabia or for that matter Israel?). But they were fought and I can see why teh Iraqi army fought, and i can see why the militias fight. But the situation is more complicated, as there are many factions vying for power and not all of them want peace, and until everyone does, or someone is stronger than all the others and subjects their will on them, then there wont be peace. I just hope that the strongest person will subject a good will on others, and not a brutal one once he's in control (and hopefully this person will be the government). But in the mean time terrorists and militias will attack Iraqis and the occupying forces, and police, army and occupyers will fight back.

If a leader rises to power through violent means, what makes you think that leader won’t continue to use violence to maintain power?

I don't think we should have gone there, and I do think the bombers should stop and a democracy should end up as government. But as the bombers don't think they should stop and we are there now, I think Iraq has every right to a police force and an army to try to arrest and jail the illigal, violent trouble causers, and unfortunatly as it is a war they must be able to kill them if they're being attacked and can't arrest them any other way. There wont be peace there until the people who don't want it are arrested or shot, as sad as it is for me to say it.

Are you saying that every U.S. citizen who supports the U.S. invasion of Iraq should be shot?

Neither an arguably jsut war for teh indians or non-violent, non-cooperation would have been good options, but both were available. non-violent, non-cooperation was taken, but always with the possibility of conventional war available. non-violent, non-cooperation in this case. it is the only case i know of where it has won. As has already been stated, several times, it only worked coz the Brits didn't massacre the dissenters.

This is a false statement. The Brits used violence and many Indians were killed, beaten, imprisoned and tortured.

Had it happened at a different time in the empire they would have been massacred.

Again this is false. The UK was able to conquer and maintain their colonies by dividing the indigenous population. They divided the Indians through religion and took advantage of the cast system. Gandhi’s success was in uniting the people of a nation against a common enemy. Ridding India of the British was an easy battle. The real obstacle was eliminating the notion of untouchability and the repression of women, which unfortunately still exists. Replacing war with non-violent, non-cooperation is not an easy task. It is not an overnight solution. To do this people must accept that we are all equals, that we have shared rights and responsibilities and that we must learn to disagree without resorting to violence to settle our differences.

had it happened in soviet russia, nazi germany, saddams iraq or any country which doesn't respect human rights, then it woldn't have worked. non-violent, non-cooperation only works if the occupyer, for whatever reason or as will always be the case, combination of reasons, allows it to.

It is a cultural bias to assert that the British respect human rights more than anyone else. A review of British Colonial history will demonstrate this.

Partly, but its never that simple. there were many intertwined reasons for it, both long and short term. was it avoidable, maybe. did it happen, obviously yes. should the countries involved not have fought? Germany peacefully annexed Austria and took part of (IIRC) Czechoslovacia (sp?). It then continued to expand (again for a variety of reasons). eventually it encroached on other countries which were willing to fight, and had alliances of defense with others. rather than fight they could have chosen to flee or be governed by a foreign power. as the jewish situation wasn't known about till later these may have been options. However they suggest to the advancing power that it can do this indefinately. eventually it would hit people who didn't want to flee what was rightfully theirs or to be governened by someone else. I guess this is what happened, Austria didn't resist, Poland did. Should Britain and France got involved? As they were allies of Poland an attack on Poland should effectively be the same as an attack on them, and as Poland resisted, Britain and France probably should have too. Had Poland fled they should have accepted Poles. Had poland opperated a non-violent non-cooperation tactic they'd probably have been slaughtered, based on Nazi tactics. So really they either flee, fight or serve. and as it happens the serve also meant giving up all their jews to be slaughtered, although they didn;t know that at the time. If you were a Pole, what would you have done? Not fight, but flee or non-violent, non-cooperation? If the latter was found out you'd probably have been killed. what would you have the nation of Poland do if you were in charge?

I would have to review the history of Poland to answer that question. Non-violent, non-cooperation is not a safety net nor a shield. You can’t spit at someone then say “I’m a pacifist!” There may have been things Poland could have done prior to WW2 or even WW1 to ensure that they were not invaded by Germany.

Same, and i agree. don't see how its relavent though. not that i'm one to talk.

Some people are making the assertion that a pacifist is doomed to die. Yet owning a gun, carrying a gun, or being part of an army does not spare you from that same fate.

i would. but not if it would get us killed, unless it could be done on the quiet, or i was willing to die for what i wasn't fighting for. Maybe, if the culture was one of non-violent, non-cooperation (I'm gonna call it NVNC, its too much typing as it is) it would have worked in Iraq as in theory at least we respect human rights. But i don't think even in UK or US there's such a culture of pacifism that we'd do NVNC instead of defend ourselves with war, and maybe terrorism/guerilla if we lost. But it does matter vry much who the enemy is as to whether NVNC would work, even if there was a culture of it, which i would happily encourage in situations where it would work.

Seeing that you use the term “enemy” shows me that you do not understand the concept of NVNC. I occasionally play chess and one of the worst mistakes I make is to play the person and not the board. What I mean by this is that a person can adapt, change and learn. I might play one friend today and a few months from now, after reading books, playing against other people, I will play the same friend and realize that his tactics have changed. With NVNC you must deal with the situation and not make the mistake of making the conflict personal. You must not assume that since this nation has been “democratic” in the past, they will not be ruthless and cruel upon your next encounter.

yes, but violent resistance is war. either side may win, even if the cost is horrendous, from the violence. if NVNC is countered with violence, teh NVNC cannot win, coz the people practicing it will be killed. You replied earlier, to syniks, i think, 'i'm still alive' to a similar point. So am i, but the point is were we a NVNC person in a state where this will get you killed, then you wouldn't be.

India used NVNC, the British used violence. India prevailed.

Not quite the same thing. Canada and Mexico wern't invaded to become NAFTA.

You do realize California, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Kansas and New Mexico were originally Mexican territories? As for Canada, NAFTA has proven itself to be an economical invasion as U.S. franchises are taking over family owned businesses.

A better example would be the American Civil War, although it would be a better example if it weren't civil, but its not a bad eg given the nature of the states. But of course the south did resist, it had a different culture to the north and was willing to fight to keep it. It's pretty much balanced out now, though i think blacks get paid on avg 10% less than whites, but that's not entirely a North/South thing. The war was a shame, but if you get 2 groups of people with opposing views which conflict and can't be resolved or left alone and they believe (possibly correctly) that NVNC wont work, then war will happen.

Does this mean you think disputes should be resolved with violence instead of reason?

That;s good. i probably would too. What would you do if you were being persecuted, would you flee? I guess so. Its not fair that they should lose their homes etc, but at least it avoids war.

What would you do if these planes and helos were being shot at by the aggressor? Would you return fire? Or would you risk losing the vehicles, passengers and pilots to the aggressors?

Again I would need to know specifics to answer that question.

Holy Awesomeness makes some good points. Everyone needs to agree that war is bad and to be avoided. everyone. there are too many conflicting views. Not enough people are pacifists for it to work.

The role of a pacifist is to lead by example. If someone truly believes that war is a bad thing, then they will look for ways to avoid it, instead of looking for ways to justify it.

[QUOTE]You are the advocate of peace so therefore the peace is yours.

I'm not the only advocate of peace... I hope

What is true democracy? Where everyone votes on an issue and the majority rules? I have been in a situation where if the majority voted and ruled they would be wrong while I would be right.

If the majority of the population votes one way and you are in opposition then you should protest, leave the civilization or do what ever it is you want to do and risk the consequences. ie. smoke pot and risk going to jail. For me, what true democracy/ direct democracy entails, is that each member of the civilization has an equal say in what is going on. Obviously there will be certain people who are more informed on a subject than others. If so, it is their job to impress upon every one else, why they believe their view is correct.

The brevety you mentioned earlier to me, although i could use some, doesn't always help your arguments, IMO. some of your responses are to short tom be meaningful.

Yet they have spawned pages of responses. :D

we seem to disagree on the in between our utopia and now. you think that all war can and must be avoided, that whole populations can be relocated, and if they weren't they could survive NVNC. I'd differ here and say that the re-location, which i would do, but many wouldn't, would involve fighting. I'd also say that any who didn't flee would be justified to fight, though depending on their enemy they should practice NVNC instead. Also NVNC wouldn't work against a regime not willing to let it work.

The highlighted part of the text leads me to believe that you think the British were willing to let NVNC work. As I have explained already this is a false assumption.

One final set of questions, maybe. sounds like you think the Cold War was a success, a diplomatic war. Do you rhink of it as a success? I sort of do, but it wasn't all cold and did set up Taliban etc. But nuclear deterents do seem to be working. Problem is, the moment they stop working we're all fucked.

The Cold War was a miserable failure of the superpowers in bringing about a peacefull conclusion to WW2 and a perfect example of how war breeds more wars.

Do you think nuclear deterents work? if so would you be opposed to more countries going nuclear? If Iraq had had WMD then the war probably wouldn't have happened, as it isn't doing in N Korea.

Nuclear deterents have worked so far, but I am in favour of finding safer energy sources and complete disarmament of all nations, including the U.S.

I'm not the only advocate of peace... I hope
You're not.
The majority of the planet is on your side, as is anyone who has actually seen war.
And me.

[QUOTE]We all agree nuclear war would be bad. its not a hard thing to agree on. there wouldn;t be a clear (if at all) winner. Of course we don't want a nuclear war. But to get everyone, with their varied bekiefs to decide not to have war, that would be difficult. As an example of how violent and xenophobic human nature (in general is), there are major genocides on avg every 10 years. to change humans into a spp of pacifists is a good goal, but we're a way off it yet. I agree that education is a key, but i assume even you accept that if it can happen, it will take time. it also needs people like you to become high profile and get your voice heard by more than the 5 of us talking here.

Let’s add Leonstein to the group and we’ve got six. Let’s say that all six of us agree that war is unproductive and should be abolished, suddenly that’s six voices arguing for NVNC instead of just one.

Maybe you can convince the world to become absolutely pacifist, though i doubt it, but while you try, and countries or peoples are attacked, and allies respond, you have to have a policy for dealing with genocide. While deportation from the country of origin sort of works, you need somewhere to house and look after and integrate into society these millions of poor (they left everything behind) people. While it has its advantages, there are problems. the elderly, the young, getting past police checkpoints, affording the transport, getting to teh planes, not being shot...
do you let teh fleet of aircrafts fire back if fired upon?

As I mentioned before I would need to know the specifics of the situation before defining my policy. Of course I would not fire back and this would probably lead to casualties, but how many “Just Wars” are without casualties and refugees?

Sure, and i also agree that we need to redistribute wealth to get peace...but this will take time. It is difficult coz as HA says, the rich wanna keep their riches and the powerful wanna keep their power, and they're the people who decide what happens. I assume give your pacifism you don't want revolution, so you must want evolution of a more balanced world. this will take a long time and a lot of effort from people who want it to happen, and it may not happen, but we should still try.

Yes we should. We should also try to impress upon the poor that the wars that they engage in are for the sole benefit of the rich and powerful. Once the majority of the people in this world come to this realization the privileged minority will no longer be able to divide us with propaganda and the world will become more democratic.

But one man can gather people to his cause. Or one man may be my messed up metaphor for an organisation, or group of people with a shared belief in something else, better or otherwise, and enough revolutionary/bloodthirsty/patriotic/religious (as they believe it to be)/whateverfervour to use violence to get it.
And while one man can be arrested, 1 armed man is more problematic, 10 even more so, 100 even more. How do you arrest 100 armed men? And there are more than 100 armed terrorists in Iraq, all fighting for causes, many of the causes bein different ones.

Small groups oppress larger groups through fear and repression. Fear and repression works best when we think we are alone in our suffering, so we comply because we think the only people who can protect us are the very ones who are oppressing us. The first defense against this is to voice our opposition to these tactics to let others know that they are not alone.

agreed, but sometimes it can't. its a flawed world. would you have the diamand workers be effectively slaves all their lives, tehir life forfeit at whim, or support violent revolution which might win, or NVNC which would be crushed by violence? or continued slavery? there isn't really a right answer, its a matter of which is least wrong, and different people will disagree.
It’s a flawed world because we allow it to be. We are no longer at the level of other animals, in that we have the technology to shape the world. With regards to NVNC, people will disagree until it is effectively practiced, something that some Western societies are in a position to implement but fail to either because they are guided by fear or greed.
The N American Natives were fighting a just war for their homelands aganist colonisers/colonialists/imperialists whatever you wanna call invading powers. if you want the example used i'll use it, its just an example where the just side lost. except of course its not that black and white, but nothing is.

It is an example that demonstrates a major flaw in promoting “Just War” theory. Being “just” does not guarantee victory.

Beautiful. Sheer poetry and oration. injust wars continue and where we're involved we work to prevent them/repeats, and where we're not involved we should still try to prevent them, with diplomacy. But i still feel where there is a one sided war (not in the sense that one side is militarily superior, eg allies vs iraq) but in the sense that one side isn't fighting, eg ethnic cleansing, then the only way to prevent this is to put troops on the ground, which effectively means war. to airlift the entire population out could also be attempted, but would need some fighting, of that i am sure.
How can you be sure? Do you have an example where something like this was tried?
ok, not ruled. but they can be killed. if the invador isn't reasonably benevolent they could kill you, or your family, or random lots of people, to force you and others to work. if people continue not to work, more friends die. i'm reasonably sure this has been done and is probably a means of control of the population of some countries even today. Under this system, either there's a violent rebellion or the people become ruled.

Could you give me an example of a benevolent invader?

You're right, there have been awful things done in the name of both British and American Empires. I was refering to internal civil rights though, which tend to be respected by these countries,

I guess you’re not aware that African Americans were persecuted and lynched in the U.S. and that many Native Americans living in reservations are well below the poverty line.

although the Patriot Act and some Anti-Terror legislation may threaten it somewhat. NVNC works for internal civil rights fairly well, suffragetes and Martin Luther King spring to mind. At the time of the Indian Revolution, i'm not saying the brinish empire was benevolent, but it was in a state in which it acted relatively benevolently (it beat Ghandi's followers to the ground as they advanced on masse, but didn;t machine gun them down).

They would have if machine guns where more portable.

Eventually, due to a combination of things, as is always the case in politics and history, the NVNC paid off.

It was because he understood a combination of things Gandhi was successful.

To say it sets a precident is true, but a bit misleading. It shows it can be done, but it does need some special conditions. And its still no use as a method against ethnoc cleansing.

Provide evidence.

Ex. 21:23, 24. I was right, its one of ours, but as we share much of our faith with jews and muslims, its a part of their religion too. How you interpret it is up to you. There will be some christians who interprate it as you feel most muslims do, and likewise for jews. I've yet to meet someone who lives by those rules, of any of those three religions, and the people who come closest to it happen to be atheist, but i wouldn't say its particularly common amongst them either.

If Ex stands for Exodus than you are dealing with Hebrew history before the schism. If Jesus had been a devout Jew and believed in the decrees of Moses or Abraham, then every Christian would be a Jew.

Why is limiting vengeance rediculous. as i understand it, its saying a punishment to fit the crime. its saying rather than kill the bloke who gave you a black eye don't give him any more than a black eye, or equivalent. but i'm not gonna argue over its meaning, coz i don't really know. Just don't discount it as a muslim thing, its christian too. I don't think it really applies to JWT, so i don't see why it makes it seem rediculous to you. Maybe if you take my interpretation of it, then you don't want to kill any more than is needed to stop the killing, but i'm not convinced. i'm not sure it applies really.

The notion that you can limit vengeance is ridiculous. Because vengeance is an act of passion, it is not rational and therefore, cannot be governed.

As for turn the other cheek, don't seek vengeance at all. sure, i'm the only person i know who's been beeten up in fights coz of my reluctance to hit back, but i've had a fortunatly sheltered life where violence hasn't been a major thing. accept insult and even some pain, try to stop it happening by talking or martial arts, but don't hit back. ok. but what if you're attacked with a gun. you can't turn your cheek on it coz it kills you, so i'd advise fleeing rather than turning a cheek in that situation. i can quite see how others might wanna fight back when it gets that serious though. and what about their friend looking out for them? change these people into countries, on the brink of war. the hitter shouldn't be hitting, but the victim isn't doing anything violent about it. But if the hit becomes weaponry rather than economic or whatever, and the country can't flee, should its people be shot at indiscriminately, or can they fight? What about the friend (read ally)?
Its not easy coz killing is wrong, but not killing but allowing yourself and others to be killed is also wrong.

Philosophy will not save your life when a gun is pointed at you. NVNC is simply a doctrine that intends to create a world where guns will not be necessary, and violence is not accepted as a solution to solving problems.

This isn't locking up, so much as restricting access to some things. This leaves teh rapist/country free to continue doing its crimes, al be it at a lower rate or with the people suffering more, depending what the country is missing and how it distributes what it has. Often this will lead to starvation, if not coz of lack of food, coz the leaders wont distribute it. Its allowing the rape/genocide to continue, and possibly starving the population too.

What is being locked up if not being restricted access to freedom? In tribal civilizations they didn’t lock people up but exiled them. In an international community if government’s guilty of genocide are excluded from world trade, this diminishes the leader’s motivation to commit genocide. Most leaders who promote genocide do so, because it is a way of unifying the population to act violently. The end goal is not to wipe out people, but to gain power.

Is your answer, that tehy couldn't achieve anything fighting so they should flee? What if they could achieve something, even if it were just time for the others to escape, without which they might not? would it be wrong for them to fight? Please answer again coz i can't find an answer.
I’m involved in other debates so I would appreciate it if you could be more specific and less rhetorical with your questions.
Yes, exploitation must be avoided, and equal distribution is a good thing. Democracy isn’t perfect, but I think Churchill (a man I’m not fond of but a font of quotes) once said something like ‘democracy isn’t a good form of government, but its better than any of the other sorts we’ve tried in between’. I don’t think democracy will come from education (evolution) in many cases, I think it needs revolution, as the current leadership will oppose evolved democracy. But even with equal distribution of wealth, people are different, and will have varying desires and levels of these desires. There will probably always be conflict between people due to this. As Cadillac says, equal distribution probably wouldn’t stay equal. You’d have to have world socialism, by which I mean 1 nation only, where the government keeps many controls on wealth distributions. While I see this as ideal, it’s also unrealistic for at least a long, long time.

Yet procrastinating won’t make things happen any faster.

Spoken like a true punk . i have to say, i think there are a few cynical motives behind the recent wars, to look like they're doing something against terrorism, oil, daddy, to keep the nation aware of the ongoing war on terror and its war leader, misplaced revenge, either poor inteligence or criminally poor interpretation of intelligence...Also, a lot of american industry is geared towards the war machine, though i dunno if it actually needs war to be sustained. I do think if our leaders held the lives of their soldiers that dearly they'd not have entered this war. still, it's possible they have info we don't and in 50 yrs it'll be released and Blair will go down in history as he wants to, but i doubt it.

Do you mean NVNC in US or in non-democracies? NVNC can occur in US, and does so, in the forms of direct action, assuming your rules aren't much different to ours (are you american?). If you mean in non-democracies, they can only work if enough people simultaneously do NVNC and the authorities are overwhelmed/their cvil servants etc also NVNC. Otherwise, it could just be brutally supressed and everyone gets back to work.

I thought this had already been established. And I am American but I am not from the U.S. :D

Oh, well, once the bullets start flying, assuming they've violated Just War Theory, it becomes necessary to go to war. The outcome of that (if "I" win) is that some of the people in the defeated country hold my view, and the rest are too weak to do anything that violates JWT.

Encouraging nations to accept refugees and using diplomacy should be part of the idea. But there's no way to say that it will be enough.

How do you non-violently imprison a man? Or do your non-violent views on wars not apply to police forces?

A nation without a police force is truly a revolutionary idea and one that I think people will have a harder time grasping than my previous opposition to war. I believe a police force is neccessary, but to investigate crimes and provide public service. A police force could prevent rape, for example, by escorting women home. Criminal behaviour could be discouraged by eliminating cash. Rehabilitation should be stressed over punishment and teachers should be trained to observe criminal tendencies in students so they can be councilled before their violent behaviour becomes a serious problem.

Eh, democracy is in no way a perfect system. To claim so requires ignorance or confirmation bias. People by their nature seek their best short term benefit without thought of what is morally proper or good for the long term.

To get a perfectly peaceful world requires a complete shift of the power structure of the world. This is unlikely to happen unless there is a war. People do not necessarily listen to the propaganda of outside forces and even if they did it does not mean that the powerful will ever give up power.

To end war requires that all human beings agree to your ideals of a perfect world. If I believe that the morality of a group of individuals is harmful to the world as a whole and people agree then we either have a new war or massive prisons and re-education camps.

A peaceful world is a dream that will never come to be. We will never reconcile the irreconciliable differences that people have.

I think the just war theory is the most intelligent explanation for the need and the limits of war I've read in an extremely long time. too bad out world leaders didn't follow it.

A nation without a police force is truly a revolutionary idea and one that I think people will have a harder time grasping than my previous opposition to war. I believe a police force is neccessary, but to investigate crimes and provide public service. A police force could prevent rape, for example, by escorting women home. Criminal behaviour could be discouraged by eliminating cash. Rehabilitation should be stressed over punishment and teachers should be trained to observe criminal tendencies in students so they can be councilled before their violent behaviour becomes a serious problem.
To do everything that you want a police force to do would not only be expensive, it could also be used to create a dictatorship. Except the elimination of cash, there will either always be a way for people to steal the money of others as has been seen with the credit card problems, or there is the fact that money is necessary for the economy to work.

But seriously, police follow everyone around, teachers are trained to pull out students with ideas that go against the commonly held beliefs and are brainwashed. Such an idea could easily lead to a consolidation of power and ultimately a dictatorship if one so desired. Your ideas would be perfect for a society based on thought-control.

[QUOTE]This is precicely why I have, for all intents and purposes, dropped this debate. You have no intention to even look at information that might somehow contridict your viewpoint. I posted a link to an article that specifically addressed the Dafur issue and the ineffectiveness of sanctions, but you blew it off calling it immaterial.

You continually ignore the fact that JWT is an anti-war theory that largely proposes that almost all wars are unjust in their initiation (aggression is unjust).

Anyone who argues against NVNC acknowledges that there are at least some scenarios in which war is the only solution. How can this be considered an anti-war point of view?

As for your question whether or not "if non-violent means achieve the same goal as war, is it preferable"? the answer is a firm maybe.

This is why I dismiss most of what you say.

The real question is in how many people will die as a result of A or B. If non-violence leads to 1 million innocent deaths by Genocide, whereas the genocide can be stopped with the deaths of only 100,000 - mostly military (in a properly run war) - which is preferable?

In other words you must be able to look into the future and determine howmany people will die if we create an alliance with this country and attack that country and how this military action will affect this nation in the generations to come.

A historic example. The U.S. joins the allies in WW2. They defeat the Axis and become the most powerful nation in the world, their only major opposition is USSR and China in which they engage in several indirect wars ie. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan. In supporting the Mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan they inadvertantly give rise to the Taliban, who provides a training ground for Al Quaeda who attacks the U.S. this leads to an invasion of Aghanistan and Iraq.

It's a good thing "Just War" is going to put an end to all this killing. :rolleyes:

[QUOTE]To do everything that you want a police force to do would not only be expensive, it could also be used to create a dictatorship. Except the elimination of cash, there will either always be a way for people to steal the money of others as has been seen with the credit card problems, or there is the fact that money is necessary for the economy to work.

But seriously, police follow everyone around, teachers are trained to pull out students with ideas that go against the commonly held beliefs and are brainwashed. Such an idea could easily lead to a consolidation of power and ultimately a dictatorship if one so desired. Your ideas would be perfect for a society based on thought-control.

My focus is not so much on eliminating crime or deviant behaviour, but dealing with violent crimes. The elimination of cash is intended to deter muggings or hold ups. Police patrols are intended to protect people who can't afford to drive or to provide security for women who work late.

There will always be crime, because a crime is often defined by any kind of deviant behaviour from the social norm. Having said this, I would rather live in a society with a criminal population made up of pot smokers and streakers, than a society with a police force that must arm itself with shotguns and submachine guns.

My focus is not so much on eliminating crime or deviant behaviour, but dealing with violent crimes. The elimination of cash is intended to deter muggings or hold ups. Police patrols are intended to protect people who can't afford to drive or to provide security for women who work late.

There will always be crime, because a crime is often defined by any kind of deviant behaviour from the social norm. Having said this, I would rather live in a society with a criminal population made up of pot smokers and streakers, than a society with a police force that must arm itself with shotguns and submachine guns.
The thing is that you are putting in place the required systems to create a dictatorship. Who defines deviant behavior in that society? The religious would claim that atheists are deviants, the atheists would say that religious people are deviants, the academic elite may claim that underperforming students are deviants, the Cornocratic party may claim that its opponents the Justican party is deviant, the psychological community could decide that these violent urges are not as bad as previously thought, the drug companies will claim that violent urges are horrible and that every child needs Crapifrin pills in order to function.

Your ideas on police functions may not be seen by everyone as true. The idea is opposed to the libertarian party to be certain. Murder can be committed whether people are holding money or not, hate-crimes are an example of this. How will you or can you monopolize society in such a way as to impose such controls without undermining the beliefs of society? Many might disagree with you and in a democratic society they may just claim to want the old social order or something.

Dude, me truly believing that war and killing is bad, and that we shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq or Afganistan, and posting it on the net wont change shit.

Yes, maybe other nations trade with Cuba coz they don't approve of the US sanctions. Regardless, trade goes on and they're inneffective. In Iraq thy were poorly managed, corrupt and unhelpful. And regardless, iof they're not enforced by all then its just damaging but not a war/anti-war winning strategy.

Quote:
This is why democracy must be asserted through non-violent, non-
cooperation.

And how can democraies be asserted through NVNC in darfur or rwanda. you have said you don't know much about the situation there, read up on it a bit and then respond please. I somehow don't think you grasp teh awfulness of what;s going on there. it is war,m but only one side is armed. it leads to great killing of innocents. it would lead to great killing of NVNC protesters if there were any.

Quote:
Victories don’t come easily. But if you give up, then you only have yourself to blame.

What exactly is that refering to, the war or my opposition to it? I'm not giving up opposing, or voting against it, but there are too many who dissapprove of it, but feel Labour are better at tax/education/something than libdems/respect, and so vote labour despite the war.

Quote:
Sorry to interrupt you in mid sentence but the fact that the average U.S. voter believes that being given a choice between Kerry and Bush means they live in a democracy shows a lack of education in public affairs. For the average person to have a greater say in U.S. foreign policy, there must be changes to the electoral procedure.

Sure, I agree. But as it stands, without change, a vote for Kerry would have been the anti-war vote, iirc?

Quote:
If a leader rises to power through violent means, what makes you think that leader won’t continue to use violence to maintain power?

well exactly. how does that help the case for NVNC. If the leader is violent there's a good chance he;ll suppress NVNC. Look at mugabe, there's some opposition, but much of it is squashed.

Quote:
Are you saying that every U.S. citizen who supports the U.S. invasion of Iraq should be shot?

Am I bollocks saying that. read what i say and don';t try and put words in my mouth. I'm talking about policing in a war-zone.


Quote:
This is a false statement. The Brits used violence and many Indians were killed, beaten, imprisoned and tortured.

I know this. i'm not claiming we were good rulers. read some history and politics books from the time. if you don;t think britain, america or india are capable of publishing unbiased ones read some from different countries. read some from different authers with different political ideologies. sift out cultural bias from fact. You'll see that although teh british empire did kill, torture, everything, and was generally an unpleasant occupying power (it brought in some good things, and left in a poorly planned way for the good of india, but that's not the issue here). Ther point is it wasn't a benevolent empire. but at the time of the indian revolution there was a socioeconomicpolical whatever feeling through the rulers of the british empire which allowed NVNC to be possible. you refuse to accept this. maybe you're right, its hard to put history down as fact, but i think if you study it more (educat yourself, in your own words) then you'll see that we're more likely right here.

Quote:
The real obstacle was eliminating the notion of untouchability and the repression of women, which unfortunately still exists. Replacing war with non-violent, non-cooperation is not an easy task. It is not an overnight solution. To do this people must accept that we are all equals, that we have shared rights and responsibilities and that we must learn to disagree without resorting to violence to settle our differences.

which is another debate entirely. i agree, but how to get it/go about it is debateba;e. some people would also debate the neccessity or that its morally important, but i think you're right.

Quote:
It is a cultural bias to assert that the British respect human rights more than anyone else. A review of British Colonial history will demonstrate this.

I promise you i'm likely to be the least patriotic, nationalistic brit around. i am very critical of my country, as i am of all countries and governments. maybe i'm biased on waht i've been brought up with, but as i question everything, i doubt it. but still, you're missing the point i made above, brits weren't nice but they were ready for a change in india.

Quote Me:
Partly, but its never that simple. there were many intertwined reasons for it, both long and short term. was it avoidable, maybe. did it happen, obviously yes. should the countries involved not have fought? Germany peacefully annexed Austria and took part of (IIRC) Czechoslovacia (sp?). It then continued to expand (again for a variety of reasons). eventually it encroached on other countries which were willing to fight, and had alliances of defense with others. rather than fight they could have chosen to flee or be governed by a foreign power. as the jewish situation wasn't known about till later these may have been options. However they suggest to the advancing power that it can do this indefinately. eventually it would hit people who didn't want to flee what was rightfully theirs or to be governened by someone else. I guess this is what happened, Austria didn't resist, Poland did. Should Britain and France got involved? As they were allies of Poland an attack on Poland should effectively be the same as an attack on them, and as Poland resisted, Britain and France probably should have too. Had Poland fled they should have accepted Poles. Had poland opperated a non-violent non-cooperation tactic they'd probably have been slaughtered, based on Nazi tactics. So really they either flee, fight or serve. and as it happens the serve also meant giving up all their jews to be slaughtered, although they didn;t know that at the time. If you were a Pole, what would you have done? Not fight, but flee or non-violent, non-cooperation? If the latter was found out you'd probably have been killed. what would you have the nation of Poland do if you were in charge?


Quote Your Respons:
I would have to review the history of Poland to answer that question. Non-violent, non-cooperation is not a safety net nor a shield. You can’t spit at someone then say “I’m a pacifist!” There may have been things Poland could have done prior to WW2 or even WW1 to ensure that they were not invaded by Germany.



Review it a bit and respond please, i'm curious as to what your take would be. But a point as well, why do you need more info, if you believe war is flat out always unnesesary, and that the consequences of not having war are worth it, what is there to consider? If countries are on the brink of war, and one folds letting the other invade, and allows them to commit genocide against jews, gays, commies, protesters (NVNC), is that better than war?

Quote:
Some people are making the assertion that a pacifist is doomed to die. Yet owning a gun, carrying a gun, or being part of an army does not spare you from that same fate.


Owning a gun is a differnt argument. Synics has started that debate in a different thread. so's being in the army. the point isn't that pacifists are doomed to die, you and i aren't. but a nation of pacifists would be doomed to die or change by an aggressive invador of non pacifists.



Quote:
Seeing that you use the term “enemy” shows me that you do not understand the concept of NVNC. I occasionally play chess and one of the worst mistakes I make is to play the person and not the board. What I mean by this is that a person can adapt, change and learn. I might play one friend today and a few months from now, after reading books, playing against other people, I will play the same friend and realize that his tactics have changed. With NVNC you must deal with the situation and not make the mistake of making the conflict personal. You must not assume that since this nation has been “democratic” in the past, they will not be ruthless and cruel upon your next encounter.



Enemy/opposition, potato/potahto. i don't make the mistake of thinking democracies wont be ruthless. I don't see how your post responds to mine.

Quote:
India used NVNC, the British used violence. India prevailed.

As i said earlier, read up some more on teh attitude of the british empire at the time.

Quote:
You do realize California, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Kansas and New Mexico were originally Mexican territories? As for Canada, NAFTA has proven itself to be an economical invasion as U.S. franchises are taking over family owned businesses.


Yes i do. That was by war, not nafta, and not for the good of the mexicans, californians etc. that they are doing ok now doesn't make the war any better, but it isn't exactly a point for NVNC. it was still a war not based on being nice to the people you conquer. nafta isn't an economical invasion, canada still has certain freedoms of trade. it sounds like you'd call the industrial revolution an economic civil war. economic invasions are TNC's leaching money, with very little benefit to the host country. this may happen a bit in canada, its hardly an invasion there though. in other countries it is. this still doesn't help the NVNC case.

Quote:
Does this mean you think disputes should be resolved with violence instead of reason?

No. If peopel will reason that's fine. What if the confederates had reasoned but the Unionists wouldn't and they invaded and the confederates kept reasoning and being killed and had unionist values stamped on them and their reasonable people killed. or vice a versa. if oine side will use violence is the other expected to continue to use reason and not violence until it's had its reasonable people all killed or subjugated? The initial violence shouldn't happen, but its not an ideal world. violence vs non violece and non violence gets killed. and please don't cite india again until you've read some more about it.

Quote Me:
That;s good. i probably would too. What would you do if you were being persecuted, would you flee? I guess so. Its not fair that they should lose their homes etc, but at least it avoids war.

What would you do if these planes and helos were being shot at by the aggressor? Would you return fire? Or would you risk losing the vehicles, passengers and pilots to the aggressors?


Quote You:
Again I would need to know specifics to answer that question.


Response:
Those are the specifics, what more info do you want? and what does it matter anyway, if you wont say return fire?

Quote:
The role of a pacifist is to lead by example. If someone truly believes that war is a bad thing, then they will look for ways to avoid it, instead of looking for ways to justify it.


Believe me, i do look for ways to avoid it. i see ways. there's voting. there's increasing global equality. but that doesn't address the short term, where genocides, which are one sided wars kick off, and they must be stopped, and NV methods aren't working, do we let genocide continue or go to war (say you send in UN peacekeepers) and end the genocide?

[QUOTE=Holyawesomeness]

My focus is not so much on eliminating crime or deviant behaviour, but dealing with violent crimes. The elimination of cash is intended to deter muggings or hold ups. Police patrols are intended to protect people who can't afford to drive or to provide security for women who work late.

There will always be crime, because a crime is often defined by any kind of deviant behaviour from the social norm. Having said this, I would rather live in a society with a criminal population made up of pot smokers and streakers, than a society with a police force that must arm itself with shotguns and submachine guns.

here i do absolutely oppose your views, at last, rather than just thinking them unpractical or un thought through considering humans :D .

Elimination of cash is a radical idea which simply wont happen, but i don;t know enough about economics to argue for or against it. Escorting women home, what if they're just nipping round the corner to the shops, what about men, do they not get an escort, what about if teh woman wants to go camping? what if the cop rapes her?

If a teacher put me in for councilling i'd be pissed! There were some curfew laws in uk being tried out, i think they've now been abolished, where unnaccompanied 16 or unders would be escorted home by cops if they were out in the city centre, even if tehy weren't doing anything. how is this fair. if you want, you could argue NVNC in that this has been taken to court and the Home office ruling has been found illigal, rather than a shoot out between cops and kids. but that's where both sides are willing to not go to wr and kill each other, if either the kids or the cops were shooting the other lot (not enemy ;) ) then the shooters would have to be stopped, by arrest (whichever side was shooting). but if the arresters couldn't get there due to being shot at they might be considered within their rights to stop the shooting on unarmed innocents and shoot the shooters. But what if arresters didn't turn up and one group was being massacred, and they had a weapon, could they use it to try to escape?

The thing is that you are putting in place the required systems to create a dictatorship. Who defines deviant behavior in that society? The religious would claim that atheists are deviants, the atheists would say that religious people are deviants, the academic elite may claim that underperforming students are deviants, the Cornocratic party may claim that its opponents the Justican party is deviant, the psychological community could decide that these violent urges are not as bad as previously thought, the drug companies will claim that violent urges are horrible and that every child needs Crapifrin pills in order to function.

The highlighted portion of the text is irrelevant since I am dealing specifically with violent crimes. With regards to violent behaviour this should be monitored and discouraged by teachers, councillors and the police, so that physical restraints and punitive laws are not required.

Your ideas on police functions may not be seen by everyone as true. The idea is opposed to the libertarian party to be certain. Murder can be committed whether people are holding money or not, hate-crimes are an example of this. How will you or can you monopolize society in such a way as to impose such controls without undermining the beliefs of society? Many might disagree with you and in a democratic society they may just claim to want the old social order or something.

My ideas on police functions are based on my ideas on NVNC, which some people of this forum seem to object to. The policies I outlined are ways to discourage violent behaviour. Eliminating cash is not an attempt to monopolise or manipulate society. People all over the world prefer to use credit/debit cards because it is safer and more convenient than carrying around large sums of cash. I don't see how using a debit card undermines the beliefs of society. I do see how some of my suggestions undermine your view that war can be justified. ;)

The highlighted portion of the text is irrelevant since I am dealing specifically with violent crimes. With regards to violent behaviour this should be monitored and discouraged by teachers, councillors and the police, so that physical restraints and punitive laws are not required.

Just because the intent is good does not mean that it could not be corrupted or that everyone in the society would be so anti-violence. If that teacher or psychiatrist was a believer in a pro-violence movement then the system has just screwed itself. Really, these people are acting as a thought police, what if I want my darling son or daughter to be pro-war? What if I view war as a good thing now that it has been abolished? In a future that discourages war so highly people will commit them as an act of rebellion, because the alienated and disenfranchised will see violence as the new solution to the worlds problems and instead of commies, terrorists, and hippies we will now have killers, psychos, and militarists. Plus there ain't no way in hell that most of your ideas would be allowed in most societies anyway, people would think that they cost too much, people would think that they are too intrusive.

Besides a nation of militarists could beat up most nations of pacifists and not all nations will embrace pacifism(unless you are advocating a massive war to control the minds of the population).

Dude, me truly believing that war and killing is bad, and that we shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq or Afganistan, and posting it on the net wont change shit.

Again this is a defeatist attitude. One that I refuse to adopt.

Yes, maybe other nations trade with Cuba coz they don't approve of the US sanctions. Regardless, trade goes on and they're inneffective. In Iraq thy were poorly managed, corrupt and unhelpful. And regardless, iof they're not enforced by all then its just damaging but not a war/anti-war winning strategy.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make with this statement.

And how can democraies be asserted through NVNC in darfur or rwanda. you have said you don't know much about the situation there, read up on it a bit and then respond please. I somehow don't think you grasp teh awfulness of what;s going on there. it is war,m but only one side is armed. it leads to great killing of innocents. it would lead to great killing of NVNC protesters if there were any.

Perhaps you can save me a little time and tell me what NVNC policies have been applied.

What exactly is that refering to, the war or my opposition to it? I'm not giving up opposing, or voting against it, but there are too many who dissapprove of it, but feel Labour are better at tax/education/something than libdems/respect, and so vote labour despite the war.

Labour? Are you referring to the British political party?

Sure, I agree. But as it stands, without change, a vote for Kerry would have been the anti-war vote, iirc?

The only anti-war vote in the 2004 U.S. election would have been for Nader.

well exactly. how does that help the case for NVNC. If the leader is violent there's a good chance he;ll suppress NVNC. Look at mugabe, there's some opposition, but much of it is squashed.

It helps the case for NVNC by dismissing the case for JWT. As you can see, there can be no global application of NVNC as long as the majority of the population believes that war is acceptable.

Am I bollocks saying that. read what i say and don';t try and put words in my mouth. I'm talking about policing in a war-zone.

I am not trying to put words in your mouth. I am asking questions that provide you ample opportunity to clarify your own position. Please keep in mind that although I disagree with much of what you have posted, I am open to the possibility that I might learn something from this discussion.

I know this. i'm not claiming we were good rulers. read some history and politics books from the time. if you don;t think britain, america or india are capable of publishing unbiased ones read some from different countries. read some from different authers with different political ideologies. sift out cultural bias from fact. You'll see that although teh british empire did kill, torture, everything, and was generally an unpleasant occupying power (it brought in some good things, and left in a poorly planned way for the good of india, but that's not the issue here). Ther point is it wasn't a benevolent empire. but at the time of the indian revolution there was a socioeconomicpolical whatever feeling through the rulers of the british empire which allowed NVNC to be possible. you refuse to accept this. maybe you're right, its hard to put history down as fact, but i think if you study it more (educat yourself, in your own words) then you'll see that we're more likely right here.

I discuss politics with Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Bahai and Atheists on a regular basis. My own ethnic background is Malayan, Spanish, Chinese and Chibcha. I have traveled and seen with my own eyes the effects of colonialism, capitalism, globalization and the current war on terror. I read articles on the internet that include publications such as El Pais, CNN and the BBC. As part of the process of writing a thesis I am constantly reading encyclopedias and for recreation I read biographies. The last three books I’ve read have been the biography of Malcolm X, Memoirs of a Presidential Candidate by Ingrid Betancourt and Papillion by Henri Charriere. You should never assume that someone is uneducated or ethnocentric simply because they don’t agree with your opinion.

which is another debate entirely. i agree, but how to get it/go about it is debateba;e. some people would also debate the neccessity or that its morally important, but i think you're right.

Does this mean you think creating a world that does not resort to war as a means of settling disputes is possible?

I promise you i'm likely to be the least patriotic, nationalistic brit around. i am very critical of my country, as i am of all countries and governments. maybe i'm biased on waht i've been brought up with, but as i question everything, i doubt it. but still, you're missing the point i made above, brits weren't nice but they were ready for a change in india.

I don’t think it is an issue of being nice or not nice. What I am stating is that the British simply could not control India’s enormous population once they became unified. All colonial powers (not just the British) rely on dividing and conquering a nation in order to control it. NVNC seeks to impress the value of having the discipline to receive a blow and not return it to its followers. It is this discipline that enables solidarity.

Review it a bit and respond please, i'm curious as to what your take would be. But a point as well, why do you need more info, if you believe war is flat out always unnesesary, and that the consequences of not having war are worth it, what is there to consider?

I’ve reviewed your quote. My response is NVNC. As it has always been to the different scenarios presented to me. The reason why I ask for specifics is so that I can address the manner in which non-cooperation is to be applied.

If countries are on the brink of war, and one folds letting the other invade, and allows them to commit genocide against jews, gays, commies, protesters (NVNC), is that better than war?

Apathy is not better than war and it is often apathy that leads to war. As I have stated, NVNC is not a magic shield that protects you in times of trouble, but an attitude that must be introduced into your daily routine so that anti-war sentiments (in the most absolute sense) become the norm.

Owning a gun is a differnt argument. Synics has started that debate in a different thread. so's being in the army. the point isn't that pacifists are doomed to die, you and i aren't. but a nation of pacifists would be doomed to die or change by an aggressive invador of non pacifists.

Is "Just War" a guarantee for survival? Will it ensure that those who fight against an invading force will remain unchanged?

Enemy/opposition, potato/potahto. i don't make the mistake of thinking democracies wont be ruthless. I don't see how your post responds to mine.

It is intended to demonstrate that methods of NVNC must be applied to the situation, not the enemy/opponent.

As i said earlier, read up some more on teh attitude of the british empire at the time.

And what sources would you recommend?

Yes i do. That was by war, not nafta, and not for the good of the mexicans, californians etc. that they are doing ok now doesn't make the war any better, but it isn't exactly a point for NVNC. it was still a war not based on being nice to the people you conquer. nafta isn't an economical invasion, canada still has certain freedoms of trade. it sounds like you'd call the industrial revolution an economic civil war. economic invasions are TNC's leaching money, with very little benefit to the host country. this may happen a bit in canada, its hardly an invasion there though. in other countries it is. this still doesn't help the NVNC case.

NAFTA and other “free trade” agreements are what allow TNC’s to leach money. But you’re correct in observing that this is a digression from the main argument.

No. If peopel will reason that's fine. What if the confederates had reasoned but the Unionists wouldn't and they invaded and the confederates kept reasoning and being killed and had unionist values stamped on them and their reasonable people killed. or vice a versa. if oine side will use violence is the other expected to continue to use reason and not violence until it's had its reasonable people all killed or subjugated? The initial violence shouldn't happen, but its not an ideal world. violence vs non violece and non violence gets killed. and please don't cite india again until you've read some more about it.

What if the confederates fought a war against the Unionists and kept fighting and being killed and had Unionist values stamped on them and… ;)

P.S. I will continue to correct your assumptions regarding India until you can provide me with legitimate sources that prove your points.

Those are the specifics, what more info do you want? and what does it matter anyway, if you wont say return fire?

If it doesn’t matter why do you ask the question in the first place? Unless you’re being rhetorical.

Believe me, i do look for ways to avoid it. i see ways. there's voting. there's increasing global equality. but that doesn't address the short term, where genocides, which are one sided wars kick off, and they must be stopped, and NV methods aren't working, do we let genocide continue or go to war (say you send in UN peacekeepers) and end the genocide?

Have “Just Wars” put an end to genocide?

here i do absolutely oppose your views, at last, rather than just thinking them unpractical or un thought through considering humans :D .

Elimination of cash is a radical idea which simply wont happen, but i don;t know enough about economics to argue for or against it.

Since you profess not to know enough about economics, why do you assert it wont happen. People used to barter until cash was created. Do you think we are incapable of evolving past the tools we use today?

Escorting women home, what if they're just nipping round the corner to the shops, what about men, do they not get an escort, what about if teh woman wants to go camping? what if the cop rapes her?

If a teacher put me in for councilling i'd be pissed!

And the councillor would teach you how to deal with those emotions ;)

There were some curfew laws in uk being tried out, i think they've now been abolished, where unnaccompanied 16 or unders would be escorted home by cops if they were out in the city centre, even if tehy weren't doing anything. how is this fair.

Police escorts would be available upon request, not imposed.

if you want, you could argue NVNC in that this has been taken to court and the Home office ruling has been found illigal, rather than a shoot out between cops and kids. but that's where both sides are willing to not go to wr and kill each other, if either the kids or the cops were shooting the other lot (not enemy ;) ) then the shooters would have to be stopped, by arrest (whichever side was shooting). but if the arresters couldn't get there due to being shot at they might be considered within their rights to stop the shooting on unarmed innocents and shoot the shooters. But what if arresters didn't turn up and one group was being massacred, and they had a weapon, could they use it to try to escape?

In a world in which war and violent behaviour are discouraged by the government, there would be no gun manufacturers and therefore, no guns.

Just because the intent is good does not mean that it could not be corrupted or that everyone in the society would be so anti-violence. If that teacher or psychiatrist was a believer in a pro-violence movement then the system has just screwed itself. Really, these people are acting as a thought police, what if I want my darling son or daughter to be pro-war? What if I view war as a good thing now that it has been abolished?

You don't have to suppose or ask what if, because the councilling is occuring as we speak. You are the child that is demonstrating violent behaviour by arguing that war can be justified, and I am the councillor who is trying to demonstrate how this attitude is unproductive, not only for others, but for yourself.

[QUOTE]In a future that discourages war so highly people will commit them as an act of rebellion,

Then war will be viewed as abnormal criminal behaviour, which is a step forward from the way war is viewed by "Just War" theorists.

because the alienated and disenfranchised will see violence as the new solution to the worlds problems and instead of commies, terrorists, and hippies we will now have killers, psychos, and militarists.

How do these groups differ?

Plus there ain't no way in hell that most of your ideas would be allowed in most societies anyway, people would think that they cost too much, people would think that they are too intrusive.

Time will tell.

Besides a nation of militarists could beat up most nations of pacifists and not all nations will embrace pacifism(unless you are advocating a massive war to control the minds of the population).

I'm not advocating mind control but education. Regardless of what Pink Floyd says, they are not the same thing. Given a choice between using a rock to cut meat and a knife, which tool would you rather use? It is the mission of those who support NVNC to demonstrate that war is an inferior tool to solving problems.

That is a really, really, incredibly, completely, unbelievably, very, amazingly stupid theory.

That is a really, really, incredibly, completely, unbelievably, very, amazingly stupid theory.

Thats more or less the same conclusions I came to when studying Walzer's updating of the theory.

A nation without a police force is truly a revolutionary idea and one that I think people will have a harder time grasping than my previous opposition to war. I believe a police force is neccessary, but to investigate crimes and provide public service. A police force could prevent rape, for example, by escorting women home. Criminal behaviour could be discouraged by eliminating cash. Rehabilitation should be stressed over punishment and teachers should be trained to observe criminal tendencies in students so they can be councilled before their violent behaviour becomes a serious problem.Ah, I see. Well, on the surface I don't see much of a problem with that, although people bring up good points.

Ah, I see. Well, on the surface I don't see much of a problem with that, although people bring up good points.

Such as?