Self defense? Only on the battlefield? Only to achieve a ‘noble’ end?
Self defense. But also like someone else said proportionate response is key. If someone gets mad at you in a bar and throws a punch, pushing him away is fine. Hitting him to subdue him is probably okay. Shooting him dead is not.
I’m also not really okay with people using murder to defend their stuff. Like if someone sneaks into my house and I catch them going out the window with my tv, shooting them is not to me justified. There are more TV’s. That guy gets one life. Remember what Gandalf said.
I think a lot of people have like tough guy fantasies about shooting a burglar and it always makes me uncomfortable.
On the other hand, if someone was on trial for shooting a Nazi dead I would find them not guilty. Shame that Nazi spontaneously bled out. But at least he’s gone before he killed my entire family and friends.
Remember what Gandalf said.
“You haven’t aged a day”?
For anyone who sincerely didn’t get the reference:
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
“Fool of a Took”
Well, you don’t age when you’re dead. You just moulder.
When someone who I was supposed to be able to trust kept repeatedly trying to record me naked in the shower, I retaliated once by kicking him hard in the face. I was told that what I did was wrong and violence was never the answer. I disagree.
I agree with you and disagree with anyone who said it’s not OK.
Some people will learn with a gentle hand. Some learn with a slightly firm hand. Some only learn when you pick up a 2x4 and beat them.
Whenever my father’s family wanted to convey what an injury felt like or needed a theoretical weapon the humble 2x4 was always used. Thanks for bringing back memories of the old folks telling stories around a fire or in a crowded, smoky kitchen. :)
Nobody else has mentioned proportionality.
When responding to aggression, the response should not significantly escalate the risk. So lethal force should only be applied in scenarios where there is a lethal threat, etc.
Perceived lethal threat
Nope. That’s the logic cops use when shooting people in the back or kicking a guy in the head who’s lying on the ground.
But that’s all you have in the moment. There is nothing else.
If you wait for a lethal threat to respond, you are dead.
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I’ve been caught in a bomb scare, guns would have done fuck all when there was a massive police presence that the trains were stopped and the shut down a whole part of a city. In fact a gun would have made me more likely to be killed than going the fuck home.
Violence is justified when it’s needed to protect yourself or someone else from violence. That’s about it, honestly.
I am not a fan of pre-emptive violence.
What about post-emptive violence?
Much more often than I actually do it.
I heard a quote that has really stuck with me, it goes something like “violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived”
I don’t really condone violence, but this quote has really gotten me thinking.
I think you would be interested in reading a bit on the philosophy of Thomas Hobbs and “the monopoly of violence”.
Hey, cool it with the Ayn Rand - I’ve lost a lot of friends to Libretarianism.
So your comment made me find the origin of the quote. While it’s not verbatim, the quote comes from starship troopers apparently, definitely not Ayn Rand.
Heinlein is honestly just the sci-fi Ayn Rand.
You could just as easily end up on the opposite end of the spectrum, no?
To protect against violence
When you are the victim of a loot ninja
Speaking of which, do you know where your toilet is?
Just a curious question: Would that also apply to your loved ones being savagely killed?
Lol, I told her recently that if she dies giving birth to our child, I will be totally devastated. I didn’t have a mom because she did giving birth to my sister when I was baby.
But, if someone is responsible for her death, of course I’ll be both devastated and vengeful. Even so, a part of me will want peace and serenity, and that part of me will see accepting what happened is the best way to do that.
You can do no violence but also feel sorrow at violence being done. Not only are those stances not incompatible but I’d argue they’re in alignment. Violence, done by you, to you or simply involving others, is an occurrence to weep for. Some people are being put through unnecessary pain and some people are of an unsound mind and believe putting others through pain is justified.
I won’t judge someone who defends themselves for self preservation but I will applaud someone who continues to try and deescalate violence even as it’s being enacted on them… though I will clarify this is all at the adult level, children take some time to come to awareness of who and what other people are and are still growing into their full selves.
Yes, hate does not solve anything. Gun does.
It’s a nice thought, but doesn’t work out so well
It works out just fine if you don’t think self-preservation is the most important aspect of life. Buddhist moral development demands realizing the temporary nature of life. A massacre is just another means by which one’s life ends. A person is still responsible for upholding moral principles.
I realize we’re probably not going to convince each other over some internet comments, but that’s not a philosophy I’d sign up for. Morality is subjective, and I’d rather choose moral principles that don’t involve me accepting being massacred.
A massacre, or a genocide, is more than just “one’s” life ending. It is one’s own life, the lives of one’s loved ones, and the lives of one’s people.
There is no need of hate. You can defend and retaliate, but hate is pointless. Do it out of necessity, out of love of your neighbors and the need to protect them, not out of hate to the attackers. That’s what it is about.
Self defense but also including defending your rights, freedom, property, and sovereignty
Violence is a form of escalation. One should never cause a conflict to come to a new height and should only resort to something if in response to anything of that same height.
Also, if a ruler of a nation resorts to that, it shows they’re not a great/effective ruler. Fluency in how to rule is determined by how much peace you can accomplish with as little change as possible. Less is more, as they say. If you have to punish people too often like some are doing, you’re violating that “less is more” rule.
Only when all other options are ruled out. And obviously, you should not be the aggressor in any situation
Self défense, yep. On a battlefield ? Let these old fuck fight one vs one to resolve their conflict. A noble end is so fucking subjective that I think it would be a terrible idea.
this is where the mythological concept of sin sorta helps. So its a bad thing but basically you decide at what point doing the bad thing is worse than other bad things but you can’t ever make it not a bad thing. You just accept its price at some point and its ultimately and individual decision and I don’t think many will know until that moment. For myself I try to avoid it as much as I can but I don’t know in what situation I will be driven to it.
I think it is hard to list all the situations but in the end it boils down to situations where both you personally as the person considering using violence and the average person could live with that decision in the long term. Both because that covers situations where you personally are a lot less or a lot more concerned with the consequences of your actions than the average person. And the average person instead of every single person because there are always some individuals whose views on the matter are a bit too extreme to be practical. Maybe instead of the average person it might make sense to use something like “90% of the population” but in the end you can’t measure things that accurately anyway.
