Violence

Violence, unfortunately, is a necessary evil, but not in the way you think. One thing you learn in martial arts training is that when someone is being violent towards you, you defend yourself… this applies to all kinds of different situations, like; (small scale) someone who is going to physically be violent, or (large scale) a country committing violence against you, or has committed violence against you… and by going to war with the opposing country, you are defending yourself. The key word here being defending/defence… that is the only justification for any violence. I had a high school councilor who always tried to pacify students and would give the person being bullied a stern talking to cause they shouldn’t have defended themselves and should have tried to talk their way out of it instead. Pacification is not the answer. I would like to see the world in a different state where violence is rarely an answer, but unfortunately as many as you folks know and have unfortunately learnt in your youth... pacifying someone is creating a victim unable to defend themselves... The reality is, there are bullies, terrorists, people willing to hurt you to push their agenda... the only way to survive is by defending yourself... that does not necessarily mean taking someone’s life, but definitely having the ability to immobilize the other person so that they can't or won't do it again.

I do believe a country considering going to war with another country should definitely consider all the options before going into war… and should think about considering setting an example to other nations and consider peace, but sometimes that is not possible (as turning the other cheek doesn’t always work), and the only option is to defend yourself.

This has been in my thoughts for the past couple of days, not sure why… there was a period where I knew this was necessary (in my youth), then in my early 20’s I had changed my mind and thought that peace should be the only option, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that sometimes there really is no other option… you have to put your life and well-being first and defend yourself, as, if you don’t you might not live to see the next day. Don’t get me wrong, I highly dislike violence, I can’t watch horror movies, or movies with a considerable amount of violence (seeing violence on TV whether it's the news or just violent shows, makes me physically sick)… but, sometimes defending yourself is the only answer.

What are your thought's on this? I would like to know.

Note: I do think the world can't have a true peace (where there is absolutely no violence and we disarm, and there are absolutely no weapons), as we run into a problem where if we completely disarm we run the risk of not being able to defend ourselves... and, future forward thinking, if some alien race decides to invade our planet (not sure how likely that is, as we haven't officially found aliens out in the universe yet, but being that our universe is as vast as it is... the likelihood that there isn't other life out there... well, the odds are in favor of other life in the universe).