A friend of mine sent this to his "Joke" list the other day. I've been thinking about it and have a response (below).



> With all of this talk of war, many of us may encounter "Peace Activists"

>who will try and convince us that we must refrain from retaliating

>against the ones who terrorized us all on September 11, 2001, and those

>who support terror. These activists may be alone or in a

>gathering.....most of us don't know how to react to them. When you come

>upon one of these people, or one of their rallies, here are the proper

>rules of etiquette:

>1. Listen politely while this person explains their views. Strike up a

>conversation if necessary and look very interested in their ideas. They

>will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people

>who did this to us, we will only bring on more violence. They will

>probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to

>humanitarian.

>2. In the middle of their remarks, without any warning, punch them in

>the nose.

>3. When the person gets up off of the ground, they will be very angry

>and they may try to hit you, so be careful.

>4. Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings

>about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell

>them if they are really committed to a nonviolent approach to undeserved

>attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell

>them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are

>saying.

>5. Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are

>correct.

>6. As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much

>harder. Square in the nose.

>7. Repeat steps 2-5 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot

>realizes how stupid of an argument he/she is making.

>8. There is no difference in an individual attacking an unsuspecting

>victim or a group of terrorists attacking a nation of people. It is

>unacceptable and must be dealt with. Perhaps at a high cost. We owe our

>military a huge debt for what they are about to do for us and our

>children. We must support them and our leaders at times like these.

>We have no choice. We either strike back, VERY HARD, or we will keep

>getting hit in the nose.

>Lesson over, class dismissed



If I were the victim of the "lesson" in this story, I would have no doubts about immediately kicking the shit out of the person who assaulted me. Why? Because I have a right to defend myself. I am not a threat to anyone, so if someone comes up to me and assaults me, I am in "emminent danger" and am allowed to use force to protect myself. This is not the same as revenge. If you assaulted me and I kicked your ass and sent you to the hospital, IF you then came back looking for me you would be committing revenge, which is not legal. It is revenge because you were not in emminent danger from me when you left the hospital.



The analogy above plays out like this (without the description I gave just now):



You are walking down the street. I see you and in order to prevent your possible assault on me I kill you. I think you might punch me in the nose at the peace protest, so it's OK - I've taken a pre-emptive strike to protect myself. By the way, the pre-emptive strike will consist of me driving by in a car, shooting an AK-47 at you while you are walking with only a rubber band gun to defend you (but you might have something more powerful, so I have to be sure to overpower you). I will do my absolute best to keep the pattern of shots on your body tight, but if I hit your wife and your kids while I'm doing it, I'll apologize but hey, it's their fault for being there or maybe your fault for having them there. Either way, they're dead and I'm "really sorry".



I know that a lot of people like this war and think it is great we are there and as of yesterday think it's over. You know what? It's not over. Afghanistan isn't over, but we have now forgotten about them. The Taliban are regrouping in the eastern part of the country and the US isn't funding infrastructure rebuilding. There is no police force and Hamid Karzai has no power or influence in any area except Kabul. How can we expect the Afghan people to stand up on their own two feet and have a society we recognize as open, free and democratic if they can't even get fresh clean water, have no shoes on their feet and go to school in a bombed-out hulk of a building?



There were a group of Iraqis chanting "Allah is great! Saddam is an enemy of Allah!" today in Baghdad. Criminey. Is that why we went there? So these guys can elect a mullah and descend into the Dark Ages again?