Why the opposition to pacifism?

[Cognitive Dissident]

I'd noticed the heavy volume of his "whadayathink?" threads, but didn't consider them to be potential trollbait.  Perhaps it's that he's a lousy troll and it took so many tries to engage anyone, or perhaps he's just like that.  

He reminds me of that caller to the show a couple years ago (something like James in Michigan--both may be wrong) who would broach subjects half-seriously, and it became clear after about six calls that each time the intent was to start an argument in which he would attempt to somehow "prove" libertarianism "wrong," or at least get the hosts steamed.  I think that series of exchanges ended in them accusing him of being a crank.

Eric. EricFromMichigan on the boards. Massive troll.

Yup...totally forgot that he wandered onto here too.

I'd figured him as a crank right off the bat.

[BonerJoe]

Now that will justly get you tagged as a troll.  I really didn't see a lot of trolly behavior from you outside this thread, but statements like the above are classic trolling.  This whole thread reeks of trolling on your part.

In some ways, Ken, it's better that your troll detector is set to a lower sensitivity anyhow. It's sort of a curse to see it before anyone else, because a lot of people assume that you're just being an asshole rather than sniffing genuine bullshit.

Someone came into the LRN chat room the other day pretending they were a STRICT Christian wife, who wanted her husband to spank "her" when she needed discipline. Her STRICT Christian husband didn't want to do it. "She" was asking if it seemed reasonable. It took about a half hour of telling people it was a troll to finally get them to stop responding.

[Rillion]

Someone came into the LRN chat room the other day pretending they were a STRICT Christian wife, who wanted her husband to spank "her" when she needed discipline. Her STRICT Christian husband didn't want to do it. "She" was asking if it seemed reasonable. It took about a half hour of telling people it was a troll to finally get them to stop responding.

You mean they cared more about whether "she" was a troll or not than whether "she" was interesting or not? 

[BonerJoe]

Someone came into the LRN chat room the other day pretending they were a STRICT Christian wife, who wanted her husband to spank "her" when she needed discipline. Her STRICT Christian husband didn't want to do it. "She" was asking if it seemed reasonable. It took about a half hour of telling people it was a troll to finally get them to stop responding.

You mean they cared more about whether "she" was a troll or not than whether "she" was interesting or not? 

"Interesting" in terms of acting like Pizzly. Asking everyone in the chat if they believed she was being reasonable, no matter what answer anyone had given her before.

[dalebert]

There are a few variables in that situation that we must clarify before a decision can be made. Do I have a firearm? Does the rapist have a knife to her throat? Am I a block away? Am I 75 ft away? Do I have a clear shot at the rapist? What if I miss him and hit her? Who knows, in the case of rape, perhaps it would be better for the woman to allow hersef to be raped instead of being killed in the process of fighting back.

I think you're getting my point.  I was prepared to concoct a number of not very unlikely scenarios wherein things could turn out worse by the choice of attacking.  The point isn't to say pacifist actions always result in the best possible outcomes.  I think that would be as absurd as claiming the choice of violence always results in the best possible outcomes.

Im talking in terms of animalistic life or death situations where if you dont act, you are pretty much guaranteed to die.

There's not much to discuss, philosophy-wise, about the animalistic situations.  I'm talking about my philosophy and what I would attempt to do via my rational choices.  If you hit my knee with a hammer, it's not my rational mind that's deciding whether to kick.  If you have my face under a pillow, there's hardly any rational mind at work there either.  But like I said, in many if not most violent conflict scenarios, one usually has many choices other than fighting back, and there are choices of fighting that don't necessarily involve purposefully harming like pushing off, restraining, etc.  I have no personal beef with those.  If that means I'm not a "pacifist" in your eyes, that's fine.  It's just a label.  I'm describing where I stand and one-word labels will always be limited in conveying all the nuances of a personal philosophy.  (Kind of like "panentheism", but that's another thread)

[Rillion]

I was thinking Dale was using a lot of words to say what could be said very simply-- "I won't use force against someone unless it's necessary to get them to stop using force against me"-- but it's not quite that  simple.  If someone broke into your house, for example, there's a broad range of behavior you could employ in response to that, from "I'd say hi and offer him a cup of tea" to "I'd shoot the motherfucker in the head without warning."  The guy has initiated force on your property, but how much force are you willing to exert back?

Me = female.  Stronger than an average female, but not remotely strong enough to imagine my chances would be good trying to physically subdue your average male, which would be harder than simply trying to beat the crap out of him.  And yet I still wouldn't want to think that if a man broke into the house when I was alone at night, my reaction would be to lock myself in the bathroom, call 911, and hope for the best.  Announcing that someone is being held at gunpoint may mean that they back off and run away, but not necessarily, and it puts you in more danger than if you had just hauled off and shot them.  So, do you haul off and shoot him?  If so, where?  Ideally in the front hallway, as it has tile and is easier to clean.  Actually, you're told to aim for the chest because that's the best in terms of chance to hit as well as providing stopping power.  But "stopping power" also means "killing power," which is what provokes anti-gun people to ask whether the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for forced entry. 

I wouldn't feel good about killing someone who had broken into my house.  I would feel slightly better about it if I had threatened him with a gun first and that didn't cause him to leave.  I would feel better still if not only did it not cause him to leave, but he had managed to attack me and I killed him to stop the attack.  But I still wouldn't feel good, and it's disturbing to think that my virtue rises in direct proportion to the amount of danger I'm in.  And I wouldn't feel good about hiding in the bathroom either. 

[dalebert]

Here's something to consider for anyone who wants to better understand where I'm coming from.  I know it's a bit alien.

I know that I will be a much happier person AFTER an incident of violence if I manage to refrain from hurting another person.  I will strive to make the right choices which I acknowledge may be challenging depending on the exact situation.  I will strive to do so even at great risk to my own survival of the incident because I am protecting something that is very valuable TO ME.  I also do not feel separate from the rest of the universe and so my own death is not as scary to me as it is to someone with a more substantial ego, "ego" being your sense of having an isolated and separate existence from everyone else and the rest of the universe.

To someone who values different things and who perhaps has a greater fear of death, I would not begrudge them judging the situation completely differently for their own circumstance.

[Rillion]

I also do not feel separate from the rest of the universe and so my own death is not as scary to me as it is to someone with a more substantial ego, "ego" being your sense of having an isolated and separate existence from everyone else and the rest of the universe.

I've never met such a person, to my knowledge.  Do you have an example?  A solipsist wouldn't count, because they think their own existence is the only existence. 

[John Shaw]

Here's something to consider for anyone who wants to better understand where I'm coming from.  I know it's a bit alien.

I know that I will be a much happier person AFTER an incident of violence if I manage to refrain from hurting another person.  I will strive to make the right choices which I acknowledge may be challenging depending on the exact situation.  I will strive to do so even at great risk to my own survival of the incident because I am protecting something that is very valuable TO ME.  I also do not feel separate from the rest of the universe and so my own death is not as scary to me as it is to someone with a more substantial ego, "ego" being your sense of having an isolated and separate existence from everyone else and the rest of the universe.

To someone who values different things and who perhaps has a greater fear of death, I would not begrudge them judging the situation completely differently for their own circumstance.

I dig ya. I just don't know if you've ever actually been in a violent situation, brother. (It's not good or bad to have been in one, either way.)

Violence doesn't give you enough time to carefully weigh your options. it just happens and you react or you don't. You go into shock within a second or so of the fear response, the adrenaline dump hits, sound disappears, you get tunnel vision, and you move or you don't move. It feels like a hard hit of disorienting weed for a sec because time gets messed up in your head, and you imagine everything taking longer than it does, after the fact. EDIT: However, it does NOT feel like slow motion, the event just seems to take forever to be over. It's a weird sensation. The average life and death violent event is less than 30 seconds.

If you've taken a self defense course and/or practice self defense shooting, the second you realize your life is in danger you'll just draw, look beyond the target, and fire at center of mass until the threat ends. It's almost automatic, which is what the training helps you do. People without that sort of training end up standing there with a weird look on their face as everything goes down and lives or dies at random. *

A violent event isn't a series of "if/then" moments is what I'm saying. Having said that, I never ever want to be in a situation where something like that is happening to me, and thinking ahead and good decision making is what will keep a person out of that shit 99 times out of 100.

*And then ya puke and cry, no matter what happens.

[Turd Ferguson]

*And then ya puke and cry, no matter what happens.

Thats EXACTLY

[John Shaw]

*And then ya puke and cry, no matter what happens.

Thats EXACTLY

Nothing like getting shot in the face to give you some descriptives about violent events.

[Rillion]

Nothing like getting shot in the face to give you some descriptives about violent events.

Yeah, about which I know pretty much nothing.  So feel free to ignore my previous post.  

ETA: Or advice would be good.  Your choice.

[Turd Ferguson]

Sorry, I accidentaly hit post before I got the whole deal in and tried hitting back and finishing.

Thats EXACTLY what I did. I didnt cry, but I puked. I had 2 dudes from the ghetto come up to my door at 3am and tried stealing 2 boxes of high power wireless antennas from my doorstep. Dog started barking, I looked out the blinds and there they were in the enclosed porch.... trying to gank my stuff. Grabbed the 45 and stepped out and just yelled "GET THE FUCK DOWN ............ NOW!!!" They both dropped, my hands were shaking quite a bit and it felt like I was there for 5 min when in actuallity it was probably less than 10 seconds before I REALLY started freaking out. I was gonna call the cops but didnt have a phone in my pocket at the time, which meant I had to reach inside the door, with a gun in my hand and somehow keep it on them while grabbing the cell off the couch. I chose to get the phone and call the cops and almost hoped they would run off, but they didnt. They lied still on the ground and it felt like FOREVER till they got there. They came, up the drive and I yelled to them I had a weapon and that I was going to set it in the house, "DONT SHOOT!!!"

Long story short, they took a report, checked out my gun and FOID card, asked a bunch of assholish questions as to why I left such valuable stuff out on my porch. And all I could think to say was "because its my fucking porch!!" and the lady cop said "ok ok, us women get a little nitpicky sometimes about stuff..... its ok."

Anyway, they leave like an hour after the whole ordeal started and thats when I felt all weird and sweaty. Puked my guts out.... didnt even make it to the kitchen sink.

[dalebert]

If you've taken a self defense course and/or practice self defense shooting, the second you realize your life is in danger you'll just draw, look beyond the target, and fire at center of mass until the threat ends. It's almost automatic, which is what the training helps you do. People without that sort of training end up standing there with a weird look on their face as everything goes down and lives or dies at random. *

I believe you wholeheartedly.  That's why I have to prepare ahead of time to be thinking in a completely different way.  I absolutely do not want to reflexively kill another person in that manner.  It takes thinking these things out ahead of time to try and steel myself in the other direction and to not reflexively attack.  I know that otherwise peaceful people might be more inclined to react physically with that adrenaline rush going and I need to be preparing myself ahead of time to be channeling that in another direction if that's even possible.  I have to have essentially already made the decision of what I'm going to do and attempt to make THAT reflexive.  I still contend that in many cases there are a lot of options for increasing your chances of survival, though it might include some options uncomfortable to many people like giving up some physical possessions and/or getting over feelings of being violated.  I have been attacked and the full sense of danger didn't dawn on me; no time for it to, but those feelings of being violated crept up on me afterward.  They have to be dealt with in a healthy manner.  Fortunately, I feel my philosophy will help tremendously with that.

[anarchir]

THIS JUST IN
THREAD HIJACK
POLICE ARE AT THE LAST BISCUIT

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