War or Peace at any cost

I have seen numerous comments and discussions regarding war, as well as some bumper stickers. I have to wonder if some of these people have thought about what they are saying or are just trying to take the high moral ground.

I recently saw a bumper sticker which said that it would be great if the schools had all the money that they needed and that the military would have to have a bake sale in order to buy a bomber. While there is an issue about schools wasting money, we pay a lot of money in taxes and if the people you elect do not set the priorities that you want, then you need to throw the bums out and elect people who value your money and what you want it spent on. If you really want the military to not have the money to defend this country, you need to think about what that would really mean. Relate this to your personal life and think what it would mean to you if the police did not have the equipment to protect you and fight against criminals.

Often these people say that war is never justified and is always wrong. Of course when people make blanket generalizations like that it is clear that it is not correct. There are counter-examples, but then perhaps they would not agree no matter what. I guess they are entitled to their view, but they fail to realize that they are free to say such things because of the people who have gone to war to defend our country and the world. What do you think would have happened if no country fought against Germany in World War I? How about World War II with Germany and Japan? What do you think the end result would have been?

Perhaps these people can not understand and accept such large perspective views. So, how about we relate this to people instead of countries. Do you think that then these people would understand? I doubt it, but it might be fun to do it just the same. Sometimes it is not about convincing people that they are wrong, but having fun instead.

So, what do you think would happen if we took one of these war is always wrong people and put them in a variety of situations? Do you think that they would have a different view and want to fight back? I bet they would, but I also bet that they would not change their view of war.

For the war is never acceptable people:

You are walking down the street and a person walks up to you and demands everything of value that you have. You try to walk away, but the person grabs you and stops you from leaving. Would you give up everything of value? If you did give up everything you had, would you then call armed forces (aka police) to try to correct this situation? Would you use force to resist this person? Would you refuse assistance from others who came to your assistance to fend off this attacker? Now, what if this person had a weapon and threaten your life or the lives of your family? At what point would you decide that fighting back is acceptable? Perhaps you never would and you would allow this criminal to kill you and your family. This would allow you to retain your view and the high moral ground, but then again you would be dead so it would not matter much.

You are in your home with your family and a group of people rush into your house and throw you and your family out of the front door. What would you do? Would you accept this action as being acceptable since you would not want to harm anyone and since they now had control of your house that they were the rightful owners? Would you call for assistance by armed forces to regain what you consider to be your property? What if these people resisted being removed? Would you be responsible for the deaths if you called for assistance and someone (on either side) died as a result of fighting for what you considered to be right?

If you would not fight back in either of the above cases and you would allow the other person to retain your property without a fight and without doing anything to get your property back, please send me your address or better yet please send me everything of value so I can assist you in never being placed in such a situation by your giving up everything you have so that no one would want to take anything from you. Unfortunately I can not help you if the person would want to take your life, even if it is for no reason, so the only solution to that is for you to kill yourself, after sending me everything of value that you have.

If you fight back in any way, then you have violated your principles and should think about your position.

War is horrible and it is bad that people die in wars. It would be far better if everyone could live in peace, but that is just not possible. Just like you will never get rid of all the criminals which want steal, rape, harm and kill people, you will never get rid of countries which want to do the same, including killing their own people. Sometimes you have to stand up for what is right and what is best for everyone and do what is right, even when it means putting your life at risk.

This does not mean that you should not speak out against wars which are wrong, but you need to think about each case and decide what the best course of action is, rather than a blanket statement that war is wrong. When you speak out, you need to realize that you are able to do so because many others fought and died for your right to do so. It is easy to sit in a safe environment and cast judgements against those in battle, whether it be a war or a police officer on the street, but you should ask yourself what you would have done had you been in that situation and realize it is not possible to know everything at the time and that there is a lot of stress being in such a pressure situation. Perhaps you would have done the same thing, had you been in the same exact situation, even though you would not want to admit it.