Violence is never the answer: Except when it is…
Posted by Anthony on June 24, 2010
Here is a post that is a long time coming. First some caveats: my target audience here is the Bible-believing Christian, namely the kind that takes the Scriptures as authoritative. That said, I believe that Christianity manifests the true account of the moral code, and as such I think that what follows might apply to non-Christians, too.
Ok, now, this will sound like a weird place to start, but stick with me a moment. I consider myself a conservative (although more precisely, a libertarian-constitutionalist-voluntaryist) but I wasn’t always one. I grew up on default… that is, more or less as a liberal, especially on political and economic issues. What changed? Well, when I came to the place where I decided that Truth mattered, I realized that my belief system should, to the best of my ability, resemble reality.
This notion that I should adjust my mind to the world as it really was was really critical in shaping how I’ve come now. You see, there are lots of things that I wished were the case. Unfortunately, they aren’t. For example, I might wish that the members of the government can be trusted to look after the interests of the citizens, but it just isn’t the case. (Formative for me on this point was Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky). History and today’s newspaper reveal otherwise.
I have learned that in life, actions have consequences. I can try to shut my eyes to them and hope that by magic this time the action will have a different consequence (the one that I wished would happen) or I can accept reality. Accepting reality made me into a conservative.
Now, I say all of this in prelude because in this post I’m going to tackle something that I think even conservatives don’t get right a lot of times. I have heard liberals and pacifists and progressives all say something very similar to… “Violence is never the answer.” But I have heard conservatives say it, too. A quick google search reveals people across the spectrum making this statement.
But every sane person knows that, in fact, there are times when violence is the answer. Even most insane people know that sometimes violence is the answer.
So what we have here is a sentiment that is casually flung around that nearly all of us know isn’t true. In short, in saying such a thing, we are out of touch with reality. And one of the things I’ve learned about holding sentiments that don’t actually mesh with the real world is that inevitably bad things result. For example, if you think that you can step in front of a bus going 70 mph without getting hurt, a bad thing will result. Some times, the ‘bad things’ aren’t immediate or clear, but never fear, God cannot be mocked: we reap what we sow. Read the rest of the entry… »
