An Exploration of Nonviolence

There are a few points I want to make here, but they all lead up to what is the main idea I had for this post. I will work to be brief with the preliminary items in order to get to the point.

First, I find it cumbersome to define or describe something by what it is not. This may be better labeled peacefulness or "peace-able-ness", but the traditional term Ahimsa may be best.

Next, this works with human nature, not despite it. Not to get into another discussion, but there are a number of incorrect assumptions built up around what constitutes "Human Nature". I will leave that for another time, as I want to get to the point.

Finally, as social beings we are inclined not just to relate, but also will respond to the suffering and needs of others.

Nonviolence requires the development of an effective means of self-defense. The peaceful practitioner must not only engage in not harming others, but also in preventing the violence of others. I'm not advocating some sort of pseudo-nonviolent militarism. If we accept that all life is precious and deserving of preservation, then we consider the 'victim' as well as the perpetrator and surrounding community. It is precisely because we feel the pain of others that we must prevent the perpetrator from committing their violent act. It is because our own injury or death at the hands of another human would continue to hurt those who care about us that we must prevent the violent act of the perpetrator. We cannot always do this with kind words and calm requests. There is not always time to relate, especially when the other is out-of-control (meaning not rational in the moment). Most perpetrators regret or repent their acts, given time, incentive, and opportunity to examine them. It is imperative that we avert the calamity and the near-perpetrator progress towards repentance. To accomplish this goal, we must have a way of incapacitating the perpetrator that is effective, but does not inflict undue violence (as this would make us a perpetrator in turn).

This also stipulates that the prevention of violence is always the 'highest good', and it would not serve a 'higher' cause to suffer or die instead.

Another unedited Rant: a message I sent to my Representatives

Whether we agree with this war or not, it has consumed too much of our valuable resources, not leastly including personnel. This is certainly not just an "election issue"-no matter how tired we became of it being pounded on by the candidates last Fall. Our nation cannot continue to bully its way through this complex issue, or just throw money (that we don't have, by the way) at it. Since this really is about the money, I'd like to take a moment to mention how truly absurd our military budget is-which is around 6 times larger than those of the next 5 largest military spenders combined, I believe? Yet we haven't enough money to continue to fund necessary programs for our own citizens. A nation is a collection of individuals working toward the betterment of all-not just a few elitists who think they deserve it. We regular citizens are the nation, the ones the government is meant to serve, and the ones who are meant to decide what our government does. I don't feel I need to remind you of these facts, I am confident in your perspective and motivation, yet maybe some of your colleagues have lost sight of this. The money funneled to the war is not going to the children in need in our own cities, or the women who are in danger every day, or those who just need a little help; our money is being spent to put more of our fellow citizens in danger-unprepared, unprotected, and needlessly into battle with an enemy our nation created. I say that we did this because I have had time enough (and the wherewithal) to read some of our country's real history. It is a fact that we have bases, both declared and secret, around the globe which were established to protect interests determined, also in secret, by our leaders for our 'benefit'. We are receiving the benefits of those decisions now: the attacks and killing in retaliation for our uninvited occupation of numerous other countries, our destructive interference in other governments' workings, our contributions to terrorists and terrorism, our spying and harrassing of individuals, our refusal to admit involvement and collusion or to be held accountable, etc. We should never have started spreading, and certainly should not continue to spread, this empire of hypocrisy. It can be no surprise to us that these people, who have suffered from our actions-or at least with the apparent approval of disregard-would wish the least form of redress: vengence. We have time, I hope, to offer these people an alternative to destructive recompence, but we cannot do this by continuing to trespass and meddle, to establish oppressive bases, and support tyrannical regimes. After all, it is our example they are following. We have shown them for too long how to terrorize, it is past time that we show them how to live peacefully and coexist.