Violence

Sitting in one of my classes the other day, my professor brought up the topic of violence. She asked, "When is it justifiable?"

I pose the same question to you: when is violence justifiable?

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But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. W.B. Yeats

When protecting oneself or one's flock.

In the movies and in books or anywhere else that it's fictional.

When the person deserves a slap. That is to say, when I feel the need to slap them.

When someone is hurting someone I love, I'll protect her with violence!

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I will protect my family with extreme violence and I have been known to step in when I have seen a unfair fight and or bullying. Ofcourse when my mother has been in a violent relationship I had to resort to violence as I walked in mid beating once and its fair to say that that peice of excrement hasnt bothered her since.

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~

Justice is controlled violence.

Define justice in your eyes

No, on some occasions justice is the complete absence of violence, because violence is not always the correct response.

Is violence really justified or merely excused? Or is it a learned trait? I was raised in an atmosphere where my childest transgressions drew corporal punishment from my mom, dad, grandparents, teachers. So I spanked my kids too because that was how I was raised. I paddled my daughter exactly 3 times in her whole life because usually if I just said I was disappointed in her behavior, she'd get tears in her eyes. On the other hand, my sons were like me and my brothers (no sisters in my family) when we were growing up--they almost had to hit us in the head with a 2X4 just to get our attention.

I had a lot of mood swings when I was a teen between being cool and laid back and just itching for trouble. I was the only one of us 3 boys who ever got into fistfights with my dad. Funny thing is, then and now, I was the one who most admired him. I think I got in those fights because I knew he would never really hurt me.

When I joined the Army in 1961, my basic training was designed to make it easier to kill. Targets on the rifle range were humanlike silhouettes so that the human figure starts to look like just a target that you're trying to knock down. I never was on a battlefield and therefore have never killed anyone. But I could do it with a gun because it's just a target. Up close with a knife is more difficult, but I know I could if I'm scared enough.

So taking the long way around, yeah, violence is sometimes justified--best example of all is World War II when the Japanese were burning captured Chinese civilians to death and running deadly medical tests on Koreans and when the Germans were sending millions into their death camps. The Allies' violence to end the German and Japanese violence was totally justified. It was right to kill evil men to save their many victims. It was not a war the Allies desired but was forced on them by the Axis powers.

Another great example, the American Civil War in which more US residents died than in all of our other wars put together. It started out as a war to save the Union, to keep the Confederate states from leaving to form their own nation. And that was justified because the US has always been the world's best hope for a free and just way of life. Secession would have ended that hope and likely this continent would have been broken up into several nations like Europe.

But the immancipation proclamation transformed it into the war to end slavery within the last civilized nation where that barbaric practice still survived. That lifted and in a way blessed that war as a battle to make men free. Hundreds of thosands died then so that millions of slaves and their descendents could live free. There is no better justification than that.