Speaking in terms of morality, I don’t view self-defense as a last-ditch option; rather as one among several, to be chosen as rationally as I am capable of when under stress (which is obviously unpredictable). If it is moral for a police officer to use violence to protect me or my family from harm, it cannot be immoral for me to do likewise.
I don’t mean to seem to call myself a badass, by the way. If I’m mugged or something, my official policy is to not resist over money or property. I reserve my violence only for when I have a definite advantage or when I absolutely must to protect myself or my family.
Nah. The soap opera stuff is the red herring. It was pacifism I was interested in talking about. But obviously your mileage may vary from mine.
I think that Robert certainly has the right to break up with the man who, heedless of the risk to his own life, probably saved him from serious injury or death. It’s a free country.
That said - Skald, you’ve got both laser-equipped bees and a Burroughs-Libby Continua Buggy at your disposal. Assuming the bees don’t get buggy-sick, it might make sense for them to pay Robert a visit.
And there’s no reason for an evil overlord to oppose pacifism anyway. Pacifists help villains, on average. Gandhi & Dr. King were successful because the people they were opposing knew they were basically in the wrong.
“If it is moral for a police officer to use violence to protect me or my family from harm, it cannot be immoral for me to do likewise”
I guess for me its a question of whether your goal is to use the minimum of force required to manage a situation, or the most you’re legally allowed. For me ‘its legal’ isnt sufficient as a metric, because the law can be quite generous due to ‘innocent until proven…’.
You dont have to be a ‘pacifist’ in order to believe in minimising the use or risk of use of violence where possible. It might be we disagree on that point.
Neither. It’s the way that resolves the situation at least risk to my wife, to me, and to the person threatening harm to us, in that order.
My interest in what the law says is mostly pragmatic.
No “might” about that.
I’m interested in the maximum good for the maximum number (except that, selfishly and immorally, I judge my wife’s well-being to be worth more than anybody’s else’s). I’m not willing to provoke a violent encounter, because doing so is frankly stupid; but I’m also not willing to endanger my life or my wife’s well-being or life in favor of someone threatening us. I think it’s foolish for anyone to behave otherwise.
“I’m also not willing to endanger my life or my wife’s well-being or life in favor of someone threatening us.”
Situations are rarely that clearcut in real life though. In this case we’re basically disagreeing over whether ‘shut up’ is likely to avoid danger or increase it.
In my view it will, in your view it wont. I dont think thats really about pacifism as such at all and probably has more to do with our respective experience of fights we’ve been exposed to either directly or indirectly.
I’ve been in fights, mostly from the bullying side. Not any more, though.
Kindly don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t write that I thought saying “shut up” was the optimal strategy. I wouldn’t have told the guys to shut up; I’d have ignored them and/or recruited the bouncers to handle it, because I don’t choose to risk violence unless I clearly have a definitive advantage or I am forced into it. It’s my chickenshit whenever possible policy. But I don’t think that telling the guys to shut up had any effect on the outcome one way or another. If they were ornery enough to lay in wait away from the bar after being ejected by the bouncers, they would taken a lack of response as a license to escalate. I understand bullies.
Ah, my reading was that it was being done as a ‘dont lose face’ strategy by Avery which some people believe will avoid violence. I guess I shouldnt have assumed that was your own views, given it was a hypothetical and I might have misread that anyhow.
We seem to be just irritating each other here, and frankly it looks like we actually have pretty similar beliefs about how to handle these kinds of situations in practise. Im sorry, I do seem to have hijacked the initial goals of your scenario and should probably stop.
Robert and Avery need to get their asses to therapy. Robert, to work out the trauma of watching the man he loves kill someone, and to figure out whether he can accept that and continue in the relationship; Avery, to work out the trauma of having had to kill someone and any flashbacks to his Iraq experiences that may result, not to mention his reaction to having done this to protect the man he loves and being (on some level at least) reviled for it. Ideally, they also go to couples therapy to decide together whether they can proceed as a couple.
If they are as deeply in love as you say, I would hope that they would be willing to work through it and forgive each other. True Love is a rare and precious thing, and it’d be a shame to throw away something that amazing without serious reflection.
