Originally Posted by DocFrance
Thank you, that is possibly the greatest compliment I have ever been given... I am actually honored by that statement, touched to the point where it's actually kinda embarrassing. That I would be compared to such a great (if fictional) person. What should amaze you is 1. that I even got that reference and 2. I'm not being sarcastic about my above statements.
Anyways, back to subject. No, I don't think that physical violence is the ONLY answer, nor is it even the BEST answer... but I think that the citizens of Troy, or of Hiroshima, would disagree with anyone who says it's an ineffective solution. Oh, and Ghandi or Reverend King were effective only because the public outcry became greater than the resistance. Hell, in Ghandi's case, there was fear of his believers starting a revolution, actually. (that fear was probably not justified, but that makes it no less real to those who felt it). As for King... well... I already explained boycotts, and sit-ins are even more forceful... as for marches, those are a show of force... Rome loved using THAT method, and no informed person would consider them peaceable.
All were, and are, methods to compell others to obey YOUR will, instead of their own. Racists were forced to at least pretend not to be racist. That is violence. Armies were broken by the mere threat of public reaction. Again, violence. No matter how you slice it, these were methods of violence, even if they lacked the physical signs. Call it mental violence... which, much like emotional abuse, is quite possibly more powerful. After all, destruction can be measured... whereas a merely implied threat remains forever cloaked in the most terrifying thing humans have yet to encounter: the unknown.
