While riding my bicycle past a housing project in the city of St. Louis yesterday, six teenaged boys ran up to me. I suspected trouble. One of the teenagers ran alongside me. I was concerned that he was going to push me off my bicycle, so I hopped off. He looked nervous, and we all froze for a couple seconds, with the other five teenagers standing about 20 feet away. The teenager closest to me suddenly reached back and took a swing at me, punching me on my right shoulder. I wasn’t hurt much, even though this kid was trying to hurt me.
Though I had previously been in only one other fight in my entire life (a minor scuffle when I was about 10), I assumed that I could handle two or three of these teenagers (assuming that they didn’t have weapons), but not six of them. Instead of lunging for the attacker, I yelled, “Cut it out!” He immediately backed off, then all six young men scampered about 150 feet away, taunting me as they went. I crossed the road toward a restaurant and they stayed away. This all happened along a well-traveled road.
My response to the punch was largely guided by pragmatic reasons. I didn’t want to escalate the fight, given that there were six boys, and I didn’t know if they had weapons. But what was the “proper” response? What do the moral rules tell us to do in this situation?
One option would be to chase down the aggressor and pound the crap out of him. I can assure you that this was my deep instinct, whether or not it would have been possible for me to do this. But there are certainly other moral rules that could pertain to this situation.
For instance, Jesus purportedly said, “Love your enemy.” Luke 6:27-36. To me, this New Testament rule means that we should never strike back, certainly not when the attacker has retreated. That is my personal interpretation of that rule. American Christian politicians claim that the “turn your cheek” rule of Jesus” allows them to drop large bombs on the people of those other countries we consider to be our “enemy,” even when it means that millions of civilians are killed, wounded and permanently displaced. Many others, including Dr. Martin Luther King, have implored that we act with non-violence whenever we are attacked.
What were my other options? A friend of mine (I’ll call him James) once told me that when he was in grade school a kid walked up to him and punched him, but didn’t really hurt him. James was puzzled at the unprovoked attack. That night he told his father that a kid punched him, but that James didn’t punch him back. His father became angry. He said, “James, our family never starts a fight but we always finish them.” James was instructed by his father that he should never stand there and take a punch, even if he isn’t hurt.
Nietzsche had another approach for this situation. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra (“On the Adder’s Bite”), Nietzsche criticizes the Christian ethic of “turn the other cheek.” He urged that if you have been wronged, you should release your anger through a little revenge, rather than letting the frustration build up inside. People shouldn’t burn off great amounts of energy getting revenge, but neither should they do nothing.
I used the Nietzschean approach yesterday. I went into the restaurant and called the police. When the police arrived, I explained that I didn’t need to file a formal report, but 
that I would like the police to go into the projects to find the teenager who punched me (I gave them a fairly detailed description). I requested that they give him a lecture and a warning. I assume they did this. To the right is a photo of the police car driving into the area where the teenagers approached me.
What I find interesting is that none of these approaches (turn the other cheek, finish the fight or get a little bit of revenge) actually told me what to do. Each of these simple-looking rules is vague because none of them is accompanied meta-rules describing exactly when and how to apply the rule. Aristotle levied this devastating criticism toward alleged rule-based morality more than 2,000 years ago.
It’s worse than a problem of vagueness. Almost every bit of moral guidance is balanced by an opposite rule. You can almost always find a rule to justify whatever you’d like to do. You can almost always find some rule to criticize someone else’s behavior. I’m not the first to notice this problem with pairs of opposing rules:
All maxims have their antagonist maxims; proverbs should be sold in pairs, a single one being but a half truth.
William Mathews
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
– George Santayana
Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true. H.L. Mencken
An aphorism is never exactly true. It is either a half-truth or a truth and a half.
Karl Kraus, Sprüche und Widersprüche, 1909
Somewhere in the world there is an epigram for every dilemma.
Hendrik Willem van Loon
A good teacher must know the rules; a good pupil, the exceptions.
Martin H. Fischer
Would you like some examples of antipodal guidance? Consider the following:
[table id=1 /]
Are we in charge of our actions? We are doing the steering, but most people like to believe that the rules are steering us. Or that God is in charge, and we are simply following His Will. Or that fairness 
compels us. When we are deciding what to do, we are all like lawyers who twist and spin the rules, always acting as if we had no choice in the matter. Each of us is often a chattering fool riding on the elephant described by Jonathan Haidt. It’s not as if the rules mean nothing at all–they are guides and posts that capture and direct our attention–but we decide to privilege some of them and quite often we do so consciously; they don’t actually control us, certainly not as often as we claim.
The bottom line? There’s a rule for every occasion. We chose the rules, they don’t really compel us. It’s just a matter of deciding what to do, then choosing a rule to justify your decision. If no rule is reasonably available, then create on, stretch one, distinguish one, or ignore one. Why would we do that? Because it’s much easier to justify our decisions by claiming that we are following “objective” criteria than by arguing that we chose to do something because we personally decided to do it (without any objective criteria). In Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind, Preface, p. xiv, (1987), George Lakoff commented on this need to find “objective” criteria for our decision-making:
There is a major folk theory in our society according to which being objective is being fair, and human judgment is subject to error or likely to be biased. Consequently decisions concerning people should be made on ‘objective’ grounds as often as possible. It is the major way that people who make decisions avoid blame. If there are ‘objective’ criteria on which to base a decision, then one cannot be blamed for being biased, and consequently one cannot be criticized, demoted, fired, or sued.
Hence, we work hard to justify our behavior according to “moral rules.” We claim that we did X because we were morally compelled to do X. Or course, if we had conducted ourselves some other way, we would have found a rule to justify that too. Welcome to the hyper-technical world of moral ratiocination, a world that parallels the equally bizarre world of legal reasoning.
1) I don't think disproving (if you could) the value of moral rules as measures of objectivity disproves the possibility/value of deciding matters objectively, fairly and dispassionately.
2) Even if our minds are basically subjective, if/since falsehood and apparent unfairness bother and embarrass us, objectivity has a beachhead from which it can conquer all, even if it can't fully quash the guerrillas of subjectivity.
Great post, Erich.
Your commentary reminded me of some the research on fMRI studies that have been publicized recently.
Almost every study demonstrates that we are not rational creatures – that our decisions are spurred by empathic response (our 'tribal' in-group/out-group awareness); by emotion (especially likes and dislikes); and indeed that much of our decision making is a posteriori – our rational decision on 'what we want to do' is actually (in many cases) a rationalization of what our instincts/emotions/autonomous mechanisms were going to do anyway.
What relevance has this to do with morals? It merely amplifies Aristotle's rant against rules, and lends further credence to Lakoff's comment on objectivity.
We are animals who make shit up, who can then justify what we made up, and that we excel at it.
Morals are a case in point.
Amid guerrillas and beachheads is simply a plethora of actions, reactions, and chaos. Some urged by others and others urged by their own perceptions see various things and infer patterns, meanings, and order. A series of trees becomes a forest, an intentional sampling from a buffet of moral rules becomes commandments, and feelings of disapproval beget laws, rules, and reasons.
Freeze framing the situation above, an endless array of reasons for the assault emerge: territory, showing of dominance for others in the crew, raw boredom and wanting to toy with easy prey, Erich's beard reminded them of an abusive cop or teacher from their immediate past (hah), etc.
The responses tend to be reactionary with some clothing of one's values and morals but in a tense fact pattern like above quite randomly violent and beyond cute well manicured philosophy textbooks and Sunday school diagrams the immediate move will be quick termination of the encounter. Whether violent, lethal, peaceful, or poetic I must concur with Tony's post.
Its the old David Hume cause/effect, and in hindsight some stare at the factual transaction of what happened and start to dig into their science atheistic rationalist box or their subjective spiritual emotive religious box or [insert].
I do not yearn to live in a society kin to Hobbe's primitive state of nature (as fallacious as it has been proven) but I am neither fulfilled by the moral prescriptions of most modern societies no matter religious or secular.
Next time, Erich, tell them you are a time traveler and any harm impacted upon you will bruise the time space continuum and explode their inconsequential souls especially, and while they stand there befuddled by your half baked statement…flee.
I have only one observation to make: I am not a pacifist. But I do not react blindly, either. The only useful stance to take is…
It depends.
(I was once threatened by a number of men, all of whom were following the lead of one loudmouth. I did not have the option of running away. As Erich says, "pragmatically", I had only choice. The loudmouth was the leader. I broke his jaw, then walked up to the others demanding "Who's next?" They did not kill me. On another occasion, I managed to slip out a back door, so to speak, and I ran like hell. So…it depends.)
I am, by nature, a pacifist. I see no reason to fight unprovoked, and certainly no reason to avoid negotiation, even under provocation. (I think Chamberlain has been very unfairly maligned by history).
I prefer words to violence – but violence is ever present, and there are those for whom violence is the first recourse not the last.
I refuse to be a pushover.
So is it moral to fight back?
Three incidents in my life serve to tell my tale.
ONE.
I was always bullied at school – a large, overweight, bookish kid with relatively poor social skills – since no-one in my peer group *cared* about the things I was interested in. I took everything they threw at me, and refused to fight back, until one day one of them chose to spit on my face. I was bigger, and stronger – they were generally smaller, and more numerous. I snapped. I picked up the kid who had spit on me – and threw him through a (luckily open) window into a classroom. The others rushed me while I was doing this. I grabbed another kid and used him to beat on the others (I grabbed his arm and leg, and spun around). Eventually I let him go. I was punished for fighting. The bullying tailed off to taunting only, but I was never again assaulted at school.
TWO
At around 17 years of age, my friends and I had a 'band'. We hung out at my house (a flat, two floors up in a tenement) and practiced, played, listed to other music – as teenagers do. We also ate. One of the 'group' was threatened when buying chips (french fries) at the neighborhood fish & chip shop. He ran to my house – followed by the (growing) group of thugs who had threatened him, who then decided to hang out at the entrance to my tenement (the 'close' mouth). I went down to the close mouth to tell them to leave (the words used were 'fuck off or I'll call the polis', IIRC). They milled around, and gradually drifted off – over the brow of the hill and out of sight.
My mom usually walked home from the bus stop, from where the thugs had gone… so about 20 minutes later, I went out to see if they were still around – if so, I'd call the cops on their 'loitering'. As I crested the brow of the hill, they were still there – worse yet – they saw me and ran at me – a mass of about thirty. I had been accompanied by a couple of my pals, we were outnumbered ten to one. Running wasn't an option – so I took a stand against the wall of a building, and held them off until the police came.
Most of my friends got contusions and bruises from kicks and punches. I was stabbed, bottled, punched, and kicked (but you should seen the other guys). I was still standing, but needed a total of twenty-five stitches.
In this case I fought because there was no alternative – and I fought with my back to a wall. Had I not I would likely have been seriously injured… they took it out on me, probably, because I told them to fuck off.
THREE
My wife and I lived in a city-center apartment in Glasgow, and after work (along with almost everyone else) would spend some time at the pub or club. Afterwards, we'd walk home, and get some supper on the way (take out chinese, or indian, or greek, or…). One evening, our favorite take out was surrounded by a cadre of 'punks' – who were delighting in harassing the customers, in and out. As Susan & I approached – they took interest, and ambled over… making salacious comments, innuendo, and such. I told Susan to ignore them, and we made to go inside – they blocked our path. One guy stood in front of me with his face inches from mine. It was a decision point.
So I leant closer, right into him, almost nose to nose, and said very quietly "Fuck. Off". For some reason I wasn't scared. I felt certain they were simply playing at being menacing. That they would not try to face me down. I turned away from him, not even giving him a glance, and took Susan inside. We ordered – Susan was nervous as hell. I, strangely, wasn't. I seem to have accepted the path forwards as inevitable – whatever it would be. We picked up our order, and we left. They made a wide berth away from us, as we excited, and said not another word.
CONCLUSION
Was I moral in incident one? I don't know.
My response was significantly more violent than the provocation. Should previous, unavenged provocation be taken into account? Should I have fought back earlier?
Certainly most of the individuals involved in the fracas were earlier participants in bullying, so they got "what they deserved" by proxy. Is that moral?
Not my call. But was it right? I think, most definitely.
In incident two, I admit stupidity in my initial response (in my defense I was 17), and further stupidity in my second. The correct response would have been to call the police at the outset (but what 17 year old would do such a thing?). Was my eventual fight morally justified? My actions were dictated by defense of my friend, and fear for my mother. So probably morally right, in intent, but still unwittingly stupid in execution.
In incident three, I was a little more aware. I took a calculated risk. Was that a moral action? What if it had turned sour? I was risking not only myself but my wife. Morally, I was right in so many way – but I was also stupidly wrong. Standing up to bullies like a *real man* – what a load of pointless, danger seeking pontificating crap.
So morals do not align to right action. Right action is often not 'moral', but simply right – and is dictated entirely by circumstances.
"Moral rules" is an oxymoron of the first degree. Guidelines, yes. Rules, no.
Tony,
Fascinating. I too was bullied in grade school, but in my case I was small and underweight and for several years quite incapable of physically defending myself. My dad was a product of Depression-era Hell's Kitchen and believe firmly in "hit 'em with a baseball bat." He tried to explain that the taunting and harassment would never end until I punched back, which I was terrified to do.
In 8th grade I did, with dramatic results. My first year in high school I decided, quite consciously, to fight anyone who looked at me "wrong." There were a few incidents, but by the end of Freshman year everyone seemed to have grown out of that phase.
After high school, I was in a band as well and this led to some gigs in a few bad places where physical confrontation sometimes proved unavoidable. (We had a bass player for a time who used nothing but cheap Tiesco basses because he expected to have to use them occasionally as clubs.) Between the age of 18 and 23, I found myself in a number of situations wherein violence was a probability and I can say with certainty that I'm lucky to be alive and with all my parts today.
What I learned, though, is this: rational people tend to treat violence as an aberration—that there is something "broken" in either the violent person or the situation. Often, maybe usually, that's true.
But in other instances, what you find is that for at least one party, this is a conversation. Odd to put it that way, but it is. And when you respond with reasoned discourse, it's the equivalent of speaking a different language or talking at crossed purposes. The dialogue is physical, words won't work. (Physical includes running away, btw. Physical includes calling the police. Physical is basically engaging the conversation on its own terms and the aggressor needs to be physically prevented from hurting you. Belting him is not the only way, but words are often not useful.) Seen this way, you can also see it as a conversation started by someone with few other language skills.
As to Chamberlain—the problem with assessing him is that Hitler had made it abundantly clear what he intended, so Chamberlain's actions look like wishful thinking rather than sound judgment. That many others around him realized that Hitler would not keep his word only underscores his lack of competence in that case. But no one wanted a war, so they were glad to back him until it was too late. Would a timely-administered sock in the jaw, so to speak, have worked? For a short while maybe. The problem was that Hitler was a psychopath and Chamberlain tried to deal with him as a rational leader.
Different conversations.
Mark: That's fascinating to think of physical aggression as a conversation. But why not? Especially since I've bought into Haidt's metaphor of the person as a small rider on top of a huge elephant. If the rider is not especially articulate, the elephant will find some other way to express itself. http://dangerousintersection.org/2010/06/26/why-a…
"I was concerned that he was going to push me off my bicycle, so I hopped off."
Key moment. I don't know how fast you were going or if there was room to accelerate or swerve, but I think my choice (instinct) would have been to avoid stopping at all costs. Sort of like the kidnapping victim advice – never get in the car or whatever.
Another thing to consider is remapping/altering your route if you have not already.
I didn't really want to drag this into the discussion, but there is one more fact that I have now decided to disclose that raises the stakes and explains why I didn't take off on my bike. If I had been riding alone, that wouldn't have been a problem. No person on foot would have been able to catch up with me. At the time of this incident, however, I was riding bicycles with my two daughters, aged 10 and 12, and they were not fast enough to outpace these jerks. For about 30 seconds, the thugs were gathered around both me and my daughters and it was, to say the least, an incredibly stressful moment. My daughters were physically unscathed, thank goodness.
I should also mention that this occurred along a well-traveled street near downtown St. Louis. I've been through this area many times before, never with any sort of problem with anyone. It was about noon on a sunny day, and I had never before seen any gang of teenagers in this area. Immediately after the incident, two women who lived in the area came up and apologized for the incident and offered assistance.
Erich,
By percentage, there are much more "hate-crimes" or racial motivated physical assaults from Black Americans on White Americans. I don't have the numbers, but the man behind this book, 'From Rage to Responsibility, A Black Conservative', grew up in the deep south on a plantation. The Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, who has appeared on Larry King live, Fox News and other affiliates debated the Black culture.
Mr. Peterson was never taught to hate white people, but when he moved to Chicago and LA in the 1968 Watts riots, did he begin his hatred towards whites. You guys can theorize and chatter, but you are seeing young, naive, uneducated racist(taught by family) to physically attack white people….they even film them. It's called the 'ol sucker punch' sucka.
I taught my Christian son, if needed, to sucker punch the bullies on the first day of school, so that their small brains can remember the pain. He knew I was kidding him…but that is the mentality, premptive strikes always works! Ask Israel…
FYI:
Jesus, in Matthew 8:5' "A Roman Centurian asked Jesus to heal his servant of paralysis and terrible suffering…Jesus says, "I will go heal him". The centurian replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me, I tell this one, 'Go' and he goes; and that one, 'Come', and he comes. I say this to my servant, 'Do this', and he does it".
When jesus heard this, he was astonished ans said to following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith"…verse 13, Then Jesus said to the centurian, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." His servant was healed that very hour.
So obviously, Jesus did not have a problem with the Roman Centurian, whom are very, very tough on their subjects(look it up, men who fell asleep on duty could be killed) and being an enemy of Israel at the time. So, someone as violent as a Roman soldier, found mercy from the Master…Also, the Gospel would not have spread if it were not for the Roman occupation of the Middle East and Asia Minor. They kept the roads clear from robbers/thieves, and rebels!
So go ahead make my day…LOL
Rabel.
Rabel
You do seem to have a major chip on your shoulder.
Without the numbers you are simply making (or repeating) an unsubstantiated claim.
You reference that claim in support of your later argument, that somehow young blacks are systematically taught to hate/attack young whites???
Sorry, but WTF kind of racist, whitebread, pure aryan bullshit is that?
Where is your evidence – and I don;t mean a book that some guy wrote where he pulled anecdotes out of his ass. I mean actual studies. If this is/was as prevalent as you claim, there would be doctorates in urban sociology built on the back of it. It's sociological gold.
So where are the actual studies? (or are they suppressed by the anti-white, anti-christian scientific cabal?)
sheesh
Rabel:
I don't know what you mean "by percentage" there are more black-on-white hate crimes. The FBI keeps track of the statistics, they are here if you care. For 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available, they list anti-white hate crime incidents numbering 829, involving 1,085 known offenders (where the race of the offender is known). Anti-black hate crimes number 2,731 involving 2,694 known offenders. I can't find in the statistics any discussion of the offenders separated out by race, so we really can't be sure who's perpetrating each of those sets of crimes.
You say that "premptive strikes always works"[sic]. They may "work" in the sense that your attack finds a target, but they may also be counter-productive (see US vs. Iraq 2003-present).
You also appear to be arguing that the ends justify the means when it comes to the spread of Christianity, which is an odd position to take given the moral stance of the Christian religion. To borrow a question from the evangelicals: What would Jesus do? I doubt preemptive strike was part of his moral lexicon. I thought he was a "turn-the-other-cheek" kind of guy.
Rabel:
I never mentioned the "race" of the participants. I have no evidence that "race" had anything to do with this incident. Not that I know for sure, because the aggressor simply punched me in the arm/shoulder, and didn't say anything. I don't know what he was thinking.
I would bet, however, that there are millions of Americans out there who would assume that "race" had some role in this incident, even though I never described the assailant. Yes, he appeared to live in the nearby housing project, but it seems to me that your remark about race is an assumption built on assumptions, and that it plays into a simplistic ready-made frame society offers to us for "explaining" violent behavior.
Sorry Erich, and to others if my Yankee-tea ways are upsetting anyone…
1775-1776, remember the "colonies turned states" were built on the very principles that even Na'~polean used, "premptive"= we bring war to you, undercover…remember 9/11? Look what a few Saudis can do…(nailed ya 'boys and girls').
Yes, maybe I jump to conclusions, but Erich when you reflect, did they want your bike(posession, 'guilty of covetness') or were they on drugs/alcohol= great combo for true feelings(UNTRUST BETWEEN white and black Americans)? Come'on, do you trust or at least be aware of your surroundings, that you cannot foresee or even be questioning this sad tail? Could be, we are not so free, to just go anywhere in the great city? People are territorial, (look at your relations with the Neanderthal, CroMagdon, Homo habilis)? A big zoo out there,and doesn't surprise me ar all kind sirs, I expect it.
~Let me say that defending yourself is ok!~To live for family?
Aikido can teach you to fall, take knives away, make throws…even run away! Gaku Homma, Sensei onced said, "A 300 degree blackbelt of (many types and forms of martial arts) will always lose to a 38 special! That's wisdom, from 'The Dog'…though his bite is much worse!
Rabel.
Rabel
You are not 'upsetting' me, other than proving that some people really are too stupid to be allowed to vote (to paraphrase Mr Twain). That upsets my egalitarian democratic principles.
You are, however, demonstrating that you are an unmitigated ass.
BTW – I studied both Korean and Chinese martial arts – open hand & weapon for more than ten years in my late teens/twenties. I did judo when a young child (pre teen. These things are called 'martial' arts for a reason.
The rules are simple: Negotiate. Run away. Or fight to win.
Fight first is the strategy of an idiot. (Perhaps you should read Sun Tzu. Although your comments here don't demonstrate a great facility with the art of reading for comprehension)
The art of war is ensuring it is impossible for the other to win, and therefore making is possible to avoid war if they act sensibly (and concede), but guaranteeing victory if they do not.
The hawkish neo-cons, and idiots like yourself, have demonstrated that braying loudly about superiority is not a winning strategy. Shock and Awe made for great TV, but using our troops to provide the opening sequence for Terminator 4 is not a foreign policy to be proud of. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, Afghani civilians, and thousands of American Troops would agree.
People like you make me sick. Not that you have the ideas you have. But that you shout them loudly and proudly as if they (and you) were worthy of respect.
Sorry if I have offended anyone,
Erich, I guess just ride where you want to like (projects, dumps, dark alley ways). But we are never really free, if we have to look behind us because of our skin color. I'm willing to take this head on withour the PC.
Did they want your bike? (That's mine. Where's mine? Hey, he's got one I should be equal…commune living)
…just keep riding Erich.
Rabel
Are you for real?
That wouldn't have anything at all to do with the hate mongering spewed by the likes of Beck, Limbaugh, Gingrich, and others? It would have nothing at all to do with the almost 100% poor white christian demographic that forms the bulk of the tea party? Nothing at all to do with the continual pandering to racist epithets by the right wing astroturf groups funding these 'protests' – like Americans for Prosperity, among others?
Nope. It's all because of Obama, and them damned libruls!
sheesh!
You seem to have a thing about preemptive strikes. Do you get off thinking about striking out. Getting them before they get you? What a scared little man you must be.
Read my last comment. Then read some more. You don't seem to understand that preemptive strikes are the sole province of the bully, not of the reasonable man.
Great – you have a black friend. One small quibble, though. Your friend is not an African American – he is African. Different background entirely, unless you are trying to say that color is a defining characteristic for people?
Your friend is not ignorant (or devoid) of racial problems – his simply do not corellate with skin color. His race problems are Tutsi versus Hutu. Argue if you want that isn't race… but it is exactly race, in the same terms as black/white in the US is race. It's just easier to see the difference in the US, and easier to pretend that it's not race in Rwanda.
Thanks for describing every single person of color in the US as a poor, fatherless, untrustworthy, and mistrustful wretch.
Painting with an over-broad brush there, donchathink?
Regardless of that – you then try to conflate real problems (why are people in projects so relentlessly poor and uneducated?) with some weird ass white victimhood. Really?
You also bring in entirely unrelated topics. Clinton's Lewinsky episode may have been 'a poor show', but if you think it worthy of impeachment, (context makes it appear that you do) then perhaps we should impeach 80+% of our government representatives for similar 'pecadillos' – starting with the entire republican caucus. You obviously find it appalling that Rev Jackson would support Clinton. Why, exactly?
Maybe if the dumb-ass evangelicals got the fuck out of the way of real education, there would be real progress in avoiding unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence works fine… if you are living in Pleasantville. Not so much in the real world.
Evangelicals might find it icky that people have sex. A known consequence of unprotected sex is pregnancy. That results in either birth, or abortion. Evangelicals don't seem to like any of those outcomes, but refuse to do anything about the causes!
You, Rabel, are a fuckwit.
Mark,
read the 'Treaty of Versailles'…considering the Euro-depression and when someone(Hitler) tells you they will put food on your table, you will listen! Germany had to pay for the WWI costs, and would not have been payed off until 1984…a rather unfair treaty put on the german tribes, by Wilson and his cohorts. Now you have a country of extreme, united patroitism mixed in with revenge and racial hatred. So Tony, Chamberlain was treated fairly by history…needed 'premptive strike', like the German Blitzkrieg and double-cross policies with the Russians (Peace Treaty). Chamberlain failed and so did Stalin!
Rabel,
You sound like you're sixteen.
And I am completely baffled by your reference to 1776. Are you suggesting that we somehow sent stealth warriors to Whitehall and started the war with England?
Thanks Brian Jacobs for the link…very interesting. If I had the time, would be nice to see social correlations of hate crimes of urbana vs. rural communities.
Did notice the ethno/religious crimes of Jews and Muslims…Much smaller numbers of anti-muslim hate crimes vs. anti-jewish numbers.
The numbers are relavent, but there are a number of cases not represented in these FBI figures, also unreported cases, maybe like Erichs? Could Erich be a case of hate crime not reported? He hasn't given skin color…I assumed when I read "projects", my knee jerked my brain and I saw black all over this.
Thanks again.
Tony,
~at least I have the freedom to be stupid…"Sticks and stones and dead man bones", "but premptive strikes will hurt me".
Your name calling and superiority is sophmorish at best, try it on someone who cares.
Talking your way out of racial tensions is only good when the other race plays by the "Queensbury Rules."
In Erich's case, the rules did not apply, my hat is off to Erich! Glad you are safe sir…:)
Rabel.
Rabel
Your arguments are not. Your comments demonstrate an appalling disregard for the other. You revel in "Might makes Right", and on and on and on.
I don't do name calling. I do perform appropriate labeling, as a public service.
And you are right – I go the label wrong in your case.
You, Rabel, are a trolling fuckwit.
Well Tony,
maybe you should get your martial arts money back…I mean, a pacifist like you needs no protection, right? Need to worry about the enemy within, and that is pacifism…never understood the peacenik mentality here.
Tony, I can even educate you on what Zen Buddaism played on the samurai(bushido) in Japan. The worship of trees and other life forms(Shinto-ism). Instead of lopping one's head off, the sword was put down and spark; O'Sensei came up with sword movements with the other person's limbs as the weapon; to simply promote "conflict resolution". Now that is Zen!
Aikido moves are not graded on how well moves are performed, but what overall proactive,community volunteerism is practised. The martial arts will come, when the "back-packs of heroism are unyoked.
I was fortunate to learn from a direct line; an original last Ushi-Deshi from O'Sensei, who taught Gaku Homma Kancho to cook and feed the homeless. Traditional country style martial art, not the modern Tokyo/USA hollywood style. ~This means no heat in the winter, no air-conditioning in the summer, wooden floors or thick cotton mats for throwing others and a whole lot of sweat!!!!
~and I thought Aikido was non-violent; I lost my pacifist back-pack real quick!
Rabel.
Rabel
I trained in a gym, on wooden floors – no mats – and 'semi-contact' – meaning, oops I just dislocated your hip there, let me reset and and we'll continue.
You seem to revel in name-dropping. I really don;t care.
Also – I *am* a pacifist, but that does not mean I will not fight. It means I prefer not to fight if I can negotiate a reasonable alternative. Not an alternative that would only suit the bully. Not an alternative that would result in significant loss to my preferred positions. A negotiation that seeks to balance the positions of the negotiators – which if you truly have studied aikido should be as natural as rolling to your feet from a throw.
Balance in everything.
Fighting against your opponent's strength is the way to lose. Striking hard, preemptively, with all your might, is the surest route to defeat in aikido – and in most other martial arts – there is a reason they spend so much time drilling you in 'defensive offense' after all. Aikido teaches you to leverage your opponents strength using your skill to your greatest advantage.
That is also the art of negotiation.
You seem only to understand the art of the bully – crude finger painting by comparison.
Rabel, now a babbling, trolling fuckwit.
Shall we continue this dance? I'd like to, but I fear for my toes, and for those of the audience.
Rabel,
Re your observations about Versailles 1920…
Wilson argued against what Britain and France were doing, but he was a very sick man during the conference. It was not "he and his cohorts" who did this to Germany—he saw clearly that this would be a disaster, but was unable to do much about it for a couple of reasons.
One was that he actually brought America into the war. He had campaigned on a pledge to keep the U.S. out. Had he done that he would—so he believed—have been able to broker a peace treaty as an "honest agent" who had not been sullied by the conflict. But he was suckered (or suckered himself) into declaring war less than a year before it ended. For a good study on how that happened, may I recommend "The Zimmerman Telegram" by Barbara Tuchman.
Two, America was before and was after very isolationist. Wilson went to Versailles to try something he didn't really have a mandate to try and when he botched it he came home to a stroke and a country that was angry over our part in the war.
(See, it's always more complex than a sound bite suggests.)
The Treaty of Versailles was a travesty and set the stage for Hitler. Hitler used legitimate German grievances to take over the government and start an expansionist Reich. Chamberlain and those who thought like him bought the "legitimate grievances" part of Hitler's spiel, so their heart wasn't in any kind of retributive action over the Sudetenland. (Churchill, btw, had thought Versailles a horrible treaty as well and perhaps because he carried less sense of responsibility over it he saw what was happening more clearly.)
After WWII, the United States, being the only superpower capable and willing, decided fairly unilaterally that there would be no repeat of Versailles and implemented the policies that rebuilt Germany as a peaceful democracy (likewise with Japan), a method we seem of late to have forgotten about other than as rhetoric.
Pre-emption may have its uses, but there is almost never a clear-cut set of circumstances that gives one an unequivocal thumbs up for it. In any event, you try everything you can to solve a problem before striking a blow, just in case there is another way.
Tony,
I've often thought "The Art of War" should be required reading for anyone seeking political office. Many of the chapters can also be applied to handling conflicts in everyday life.
Project Gutenberg has two English translation of the book, I actually preferred the annotated translation.
Erich,
When the kid punched you he was probably trying to evoke a "fight or flight" response. Since you had the girls with you, he was no doubt expecting you to be scared or defensive. The possible responses to such a confrontation are a) run, b)fight, and c) do something unexpected.
If you had run, the gang would have chased you and the girls down. If you had fought, you would have been fighting off the entire gang. In this case, you chose option c, and did the unexpected. In many cases this is the best option.
Niklaus: I wasn't going anywhere because I couldn't. I suspect that they were probably feeling a bit awkward with my daughters present. The aggressor punched me in the upper arm. It didn't hurt at all, but maybe that was adrenaline at work. I can now see noticeable bruises, representations of three of his knuckles on my arm.
I didn't move and I didn't react physically other than to yell at him to "Cut it out!" It was also along a well traveled street, and I do have to wonder whether my yelling made them feel conspicuous.
They did run off, but it looked like they might come back for the next couple of minutes, while I herded my daughters across the street to the restaurant.
I don't know why they were aggressive and I don't know why they stopped their attack. Maybe it was because mainly they were bored and they really didn't have any plan other than to show off for each other. Perhaps it was because I was wearing a bike helmet. Maybe it was because I didn't flinch, meaning perhaps that he was going to need to work pretty hard to hurt me. Maybe he stopped because his fellow hoodlums weren't joining in, but stand a few steps back.
I knew I didn't want to escalate the situation. But it they would have threatened harm to my daughters I would have done anything in my power to stop them. But again, we were along a busy street, near a lot of rehabbed housing, and I was quite surprised that they were willing to cause any trouble at all.
Erich, like the young braves of yore, seems the kid was counting coup on you. It was all about could he do it and get away with it, not about you except you were there.
When we were kids and got bored we'd run down the street yelling in front of one lady's house because we knew she'd call the cops on us; we called it "chase!" Then we'd spend the next couple of hours dodging the police who were sorta trying to catch us but, really just doing their jobs while ignoring some idiot kids who were wasting their time.
But, there's another explanation…it was God's punishment for your unrepentant immoral nihilism! REPENT!