Brute force is just stupid
I can tell you categorically that nothing, and I mean nothing, would stand between me and my kids. If I had to kill dozens of people to get them back, I would do that. And I’d do it with a clean conscience. When you see evil, you defeat it.
The intelligence community knew that KSM had information about imminent attacks. They waterboarded him until he talked and then the attacks against L.A. were stopped. Are you telling me we should not have done that and risked allowing the attacks to happen? Ask the people in that building if they’re glad the CIA did what they did.
Fighing evil with brute force is not evil. It’s common sense. It’s survival.
Are you a pacifist? Is any preemptive measure ever justified in your mind? Or must we only wait until we’re struck before striking back?
When Han Solo was frozen in carbonite, did Luke say, “Oh well. Jabba the Hutt is a bad guy but it would be wrong to use deadly force to get my friend back. I’d rather be known as the kindler, gentler Jedi”?
No. Because Luke Skywalker was not a pansy.
Let’s strip this down. Let’s strip this all down. Leave your Constitution at the door, leave your kids at the door, and sure as fuck leave your sci-fi metaphors at the door.
Brute comes from the Latin brūtus meaning stupid; force comes from the Latin fortis meaning strong. Fighting evil with brute force just means that you’re stupid and strong. Brute force requires no thinking, so it’s not common sense. Common sense implies some level of sound judgement based on common knowledge.
Here’s my common knowledge: those who are attacked often retaliate with stupid strength, so the attacker become the attacked, so they attack back. Stupid strength is a self-perpetuating cycle until someone is too hurt to fight back or someone identifies a reason above vengence and moves on. Stupid strength worked when we were cavemen. However, we’re pretty self-involved and egocentric these days, and no one can seem to come to the “too hurt to fight back” decision, because everyone thinks they’re still the biggest swinging dick in the arena.
Responding to evil with the decision not to perpetuate evil is the end of the cycle. My decision that cruelty is wrong may very well seem like an easy opportunity to someone that wants to get in a little more brute force, but I believe that if I can come to this decision the other side can too. At some point, higher reasoning will identify the possibility of mutual assured destruction and stop destroying.
Torture does two things really: torture makes you vindictive or it makes you forgiving.
Let’s bring all that personalization back, let’s bring your government, and your family, and everything you hold dear in this world back on the table. It’s one thing to talk about your kids getting kidnapped and what you’d want to do in return, but you should know that you’d be unsatisfied. If you love your children that much, no amount of blood from someone else can replace one drop of their own.
Can I put some things up here too? I’ve got this little circular scar, it’s a cigarette burn, I’d like to put this up here. I want to tell you about the differences between welts from PVC pipe and garden rakes, I’d like to put that knowledge on the tabe here. See, I can tell you about actual violence, and how nothing can make it actually better once it happens, so you have to stop letting it happen.
I want to be a part of a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, ensuring domestic Tranquility, a common defense, promoting the general Welfare, and the Blessings of Liberty, and I want to have children that are a part of those things as well. But a perfect union does not tear and divide. Established justice does not waterboard first and demand answers second. Domestic tranquility does not lie awake worried about what strike will come next. Defense is not offense. The general Welfare is not promoted merely for those who support whoever is in power at the moment. And the blessings of liberty are not enjoyed by those who are stuck in a cycle of violence.
