- Campaigns -

Violence: when is it necessary-self defense& defense of another who is innocent

The postings on the armed actins reported by the Gandalf defendants raise the question of when violence is jusified. The way I see it, violence is justified to defend oneself or another from an already violent attack. The way I see it, the initiation of violence in a nonviolent situation(such as in aggression) is called crime, and the response to it in kind is called justifiable use of force(as in fighting a defensive war against invasion).
Once the aggressor in a situation chooses to initiate o imminently threaten the use of force, I feel he CONSENTS to the use of any necessary force to stop him. Since it is difficult to judge the "minimum necessary" force without knowing one's oppnent and ll of his possibly concealed weapons, anyone who kow anything about warfare knows that when you don't know your opponent's capability the "minimum necessary" amount of force is, in fact,everything you'v got. Since the aggressor has CONSENTED, the only restriction is leaving the innocent out of it. In other words, the only restrictions in defensive warfare against invasion are against collateral damage. If invaders from outer space threatened earth with a fleet of spacefaring battleships and carriers, even nuclear weapons would not be out of the question, as our own detonations would not take place on earth(the cause of the collateral damage that make nuclear warfare here omnicidal) and we would not know what weapons they had. In other word, given that
they had chosen to attack us and might intend to destroy Earth utterly and cart away what they needed, a pre-emptive strike could be our only chance to survive. It is much the same in the street when someone tries to rob you or arrest you for a non-violent,non-aggressive act(if YOU had robbed someone, you would have consented to being killed, much less arrested).Unless you are SURE you can drive off or stop your attacker with less, you hit him with everything you've got. In defending yourself, if you underestimate the amount of force needed,you could be killed. If you overestimate, someone who consented to being counterattacked and forfeited his own rights pays a higher price than they thought. Even if you intervene to protect a third party, as soon as you enter the conflict the attacker will regard YOU as the primary enemy and if you lose the consequences are the same.
One VERY IMPORTANT caveat exists here. If you use force to assist another, but the person you assist started the violence, that makes YOU an aggressor and an attacker as well. An example would be coming to the aid of a cop making an underage drinking arrest, a burgler being beaten by the homeowner-or a corporate criminal under attack by the comon people. In the last case I dfine "corporate Crime" as the use of naked force or alliance with a government doing the same to increase profits or otherwise other than to preserve a right to be left alone. Therefore, if McDonalds forces Central American peasants from their lad with the local military and the peasants respond by occupying(or even burning down) McDonald's corporate HQ in the offending country, the security guards beating up the ones they catch are also aggressors, as McDonalds(through the government) used force first. In fact, once it was known the offending corporation intended to use the military for this purpose(like Shell in Nigeria)simply
taking any armed position(guard, cop, or soldier) for either the government or the business involved would represent a declaration of intent to participate in aggressive warfare. As a result, once the aggressor has struck first or begun physical preparations to do so(assembling the troops is tantamount to reaching for a gun in a street confrontation)they also become targets to the extent that they participate in the violence. This is one way that a military target is defined in warfare. Also involved are those that supply arms,fuel,and financing to the aggressor power. I feel that food probably shouldn't count as the soldiers would still be eating even if they all laid down their arms.
In short, the first use of force in a previously non-violent situation causes the situation to no longer be a non-violent situation, and at that moment being non-violent yourself simply causes you to receive ALL of the violence yourself. He who sows violence against the innocent, in turn, consents to reaping it himself. Therefore, why not defend yourself from any attacker so he pays his own price instead of you. In coming to the aid of another, I feel that you adopt the moral position of the one you aid. If he is the aggressor, so are you. If he is the defendor, than you are also. This is true on the street,in political campaigns, and in wars both civil and international. Since stopping an aggressor sucessfully replaces harm to someone who wants to just be left alone with harm to someone who consented to it,I consider this a desirable trade-off. After all, nobody complains if a murderer's gun explodes in his hands and kills him instead of his intended victim.

Follow Ups:

• making the "minimum necessary" really the minimum Boud Roukema France December 18 1997 (0)