On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 08:10:34AM -0500, Wirt Atmar wrote:
> OK, how about this non-biblical quote then :-):
> "Violence never settles anything." -Genghis Khan 1162-1227
> (no, it's not made up).
I'll assume ou can provide backup for that, and so won't call you on it.
Instead, I'll reply:
But on the last day he seemed to be trying to find out what we had
learned. One girl told him bluntly: "My mother says that violence
never settles anything."
"So?" Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I'm sure the city fathers
of Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn't your mother tell
them so? Or why don't *you*?"
They had tangled before - since you couldn't flunk the course, it
wasn't necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly,
"You're making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was
destroyed!"
"You seemed to be unaware of it," he said grimly. "Since you do
know it, wouldn't you say that violence had settled their destinies
rather thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally;
I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea - a practice I
shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue -
and thoroughly immoral - doctrine that 'violence never settles
anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon
Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The
ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo,
the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has
settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the
contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that
forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and
freedoms."
-- Robert Heinlein, _Starship Troopers_
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