War

I don’t believe there can ever be peace on earth. People who wish for peace on earth are being all too unrealistic. War has been a staple of human life as long as humans have been on earth. Killing is the most effective way of ensuring your will upon things. If you want things one way and someone stands in your way, the simplest way to solve to problem is not to reason with your opponent, but to kill them.

Obviously, it’s not always that simple, but many wars have been fought over simple arguments. One side wanted it one way, the other side wanted it another way. The side that wins is the side that is more effective at war, a practice that supports killing. To sum things up, the best way to get things to go your way is to be better at killing and war than your opponent.

To further my point, I’d like to pull a quote from one of my favorite books, “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card.

“The Power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.”

It all seems so unfair to me, that a very important matter can be decided by something that’s totally irrelevant to the matter at hand. It’s exponentially unfair when killing and war is what decides a very important matter; which side of a matter wins should be decided by what’s right, not by which side has bigger or better guns.
This is one reason I believe America is both beautiful and ugly. We are so safe and secure from foreign enemies that many Americans can focus on many seemingly trivial things, like philosophy, Hollywood, and Myspace. Hell, if we’re being honest, it’s beautiful that I can even have these thoughts and support this blog without having to worry about a bomb being dropped on my dorm, an airstrike on my hometown, my dog stepping on a land mine.

It’s also beautiful that we can be so safe and secure that we can argue about whether or not war is necessary. However, those who believe that peace on earth is possible are subject to those who are willing to go to great lengths to get things their way.

Let’s imagine for a second that there is peace on earth. No human being has to be worry about war erupting and having an rpg shot through their bedroom window. This allows for a great standard of living. Many people are happy.

Naturally, however, there are still many arguments; some trivial, others more important. There would be far too many arguments going on, far too many people arguing for it to not be the case that not one person in the world was willing to go to great lengths, even murder, to get their way. You can’t tell me that everyone on earth is kind-hearted and would preserve the peace. Eventually, enough arguments break out, the wrong person gets angered, and war breaks out. No more peace on earth.

You may say to yourself, “If I were to murder ____ because he opposed my will, I would be convicted of murder,” and you would be right. However, by murdering ____, you also ensured that ____’s will would not follow through. Your will would win over ____’s.

On a more universal scale, if one nation wants things one way, and another nation wants things another way, they either figure out a way to meet in the middle or they go to war. This has been true for as long as humans have roamed the earth.

This all seems so unfair to me, that matters can be decided over something totally irrelevant to the issue. When it’s fact the decided factor in a matter is who is better at killing, to the point that all of their opponents are dead or has signed a peace treaty, it goes up and above the unfairness scale to me.

I truly wish this all wasn’t true. No matter how much I wish it wasn’t true, it has been and will be a truth of the world until a much more sensible alternative comes around, an alternative that in all likelihood, will never come.