{"id":453,"date":"2012-03-19T18:39:52","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T23:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=453"},"modified":"2012-03-19T18:39:52","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T23:39:52","slug":"real-test-power-prevent-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/19\/real-test-power-prevent-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Test of Power to Prevent War"},"content":{"rendered":"

PEACE QUOTE: Real Test of Power to Prevent War–PEACE SIGN BUTTON<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

\"PEACE<\/a><\/h2>\n

PEACE QUOTE: Real Test of Power to Prevent War–PEACE SIGN BUTTON<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.<\/span><\/p>\n

View more Peace Quote Buttons<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This peace quote reverses the typical notions of power.\u00a0 Power is typically viewed as the ability to make things happen.\u00a0 That is certainly true in the context of the capacity to make war.\u00a0 However, the power to exert brute force and coercion is very different from the type of moral force is needed to build and sustain peace.\u00a0 Morality, in its essence, is about restraint.\u00a0 By contrast, amorality is simply having no restraint or limits on one’s actions.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus, when comparing the capacity to make war versus the capacity to prevent war, or to create peace, these concepts of power tend to clash.\u00a0 War is hardly an exercise in restraint.\u00a0 While war may require a lot of discipline in many respects, it requires unleashing incredible brute force that by its very nature cannot be controlled.\u00a0 One simply has to recognize the reality that for every combatant killed in wartime, approximately ten non-combatant are killed.\u00a0 Clearly, war is not a precise surgical procedure, despite all the talk about smart bombs and laser guided systems.<\/p>\n

As the United States is beating the drums of war against Iran, there is talk about the right thing to do, the moral thing to do.\u00a0 Of course, most of this talk is couched in terms of all the evil, bad, or immoral things that some other parties are doing.\u00a0 Sort of by default, morality is imputed on people who oppose such evil doings and evil doers.\u00a0 Unfortunately, what is lost in the mix, mostly of lies, is that morality is more about restraining one’s own behavior than about restraining another’s behavior.\u00a0 By losing our focus on our own behavior, we can drift dangerously close to the unaccountability needed in order to wage war.\u00a0 If you think war-making requires restraint and discipline, try peacemaking and loving your enemies.\u00a0 The difficult task of taking personal responsibility for one’s behavior both as an individual and as a citizen of a nation can be costly.\u00a0 However, there seems to be an\u00a0 inertia in the human condition that defaults to blaming others for one’s own problems, and shifting the cost of relating to one another as human beings to other people that we see at fault.\u00a0 Even if I have a relationship with someone where a conflict or “problem” is 20% mine and 80% theirs, this does not relieve me of being accountable for my 20%.\u00a0 Rather than taking care of our own moral business and accountability, we often feel justified in focusing the blame and the full costs of the conflict onto those we see as enemies.\u00a0 It is impossible to successfully wage war without demonizing one’s enemies.\u00a0 This is the only way to justify killing a combatant.\u00a0 This is definitely the only way to justify killing non-combatant.\u00a0\u00a0 Show me a nation that can create peace in the face of potential war and I will show you the most morally powerful nation on earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PEACE QUOTE: Real Test of Power to Prevent War–PEACE SIGN BUTTON PEACE QUOTE: Real Test of Power to Prevent War–PEACE SIGN BUTTON This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,57,55],"tags":[251,227,512,161,720,91,143,104,156,392,228,102,155,81,379,110,601,409,723,203],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-war","category-peace","category-top-pun-design-commentaries","tag-accountability","tag-amorality","tag-business","tag-coercion","tag-conflict","tag-cool-design","tag-demonization","tag-enemies","tag-ethical","tag-evil","tag-immorality","tag-iran","tag-moral","tag-morality","tag-nature","tag-power","tag-reality","tag-responsibility","tag-top-pun","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\nReal Test of Power to Prevent War | Anti-War, Peace, Top Pun Design Commentaries | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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