GaryP - RA Survivor

 Violence

I was brought up to believe in violence as the ultimate solution. I don't think this way anymore.


When I first started school, I was very violent, getting into fights a lot, that sort of thing. My understanding was that violence was the ultimate authority, and the ultimate solution.

What has changed is my realization that violence may be the ultimate authority, but it is definitely not the ultimate solution. In fact, violence is a terrible solution. It is the most destructive, long term ineffective way of dealing with just about anything.

Is violence good for anything?

Yes. Self defense. Nothing more. Especially in this current world that so idolizes violence, there are going to be a lot of violent people. Occasionally, a person will be in a position where they will have to use violence to defend themselves or those they choose to protect, or property that their survival depends on.

Violence is appropriate when it is used to prevent people from forcing their will on others. It is not appropriate to use violence to force your will onto others. Not only does this include assault and rape against adults, but also against children. It is not okay to hit children. In fact it is counter-productive, and a pathetic alternative to treating them as equals, considering the results most parents seem to want.

Violence on a national level

Let's look at violent revolutions. A violent repressive government is overthrown by a violent revolution. What is the result? One violent government replaced by another. Because it took violence to overthrow the government, the new government is necessarily a violent one, and thus cannot govern in a non-violent way. What results is usually a slightly less repressive regime. Good examples of this are plenty.

Democracy may not necessarily give you a say in how the country is run, but at least it provides a mechanism for non-violent change of government. It seems that governments that result from non-violent mechanisms, are better able in this current world to protect the environment.

Violence on a community level

This is about violence that people do to strangers. It is a very small proportion of all violence. (The vast majority of violence is directed toward people known by the offender.)

What causes it? According to the police - drugs. But they don't tell us why. Not really. They just tell us what justifies their continued existence without change. But what really makes a person commit acts of violence against strangers? There's not really a lot of them, but they sure affect our lives a lot.

What kind of person does not care about hurting strangers? A person that has learned to think in this way. Most people are not like this. Most people feel awful when they realize they have hurt others. They try not to do it again. Kids are like this too. But a few are not. It seems that if a person cares about others when they are seven, then they will always care. So what makes a child care about nobody? How did they learn this? Is it because nobody cared about them, so that is how they believe everyone is, even strangers?

What happened to that person after they were born, in their first few years, to make them this way? Highly implicated in this argument is parenting. The majority of people believe that bad kids come from bad families. Me too. Like father, like son - that sort of belief system.

Why doesn't the government or the police want to look at the cause of this problem and these people's behavior? It's pretty obvious that these authorities look out to protect themselves and their power. So why would the government want to protect parents that are obviously abusing their children. Why does the government and the mass media avoid so much this obvious problem. Why are they keeping silent on child abuse? What do they get out of it?

I think that they are well aware that most child abuse victims do not come to a stage in their life where they know enough about politics to vote for someone other than the established parties. They are easily tricked by lies. They believe everything they are told, as if they were still children. It seems to me that our current political systems and the rich minority that control it, cannot survive without child abuse. People would simply not allow them to retain power, they would not cooperate with their authority.

Violence on a family level

This is something I have had quite a lot of experience with. When adults say that being hit as a child did them good, I think it is the ultimate denial. My 'father' thought like that, and look what he did to me. He became a child abuser, and wrecked my life. Is that good?

I remember listening to a fat mother say how she only gave her toddler a certain amount of time to eat her food, and then took it away. Gee I wonder how she got fat - and she was very fat. I think she was quite stupid.

What I see is a culture that preserves violence against children, that resists any pressure to admit that being hit did any harm. We sometimes read in the news that people committing violent crimes had suffered a lot of child abuse. It makes sense to us. Yet kids still get hit. How is it that parents manage to hold such contradictory values in their heads. Is it because their parents were hypocrites? Because they said one thing, but did another? And what of schools, how do they contribute. They teach children to idolize their parents and authority figures, and punish children for not accepting whatever is done to them. The hypocrisy that many children experience at home is repeated at school. Children are given a complete and consistent lesson in hypocrisy. Part of it relates to violence. It's okay to hit your kids, who are defenseless, but if you do it to an adult (that isnt your wife) it is a crime and you will be punished. Children are taught that violence against the powerless is not a crime - if you get away with it, it is not wrong.

And so we have a problem with violence in our society. Is it worth it? Is this the solution we wanted? - to not be safe in our own homes or out on the street?

If you have, as an adult, hit a child, then you are living with the consequences of your actions - an unsafe world.

What is the alternative? How do you get your kids to cooperate with you, to be helpful, and want to do the right thing. You have to lead by example. You have to respect their rights, and allow them control over their own lives. When children have control over their own lives, they choose to do the right thing. I have seen it for myself, otherwise I wouldn't believe in all this - I wouldn't be completely sure why some children grow up to be violent and uncaring hypocritical adults.

Special case:

Potential 'Lone nut' killers

Here I want to address the issue of people sort of like me. Those who struggle (or have done) with thoughts of bombing, arson, mass murder, that sort of thing. This is a message to people like this. I want to explain why they will never achieve what they set out to, in fact they will achieve the opposite.

Take, for example, the Oklahoma bombing, He wanted to get back at whoever for doing something he perceived was wrong. He wanted to teach them a lesson they would never forget, and thus they would change their ways and not do bad things anymore.

This is not at all how it works!

The result of this bombing was that they didnt change at all what they were doing 'wrong'. In fact it has given the police and security authorities more justification for disempowering individuals more than they already had. So the people have had their ability to affect reform compromised. People that are very vocal against government institutions will have less ability to cause change, and will be given more attention from security organizations.

But you dont have to think about it for very long to realize that bombing or mass shooting isnt an effective way of promoting change, but a good way to promote an authoritative crackdown.

So why don't the people who do things like this realize it wont do what they want it to? Why can't they see that?

They do.

Yes, it's true, they do see that it is wrong and it wont work. But part of their mind is not capable, or allowed, to realize this. Somehow, this part of their mind is able to take over control of their actions.

This somehow, in my opinion, is called programming. These people are acting against their will. I am saying this based on my case, and that I think they have been through similar programming. I think the controlled programming of separated consciousnesses has a lot to do with mass murderers.

I don't know who programmed me, and why they put what they did in my mind. All I can do is to think about who would benefit from a bombing such as the one in Oklahoma. Very high on the list is the security apparatuses, that control unrest in our societies. Shootings and bombings result in increased powers for them. The ruling rich also benefit. As the public become more and more fearful, they turn more and more to the current authorities to keep them safe and solve their problems, without realising that this is exactly what those authorities want them to do.

Or it could be people that just want to implicate those who benefit. If the security organizations were innocent, would they not think about this? Would they not publicly suggest or admit it. The fact that they have not, despite being publicly accused, suggests that they do not want the public to realize who is benefiting from the killings.

What do those who claim to be programmed say about who does it? They say they were programmed by military and intelligence organizations. Personally I dont know who programmed me, only that they were professionally trained and had access to prescription drugs. I don't know who they were working for. But what I struggle with suggests that certain groups would benefit from my actions.

And innocent people would have died. What does that say about my programmers? That they could knowingly cause this. What kind of people are they? I know they are doing what they are doing for what they see to be a very good reason. But for that reason to justify killing many innocent people. They must have either a very good reason, or a lack of respect for strangers. Perhaps they have been abused a lot as kids, then programmed. Then where does it end?

It ends with the truth.

 


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