Peace

[theapportioner]

I seriously wish this forum had a feature that allows you to block annoying/retarded posters.

Anyway, to state the obvious, war and peace are two ends of a spectrum. Politically, you have all sorts of things in between, from stability to immigration restrictions to tariffs to embargoes to cold wars and so on. However, I don't think the terms are as relative as Seth implies, with his examples of the ordinary language usage of "hot" and "cold".

As far as a peace platform is concerned, it depends on precisely defining one's goal. Is it to aim for one end of the spectrum, peace? Or to avoid the other end, war, by all means necessary? These are two different things. Personally, I think that as #1 priorities, both positions are myopic ones to take, and although the latter one is more palatable, and is an important part of diplomacy, it shouldn't necessarily be the sole, or even core, aim. I mean, should we avoid war while someone like Hitler is gassing millions of Jews? Clearly there's a problem with either position.

Or is the goal something else, like the promotion of a free, democratic society, or preserving human rights, and so on? If it's this, then war and peace become means to an end, and may both be appropriate under different circumstances. How one goes about promoting a free, democratic society is then tempered by one's approaches--i.e. bombing the hell out of autocracies, or finding more diplomatic means to achieve the same end.