Instilling peace through fear

[Rivius]

Well, after being in the dark to the whole watchmen story, I decided to read the entire comic. Now, if you haven't read it and don't want it spoiled for you don't bother reading ahead, although this is just a perfunctory statement as I assume very few people care about spoiling such an old comic anyway...

Well, towards the end Ozymandias reveals his plans on destroying half of New York by teleporting a fake alien into its centre. The teleportation being unstable, causes an massive explosion, and any survivors will see the mangled corpses of people and see this giant alien thing I believe it was the cause of an invasion. Ozymandias did this because the world was on the brink of WWIII and he thought that by creating a common enemy, people would unite themselves against it, putting a stop to war.

One character who heard of this plan, Rorschach decided not to go along with keeping this plan a secret and eventually had to be killed by another character in order to maintain this supposed utopia created by Ozymandias.


Ok, that was really just an example, but I was once on the sidelines of a conversation between two friends. One was saying how he agreed with Rorschach and another was saying how Ozymandias was correct. It really seemed like a bit of a heated argument, one that I had a little trouble with.

Then I saw a post on another forum, I'll quote it:

Intolerance and disrespect and crime everywhere.
The amount of sheer inhumanism in this area is disgusting.
Neighbors don't even trust each other. fathers, murdering their kids, kids shooting each other in the streets, in school.

ask yourself, what is freedom, if you can't even walk over street at night without being afraid. what is freedom if you basically can get shot/stabbed/mugged/spat/etc at every street corner.
what is freedom, if everyone is free to make other people's life miserable in any way.
what is freedom, if everyone is free to shoot anyone they like.
that's no freedom, that's IDIOCY!

War unifies.
war cleanses.
war gives people/countries a fresh start.

yes, war is horrible and terrible.
so why do we still wage wars? why can't we all just get along?
it's obvious people have a craving for war.

if this world were to get in a proper war, maybe people would wake the fuck up, and see what's going on.

this world is slipping down a shithole, which it refuses to get out of because everyone is so comfy in their habits and pseudo-happiness.

So what do you people think. Was Ozymandias right? Is that poster correct? In practice, should the world be scared into peace?

 

[Aught3]

I say: 1984

You're not really thinking that war is peace right? Because that is a contradiction. What happens during a war is suppression of people in your own country in order for the government to wage an effective war, it become totalitarian.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Violence leads to more violence. People who are terrorized into submission turn into terrorists. There's a reason why people refer to the "cycle of abuse."

 

[Nogre]

Well, I'd say you can advocate freedom and peace, yet still have law enforcement.

And I don't think war really "wakes people up" to the plight of people who are impoverished and stuck in crime. Education is really the only way to do that. People have to be made aware of what's going on in the world, not just on an intellectual level, but an emotional level, as well. It would also require people being willing to get out of their comfortable lives a little to help others, but I think that's also just a matter of education...see my explanation of Friere's work here:

http://forums.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=30215#p30215