Friday, August 24, 2012

Persons, Places, and Things: A Moral vs. Physical Dilemma, With Its Own Solution

“Poking holes in people is relatively easy. Poking holes in things, however, can be much more challenging.”

Physically, the above is true and fairly obvious. Morally, however, the reverse is true. Shooting a person takes a tremendous moral leap, while shooting mere inanimate objects is something most of us do regularly, just for fun, and with no moral compunction.

This inverse relationship needs to be explored. As we move forward into the Accelerating Unpleasantness, we need to give some thought to the tactics that this premise suggests, how best to exercise them, and what we need to do now to increase our efficiency should current trends continue.

The “People” Part

In tumultuous times, some Bad People will simply need to be shot.

No getting around it.

However, as both wartime and street-crime experiences show, not everyone is capable of carrying out this action. From my research, it is not always predictable what kind of individual will have the most difficulty taking life. Some are just not cut out for it. Some can tolerate it. Some relish in it – generally not a healthy condition.

Additionally, even for those who can cope with this dark path, doing so is nearly always a significant upping of the ante. In a modern discussion of Freedom versus Oppression, it may be called a “Fort Sumter” level event. It is the ultimate statement of force, with no close second place, and no turning back.

Finally, many times the goals of Freedom can be accomplished with just the warning of more serious action. The figurative and literal “shot across the bow” can alter the course of a ship without spilling blood.

For all of these reasons and more, a serious study of materiel destruction must be undertaken. Today, much that is written about dynamic 4GW focuses primarily on anti personnel action, and rightly so. However, the field of anti-materiel ballistic intervention is only lightly touched on.

Part of this omission is due to the fact that freedom-minded folks have more limited capabilities available for this role. However, a very large part of the gap is due simply to a lack of creative thinking.

Let’s work on the latter.

The “Places” Part

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