Pacifism is a Naive Belief System

I will first proffer a very quick rebuttal of specific points, and then collapse the rest of my rebuttal into a summary of this debate.RebuttalR7) CON's rendition of the American occupation of Japan is incomprehensible. I cannot even analyze her statements to pull out any cogent arguments.The bottom line in Japan - hard power (bombing Japan) was primary, soft power (co-opting the emperor) was secondary. Both were absolutely necessary to forward US interests in the region.R8) CON drops that Mandela framed Apartheid as a justifiably violent struggle. Mandela sought to minimize damage to the productive elements of society, namely its people, but recognized that when push comes to shove, you shove back.CON's source on this point triggers my anti-virus software, so my first (and only) reaction is that the source is dubious. Apologies if I am mistaken, but I will not risk bringing down my firewall for a source in a debate.R9) CON drops the fact that in India, 27 years of implementing soft power through Gandhi's non-violence campaign failed to accomplish what 2 years of cold, hard power reality accomplished. The British left only because after WWII, they no longer had the requisite hard power to hold a country the size of India.R10) CON drops the fact that the Jews in Denmark did not resist the Nazis. They fled. Regardless of whatever arguments CON brings up about this point, it is still totally irrelevant to the resolution. R11) CON thinks that "[PRO] drops the contention of the impact of war on the people- which is the 'realist solution'," failing to realize that PRO has demonstrated the impact of "peace" on the people - peace can easily result in tens of millions of people dying from wholly preventable starvation.Therefore, especially considering the lack of a moral position by CON, there is nothing uniquely "right" or "good" about a pacifistic position or a platform based on "peace"; CON does not have a case.R12) Just to note, CON's approach, by thinking she can just ignore my points, is indicative of her "non-violent" resistance paradigm - she seeks to avoid direct confrontation, thinking that her supporting arguments would be enough to win while ceding the primary, substantive point. In a debate, if you ignore arguments, they are dropped and conceded. It's really that simple. If you drop primary points, then you lose whatever you think you may be supporting.CON needed to address my arguments portraying very real hard-power concerns before she could even begin to discuss pacifism, which eschews hard power. She failed to do so, and has thus dropped a slew of arguments and examples that make up the bulk of her case.ConclusionAssessmentI thanks Cermank for a spirited defense of her position and for participating in this debate, which has been interesting. Regardless, this debate has saddened me a bit. I'm not certain if CON even realizes that PRO/CON agree on a good amount of CON's case, as woefully incomplete a picture as it paints. I believe PRO/CON agree that people are inherently productive, and it's generally not in anyone's interest to destroy what is productive. Warfare does prima facie seem to do exactly this, to destroy the productive elements of society. Esteemed writers on warfare, whether it be Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, or modern practitioners like Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf, all, like CON, despise the violence and destruction that unlimited war causes. HOWEVER, all of these figures also are cognizant of the absolute necessity of warfare, and it is here that they demonstrate wisdom. Any position that denies the necessity of violent warfare, such as CON's pacifistic position, is naive.Keep in mind that PRO's position utilizes both violent and non-violent means to project power. CON's position eschews violent means, and is thus naive. ViolenceI have demonstrated why violence is not limited to only warfare. Violence is absolutely necessary for life; violence is inherent in our being and cannot be divorced from any human endeavor, whether it be pulling the trigger of a gun, espousing propaganda through a microphone, assembling a tank instead of a car, or cooking food for factory workers regardless of what they produce.Violence is also pervasive even in activities that are absolutely basic for survival itself, namely eating, drinking, and breathing. I have also demonstrated how the inherent violence that fuels our humanity, namely our hunger and how we go about satiating it, makes a seemingly "non violent" endeavor like trading food on a global marketplace extremely violent, in that seemingly harmless market fluctuations will cause death, starvation, and malnutrition for tens of millions even without a single shot being fired. This is violence.To deny the existence of violence is to deny life. CON does not contest any of this and has even explicitly agreed with PRO's description of violence:"...our existence is violent, (and according to the definition provided, it is)..."CON may think such a portrayal of violence may be "vague" - this is the core problem with CON's pacifistic position, not with PRO's realist position. For PRO, sometimes violent behavior is the appropriate solution for a problem; sometimes it is not. CON however unequivocally denounces any and all violent behavior, without really figuring out or communicating what she means by violent behavior. PRO/CON thus agree with PRO on the nature and definition of violence - violence is integral to life itself and is pervasive. This ends any effective debate on the resolution and completely refutes a pacifistic position. Pacificsm (in CON's words) is a "yay or nay revolution strateg[y]" with a firm "nay" on violence, a position which PRO/CON both agree is "rather naive". It is PRO's opinion that CON has all but conceded her case with such statements.ScenarioRegardless of the inherently productive nature of humanity, somewhere, someday, humanity will encounter a problem. My scenario delves into how two peaceful, "non-violent" societies encountered such a problem and were thus met with an impossible choice - kill, or die. Why did these societies face such a choice? It is because they no longer were able to produce enough food to survive. Due to the evils of scarcity, they were not able to be productive; the flood described in the scenario destroyed an entire village's productive capacity. This village could not produce what they needed for survival, and thus their survival was forfeit. The only question remaining was who would survive, and who would die; Agri-town could either die without a fight, or could die fighting for the real hope that some of them may live. That some from Agri-town would live would have been optimal for both villages even if it involved a war with Salmonville, as the highly valuable technology developed by Agri-town would thus survive.Scarcity is the primary problem for an entire field of social science, namely economics. It is pervasive, as pervasive as violence is to human nature. You cannot ignore scarcity, nor can you ignore its impact on violent conflict. To do so would be naive. PowerMuch of CON's case, especially the strategy and chart that she wants me to address, rests upon a conception of power, a word she does not define and actually leaves it to PRO to define for her. Power, as defined by the dean of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Joseph Nye:"Power is the ability to affect others to get the outcomes one wants, and that can be accomplished in three main ways -- by coercion, payment, [i.e. hard power] or attraction [soft power]." CON has the credulity to say that Nye is only "partially correct" without bothering to bring up any corroborating sources anywhere close to being as credible as the dean of public policy at Harvard; it is CON who is only "partially correct". All of what CON deems to be "power", i.e. "a relationship formed by the granting of power from below," that could be "moral, or economic, or might be a mix of the two," is why Nye terms "soft power", something I defined in round #1. Soft power is only the bottom board in the 3D chess board described in the first 5 minutes of the video I posted, the top two boards being hard power, i.e. political economy. CON's explanation of power, as well as her strategy and chart, is thus inadequate, incomplete, and totally ignores political economy, and how it can be marshaled to project physical force. I have not only brought up specific examples (Japan, Germany), but also turned all of CON's examples (India, Apartheid, Denmark) into support of this point, that hard power matters.Bottom line, you need both hard AND soft power to be effective. CON fails to realize this, and thus CON's position is naive.MoralityCON completely drops the moral position, as "[CON] understand[s] that morals would be subjective, hence it would not enough to convince anyone."Without the moral position, CON doesn't even have the ability to make a simple statement like "violence is wrong". Therefore, there is nothing inherently wrong with violence, and this according to CON.Without a moral position, CON's advocacy of pacifism loses "cause". Without a moral position, there is no reason to think pacifism is in any way inherently "good".ClosingCON has not forwarded a compelling case for pacifism - it is rife with critical omissions and does not address or even recognize hard power considerations. Ignorance is not bliss...ignorance is naivety.PRO has painted a realistic picture of how power works, one that does not dismiss violent alternatives when necessary. Thus:Pacifism is a Naive Belief System.I thank CON and everyone who read this debate for participating, and remind all that this is a NO SCORING debate. Feel free to leave an RFD, engage in discussion, and offer feedback and constructive criticism...just don't assign points. Thank you.