Comment on Paul's article here

[Tracy Young]

Hi, Friends. As promised, we wanted to give you an opportunity to respond to Paul Kortenhoven's March Advocate article, which you can read in its entirety, here.

Add your comments to this post, and let's see what sort of interesting conversation arises! We hope that Paul will step in to comment as well.

[Paul Kortenhoven]

Hello Marilyn

Thanks for some good input on violence in our culture. Amen to your analysis. I wish with all my heart that we people could evolve to the level of reasonable non-violent conflict resolution. And even though I love to hunt, I would gladly give up any tools that I use if the 2nd amendment were re-written and outlawed individual ownership of firearms .....a small price to pay for lives lost to gunfire in the cities of America. That would be heaven on earth and we would all benefit immensely from it.

But, in many parts of the world, from Sierra Leone in the 1990's, DRC currently, Tibet, Zimbabwe, to the streets of Chicago were I grew up, hell is more of an apt description. I know that this drags us all down a level and not up. Unfortunately, we have to work within a culture and a world where violence is endemic. Virtually any way of intervening before a conflict grows into a a war is preferable to the war itself and its eventual aftermath. We have been taught since we were at our grandmother' knees that "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure", but even this "no-brainer" is often ignored by international efforts at peace making/keeping. And this is not only very frustrating for those of us who want to be and try to be peace makers, it is tragic for those who get caught in the horrors of a preventable war.

[Bernard Hoogland]

While I agree that Peter Vander Meulen may be correct in some situations, there have been too many in the recent past when the comfortable feelings of those of us in our own peaceful settings have allowed us to watch while tens of thousands were murdered and raped.

I think of many of the hot spots beginning with Bosnia in the early 90's and continuing with Darfur today.

To quote as well as memory serves me: "We British sleep peacefully in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence to those that would do us harm." George Orwell.