>I go back to one of my old saws. Violence does indeed solve problems.
>Brutality is useful. Opponents are eliminated, intimidated, >dispersed,
>etc.
No, I don't think mere candy-ass "brutality" solves a thing, Max; it just feeds resentments and causes countermeasures. The only violence that *really* solves problems is wholesale slaughter, ideally genocide. Think of cleanup operations on a Biblical scale, e.g.: "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." (Samuel 15:3) The aim is to leave any gasping remnants of the enemy population completely demoralized and impoverished, not planning revenge or having the means to exact it.
*That's* when violence works, and I don't think you want that.
Carl
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