lonelyfridge

Was surfing one of my favourite forums while eating breakfast (it’s like the Times), and happened to read one forum member’s signature that never fails to irritate me:

“WAR HAS NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING, except ending slavery, fascism, communism, Nazism….”

I finally decided to say something about it (on the forum), but here it for posterity:

For starts, I’ll be a pedant and point out that: slavery is still going strong in several places around the world (Sudan, for instance), and in most places ended with laws changing, not a war; that the fascist regimes in South America (and many other places) didn’t end due to war and were much younger than WW2; that communism regimes have never fallen due to war*; and I would argue that Nazism hasn’t, unfortunately, been stamped out (neo-Nazi marches, Synagogue vandalism and arson in Europe, etc).

Actually, that’s mostly what I wanted to say, but there is the larger issue that force of arms cannot stamp out an idea or meme (”-ism”s), unless you kill everyone spreading that idea (and destroy every medium in which the idea is stored).

Slavery in the southern US officially ended following the Civil War, but it was several generations before it ended in effect- it was similar everywhere in the world where slavery was declared illegal around that time.

*To be fair, the Commies got kicked out of Afghanistan. …

I sort of wanted to write more, but I was (and still am) running late.