Those of you who know me well understand that I abhor violence although I would reluctantly use it as a means of self-defense. Despite my aversion to violence, the topic is nonetheless a grey area for me. Does self-defense include pre-emptive violence? What about retaliation as a means of deterence? I have no clear-cut, satisfying answers to these questions.

Last night we watched Munich. The film reinforced my opinion that there are no good guys and no bad guys in conflicts amongst Middle Easterners. There are simply groups of people who lack athe imagination to solve conflict without violence. Everyone is a loser.

This morning I am pondering violence as a solution to inequality of resources. Someone inherits a fortune because he was lucky enough to be born into a family of billionaires. The laws of the land say that the money is legally his. So he controls an obscenely large amount of resources without needing to work a day in his life while thousands who are born into poor families work their asses off just to stay alive. This doesn't seem fair to me. But how would you convince the wealthy to abandon the status quo without taking their resources with violence or the threat of violence? By saying pretty please?