RESPONSE TO AGGRESSION
Charles Day*
www.desmoinesmeditation.org
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harming the innocent, while rendering harmless those responsible for
the aggression. Preemptive and preventative wars should not occur.
And local, national, and international laws, treaties, agreements, and
policies that promote peace and further the Rendering Harmless
Doctrine should be enacted and implemented.
Only after all diplomatic and peaceful efforts fail to achieve conflict
resolution and end aggression might harm regrettably be risked in
apprehending dangerous individuals, criminals, terrorists, and tyrants
and turning them over to the appropriate authority for justice. Non-
lethal weapons and tactics should be used. Civilian, law
enforcement, and military responses should protect the innocent,
avoid infrastructure and collateral damage, apprehend responsible
leaders and combatants, and prevent the aggression from escalating
into further domestic violence, riots, gang warfare, or civil or
international war.
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For example the Doctrine might be applied to human rights violations;
labor/management conflicts; punitive parenting and teaching
practices; the harm caused by permitting or preventing abortion;
assisted suicide and euthanasia; interrogation methods; animal rights
related to raising, exploiting, and killing animals for our consumption,
work, and entertainment; laws, policies, and practices in agriculture,
industry, business, education, and government that prove harmful to
us or our environment; and legitimizing, sensationalizing, and
glorifying anger, aggression, and violence as entertainment in
newspapers, books, plays, movies, and television and as heroism in
athletics and war.