Originally posted by twhitehead
Sarcasm I take it?
Not at all. The notion of rendering evil for evil is childish, and looking at the Middle East, completely counterproductive. If I want a childish tit for tat exchange I'll either turn on the news covering the Middle East or the Three Stooges.
American culture seems to have adopted a more "turn the cheek" culture, which I attribute to the influence of Christianity.
Essentially, you take a moral high ground and refuse to lower yourself to your opponents standards. For example, if someone kills a bunch of people, you don't then go and kill a bunch of their people in retaliation, thus making your moral position the same, or perhaps worse, than the people you are fighting. Over time, the weight of your higher moral ground will eventually crush your opponent to bits.
MLK and Ghandi both studied the life of Christ and adopted his approach with great success. Shrug, it works.