"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that
nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for
which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his
own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of
being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than
himself" -- John Stuart Mill

I'd like to suggest this is a forerunner to the Gandhi approach of
pacifism...

Firstly, It is often said that the pen is mightier than the sword.
Killing someone doesn't convert them to any cause, and they will still
feel the same way in the afterlife, maybe reincarnate and carry on
where they left off. Whereas diplomatic effort CAN actually change
peoples minds permanently through the forces of reason.

Andy wrote:

On Aug 13, 1:46 pm, Andy googlemail.com>
wrote:

Cormagh wrote:

Better men are rational. As for the irrational, there but two ways to
control them: violence or sex. Pick one.

There were cultures run by women who used the latter. And now with safe
sex techniques, it again becomes feasible. Men employ violence hoping to
have the power to get laid. Get them laid anyway, and they will fight
for the women who make that possible.

Monogamy will not work. With just one woman, the warrior comes to think
he owns her. With a group of women, each of whom has other men she has
sex with, he comes to think that they own him.

Were we to setup brothels in Bagdad, we could find out where all the
bomb factories were within a month.

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:57:24 -0500, Day Brown daybrown.org>
wrote:

No there weren't.

David Johnston wrote:

How would you know? Shakespeare has Caesar say:"You will have to forgive
the man, Mercutio. He is a barbarian who thinks the customs of his tribe ...

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:06:22 -0500, Day Brown daybrown.org>
wrote:

David Johnston wrote:

Surf the Mosou of SW China. It is STILL BEING RUN BY WOMEN. It has been
for uncounted centuries. Further west in the Himalayas there are areas
where the farms are handed down in the female line, and where a young
heir marries several men to work the place for her. After things are
more along, she may add co-wives. But it is all up to HER.

On Aug 21, 7:15 pm, Day Brown daybrown.org> wrote:

I do not believe that the exception proves the rule! This does not
rule out the possibilty of an exception in special circumstances.

zinnic wrote:

That is not what he said. He said NO cultures have been run by women. I
most certainly agree that those which were were few and obscure. Besides
the Mosou, I've read of another matriarchy, IIRC, Indonesia, but in any
case, not numerous and not well known.

Gibbon reports on a lotta barbarian tribes that existed in Roman times
and says what we know now as the Swedes were led by women and migrated
en mass across the Baltic from Germany in the era of Roman pressure.
Under the circumstances, with warriors on both sides of the Rhine
running amok, the kind of thing women would decide to do.

Then too, there is the Tocharians of the Eastern Silk Road towns, and
again, very obscure to westerners. These Aryans arrived in what is now
NW China 4000 years ago as part of the Amazons. Who've also been widely
disputed until recent work in the Altai, where high altitude graves in
the permafrost have revealed dozens of women buried with their weapons
and horse tack. One girl even with a spear point embedded in her pelvis.