“I am thus far a Quaker [a pacifist]: I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms and settle matters by negotiation; but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank Heaven He has put it in my power.

Thomas Paine, Patriot

I absolutely love that quotation because in one concise statement it describes the exact ridiculousness of negotiating with terrorists and terrorist states.

In a perfect world, men - all men - would appreciate reason over violence and would work hard to achieving their own peace and liberty through reason without bloodshed.

Problem is … we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world with many reasonable men, and many unreasonable, unyielding men who seek to destroy a way of life that is not their own because of intolerance and … face it … madness. Call it jihadism, call it “radical Islam”. I call it a behavioral disease passed on from adult to child, twisting, distorting, and fermenting inside of a mind to eventually warp it so greatly that the host, if you will, seeks to infect others and destroy itself at all costs.

Thomas Paine got it. Sometimes, when you’ve reached a point where reason, negotiation, and civility simply does not work, you just gotta pick up the boomstick and kick ass. I wish our current elected leaders on both sides of the aisle had such clear vision.