What a luxury and privilege it is to sit back and sagely proclaim that one is "against all violence." Such talk is truly a luxury of the privileged, to which not everyone can afford access.
In the real world, difficult choices must be made, and sometimes they involve legitimate violence, in self-defense, to protect or rescue innocents, to prevent even greater violence, and even to administer justice.
It is very important to be clear in one's own mind about the cost and the value of different deployments of violence.
Everyone one has the right to be a pacifist and to "turn the other cheek", but no one has the right to demand that others live by their personal pieties.
Justice and ethics are too pressing for such small-scale personal piety.
If only we actually could say truthfully that "violence is not the way." Tragically, sometimes violence is exactly the only way.
