The hell you say...
But on the last day he seemed to be trying to find out what we had
learned. One girl told him bluntly: "My mother says that violence never
settles anything."
"So?" Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I'm sure the city fathers of
Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn't your mother tell them so?
Or why don't you?"
They had tangled before -- since you couldn't flunk the course, it
wasn't necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, "You're
making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was destroyed!"
"You seemed to be unaware of it," he said grimly. "Since you do know
it, wouldn't you say that violence had settled their destinies rather
thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping
scorn on an inexcusably silly idea -- a practice I shall always follow.
Anyone who clings to the historically untrue -- and thoroughly immoral --
doctrine that `violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up
the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them
debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the
Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has
settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary
opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic
truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms."
Excerpt from Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein