Triggered from the money thread I guess I was curious to see what opinions would flow out of that one word: peace.

To me it means simply "no war". Freedom ensues, but all of that based on my country's standards, of course. Peace here can mean something else than in .. say.. Africa or somewhere.

What IS peace to you?

I think the definition in dictionary is pretty good. What's the problem with that?

I have to agree.

Peaces to me is those periods where there is no wars within the area in question. I can not find myself agreeing with all those sayings about “if you want peace, prepare for war’ or ‘peace can only be archived with the knife.’

To me it is just simple: If you want peace, then don’t start wars…

Let me try being devil's advocate: what if you are attacked, or what if other peaceful people (allies) are attacked? You surely need a bigger knife for those kind of situations. Wars don't start only when you want...

By having a standing military that is strong enough to defend, yet not geared towards offensive combat, you will ensure that you won’t be attacked. I said nothing about removing the idea of the standing army, just not using it to start wars. Honestly though, I think a equipped citizen body is more effective in preventing wars and winning defensive wars then any standing military force has ever been. And I point to all the offensive wars that have failed because of a armed citizen body.

peace means being free from war and since on any given day, there are several going on, somewhere on the planet, peace is an ideal.

peace has a more personal meaning, for me. it means the phone isn't ringing off the hook, the television is off, i don't hear traffic and people aren't griping about things that don't really matter. it means that it's about three a.m. and as tired as i might be, it's the best part of the whole day.

"Peace" seems very straight forward, what about war? Can you be at war with a concept? How can you end such an war, when would you consider that you defeated the concept?