You can't fight ideas with bullets

This is my favorite quote. I used to attribute it to Voltaire, before learning that he apparently never said anything of the sort. I believe I heard it in that excellent computer game/tangled web of conspiracy theories, Deus Ex.

Regardless of where it comes from, it is true, and inspiring at that. History gives us countless examples of good ideas and revolutionary thinking beating out (or at least surviving) competitive ideas and the old guard, despite a great disparity in firepower.

What really fights ideas is better ideas. All the important ideas that have been largely given up have been defeated by their own flaws and the superiority of competing ideas, and not by force. For example, Communist Russia was never even strongly deterred by our nuclear arsenal, yet a few guys with rifles and Mikhail Gorbachev basically dismantled it. This was not due to the threat of war or the toll of military buildup. It was because Russian-style Communism just doesn't work.

In summary, violence is not the answer. Learn to explain yourself and support your logic before you learn to use your rifle.

she says right before my bullets juice her brain matter , and having time to search her i get in her pocket a weird disk looks valuable . am at the pawn shop selling it and the guy says he can get nothing for it , looks old , says talk to the antique guy blocks over . am at the antique shop and this guy flips his sockets at this junk , he says if i know what this is ? the solution to standing stuck on this blind planet i say and he dumb at first but , space he says , am coming with you at least to Nu Gar where you plan ? i say i plan to go directly to jail and collect my 200 on this idea i just forgot . he looks nervous to travel with a gun like i but we are through Nu Gar and on to XXX without even sleeping . got my money soon as we ranged on the edge of the vision . am dreaming of my own ship turned nightmare when i look in the hold filled with every body i ever ran cold , he wakes me up says bye and i say yea am going with you that dream was sour anyway . i can tell he wanted me away by how surprised he looks . nothing better to do i say until another job comes down . worse to his wrinkles and glad i still have curiosity at all . so we are at this stale place and these guys flip their sockets for my new friend over this old junk while i look at some disks i scooped on the way , nice colors and a cool sensation . so they think am not asleep i say what is it ? an old disk one says well a really old disk you can see the data on . what on it ? language not found he says . one says yea you can see it on the disk really , look at this old junk . i look and yea lines are on it . send me a copy i say . i leave with that junk on one side and jobs for tomorrow on the other . the next day i feel burnt up and the job is no fun at all .