The hard-to-beat Ike "The Southern Splendido" Pigott of Occam's Razr over and down to the right in Birmingham, Alabama -- a XY Chromosomal Unit in whose image I fashion myself when it comes to the scribbling craft -- sent me a disturbing link courtesy of Ketchikan, Alaska last evening about the judicious use of violence: when, where , and if it were appropriate, militarily and/or otherwise.

That, moji pratele, in turn lead to a flurry of e-activity over at Utterz.com, where I proceeded to wax about this matter vigorously.

There I found myself behind the 1s and 2s, digesting the eloquent musings of an otherwise self-admitted callow youth who, from his comfortable (and mostly snowy) perch up in caribou country, had the surly gumption to dictate to we Central Europeans when it was appropriate for us to open a "can of whoopass" and press our violence buttons.

Concerning Czechs, I felt this was particularly pressing given our annual penchant for non-aggressive means of solving our national conundra. One of the primary reasons Prague, for instance, has so captivated my soul is due to its distinctly non Manchester-ian, Glaswegian, or more "Balkan" means of resolving Cesko's societal conflagrations.

I could easily have envisioned Peter Stanton's post as being penned by an unassuming Bohemian or Moravian up-and-comer, some Czech chap or miss who duly studied the lessons of our former Czechoslovakian Past and the steps which lead us up until this very day. Stanton's distinctly naive touches were positively scrumptous!

In any event, I thought I'd serve this one up -- fresh and piping hot -- to our readership.

And don't kid yourself: this is a hard topic to address, friends.

My personal sentiment is that wholesale avowals of societal "violence" (since one person's violence is another person's preferred mode of conflict resolution) is entirely wrongheaded.

Here in the Czech lands, we've seen the destitute result this mode of living, eating our hearts out, as we do, in our Central European crater. The Czech conflict gene has been extracted, as it were, from the ancestral Czech DNA. There are even Czech neurologists who contend that this gene has been absent from the Czech bloodstream ever since the rousing defeat of the Hussite forces at White Mountain/Bila Hora.

A society that doesn't know how to assert itself in situations of national need is a doomed society.

I know of too many young Czechs -- the next generation of sluggers, who, when they assume the reins of power from the former-KSC (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) cabal over on the Lesser Side -- who don't wish to have the Cain-like stain of pliant citizen on their consciences. Those who wish, like the Czechoslovak Army did on those Sudeten ramparts back in thirty-eight, to trounce the enemy mustering at our gates, to reclaim the fighting spirit of General Zizka anew.

Until the advent of that solemn day, the rest of us will be compelled to sit and spin on that rusty nail, that cult of nonviolence, mellifluously promulgated by our navel-gazing Alaskan friend up in Ketchikan.

Is violence ever called for? Can there be a judicious use of it?

Surely you have an opinion, given the presence of our National Forces in Afghanistan and Eye-raq. I'd be curious to know what it is.