Quote Originally Posted by Illiander View Post

And a US president (or any "leader" of a country for that matter) who actually believed in non-violence would be an amazing thing...
A pacifist country is completely at the mercy of an aggressor nation, so its only real defense is making itself as irrelevant as possible, and America does not subscribe to the policy of irrelevance.

Many idealist policies only work if all parties follow the same policy. Toleration, peace, pacifism, honor policy, anarchism. All you need is one person to buck the system and the entire system comes crashing down. The system gets suspended and other methods are used to eliminate the problem. More importantly, any idealist policy is self-defeating by creating the instruments of its downfall. E.g. raise enough kids under the Honor Policy, and sooner or later one of the kids is going to realize, "Look at all this free stuff I only have to reach over and take and no one would notice."