Accidental Research

One comes across all kinds of things on the net, and today's research gave me the old Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus quote, "Si vis pacem, para bellum," which is Latin for "If you wish for peace, prepare for war." What this is generally taken to mean is that strength is more apt to keep you safe than weakness, i.e., if you are ready and willing to fight, that will sometimes deter an enemy. Meyer Baba called this "the non-violence" of the strong. 


The samurai's mutual slaying; the "Don't Tread On Me" naval battle jack; the Cold War's MAD philosophy, all examples of this. Attack at your own peril.


And I knew that the Luger pistol cartridge, the Parabellum, had to do with war, but I didn't think of it as the antithesis of Sam Colt's Single-Action Army revolver, which came to be called "the Peacemaker." The term "for war" in that Latin phrase was turned into a noun by the company that made Georg Luger's pistol, Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken.


Here, the Peacemaker. There, the War Maker. 


Interesting.