> I watched Miss Congeniality last night, and though the makers exaggerated the world peace thing a bit, it got me thinking. Why, exactly, is world peace a good thing?
> *Dramatic pause to let you throw random things around around and yell at me*
> I mean, any war could be prevented. Take WW2, for example. If the allies had just surrendered to Hitler, then a war would have been averted. Sure, tons of Jews would have been killed, but it would have prevented a war. The American civil war. If the Union had just let the Confederates have their slaves, we would have had peace, but I doubt slavery is preferable to war. Get my point? Wishing for world peace is essentialy saying "I wish that everybody would leave everybody else alone so they can do whatever hideous thing they want to do so long as they don't bug me."
>

That's got a grain of truth, but world peace is all about people like Hitler *not* becoming powerful. As soon as somebody prepares for war, peace ends. Peace is more than just absence of war, besides. It's also general absence of large-scale bad things, such as the murdering of millions of people, whether in battle or in concentration camps. I agree with you that a war that ENDS these things is better than these things happening, but that is also because they would happen continually, effectively killing more people than the war. But, as I said, that would not be a status of peace, so your point doesn't apply.