Dr. Helen has an interesting post up on the psychology of self-defense.

Have you noticed that most of the tips you get in recent years for how to survive a violent crime involve an accompanying psychological maneuver of first trying to make you feel impotent? And instead of suggesting remedies to overcome this impotence, these survival tips usually just tell you to give the criminal what they want. But what they typically don't say is that you can get killed using that approach also. Jeff Cooper has a whole different approach to surviving violence--as I recall in one of his books, he talks about the use of color codes for getting one in the psychological mindset to deal with violence:

Ironically, before I knew what had happened at Virginia Tech yesterday, I was in a discussion about the psychology of intimidation. I am a "why not?" kind of guy, and most people are "because" kind of people. They do not question the status quo. The incidence of rule followers in the general population has permitted all sorts of abuses--when was the last time someone explained a ridiculous requirement or denial of service as "its policy"? Yesterday?

Corporations, the government and all sorts of institutions hide behind policy because they know that most people simply will not challenge it. By creating the proper psychology, one side can intimidate the other into significantly mitigating their demands. This is great if you're on the "winning" side of this equation--you get the windfall every time.

It occurs to me that Democrats, and therefore liberals, are almost always "cogs" in the machine. They are the victims of this psychology of intimidation and almost always work in institutional settings were powerlessness is the norm. Note how they are always looking for "saviors" to "change the system" in their favor. They willingly yield their power to others, which of course is a great reason to be a Democrat politician--all those "powerless people" appealing to you to rescue them from tyranny. The irony is of course that with Democrats, you get more institutional tyranny, not less.

Its perfectly predictable that liberals would recommend surrender as the best strategy for deal with violence--its part of the culture.

While its true that in any individual case, compliance may be the best strategy for survival, from the larger perspective, an aggressive response works better to reduce violent crime overall. If a criminal understands that he has a strong chance of being shot engaging in certain kinds of violent behavior, he's likely, by his very nature, to look for easier prey, better opportunities.

Yesterday, I went over to a friends house to deliver an invitation. I noticed a sign in his front yard advertising a security system. I asked him if there was actually a security system in place or just a sign on the lawn. The difference of course is academic--the sign alone is probably all one needs to deter would be burglars. But why does the sign work? Well, who would want to take the chance that it isn't associated with a security system?

The liberal "roll over on your belly" strategy only works if you are willing to be dominated in perpetuity. If criminals are made to pay a price even some of the time, they will be effectively detered.