The role of violence in a free, civilized world
"Violence is bad". Such is the position of most mainstream entities: governments, political parties, companies and enterprises... And yet, most of the target audience fails to grasp the hypocrisy of the narrators. If violence is bad, then why are your law enforcement agencies so violent? And they then go, like, "b-but in order to combat violent criminals, we need to use violence, right?.." But hey, you yourself said earlier that violence is bad! And if we actually need to resort to it, even if it's in order to weed out those damn violent criminals, then violence is... well... then it can be good, at least.
Same with other force-projecting institutions. The military? "But we need to protect the borders!" And sure thing, you do. But as long as you use weapons to do that, the "violence is bad" option doesn't apply to you - after all, your stance is "respect my territorial sovereignty, or I'll use these weapons against you", yes, a threat of violent response to border violation. Three-letter agencies? "But we need to enforce the Insert their agenda/declared goals here". But if violence is bad, why do they threaten the people into compliance using it? And the same thing, it applies to any other countries, not just America - and even more than it does for America. Asian countries (especially China and Japan) preach non-violence with the goal of disarming citizens because "it is bad to take away a human life, even in self-defence" and because "they don't want the guns to be in the bad guys' hands" (and they even attempt to export their civil disarmament propaganda into the West - yes, a lot of anti-gun policies come from these two countries' propagandists). Yet China (and many other Asian nations) actively practice violence towards their own citizens - and not just "to stop the violent criminals", but to enforce numerous other policies - while saying that "violence is bad". As for Japan, it was an authoritarian feudal (later - fascist) and belligerent state (remember they were fighting WW2 on the side of belligerent conquerors) right before they've lost the war to the 'States, who've forced them to change their policies using their right of the war triumphant.
So, unless you avoid the use of violence altogether, unless you're unarmed and unless you never use any kind of force - even if you're attacked - don't try to convince me that violence is "bad". Especially if you try to force this point on me using violence, like "my" country (not the USA) does.
The false dilemma, it sucks ass
Right now, most positions regarding violence are divided into two opposing camps: it's either "it's good, so we must do it as much as possible to further our interests" (the minority position held openly mostly by the literal fascists, Nazi and Russians) or "it's bad, so we must turn ourselves into defenceless farm beasts (and rely on our masters for protection)" - the position held by most "progressive" political parties in the West, and by nearly every party of every non-Western country. The conservatives and libertarians of the West usually support something between the first position and the reasonable application (which I'll describe below), but they usually lack the balls to declare it outright, so they pretend like they're closer to the camp two (they oppose disarmament, but generally claim violence is bad) and then come up with multiple "but"s and "however"s to justify violence where it benefits their agenda, views or interests.
Truth is, both positions are harmful. On one hand, violence is a tool of destruction, and it surely hurts those it is used against - lowering their sympathy and support towards the aggressor, and with this, lowering their productivity, especially for said aggressor. Additionally, it encourages the victims to resist, which might be a precedent for sabotage, terrorism, and even outright revolutionary uprisings performed by the victims - even if those operations prove unsuccessful, they do harm the economy and productivity of the country in question. Going full Stalin and forcing people to work harder to compensate for the unrest-induced losses only causes runaway civil unrest, and critical deterioration of the situation. On the other hand, becoming helpless will only hint the belligerent and violent ones that you are the prey. The predatory animal or a street thug doesn't care about moral values - they've adapted to live by robbing others - and if someone surrenders their might, or their will to defend themselves, they become the best prey for the predators (or thugs) because they transform from a well-armed, third-or-lower-grade potential source of resources into first-grade prey. It's the same on the nation-state level: so-called "pacifists" love to bash on America's military-industral complex and military spending, but should the America not be armed to teeth, the thug nation across the Bering Strait, or a bunch of former Ottomans still butthurt over their former hegemonic empire's dissolution, would've surely taken advantage of this. And do I need to mention the aggressive, collectivistic semi-hive-mind from China?
So the reasonable goal is not to "eliminate violence" or "crank it up to 11 so the liberals would cry" - as long as we're talking about a civilized, free society willing to defend itself from the external calamities such belligerent nations, yet remain a pleasant, prosperous and attractive place, we basically need to learn how to use it right.
The reasonable application: the legit/moral/acceptable/otherwise good uses of violence in a civilized society
Once again, unless you're spreading your non-violent ideas without ever doing anything to anyone, lay off your "muh violence bad" bullshit.
Safeguarding own community/society/domain
That's one of the more obvious uses. Violence is a tool of destruction, and fits you just right if there's a violent threat before you - the best way to deal with it is often to destroy those threat in front of you. Morals? Ethics? If your morals protect the one wishing to do harm to you, at the expense of your ability to effectively defend yourself, these morals prioritize the violent thugs over you. Do you want to follow such a moral code?
Of course, there's the "police will save you" crowd. Barring the inefficiency concerns, such as the fact that the attacker might do a lot of damage to you or your property before said police arrives, there's a less addressed, and more important concern: by placing your trust into the police's hands, and disarming yourselves, you are effectively placing control over your fate into the state's hands. In other words, you are becoming the property of the state. You're making yourself weak, and the State strong - and if the State becomes fascist/oppressive, what can you do, now that you're weak? If you don't have the effective, proven means to counter the State, then you simply can't contest the notion of you being the State's property - and the State can more than just enforce it.
A more reliable alternative to being the State's slave is, of course, possessing the might to defend own self - and to be ready to use it. While this is an inferior option to many "normies", not in the least because they would love to give up their sovereignty in exchange for safety - as they've done many times before - it is the most reasonable option for the sovereign individuals not willing to lose their self-ownership. Of course, you can also try to reason and negotiate with the armed robbers, or predators - and if you believe this works well enough, and is a superior alternative to the use of defensive force, you're free to try it. Just don't try to push it on us. Because we will treat it as an act of violence against us - the attempt to disarm us is to make us harmless, and the attempt to make us harmless is to remove any threat of retribution in case there is a concern about attacking us. You have been warned.
Protecting own property, secrets, and sovereignty
Not unlike with protecting own group, if there's a violent actor trying to harm an individual or transgress on their property, a sovereign individual is fully justified in use of violence in order to get rid of the threat. As an individual's property is part of their domain, their secrets are part of themselves, and their sovereignty is what gives them power and will, any attempt to transgress on any of these is harmful activity directed towards said individual - and, as long as the individual in question will be harmed whether they will try to protect their own or not, there is no reason to restrain themselves from use of force - or any other effective means of self-defence.
Whether facing another individual, a group of them, or a collective, the sovereign individual is justified in defence of their own against them, should they actively attempt to subjugate, rob, or otherwise harm the sovereign. While facing off against a collective, they of course may be presented with the threat of superior power from the adversary; that might convince them to use another means of self-defence, or surrender part of their sovereignty or domain in exchange for being let alone by the adversary - but this by no means equals that the adversary is "justified" in doing whatever they please to the victim and face no retribution whatsoever. In other words, if your enemy is a collective, you may sacrifice something not critical for you just so they would fuck off, but this doesn't mean that they're "right" in taking away stuff from you or telling you what you can, can't, or must do.
Retribution
But if a sovereign individual have already suffered from the actions of someone, it's only reasonable for them to want compensation. In some cases, it's possible through negotiations, courts, legal systems - but since the notion of harm, as well as the value of commodities involved, is strictly subjective, such measures can only have limited use. Laws can be not adequate to actively discourage harmful acts towards individuals, including intentional harm; courts are made of people (or of mechanisms created by people, mechanisms complex enough to make biased decisions, faulty mechanisms capable of blunder, ...) and therefore are far from infallible; and, last but never the least: the offender, the one harming the victim,might not even be up for negotiations - or will only negotiate for conditions grossly skewed against the victim.
Which leaves us with a reliable if-all-else-fails mechanism: retribution. Hurt me, and I shall make you regret ever being a threat for me - or even being born. depending on the severity of the harm done and the threat the offender still poses. With those actually willing to negotiate, it's hardly ever a necessity - as long as the agreement can be achieved between the victim and the offender, negligent or intentional - as well as both sides agree to resort to non-violent dispute resolution - but most of the humans known to be belligerent, violent, and to prioritize violent interactions over any non-violent ones, treating any attempt at the latter as a sign of weakness - a sign of "easy prey".
The conditions are simple: both the offender and the victim are presented with the decision - whether to use violence, and risk harmful consequences, or to refrain from violent activities by either letting it go (from the victim's point) or finding some other way to gain what they want (from the offender's point). It doesn't always take a sapient to resolve this dilemma: in some cases, even the ordinary Homo "sapiens" can instinctively make the decision, using the risk estimation algorithms they surely did have as animals and do have now. And even if non-sapient animals can do that, surely a sapient being can make the decision using their higher reasoning.
And of course, this isn't the ideal mechanism as well - there are cases of mistaken identities, wildly disproprtionate responses, etc., so this mechanism isn't without faults. But. It fucking works. Other alternative are faulty and sometimes less useful than plain old retribution. And, a sapient being can minimize the possibilities of misuse of retribution violence, by addressing the problem at hand using multiple points and plenty of factors - as for the non-sapients, I say, let 'em kill each other, after all, if they want to live - they'll figure it out. And if they threaten a sovereign individual, eliminate them mercilessly. An animal, no matter on how much legs it stands, shall not be a threat for a sapient being.
Dealing with the violent ones; those unwilling to engage in non-violent disputes
The point that civilized, non-violent interactions shall be preferred to the violent ones is mostly right - by abandoning the path of force, and embracing reason and constructivity, we do not only abandon unnecessary suffering caused by the contest of force - and it doesn't end with the creation of a more reasonable mechanism of dispute resolution, which allows for precise negotiation of compensations and reparations, as well as building healthier relationships (such as, engaging in informed and voluntary deals instead of force-based hierarchies). We effectively create a completely new system of relationships, which is beneficial for most sapients - as they've proven to prefer intelligent solutions instead of brutal ones.
The Illuminati as we know them have brought this notion to this modern world, and have made it - along with the classical progressivism - one of the dominating mainstream positions. Thank you, Illuminati. No sarcasm. One thing they - and the subsequent progressives who've inherited their ideas - have missed, or intentionally tried to avoid, is crucial, however: The presence of those unwilling to partake in non-violent disputes, and preferring the "might makes right" approach.
The author of this blog is the ever-living witness to the significance of that blunder. Based on both the author's experience, and the evidence which can be found on the mainstream social networks - the evidence often created by the users from most countries - there are simply waaaaay too many people who would rather just kill those they don't like, or at least force their order on them. Even America is full of such scum - and the other countries are no better. And in cases way too many to count, the only reason why they present themselves before the courts is that they were caught by the law enforcement. In other words, yes, it was violence which have brought them to answer for their deeds. And once again, the courts can be corrupt - and the chance of corruption, and its magnitude, only grows greater with the greater difference in power between the State and its people. And as for the "justice" part, it is purely subjective - and the most beneficial course of the so-called "justice process" is not to enforce some arbitrary moral and ethical rules, but instead to solve the problem at hand with maximum efficiency and, preferably, minimum harm for those willing to live in harmony with their fellows. And the optimal course for this is, of course, using the most efficient measures to stop the violent elements, such as thugs or overly-zealous political activists (think of Antifa/BLM and some right-wingers, who aren't above using violence to enforce their views on everyone). Stop them as soon as possible.
Of course, killing sapient beings is bad - because there's at least potential merit in them. We should try our best to minimize harm towards sapient beings, since there may be various reasons why would they be harmful - and in most if not all cases, the problem can be solved via negotiations and arranged mutual responsibilities between the involved parties. This way, we get rid of most (if not all) grudges in a productive way. But as for the rest of humans, they're essentially talking beasts who can be trained to do specialist work - and those beasts rarely (if ever) respect anything but force. And by trying to talk to them, you only show them that you're "weak", encouraging to hurt you even more.
But it's another story when they're dealt with using overwhelming force. Capture one of them, kill the violent animal in a very brutal fashion, and show the execution to other humans - and tell them the short story about what will cause the others to be executed like that. Known history shows they all respect that kind of message, and the only ones who do not are always the sapients; still willing to stand their ground even after such shows of terror, but ready for constructive negotiations.
Contained public entertainment
Some time in the past, many sorts of combat sports were performed publicly for the amusement of public. One of the most known examples is gladiator combat, employed in the Roman Empire for nearly a thousand years - until the Christianity became the state religion. Smaller-scale street fights were used as a form of entertainment in various places, and many modern sports (especially boxing, football and martial arts contests) do involve a significant portion of violence - even if in somewhat restrained forms.
Nowadays, some of the more violent fights (especially the gladiator sports) are considered "barbaric" and no longer practiced in any part of the civilized world. That's right, in a free world, raising and breeding battle-slaves and putting them through soul-destroying harsh training (as it was done in the Roman Empire to many, many warriors) is an abuse of the Sovereign Individual - and is therefore unacceptable. However, it's quite another story when the people are consensually involved in such fights.
Civilized dispute settling is a great tool for a free-world civilization - but for the ordinary humans, it's just not enough. As they're largely driven by animal urges, with whatever they have in place of true sapience acts like an assistant tool instead of a main decision-making faculty, they just aren't satisfied enough by most of their disputes' resolutions until they settle it via contest of force. Courts and laws have helped us the Sovereign Individuals greatly, by allowing us to subdue the violent barbarians who threaten us with the power of an entire civilization - but when the conflict goes between a violent human and another violent human, it is only reasonable that peaceful, civilized means of conflict resolution are just not going to work there. Primarily because they aren't completely willing to settle a score with just a court case.
It is only reasonable, therefore, to establish special facilities (not unlike the famous Colosseum) dedicated specifically for violent contests. By providing a special environment for actualization of humans' violent impulses, we allow them controlled gratification of their bestial drives - which, consequently, increases their quality of life. Having a huge drive for contests, competitions and challenges, humans will mostly (if not entirely) only benefit from the return of violent contests, where they could match their strength against one another - either for conflict resolution, fame and glory, or to establish dominance over other contestants.
(Note that this one might not be as eligible for the Western civilizations. While other countries with more violent cultures, such as Russia, Japan, China or Arabic states, could surely benefit from such measures, the application of such contests in modern Western realms will be, most likely, limited. Surely, the idea might have limited implementations even in the West - but with their civilizations already managing their bestial impulses fairly well, the benefit of such an idea for the West is questionable. Not outright nonexistent. But questionable.)
When violence is not really recommended
And now, about those cases where violence is... not the best answer.
International relationships
Historically, conquest was one of the most widespread means of expansion of an empire's influence. Heck, the now-progressive Western civilizations have expanded their influence via warfare, and thanks to it, Christianity is now a worldwide religion and not just some Southern European faith practiced by a bunch of minorities in some countries. And America is home to two of the most ass-kicking nations on the Earth, populated by probably the most freedom-loving people in the world - instead of some quarreling, warlike Indians Native American tribes. Speaking about Native Americans, it's thanks to THE United States of America's White people and their ideologies we mostly treat them with sympathy and compassion instead of ridiculing them as yet another weak, worthless conquered civilization (as the conquered civilization were treated before the Western White came up with the concept of individualism and meritocracy, which gave us a healthy repulsion towards blind racial/ethnic discrimination).
That's right, we shouldn't just blindly denounce warfare, and conquest in particular. On the other hand, however, it's clearly an inferior way of making a statement in a free world. While Western civilizations are examples of more or less successful conquerors, let's not forget that back then they were much more dubious (and, from some points of view - miserable) civilizations during that period. Not only their hierarchical organization was not necessarily meritocratic, and relationships between overlords and their subordinates healthy, they're also widely known to have a literal oppressive theocracy which was the obstacle for scientific, social, cultural, and to a degree even economical progress - not unlike Islam is now - and judging by the public behavior of many modern right-wingers, especially religious ones, this interpretation of history sounds quite trustworthy.
Contrary to what China and Japan want you to believe, the United States of America (and, by extension, most of the West) have become the "first-world countries" because their socio-economic order was the most successful. Individual liberties, and the concept of individualism, have encouraged many persons to discover, develop and implement their latent and active talents in the ways they see the most fit, and strong private property rights, coupled with the unrestrained right of civilians to own any weapons and use them in self-defence, have resulted in emergence of both big and small businesses - then barely curbed by taxation - and allowed these businesses to prosper and flourish. Both the large and some of the smaller businesses began producing enough goods to be able to export them around the world - and today, most of the popular products originate from the Western companies (albeit the factories and plants where they were made are often located in Taiwan/Vietnam/China/some other poorer country which lives as a labor lender). With goods, the USA - and the West in general - have peacefully expanded their culture, and people from other countries have voluntarily accepted it - by voting with their wallet.
The less attractive countries, on the other way, just can't afford that kind of self-promotion. Come to think of it, what can Russia, China, or Iran offer to the world? Ever since the war with Ukraine, and the consequent trade penalties issued by Western enterprises to Russia, Russian industry have shown the world just how much ass it sucks. As for the prison culture permeating Russia, it doesn't have any popularity outside Russia and its few vassal countries. Same with the Chinese ultra-collectivist culture - Americans just don't like being treated as literary tools with little to no free will, the way the Chinese people consider "normal". And it's not like they're lining up to convert into Islam and start killing everyone who doesn't want to accept the degenerate self-loathing cult permeating Arabic societies.
In other words, the only reason to engage in warfare for the sake of expansion is if you have a backwards culture which is just not attractive for mostly anyone outside of your people (and sometimes not even to your people), and for some reason, you just can't stay within your borders and enjoy your niche unattractive culture and niche unattractive social organization system. Sure, you can still be the prosperous country like the 'States and still bomb countries just for the fuck of it, and spread your culture through tanks and armies of literal rapists and murderers ravaging helpless civilians in other countries. But there's the catch, the people of these countries won't like you afterwards, and once your shitty empire becomes weaker, your former subjects/satellites/union members will secede from you, cut ties with you, and join the other alliance at the first convenient possibility.
Forcing the will of the majority/the group on minorities/individuals
The results more often than not just plain suck ass. Even countries with centuries-long collectivist traditions struggle with maintaining order and stability while trying to force their people to do shit as their rulers say - two great examples of this are the repression system in the former USSR (and, to a large extension, in modern Russia), and the oppression through a "social credit system" in China. The latter can be compared to Japan, a country with a virtually identical culture and ethical-moral-traditional system; it even features a sort-of decentralized social credit system (basically, a bunch of nosey neighbors and other acquaintances who just feel compelled to observe others' lives and intervene whenever they seem necessary, or judge them according to their private lives and beliefs).
Despite the virtually identical culture and heritage of two countries, one can't manage their people for shit, while the other does a decent job at this. The difference? China (the country that fails at managing their population) uses way too much violence and coercion against their citizens, and meddles with their lives way too obviously and crudely. And Japan has much more refined (and effective) methods of handling their docile, mindless cattle population.
Everywhere, where violence is actively used to force others to do something or impose beliefs/values, there is significant resistance - which doesn't mean anything good for cohesion and integrity of a group, and neither it improves sympathy and promotes support among the affected persons.
On the positive side, in some limited cases, violence actually does improve the group's performance - by improving the lives of individuals within it - and the best example for it is the natural security of a society where persons are well-armed and ready for self-defence. The threat of violence deters its members from stealing from one another and coercing each other to do things, and encourages them to find a way to get what they want by not harming anyone. In other words, the message is: you get into my property, you get shot. The difference between "useful" and harmful violence is the attractiveness of a violent trade-off vs. non-violent alternatives. Many situations are fairly complicated and therefore, it is not easy for most humans to make a decision, but the general principle for many humans is easy - whether they would choose forcing their will on us, and risk getting beaten, tortured, and slaughtered by us in retaliation - or whether they would keep to themselves and their problems, and not have their organs harvested without any anaesthetic, nor have their limbs smashed thoroughly and put on a display as a warning for the other possible aggressors.
When violence is really not recommended
Oppressing the Sovereign Individual
Oppressing the masses is one thing - no country have ever suffered from just that. The masses are willing to tolerate pretty much everything, long as they have food, shelter, and comfort. The Sovereign Individuals are entirely another story.
The masses, being almost entirely passive and non-initiative, they do not mind doing as they're told and not trying anything by themselves - in fact, they're the happiest in this state. Since they lack creativity and intelligence, they're more than alright with going along with the flow and living their lives by all sorts of norms and instructions. But if the masses are passive and docile, who creates these norms and instructions? Rather, who creates the entire civilization? Who pushes forward technological progress, who innovates and improvises, who creates all the things we use today one way or another?
And in each and every case, the answer is: The Sovereign Individual.
For hundreds of years, workers have been working using mostly primitive instruments driven by the force of a human operating that instrument - or sometimes, by animals. There have been millions upon millions of workers over the course of human civilizations' existence - and none of them have ever tried to improve the efficiency of their labor by any means other than hard work and experience.
And then, a bright individual comes in and improves something. It could be a minor tweak (yet a significant one), or it could be a major invention (such as Tesla's improvement of energy networks, and much more) - but if not for those bright individuals, chances are that humanity would be still sitting in the caves, shivering from cold and afraid of predators. There was no fire until someone curious and thoughtful have played with sparks and friction, ran a few thoughts across their head, and have learned to create their own fires - instead of just maintaining it. There was no farming until someone have found out that those leftovers from fruits and berries they've been throwing away give birth to new plants over some time, analyzed this phenomenon, and then came up with the idea of seizing a small patch of land and starting growing their own plants there. There were no dairy products until someone watched kids grow up on mother's milk, and came up with the idea of milking other animals to obtain extra food (Which was scarce).
And then, the bright individuals taught others to do stuff. Probably they were rejected sometimes by the more conservative normies, but when they weren't, their ideas, after having been accepted by the masses, became traditions. Traditions no one re-views, analyses, or improves upon - no one but other curious, capable, talented individuals.
And now, imagine if a country would just up and lose all of their talented, intelligent, curious persons. Tomorrow, nothing happens. In a year, they'll lag behind the others just a little bit. In ten years? They'll be forced to rely on help from other countries - whether it's spying on them and trying to steal their technology, or outright asking foreigners to supply them new technologies.
And if you'll be unkind towards those bright individuals, don't expect them to work for your country instead of some foreign state. Don't cry when they use their talents to work with someone else instead of you. And don't blame it on the other, more successful societies.
Enforcing absolute solidarity
Not everyone agrees with you. Almost no one agrees with you completely.
It's all fine if a society has its norms and traditions. When a bunch of people has their own community, and their own laws, it's OK. It's OK if they try to stop someone who outright intends to hurt their community somehow, by performing certainly-dangerous acts publicly. But not all people of that community share all of its principles.
The stricter a society is with its rules, the more restraints it creates for its members. Normies do not mind unless those restrains prevent them from having basic necessities (and even when it comes to that, they usually suck it up and live with it, hoping the situation gets better tomorrow), but it's another thing when a Sovereign Individual gets abused by the society just because it's way too restrictive and oppressive.
Unless we're talking about Asians, who are known to have heavily reduced individuality and therefore might even thrive on forced solidarity, historically societies which went overboard with their control didn't last long and weren't too happy while they lasted. Good examples of that are the Soviet Union and the fascist European countries (Italy under Mussolini; Germany under Hitler; Spain under Franco) - the former have outlasted the latter, but still it was a fairly unstable country which was forced to disband and change its policies so its main part, Russia, could survive.
Less authoritarian nations, which have fairly strict laws and moral codes, are able to survive for longer periods - many historical and currently-existent kingdoms and empires lasted for centuries while not being liberal paradises, but still allowing a fair degree of liberties so strong-willed individuals could develop themselves and their personalities however they see fit (not without dealing with bullshit brainwashing attempt from the society, in most cases) - even though those still did give them a great amount of inconvenience. At the same time, normies were happy that they were led around, pampered, and provided comfort, so they could enjoy civilization while not having to solve any difficult problems. So while there might be some benefit in limited solidarity (some of which may be enforced), pushing for total or strict unity means ruining your country. Unless we're talking about China or Japan, maybe.
De-individuation; pushing collectivism
Since most humans don't have any individuality or personality to speak of, it's only natural that collectivist movements and ideas start up everywhere. And since collectivism is natural for many humans (especially Asians, who might be considered something between individual beings and hive-minds), the urge to just up and force everyone into the group and severely punish those non-compliant is often high.
But then again, it's not these collectives who really push the civilization forward.
First off, collectives simply do not exist without individual beings building, guiding, and maintaining them. Whether we're talking about a nation, a corporation, a small hobby group, a spontaneously-organized neighborhood, etc. it is always a system build either by a person or several persons, as individuals. Everything and everyone is an individual being, and so, in order to create a collective, some sort of a relations and interactions network is needed for them. And that network is made of individuals themselves, interacting with the collective out of their own judgement.
So to actually erase individuality, humans must be somehow modified structurally. While instruments allowing for just that are now in development by organizations such as DARPA and Neuralink, a more low-tech solution (and the solution used widely) involves training humans not unlike animals are being trained, punishing them severely for any expression of individuality and rewarding obedience and compliance. On the masses, it provides reasonably effective results, since they don't have any personal will and their animal instincts don't particularly care whether they'll follow their own convictions or they'll be compliant, well-behaving drones, long as they have food, shelter, housing, and care.
This is the reason why the United States of America - and any other country which combines authoritarian/collectivist practices for the masses yet respects individuality for persons who have it - is overwhelmingly successful. While the masses are governed this way just fine, the Sovereign Individuals always resist destruction of their personalities, and their subjugation; therefore, a system which both heavily encourages compliance (for the more simple-minded ones) and allows the Sovereign Individual to think and develop freely, with no restraints, is proven to be very effective with humans. Oppressive autocracies like China or Russia, on the other hand, fail greatly in many of their affairs, especially the grand ones - since they oppress those who are the source of prosperity and progress: the Sovereign Individuals. The experience of USSR shows that collectives and communities just can't organize on their own. (For starters, bolsheviks didn't organize for a revolution by themselves, a person known as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin did that. He also told them what they should fight for, what should they believe in, what they should love and hate.)
And if we start oppressing the Sovereign Individuals, forcing them to alter themselves against their will (which is, personality-wise, analogous to death with subsequent zombification), the least we can expect is that they will work for us at a significantly reduced capacity. Which means, we can expect the society which oppresses such persons to start severely lagging behind those who respect personal liberty, sovereignty, and inviolability of their domain. Kinda like happened with the Soviets and kinda like happens now in China.
Furthermore, by artifically reducing the amount of options available, we reduce the amount of potential possibilities gained. Which reduced the quality of life for all, not just the Sovereign Individuals who aren't in a ruling position.
...But can the humanity safely manage it?
Short answer: Yes. There are ways to manage it.
Long answer:
By "managing" it, I mean "organizing it in such a way that it would not pose a threat for the free, sovereign individuals, but instead be a powerful tool to safeguard themselves against and their domains against any aggression".
One way of doing that is simply allowing individuals to own deadly firearms and use them in self-defence against any aggressor - yes, a sort of gun de-control. The example of the United States of America shows that populations can indeed be armed and reasonably docile at the same time - especially if they're given reasonable freedoms, so they would satisfy most of their needs (which, in most humans, come primarily from animal instincts).
Basically, if a country manages to control their army and/or law enforcement, which are armed, they can just as well manage their armed populace. After all, if we think about it, an army is, basically, a bunch of armed citizens of a country - and quite often armed with cutting-edge weapons, capable of more than just self-defence. If a country can entrust a bunch of people these arms, it can entrust the same arms to the other containable people.
While gun control indeed makes sense for an Eastern country, whose population functions more like an organized hive-mind with strict role division for various tasks - it doesn't make sense for a Western-style nation, whose citizens are fully-fledged individuals. While there are indeed concerns about a "public uprising", and the presence of firearms is supposed to make the task much easier for the rebels, let's not forget that it only works when at least the overwhelming majority supports one side of the conflict. If the society has a multitude of views instead, an armed populace is far more likely to lead to an internal civil war than to a cooperative uprising - and, considering that most known humans aren't even able to define their own views and interests, instead borrowing most or all of them from their respective tribal ideologies, we're most likely to end up in a situation of several polarized, well-armed, and well-restrained competing movements, which hate each other yet do not attempt any conquest due to every movement possessing deadly power and being able to wreak havoc on the others. With such a situation, the choice before every group is simple: either manage your power reasonably, and enjoy the civilization you've got right now - which offers comparatively good quality of life - or start a war, and lose too much, if not everything.
This might be as well the one way of doing it - the humanity is an innately violent species, which constantly tests others for "weakness" in order to make use of it (which means, looking for targets for further abuse and domination). Nevertheless, they do have a good sense of power balance, and are less likely to be aggressive towards a well-defended entity (even if it's considerably weaker) than against a totally defenseless one - and when everyone has a reasonable means of self-defence, they're more likely to stay civil and engage in non-violent interaction. So, if we are to preserve the freedom and sovereignty of individuals, we should embrace the idea of weapons in civilians' hands, and work towards its fruition.
With that said, suggestions like "Why don't we just arm the Sovereign Individuals to the teeth and disarm the rest of the humanity..." are just bound to happen. After all, it does seem somewhat reasonable to keep the violent humanity at bay while putting the power into the hands of enlightened, strong-willed Sovereign Individuals who are the sole engine of progress in the entire civilization. Except that there is no way to ensure that the only ones in position of power will be such individuals - after all, the Sovereign Individuals, in most cases, look way too similar to the ordinary semi-sapient and violent humans, so it's not like we can just look at a person and say, "hey, it's the enlightened one, he should have all the liberties and weapons and should be immediately uplifted".
The Sovereign Individuals can be born in any social class, in any caste, and in any group. Same with the ordinary humans. Just because someone is a king's son, doesn't mean they're smart or have any other significant merit - and just because someone is born in a dirt poor family, doesn't mean they won't be more useful than a leader's son. The countries like North Korea, Belarus, and, to some degree, China, are good examples of that; there are many bright individuals with high merit and strong will being born there, and more often than not they're being put in lower positions of the society, on the same level as the other de-facto slaves - while their leaders and their cronies bringing far more harm than good to the rest of the people, the ordinary ones and the Sovereign Individuals alike.
And since the selection of the enlightened ones is bound to be performed by humans - or, maybe, the Sovereign Individuals - we just can't hope to rule out all the personal bias of decision-makers as a factor present in selecting the "enlightened ones". Bias is present in everyone, and it's a fundamental part of one's personality; as long as we're talking about the free world and the sovereign individuals, we can't suggest something like "let's just invent a psychological treatment/mind-control interface and technically erase the bias from the decision-makers" and hope for support. Because destroying the bias this way is crippling the personality - something we'd rather not have in a free society. So yes, we'll still have the problem of someone selecting their son/daughter/best friend/basically anyone they seem to strongly favor as the "enlightened one", and should it happen to be a predatory human, at the very least, they'll be a huge pain in the ass as their bestial instincts will create loads of problems. Kinda like with the (Bela)Russian nobles' friends, or with Chinese officials and their relatives - who often kill, rape, and torture people just for the fun of it, and then the rest are forced to hide the evidence and spend tons of money for bribes and assassinations of any possible witnesses so their reputation stays clear.
None of these problems are relevant if we just let everyone arm themselves, though.
Conclusion, if necessary
Violence is, basically, a tool. It can be used for a multitude of reasons, in a multitude of ways, and while some of its uses are harmful for most of those who matter, the other uses of it are literally necessary to defend own interests. Even if we assume ourselves to be determined pacifists, there is at least one use of violence we must accept if we are to survive: dealing with those who aren't so peaceful towards us. Talking to people and resolving issues without aggression is amazing, but if we have an adversary who just isn't willing to resolve conflicts and issues peacefully, no amount of words and ideas will ever convince them or stop them. Atrocities and gunfire, however, are another thing.
Since it's a tool of harm, it should be, of course, avoided in most cases if we are to build a free world, or even a prosperous civilization in general - but at the same time, we shouldn't expect the rest to be as pacifistic, and keep a huge stopping force at hand just in case. Especially if we are dealing with the humanity. In more cases than not, threats of violence, direct or not, are, realistically, the only thing to stop them from hurting others.
And of course, if we are to keep our free world free, and ourselves sovereign and inviolable, we will need to have a very potent means of stopping those who want to subjugate, conquer, or exterminate us. Counter-assault is the best way so far.