Hi Wandering Minstrel:
Your mention of knee capping hits the complexity on the head. Personaly, I find it problematic in a world where super powers exert unprovoked violent attacks of people, use deadly force, and while I acknowledge that violent defence seldom works in the long term, as we see in Sinn Fein selling out much of the civil rights program which led to the present mess, in the aftermath of war, it all reminds me of one of the elders of our meeting here in New York, the late Peter Fingestchion (forgive me Peter for the spelling of your name, and rest in peace old pal). Peter intervened violently, to stop a violent mugging on a subway platform where imminent death to a young lady was a present possibility. See, Peter felt his passive beliefs were not worth the young lady's life, and he had no non-violent options. He did not give up his belief in the peace testimony, as some meetings, like the Wittier (Richard Nixon's meeting) have done.
So, I continue to struggle through out my life with a balance between my belief and conviction in passivism and the right to expect help from weaker folks who are in immediate danger. In keeping with Quaker honesty, I can't say I would not use violence in the case that Peter did. Of course one would hope to try to use peaceful means, but in the face of a lunatic's attack with a train coming, it is only one complexity of the peace testimony. By the way that sort of honesty in the face of such a dilemma would have defeated an objection to serving in the Army during the VietNam draft, so this odd country of ours holds killing strangers in their own land on the par with interceding in a mugging... Beats me!
All the best
Larry
PS Wandering, which meeting are you a member of? I expect it is an unprogramed meeting, we are now a VERY small minority, I understand 80% are programed!