Pacifism only serves to enable and support evil

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Author may have gone a bit too far, but I agree that your typical peace movement, despite good intentions, is almost always exploited by our enemies. In fact, I'd argue that our enemies see the peace movement as strong surrogates who can take their cause and fight their battles on our own soil...

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If the peace movement really were a peace movement, its members would be denouncing the true threats to peace and trying their damndest to disarm and neutralize the likes of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. etc. Instead, they champion these groups, demand cease-fires with them (never acknowledging that there is no way to hold them to account when they break the ceasefire, as they inevitably do) and say little about their standard operational policies that deliberately target the innocent. But our brave peace activists march in solidarity with these foul groups; and proudly wear the latest "hate couture", thinking it shows how tolerant and compassionate and virtuous they are; not even appreciating that it serves instead to demonstrate the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their pacifist ideology.

In today's world, where evil knows it can get away with practically any horror; that there will always be a large cadre of dupes who are willing to rationalize, excuse, or minimize any atrocity; the only thing pacifism is good for is to enable and support evil.

War is a always a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because evil exists in the world and it cannot go unchecked--that is, not if you truly care about innocent human life.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth. In reality, they don't care much about human suffering, misery or even death; let alone the legacy of evil in the world. Through a variety of psychological defenses, they have managed to deny, displace, distort, and project real evil away. There cannot be found even a trace of psychological insight among all those angry marchers who violently and adamantly demand peace at any price.

For the carefree members of the antiwar movement, the triumph of evil is unimportant when compared to their own narcissistic need to appear virtuous and good.

Pacifism--what is it good for? It protects the user from having to make difficult moral choices in the real world; from having to deal with real human suffering in the here and now; and most importantly, from recognizing how meaningless their own lives are.

The track record of pacifism is horrendous. Not only do "peace movements" fail to bring peace; but by protecting, appeasing, and minimizing true evil, they ensure that war--when it inevitably comes--costs even more in terms of human suffering and lives.

Source Jul 16, 2006

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What would Jesus do?

Joe(did he mean that other cheek comment?)Nation

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http://www.hellblazer.com/media/Fighting_Jesus.jpg

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Joe Nation wrote:

What would Jesus do?

Joe(did he mean that other cheek comment?)Nation

That question can be asked about every social issue today.
Do you want to apply that standard to everything?

As to the topic,terrorist groups will never disarm.
If the "peace movement" was so all pervasive as they like to think,then the middle east should be the most peaceful place on earth.
After all,the "peace movement" has been saying for 30 years that if Israel just made concessions there would be peace.

Israel has,and there is still no peace.
Why is that?

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In my opinion, the patriotic flag wavers are the most exploited. Like Pavlov's dogs, they slaver at the thought of defending their country through war, just at the hint of aggression on the part of perceived enemies. Any thoughts of statesmanship are immediately buried and the more thoughtful declared traitors. They are so easily lead, it's a joke [except for the collateral damage they inflict].

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(If I was a believer) I suspect that Jesus would not exactly be impressed with Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, nor Israel, the US government & their supporters. I suspect he'd side with the innocent victims of this insanity & aggression.

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"Pacifism only serves to enable and support evil". Aint that exactly what the insurgents in Iraq say?

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For a really idiotic debate, merely refuse to clarify the terms of it.

From dictionary.com...
Pacifism:
1)The belief that disputes between nations should and can be settled peacefully.

2)Opposition to war or violence as a means of resolving disputes.
Such opposition demonstrated by refusal to participate in military action

Would slkshock7 or MM hold the belief that "disputes between nations cannot be settled peacefully and must be settled by war"?

Are they "opposed to peace or non-violence as a means of resolving disputes"?

To put it another way, did Jesus say, "If you just turn the other cheek, you are a girlyman. Go, now, and rip their lungs out."

Has anyone ever met a pacifist of the absolutist sort - "There is never a justification for war" ? I haven't. My faith and cultural tradition, Mennonite, is traditionally pacifist, yet all the males in my family joined up to fight in WW2.

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Dammit blatham-
There you go, trying to introduce measured reason and sensibility into the discussion again!

ain't you learned nothin'?

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mysteryman wrote:

Joe Nation wrote:
What would Jesus do?

Joe(did he mean that other cheek comment?)Nation

MM replied:

Quote:
That question can be asked about every social issue today.
Do you want to apply that standard to everything?

Yes.
Christianity, without all it's limiting myths about the supernatural, is the greatest philosophy and social psychology strategy which has yet to tried (except for a few years in the streets of Mumbai by Mother Teresa and even she {a saint} had her faults). So, yes. Try it.

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After all,the "peace movement" has been saying for 30 years that if Israel just made concessions there would be peace.

Israel has,and there is still no peace.
Why is that?

Ah yes, the mysterious, and only existent in quotes, "peace movement", the great unnamed group which can be, as in the article, escribed any quality wished. So, in the article above, the marchers are angry, and here it is implied that "the movement" has only called for concessions by Israel and not by Hamas or the PLO or Hezzbollah or Syria or Egypt {sigh)-the list does go on. Neither label really sticks but they work well enough when you are trying your damnedest to tamp down any opposition to the "unilateral war with associated acts of torture is the way to go movement".

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and there is still no peace.
Why is that?

Dunno. You would have thought the whole 'win your place through violence and hate' would have won something by now.

Joe(Love your enemies. Nah, he was just talking)Nation

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For myself, there is no absolute pacifism, but there are very few times when war is an adequate answer. Right now, the jingoists want nothing more than to blow away as many Muslims/westerners as possible. Any negotiations are primed for failure.

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blatham wrote:

For a really idiotic debate, merely refuse to clarify the terms of it.

From dictionary.com...
Pacifism:
1)The belief that disputes between nations should and can be settled peacefully.

2)Opposition to war or violence as a means of resolving disputes.
Such opposition demonstrated by refusal to participate in military action

Would slkshock7 or MM hold the belief that "disputes between nations cannot be settled peacefully and must be settled by war"?

Are they "opposed to peace or non-violence as a means of resolving disputes"?

To put it another way, did Jesus say, "If you just turn the other cheek, you are a girlyman. Go, now, and rip their lungs out."

Has anyone ever met a pacifist of the absolutist sort - "There is never a justification for war" ? I haven't. My faith and cultural tradition, Mennonite, is traditionally pacifist, yet all the males in my family joined up to fight in WW2.

Disputes between nations should and in most cases can be settled peacefully.
However,there are always time when it isnt possible.
Could WW2 have been settled peacefully?

I am not opposed to peace or non-violence as a means of resolving disputes.
I would prefer that to violence or war.
Nobody that has seen war wants to ever see it again.
Most soldiers never want to have to use their weapons against another person (but there are a few sick ones that do).

However,there are times when force must be used.
To "turn the other cheek" at all times is not possible.

Whats happening with Israel right now is a good example.
Hezbollah and Hamas have sworn themselves to the destruction of Israel.

Irans president has written a letter to Germany,criticizing Israels right to exist,and he has made comments that Israel does not have the right to exist and should be destroyed...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/07/21/iran.letter.ap/index.html

Now,Israel could lay down their arms,conceed to every demand made on them,and they would still be attacked.

If you doubt that,I refer you to UN resolution 1559.
Israel complied,and the terrorist groups didnt.
There is only one way to have peace sometimes,and that is thru military victory.

Its sad,but it is true.

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mysteryman, sad but true. You Bushies give no credence to UN resolutions or to the UN yet when it suits you you invoke them. How hypocritical. Israel defies UN resolutions and you say nothing. "PDF] Israel routinely ignores and defies UN ResolutionsFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
destruction.Israel, on the other hand, routinely ignores and defies UN Resolutions, some of which are listed here. - Resolution 106: " . ...
www.ziopedia.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=461 - " Bushie defies the UN and you cheer. He promised a vote on a second UN resolution before he invaded Iraq and when he saw he would lose he defied the UN and invaded anyway. He declared the Geneva Convention to be quaint showing how little regard he has for international law.

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So true, blueflame.

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Pacifism is perfection.

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blueflame1 wrote:

mysteryman, sad but true. You Bushies give no credence to UN resolutions or to the UN yet when it suits you you invoke them. How hypocritical. Israel defies UN resolutions and you say nothing. "PDF] Israel routinely ignores and defies UN ResolutionsFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
destruction.Israel, on the other hand, routinely ignores and defies UN Resolutions, some of which are listed here. - Resolution 106: " . ...
www.ziopedia.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=461 - " Bushie defies the UN and you cheer. He promised a vote on a second UN resolution before he invaded Iraq and when he saw he would lose he defied the UN and invaded anyway. He declared the Geneva Convention to be quaint showing how little regard he has for international law.

How about taking a closer look at all the UN resolutions instead of just looking at the highlights?

http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/unitednations.html does a pretty good job of looking at the UN vs. Israel.

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Record of the United Nations, why is it so anti-Israel
One of the reasons the United Nations is so anti-Israel is because the General Assembly gives one vote per member country, and there are simply many more small developing Islamic countries than large non-Islamic developed countries.

Because many of these smaller developing countries suffered under Western colonialism the General Assembly also has an anti-Western bias.

Israel, ironically, is seen by many countries as the last bastion of Western colonialism -- partly because the Palestine Mandate for the Jewish National Home predates the U.N. and dates back to the League of Nations -- even though it became a nation about the same time, and in the same way as many African and other Middle Eastern nations.

Israel also has resorted to legislation and documents that predate the United Nations, sometimes ignoring the UN resolutions and always to its consternation. Although changing in recent years, Israel held its right for Jews to live on the Jewish National Home to supersede any right or restriction emanating from the U.N.

Another is this site, which looks at Anti-Semitism in the United Nations.

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Emergency Special Sessions of the United Nations General Assembly are rare. No such session has ever been convened with respect to the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, the slaughters in Rwanda, the disappearances in Zaire or the horrors of Bosnia. In fact, during the last 15 years they have been called only to condemn Israel.

People in the world hate Israel. Many of those people participate on A2K. It never ceases to amaze me.

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McGentrix wrote:

Another is this site, which looks at Anti-Semitism in the United Nations.

Quote:
Emergency Special Sessions of the United Nations General Assembly are rare. No such session has ever been convened with respect to the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, the slaughters in Rwanda, the disappearances in Zaire or the horrors of Bosnia. In fact, during the last 15 years they have been called only to condemn Israel.

The Jewish Virtual Library would have one believe that the UN Emergency Special Sessions have been convened for the sole purpose of condemning Israel while ignoring all the other oppressors and aggressors in the world. Indeed, it has poor ol' McG believing that these sessions are particularly "anti-Semitic." This, however, is not the case. Also, four of these sessions weren't even convened by the Security Council, but by individual member states like Qatar and Zimbabwe.

It's true what the Jewish Virtual Library says about there being no UN Emergency Special Sessions concerning the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, the slaughters in Rwanda, the disappearances in Zaire or the horrors of Bosnia. And it's true that during the last fifteen years since that page on the Jewish Virtual Library was written, which was 1998, UN Emergency Special Sessions were called only to condemn Israel. The UN's own webpage concerning its Emergency Special Sessions shows that all of two special sessions were called in the fifteen years since the page on the Jewish Virtual Library had been written, the ninth and tenth sessions. The tenth session convened in August of 2004 by Qatar concerned the construction of the separation barrier being built by Israel around the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The ninth was convened in February of 82, and concerned Israel's occupation of Syrian Golan Heights.

Before that the eight session convened in September of 1981 by Zimbabwe, and condemned South Africa's occupation of Nambia.

The seventh session convened in September of 1982 by Senegal condemned the massacre of Palestinian and other civilians in Beirut during the Lebanon Civil War without naming a perpetrator.

The sixth session convened in January of 1980, didn't condemn but "strongly deplored" the recent armed intervention in Afghanistan without naming a perpetrator.

The fifth session convened in September of 1967 by the USSR also didn't condemn, but did deplore Israel's failure to implement General Assembly resolution 2253, which called upon Israel "to rescind all measures already taken and to desist forthwith from taking action which would alter the status of Jerusalem" during the Six Day War.

The fourth session convened in September of 1960, and concerned the so called "Congo Crisis", didn't condemn or deplore anything or anyone, but did request the Secretary-General to continue to take vigorous action in accordance with the terms of the UN Security Council resolutions 143, 145 and 146 which basically called for the formation and deployment of a peace keeping force there.

The third session convened in August of 1958 also didn't condemn or deplore, but did "call upon all State Members of the United Nations to act strictly in accordance with the principles of mutual respect for each others territorial integrity and sovereignty,of non-aggression, of strict non-interference in each other's internal affairs, and of equal and mutual benefit, and to ensure that their conduct by word and deed conforms to these principles, and requested the Secretary-General to make arrangements "with the governments concerned" to facilitate the early withdrawal of their troops from Lebanon and Jordan. This session obliquely referred to the US' deployment of troops in those two countries in that year.

The second session convened in November of 1956 concerned Hungary, the Revolution of 1956, and the Soviet suppression thereof. I don't know whether there was condemnation or deploration since the link to the PDF file in the UN webpage didn't work.

The first session also convened in November of 1956 concerned Britain, France and Israel's invasion of Egypt in that year. It also neither condemned or deplored, but did request that a UN force be set up to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities in accordance with the terms of resolution 997.

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McG wrote:

People in the world hate Israel. Many of those people participate on A2K. It never ceases to amaze me.

People in the world hate a lot of countries. I'm sure many of those people participate on A2K. Does this fact also never cease to amaze you?

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I don't hate Israel. But I hate what Israel is doing to the lives of innocent people right now. (& please don't anyone try to justify what's happening by explaining about terrorists embedded in the midst of Lebanese cities & communities. This simply doesn't justify the scale of the carnage!)

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msolga wrote:

I don't hate Israel. But I hate what Israel is doing to the lives of innocent people right now. (& please don't anyone try to justify what's happening by explaining about terrorists embedded in the midst of Lebanese cities & communities. This simply doesn't justify the scale of the carnage!)

But why no hatred of or outrage about what Hezbollah and Hamas have done to innocent people in Israel?

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Pacifism only serves to enable and support evil

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