So, apparently, in the eyes of some people, a Navy vessel, two embassies, several office buildings and several thousand lives aren’t enough to justify military action.
For the pacifists here, a question – at what point do attacks on the United States justify fighting back? A smallpox outbreak that kills 20,000? Sarin at a football game in an indoor dome? Suitcase nukes that take out downtown Chicago and 300,000 lives, and throw the country into a depression? When do you think it’s an appropriate point to start defending ourself?
Or … do you think we should never strike back, under any circumstances, due to principle, the thought that we’re paying back “America’s karmic debt,” or some other reason?
Speaking as a naive, idealistic pacifist-wannabe, I would always look for an alternative solution to violence. This soes not mean sitting there, doing nothing but wait for the next attack, nor does it mean taking no action to prevent further attacks, but it does proclude war. I do need to declare that I have yet (thank God) to experince a loved one being hurt or my country attacked or my safety threatened to any great degree.
When I have experienced any of these things, I will revise my opinion, but until then…
elmwood, the way you posit the question is rather like “when are you going to admit that I’m right and you’re full of it”. Hardly fair.
Pacifism, by definition, means that no such line is ever met, much less crossed. It is an absolute ideal. The instant a pacifist accepts violent self-defense of any stripe, whatsoever, that person ceases to be a pacifist. By definition, therefore, the answer has to be “never”.
What I’ve always wondered about is whether or not pacifist are guilt ridden about everything in life. Because, to me, pacifism seems like one giant guilt trip.
Er, yes. That is what a pacifist is: somebody who rejects violence as a means of settling disputes.
And even if you’re not a pacifist, the question is not only whether the attacks on the USA justify a violent response, but what kind of response is justified and against whom. It is possible to believe that the current military action is misguided, misdirected and lacking in clear, achievable objectives without believing that violence is an inappropriate response per se.
I guess I’m with grimpixie. I should also point out that my views would probably get me thrown out of any self-respecting pacifist organization.
I don’t see pacifism as being a one-sided thing (as in, they do whatever they want, we’ll just sit here and do nothing). I think that pacifists have to work for worldwide peace. The end result being, of course, that no terrorist would hate enough to kill innocents. Other conflicts that lead to the need for armed response and a show of force would also be non-existent.
In the short term, seeing that this is unattainable immediately, I do think defense is needed, as is occasional force to ensure justice is done. Just like cops use guns when they apprehend criminals, I think our military must be armed when they go after world criminals. BUT–I can only support this with a clear conscience if I know that at the same time, we (or some pacifists with good resources) are thinking about long-term solutions that promote peace and understanding and eliminate future violent conflicts. That means on their side as much as ours.
Perhaps you could summarize my view by saying I’m a pacifist that supports military spending but I think we ought to be matching every one of those defense dollars with dollars spent on worldwide education, cooperation, and compassion initiatives. With the long term goal of having to spend less and less on defense in the future.
Otherwise I feel we’re just doing the “Screwing for Virginity” thing–“Arming for peace.”
I am sure a true pacifist would smack me with a pie in the face for my hypocrisy. I prefer to call it practicality in the face of how far we have to go.
The good thing about pacifists is that you can bomb their peace rallies and beat them senseless and you can still sleep well at night knowing that they will not attack you back. I wish that more things in life were that accommodating.
I am a pacficistic realist. I’m not gonna stand there aand give the peace sign if someone is about to shoot me.
But I do believe that giving in to the desire to hurt others when you are hurt solves nothing. Violence should be the last resort, and then used in a very narrow fashion, with the end goal being ONLY self-defense.
I agree that pacifism or non-violence is the ideal. Like Communism, it looks good on paper, but it doesn’t work in practice. In a perfect world, if everyone practiced pacifist policies, then it would work. Passive resistance may have worked in India in the end, but would it have worked for France, Poland, Holland, Norway, Czechoslovakia, or Greece in late the 1930s and early 1940s? No.
Let me try to word my question another way. If you’re opposed to the “War on Terrorism,” at what point would you sacrifice principles for lives?
I’m not sure what the best response to terrorism is. However, mnost of the media and the country is in a state of war frenzy. My posts on this board are merely to offer a different point of view. There are a lot of issues regarding the current global situation.
We need to look at the lessons of history and the big picture. The US is the mightiest nation on Earth. To a lot of countries, I think the US is seen as a global bully who tries to have their way too often.
A socialist would argue, as long as their inbalances in the distribution of wealth and power, there will be conflict. Isn’t that what Marxism is all about?
One has nothing to do with the other. Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist who thought Gandhi was making too many concessions to the Muslims. The Brits left India, not because of Gandhi, but because the war had exhausted their ability to hold the empire together.
Xenophon41, the quote doesn’t make one lick of sense. We aren’t fighting out of hatred. (Didja notice we’re feeding the refugees? Hard to do that out of hate.) We’re fighting the Taliban because they are shielding the people who murdered 5000 of your fellow citizens. This is not a war; it’s a police action to apprehend OBL.
Curious George, what Marxism is about, is about ten years past any relevance to modern politics.
I agree with Cranky that looking for long-term solutions to releive poverty and help third-world nations will go a long way to defusing hatred of the US.
elmwood: " If you’re opposed to the “War on Terrorism,” at what point would you sacrifice principles for lives?"
elmwood, you assume here that those who oppose the war as it’s now being conceived and fought, oppose it on principle (i.e. on ethical grounds). In actuality, some also oppose it, or instead oppose it, on grounds of pragmatism, that is, they believe that conventional military force with heavy civilian casualities will not defeat terrorism and they believe, rather, that it will exacerbate it. Hope that helps.
I would also submit that most of the Gandhi quotes are being cited out of historical context. Gandhi was not fighting a genocidal madman, but an imperial occupier with a moral conscience that could be appealed to. Gandhi’s goal was to make the British relinquish control of India by making it ungovernable through non-violent resistance. Non-violent resistance has a flaw in that it only works if your enemy can be made to feel ashamed.
Bin Laden, Al-Quaeda, and the Taliban cannot be appealed to by moral suasion because their sense of morality and ours are different. We value freedom, tolerance, and pluralism; they value adherence to a rigidly narrow religious code. To them, women with bare faces are harlots who deserve to be beaten. To them, Israelis and Americans are infidel scum who deserve to be killed anywhere they can be found (Bin Laden isued a fatwa using those words in 1998).
Do you really think you can stop airplanes flying into buildings and anthrax in the mail by singing “Kum Ba Ya” and going on hunger strikes?
I didn’t say they did have relationship with each other.
Gandhi was prepared to die for his beliefs. He did die for his beliefs.
The “and” was meant, as “Oh, and another thing that just occurred to me as a type this…” the Brits did, in fact, leave India.
The only reason that pacifism won’t work is because everybody is convinced that it would not work. If every single person took it upon themselves to work towards non-violence and peace, then the world would achieve it. Unfortunately, everybody is concerned with what the other guy is doing. “Well, I’d try it if person X and Person Y would, but they won’t, so it’s pointless.” I think that’s the wrong attitude.
And I’m kinda disturbed by the presumption that pacifism is OK as long as nothing bad happens. Uh…what’s the point in being a pacifist if you only live that way when it’s popular?
gobear, the quote was not in regards to the current situation in Afghanistan; it was how I thought Gandhi might have responded to your comment that “a flower will not stop a bullet.” It was intended to show how the foremost pacifist on record felt about the power of pacifism in relation to political violence (such as assassinations).
FTR, I’m not advocating pacifism as a response to terrorism, or as a foreign policy.
