LBG…hmmmm…Can’t say I remember that one 
Listen, bub, you got some kinda problem with me?
Hmmm, I could use a new stereo. I guess I’ll drop by Dibble’s place.
Oh, wait, pacifists have lousy taste in electronics.
There’s some middle ground between passively allowing crackheads to invade your home and steal your stereo, and murder/war/violence.
Absolutely, but if “pacifist” covers most of this middle ground, as implied by the OP, then it’s a somewhat meaningless concept.
What a fascinating thread based on an honest question. The extended quote in another post listing the various points of view was intriguing as well.
Preemption and ego pop into my mind.
First, the more superficial point: I think it’s understood that people can have big egos (in the pejorative sense of the term) and without being ideologically warmongering they can REMF themselves into a pissing contest even if it is at one (or several) remove(s) from the machines that put the war into action.
Politicians, in other words. It’s one thing when a marauding army is led by the very person that’s running the whole outfit ideologically as well as practically but maybe its something else when the army and the civilian leadership are separate entities as they are nowadays in most of our western world (Pakistan’s current state of, maybe, flux is an interesting scenario there where one guy is both).
But where there’s leadership that’s technically separate (not personally fighting), it seems reasonable to suspect that a big ego on both sides (and all other sides) of an issue that can be related to war could have an impact. Whether or not those powers that be are ideologically pacifist or warmongering (to oversimplify) could become moot if it becomes a “who’s the man” type of thing.
At that point, the human mind may work backwards to rationalize anything.
One would like to think that such a notion is just too stupid to even bring up; surely we’re not still in a sandbox. But maybe in many cases we are and the sandbox is just bigger and more complex. Some in this thread, I’d expect, would even argue that’s evolutionary appropriate and to be expected.
So, that’s one consideration. Ego. I’m sure it has some evolutionary value, but in terms of discussing the proximate cause on a more surface level, it can be a bitch.
Preemption. A premise that was used in the OP is interesting and says a lot: the idea that a choice could be, in one hypothetical, of one type of war vs. another type and it becomes an issue of lesser of two evils type of thing where even the guy supporting a war isn’t doing it gleefully but as a ‘best option’ to avoid future, more destructive war.
The Hitler example is of course typically used there (don’t beat me, Godwin, I’m just using it as a reference, not hyperbole!), the issue of appeasement, etc.
I’m sure that can be, and has been, argued as being related to the fact that Germany was so economically and otherwise humiliated after the first go-round and perhaps more foresight in that regard would have headed off the coming to power of those that seem to come out of the woodwork when things go to shit.
But my point with that is this: one might say, “well, yes, but we don’t have the luxury of going back in time so we have to play the cards we’re dealt and go to war now”; and that may be, but if one of the notions of war that sees it as justified is that it’s a preemption of future war then it seems reasonable to suggest that as long as we’re doing preemptive things how about some economic and diplomatic preemption? Not when it’s so late that the writing is on the wall and you’re now just an idiot appeaser. But early; earlier than those that are willing to go to war to prevent future war.
It seems to me they’re related; that is, egos (greed, etc.) during peacetime prevent the economic and diplomatic actions that might preempt the arrival at a tipping point beyond which those in favor of war as a lesser of two evils option begin talking about going to war to preempt future war.
The notion of preemptive action is dubious, I think. We obviously can’t know for sure what’s going to happen in any given case. Acting economically and diplomatically based on future unknowns is, of course, inherently unavoidable but at least it has the advantage of being a lesser of two evils option between that and war instead of between a small war and a large war which leaves those that died just as dead in either case.
No offense, but I find the OP a tad naive. Maybe I just spend too much time in the Third World, but I’ve known quite a few people of different races, nationalities and religions for whom combat is like mother’s milk. Real Lt-Colonel Bill Kilgore-type characters. (“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” “Someday, this war will end,” said regretfuuly.)
Godwin aside, Hitler fought in WWI - no pacifist he. Napoleon, too, was a military officer.
As for US Presidents, I think being CinC of the most powerful military on earth kind of disqualifies you by the same lights as Hitler or Napoleon.
**Originally Posted by MrDibble
I know where this is going - violence at one remove is still violence, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. I’m afraid I don’t care. My ethos doesn’t say I magically wish there was no violence, just that I, personally and directly, will not practice it against my fellow man. That’s hypocritical in your view, since I’m willing to have others practice it on my behalf. I don’t care, as long as it’s not me.
“By that logic, Hitler was a pacifist.”**
Is there any difference between calling the police to defend you when someone breaks in to steal your stuff vs. calling the police to get them to break into someone else’s house and steal their stuff?
There would seem to be, but maybe not. Seems like it kind of collapses the meaning of terms like “aggressor”; if it’s all subjective, I guess there’s no such thing as that then.
I guess one could say that to a dictator, they feel they’re the ones whose homes/countries are being broken into and therefore defending themselves against the enemy country/race/culture/ideology, etc.
<sigh>
I think I’ll agree with the late Kurt on this one:
“How embarrassing to be human.”
- K. Vonnegut
Oh, I don’t know; if the term pacifism covers the middle ground up to but excluding killing and maiming, that would seem to leave it with some meaning.
Towards that end, when enemy supply buildings and such are bombed I’ve heard it expressly stated that doing so wasn’t just strategic but also intended to avoid the loss of human life.
Which, I think, leads right to the OP’s query: doesn’t everyone want that if it’s possible rather than including civilians? Or in his words, “want peace?”
I don’t know, I’ve heard Ann Coulter say she’d be in favor of carpetbombing civilians.
I suppose the argument there is that it would lead to a shorter war. Good grief.
You support a war we didn’t have to fight, a war of pure aggression. What more do you need to qualify for the term warmonger ? As for whether you like it, who cares ? The people we kill are just as dead; whether you play the poor hero sacrificing his/her finer sensibilities or giggle while you drink wine from the skulls of Iraqis, they are still dead.
The war was un-neccessary. The way to “get it over quickly” was not to attack. And in this case, it’s the democracy that deserves to lose.
No, they say they the protestors are traitors and terrorists.
Because you just said you support the war. You can’t be opposed to war and support it at the same time.
No. there are many who want war. Those who like killing, people who stand to profit by it, the neocons, any number of other religious or political types. The fact that Bush got re-elected shows just how much Americans like killing. As long as they are winning, at least.
Actually, the majority of evolution is from the reshuffling of existing genes, not mutation.
And I consider it evil. Or incredibly stupid. Especially for the people who STILL support it.
And would you be so forgivng if it was another country doing what we are doing ? If Iraq had somehow been able to conquer America, level cities, kill millions, lay waste to it’s economy and society, and let the worst elements in America gain power; would you say, “Oh, the Iraqis aren’t bad people” ?
Well, heck, if I had a machine that would accept a list of 500 people and make them all instantly drop dead, I’d be using it pretty freely to eliminate the leadership of any nation that looked at Canada sideways. Until I finish building it, though (six weeks, tops - the capacitors are on back order), I guess it’ll just have to be done the messy old-fashioned way. Since I’m not in favour of slaughtering civilians indiscriminately (it’s inefficient), I guess that makes me a pacifist.
A pacifist, by the way, who’d kinda like to see the Korean peninsula bathed in fire and blood, just because I’m curious in a purely academic sense how that one would play out.
"You support a war we didn’t have to fight, a war of pure aggression. What more do you need to qualify for the term warmonger ? "
Well, while I don’t support the war, the whole point is that he doesn’t agree that it’s a war we didn’t have to fight. The OP set it up as a war with less killing vs. a future war with more killing.
Were he to say that he’s in favor of fighting wars that he **himself **believes are completely unnecessary just for the sake of fighting or for greed, then that’d be a warmonger by his definition I think.
The whole argument there goes to whether or not it’s a necessary war.
Which goes to what defines necessary.
Which goes to self-defense.
Which goes to preemptive self-defense by heading off situations in advance before there’s been any attack to defend against (destabilized regions that we’re not occupying, etc.)
Which, of course, is the Bush Doctrine which he claims to base on a “post 9/11 world” (a term I’m thoroughly sick of hearing).
Just saying, that’s the whole difference in point of view.
He can be against war for its own sake and still support a given war of necessity (in his view).
And you did provide a couple examples of what it would be for someone to like war for its own sake that I’d stupidly left out: those that profit from it.
In fact, someone in the thread (or another related one, sorry it’s late!) said precisely that: his job depends on there being a war.
So there are people that like war not, perhaps, because of killing but despite it.
Not much of a moral distinction there I think; maybe a smidgen.
Yes, there is
It isn’t subjective. At least, I don’t think so.
Well, he’s simply wrong. Saddam had neither the ability nor the desire to invade us. Nor was he stupid enough to pick a fight with us; in fact, he tried not to. Didn’t help, because we and we alone are the cause of this war.
I don’t know what you’re saying here. I see sarcasm, but it’s going over my head.
Are you saying it’s meaningless to call yourself a pacifist if you think bad thoughts?
Okay, but whether he’s wrong or not is a different issue than whether or not he supports war for its own sake even when it’s not necessary in his view.
If you want to hear the other side on the idea of the war being advisable, google christopher hitchens and read his take; he believed that the country was about to implode and that though saddam wouldn’t have attacked us, he sheltered militants. Therefore, jump in there and cut things off at the pass; not to stop saddam from attacking but to destroy what was about to become a collapsed country and get in on the ground floor; and eliminate the shelter for terrorists.
I happen not to agree with any of that as making the war advisable, but that is one other view that isn’t based on the idea of going to war to stop a saddam attack.
Which is amazing the more I think about it; that they explicitly suggested Saddam was going to attack (Israel, presumably?) with WMDs.
Now I’m getting off thread, but even if they thought that sincerely – and some people did even in the Clinton administration – it’s such a 90 degree turn to use that premise to launch a war without knowing the difference between a Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd. Really stunning.
I don’t believe in the concept of “bad thoughts”, but no matter. I’m saying it’s meaningless to call anyone a pacifist if the only way to not be a pacifist is to have personally engaged in indiscriminate slaughter. Similarly, anyone who doesn’t personally burn down a forest is, I guess, an environmentalist.
Oh, I see. I understood the posited idea of a pacifist being someone who doesn’t maim or kill when those are realistic options that would resolve the situation.
Indiscriminate killing seems to me to be a whole other matter. Similarly, an environmentalist would be someone who makes adjustments in their lives to accommodate the environment even if other choices are more convenient.
I don’t know who said that a pacifist is **only **defined as a person who doesn’t engage in indiscriminate slaughter.
That would, I agree, be a definition in the negative for something that requires a positive definition to be meaningful where violence is an option on the table that is deliberately pushed aside.
(I don’t believe in bad thoughts either, I was trying to see if you did).
"It isn’t subjective. At least, I don’t think so."
That’s a kind of funny juxtaposition 
But, yeah, I know what you’re saying.