posted on April 30, 2004 02:57:35 PM new
George Orwell, the famous science fiction author of such books as 'Nineteen Eighty Four' and 'Animal Farm', once wrote, "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, he that is not with me is against me."
It is with these words that I begin this article because the people I am concerned with today are those individuals who honestly believe that war is never justified. It may come as a big surprise to many people that I, a war-mongering conservative, am willing to acknowledge that pacifists often have the best of intentions. True pacifists mean no harm to anyone, and their motive for speaking out against war is born of notions of enlightenment. Whether religiously based or secular in nature, pacifists truly believe that to strike back against an aggressor is less preferable to the alternative of "turning the other cheek" because doing so only contributes to the cycle of violence in which they find themselves enveloped. Mind you, I'm not talking about all the other war protesters out there who preach peace but are anything but pacifistic. Those people are just plain despicable in my opinion.
No, I'm referring to the people who choose to love their enemies, even at the expense of their own lives, feeling that the essence of love and love's virtue is inevitably more powerful than any weapon at the disposal of those who choose to hate them. Not being a pacifist myself, I find this attitude to be somewhat cowardly because it necessarily places at risk the lives of other innocent people who are also victimized by evildoers. Still I have to admit that the idea of love conquering hatred is an appealing one. It's got a nice ring to it. After all, Jesus chose to love those who hated him and willingly sacrificed himself so that all human beings who believe in him would be forgiven in the hereafter for their sins. I consider that to be a noble thing even though I'm not a Christian, and no, it's not just because I'm not a pacifist. After all, you don't have to be pacifistic to be a Christian.
You see, Jesus gave up his life so that his followers would not suffer eternal damnation for being, among many other things, warlike. Jesus understood that all people are imperfect beings, subject to every conceivable frailty, both physical and spiritual. He didn't allow himself to be executed so that everyone he died to save would line up for execution behind him. No, he died knowing that they wouldn't willingly sacrifice themselves. All he asked was that his followers accept him as their savior. As for me, I'm not a Christian because I don't accept Jesus as my savior, but that's neither here nor there.
My point is that being a martyr for love is just about as useful to humanity as being a martyr for hate, unless you happen to be The Christ. I might be wrong about Jesus, but I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong when I say that I'm not your savior. I am many things, but delusional is not one of them, and I'm certainly not so naive as to think that allowing myself to be killed just to make a point is actually going to stop lunatics from killing other people. Sadly, I cannot say the same thing for pacifists, and if you happen to be one, and you're not religious, don't think you're being excluded here. You're still a martyr if you let some depraved bastard murder you out of principle. You're just a martyr who's died for a principle that's not religious.
As I wrote above, true pacifists often have the best of intentions, but what needs to be pointed out is that the road to hell (metaphorically speaking) is paved with good intentions. I'm sure that Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk who set himself aflame on a street in Saigon in 1963, did so for the sake of peace, but what did his sacrifice accomplish? I don't know but I can tell you this, it wasn't peace.
Edward Daley is a freelance writer and the publisher of The Daley Times-Post
"The Secret Service has announced it is doubling its protection for John Kerry. You can understand why — with two positions on every issue, he has twice as many people mad at him." —Jay Leno
