Jeremy Corbyn is such a pacifist the he wouldn't even shoot to kill a jihadist armed with an AK-47 spraying infidels with hot lead.
Who loves war? No clear thinking person does.
But there are times when you have to fight against those that attack us. Otherwise we die, we nice-thinking people.
The best argument argument against pacifism is the letter that the much-beloved Mahatma Gandhi wrote to the British people on 2 July 1940.
Here's a quote:
[1]. The first example I know of, of moral equivalence, the scourge of current discourse. The defenders of aggression are the same as the attackers. Those fighting against IS/ISIL are just as bad as IS, because they also happen to kill innocent people.
[2]. Some causes do in fact warrant "indiscriminate slaughter" if the cause be freedom. That was so in both of the two World Wars. Noone wants to repeat those wars. But had they not been fought, we'd all be Nazis now.
[3]. The bottom line of pacifism: let them take what they want. How on earth can this be right?Imagine if Churchill and the British people had taken Gandhi's advice. Well, it doesn't bear imagining, because we'd now be into the 70th years of the thousand year Nazi dynasty.
My sum of all this: Gandhi was ghastly.
Here's the whole letter.
Who loves war? No clear thinking person does.
But there are times when you have to fight against those that attack us. Otherwise we die, we nice-thinking people.
The best argument argument against pacifism is the letter that the much-beloved Mahatma Gandhi wrote to the British people on 2 July 1940.
Here's a quote:
I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too exhausted to fight, but because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption. Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans [1]. The only difference is that perhaps yours are not as thorough as the Germans. If that be so, yours will soon acquire the same thoroughness as theirs, if not much greater. On no other condition can you win the war. In other words, you will have to be more ruthless than the Nazis. No cause, however just, can warrant the indiscriminate slaughter that is going on minute by minute[2]. I suggest that a cause that demands the inhumanities that are being perpetrated today cannot be called just.This is truly revolting advice.
I do not want Britain to be defeated, nor do I want her to be victorious in a trial of brute strength, whether expressed through the muscle or the brain. Your muscular bravery is an established fact. Need you demonstrate that your brain is also as unrivalled in destructive power as your muscle? I hope you do not wish to enter into such an undignified competition with the Nazis. I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way, worthy of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. [3]. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.
[1]. The first example I know of, of moral equivalence, the scourge of current discourse. The defenders of aggression are the same as the attackers. Those fighting against IS/ISIL are just as bad as IS, because they also happen to kill innocent people.
[2]. Some causes do in fact warrant "indiscriminate slaughter" if the cause be freedom. That was so in both of the two World Wars. Noone wants to repeat those wars. But had they not been fought, we'd all be Nazis now.
[3]. The bottom line of pacifism: let them take what they want. How on earth can this be right?Imagine if Churchill and the British people had taken Gandhi's advice. Well, it doesn't bear imagining, because we'd now be into the 70th years of the thousand year Nazi dynasty.
My sum of all this: Gandhi was ghastly.
Here's the whole letter.
