Brian, your platitudes ring empty when examined under the eye of reality.
In reality, we wouldn't have a free country without killing people to defend it.
In reality, millions would be living in bondage, tyranny, oppression and slavery if we didn't kill.
In reality, some things are worth dying for, and some things are worth killing for.
You can chant the Dali Lama mantra until the sun comes up tomorrow. But Dali Lama, like yourself, wouldn't be chanting to anyone if not for our ancestors picking up a musket and killing, in order to ensure your right to free expression.
As I've said before, complete pacifism only works on democracies where the people's conscience can be heard. That's why it worked for Ghandi, and that's why it worked for Martin Luther King. It doesn't work against fanatical dictators who are willing to fly planes into the faces of children and blow them up. And it wouldn't have worked against Hitler, or the Japanese during WW2. What worked were our bombs, planes, ships, submarines and men and women who were willing to risk their lives for the cause of freedom. Men and women who were fed up enough with evil, to face their deepest fears and do something about it.
One only has to look at Tibet, where the Dali Lama has been waiting over 40 years for his philosophy to work it's magic. Are you really willing to give up your freedom, be thrown in jail, tortured, left to watch your children and family be tortured, raped and enslaved in order to appease your non-violent philosophy?
I certainly am not.
We can effect the future by having the courage to face evil straight on today. Our nation has been attacked, and whether they used a nuclear bomb or not, a huge hole has been left in one of our great cities. A hole filled with dead children, dead mothers, dead fathers, and dead loved ones who won't grow old and enjoy the life they were entitled to live.
To do nothing and turn the other cheek invites more of the same terror to happen again and again. And it lies at the heart of why your philosophical musings make no logical sense at all. |
