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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: greenspirit who wrote (115898)9/29/2003 10:16:13 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
Michael, here's a freedom fighter of non-pacifist nature. But the USA killed him. What price freedom? The USA doesn't seem to have invented freedom, contrary to popular mythology. Not for the melanin-rich anyway. It was well-established in Britain's farm [New Zealand]. While the slaves of the USA were being beaten and USA aborigines killed in droves, Maoris were marrying British immigrants [having given up eating them]. Here's John Brown pbs.org

Your theory on pacifists is missing a few links. If you read that link I gave, you'd see that one of the main New Zealand pacifists in WWII, Ormond Burton, was a WWI hero, which made it problematic in gaoling him. But the cowardly and bullying Supreme Court judge, who wouldn't be near any danger, called him a crank and locked him away for years. That's what thugs in power do. They attack harmless people after first accusing them of things like sticking a knife in somebody, which shows the deranged and violent state of their minds. No free speech in New Zealand! Gaoled for having a conscience and speaking it. Would you say Ormond Burton was a parasite on himself?

Extreme pacifism is totally harmless. Not parasitic. The fact is that if everyone was totally pacifist, there wouldn't be any violence and killing. If others choose to be violent, or offer their services for violent purposes, that's up to them.

I think you are right that pacifists see themselves as morally superior. Of course they do. That's why they adopt that ethical idea instead of violence. If we got all the pacifists in one lot, and all the violent in the other, I think we'd have higher ethical standards in the pacifist lot than the violent. But I think the labels pacifist, and violent are broad and inaccurate labels.

It's odd that so many people seem to have such vehemence against people who are harmless and act according to their consciences. Is it only male vice-ridden parasites you dislike, or are you un-sexist and feel the same way about women? Sexist? Not sexist? Do you feel the same way about pacifist women or is it just wimpy men who get you going?

The old chimpoid primate instincts aren't far below the surface in the human world. You are arguing for tribalism, collectivism, dominance hierarchies, alpha maledom, confiscation, and might makes right. I think we should work to suppress and sublimate those instincts.

Sometimes I think I'm much more Christian than those who purport to be Christian [leaving aside the superstitious and supernatural myths].

Freedom is much talked about in the USA, but like BigFoot [WMDs] in Iraq, is hard to find and badly misunderstood. Anyone who thinks conscription, drafting or gaoling of dissident pacifists is compatible with freedom, is misunderstanding what the word freedom means. See Alice in Wonderland where words mean whatever we want them to mean. See also the scary "1984" and think of total information, control and where Homeland Security might lead.

Mqurice
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