[extropy-chat] Gandhi's antipode

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Mon Oct 4 13:46:30 UTC 2004


--- Trend Ologist <trendologist at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> 'Pure' pacificists don't exist, save for the Jains,
> who may be extinct. BTW, I'm a conscientious objector,
> not a real pacifist, I have already fought in
> self-defense, the time in the car with the choker. A
> true pacifist would sacrifice his or her life rather
> than fight back against deadly force, correct?

Real pacifists are a dime a dozen. A pacifist may convince himself that
the instinctual response of 'fight or flight' was a concious choice on
their part, but it still does not make them not a pacifist.
Non-pacifism is demonstrated when the individual is under no legal
compulsion or situational constraint against actions other than active
defense, and consciously chooses to face fear with determination in
defense of themselves, others, their property, or the state.

I do not begrudge a person's choice at pacifism. The public virtue that
a free state depends upon can only exist if we are all free to choose
to act virtuously or not, just as sin can only exist if we all have the
free will to choose to commit good or evil. Compelled morality is an
oxymoron of totalitarianism, but he who freely chooses against virtue
should not try to pretend that they are instead taking the virtuous
choice, or that what they might do, or may have done in the past, in a
situation where they had no choice, therefore makes them virtuous in
spite of their truly free choices.

=====
Mike Lorrey
Chairman, Free Town Land Development
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                         -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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