Pacifism: The Ultimate Immorality
Written by Raymond Kraft
Tuesday, July 25, 2006


Last week, Jack and Jill Pacifisto were walking home through the park after dinner with friends, during which they had spent a few hours discussing the immorality of violence and war and their commitments to send more money to progressive activists over the next year. Suddenly, Tony Thug stepped out of the shadows and pointed a pistol at Jack and said, “Give me your wallet,” and, pointing the gun at Jill, “Your purse.”



“What?” asked Jack, incredulous, “Hey, we don’t want any trouble. We’re pacifists. We aren’t going to hurt you.”



“Not my problem,” said Tony, “Gimme your money.”



So Jack and Jill did, and then Tony said, “And now gimme your watches, rings, jewelry, everything worth anything.”



“Hey,” said Jill, “This is my wedding ring!”



And Tony said, “Not my problem.”



Jack and Jill handed over their wallet, and purse, and all their jewelry and Rolex watches, and then Tony shot them both twice in the chest and picked up the loot and stepped back into the shadows.



As Jill lay dying she whispered, “Tony? Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you have a gun?” Those were her last words.



“I couldn’t,” whispered Tony. “I’m a pacifist.” Those were his last words.



A few days later, Bill Thaxton and his wife were walking home through the park after dinner, when Tony Thug stepped out of the shadows.



“Give me your wallet, your purse,” said Tony, pointing his gun first at Bill, and then at his wife. He did not know that Bill was an old lawman, and had been a Marine sniper when he was young, and was active in the Single Action Shooters Society and had a concealed-carry-permit. Tony assumed that the old man was just an old man with some money and a few credit cards in his wallet walking home from dinner.



“Sorry, friend, I don’t like guns, and I don’t want any trouble,” said Bill.



“Not my problem,” said Tony, “Gimme your wallet, your purse,” he said, waving the gun at Bill’s wife, “Rings, watches, everything.”



“And what if I don’t?” asked Bill.



“I’ll shoot you both. Her first,” said Tony, pointing his gun at Bill’s wife again.



“Well,” said Bill, “Okay, honey, do what he says.”



She tossed down her purse. Bill reached slowly for his left lapel with his right hand and then, like lightning, did a cross-draw with his left and came out blazing with his trusty little 9, nailing Tony three times.



As he lay on the sidewalk dying, Tony Thug was heard to mutter, “Damn, I shoulda stuck with the pacifists . . .”



An acquaintance wrote me last week to tell me proudly how he had been a pacifist since the ‘60s. His letter set me thinking about pacifism, which is the ultimate and vilest form of immorality.



If you are Hitler, or Saddam, or Osama, or Ahmadinejad, your desire to kill those you dislike is at least honest and open. You wear you hate on your sleeve and we know who and what you are. But the Pacifist wears his refusal to resist evil as if it were a badge of honor, and claims it as a sign of his or her absolute moral superiority. The Hitlers and Osamas are at least honest about who they are, the Pacifist is not. Not even to himself.



The German Pastor Martin Niemoller wrote a poem circa 1946 about the quiescence of German intellectuals in the face of the Nazi rise to power that has become famous. Translated, it reads:



When they locked up the social democrats,

I remained silent,

I was not a social democrat.



When they came for the trade unionists

I did not speak out,

I was not a trade unionist.



When they came for the Jews

I did not speak out,

I was not a Jew.



When they came for me

there was no one left to speak out.



The Pacifist says something like this, but, unlike Niemoller, without apology. He says:



When you come for my allies

I will not fight you,

for I am a Pacifist.



When you come for my countrymen

I will not fight you,

for I am a Pacifist.



When you come for my neighbor,

I will not fight you,

for I am a Pacifist.



When you come for my mother,

my father, my brother,

my sister, I will not fight you,

for I am a Pacifist.



When you come for my wife,

my husband, my son,

my daughter, I will not fight you,

for I am a Pacifist.



When you come for me,

I will not fight you,

for I am a Pacifist.



The Pacifist claims that he (or she) is too good to fight against evil, and this is the catastrophic intellectual and moral failure of Pacifism. In the guise of being too good to oppose evil, the Pacifist invokes the ultimate immorality by aiding and abetting and encouraging evil, on the pretext of being too pure, too wise, too sophisticated to fight evil, thereby turning the pretense of goodness and purity into an invocation and license for evil to act without opposition.



The moral stance of the Pacifist is, unwittingly perhaps, homicidal, genocidal, fratricidal, suicidal. The Pacifist says, in effect: “There is nothing good worth fighting for. And there is nothing so evil worth fighting against.”



The Pacifist is willing to give evil free reign, because he or she thinks or feels that fighting against evil is even worse than evil itself . . . an intellectual and moral equivocation of monumentally staggering proportions. In order to be a Pacifist, one must hold that Nazism or Islamism or Communism or any other puritanical totalitarian ideology that seeks to slaughter or oppress all the Jews or all of any other race or tribe is no worse, is not morally inferior, to the existence of Jews and Judaism, or whatever other race or tribe is the whipping boy of the day.



To be a Pacifist, one must hold that acquiescence to a Jihad that seeks to destroy Western Civilization is no worse than Western Civilization, even though the Jihad seeks to extinguish intellectual freedom, religious freedom, political freedom, and ultimately even the freedom to be a Pacifist.



As the English philosopher Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The Pacifist replies, “I am so good that I will do nothing, I will hurt no one, even if that means that good will be destroyed and evil will win. I am so peaceful that I will not discriminate between the goodness of good and the badness of evil, certainly not with enough conviction to take up arms, literally or figuratively, against the triumph of evil over good, of totalitarianism over freedom, of barbarianism over civilization.”



And so the Pacifist, perhaps unthinkingly, unwittingly, mistakenly, is deeply mired in his intellectual confusion, but surely and unequivocally, the epitome of evil itself, For the Pacifist devoutly believes that by refusing to fight against evil he is affirming that he is good, too good and pure to oppose evil, too good and pure to fight evil, to good and pure to kill evil. But in the end, he is the enabler without whom the triumph of evil would not be possible.


About the Writer: Raymond Kraft is a lawyer and writer living and working in Northern California. Raymond receives e-mail at rskraft@vfr.net.

Brother
You couldn't have done a better job of pointing out the reasons why I dislike these hand wringing pacifists so much.

If it were up to them we would still be in our dark caves hiding from the world. The world was NOT molded by turning the other cheek. Waterways, dense forests, wide open landscapes and forbidding wastelands ... NOT one portion was tamed without fighting ... usually paid for by someone's life.

Pacifists sit around on their backsides, wringing their hands and bemoaning how violent the world has become ... BUT ... not one of them can come up with an alternative that stands a farts chance of succeeding and then they point their fingers at you and me and call us warmongers (or) worse.

When they step in front of me and try to block my way, I will test their resolve ... I will strike them on one of their cheeks and we will see if they will offer me the other cheek.

Anyone want to place a wager on whether their resolve is strong enough to stop me from continuing my journey ... the Dodo and many other animals bear silent witness as to who wins. Violence has settled more arguments than pacifism ever will.

Pacifism = Zero Violence = ??????????????????????????????????????

Great post, from both of you. If you're not willing to fight evil, then there is no place in this world for you to hide.

Do you think the killer knowing these guys were armed would have jumped out of the shadows and demanded their goods knowing he was going to kill them or would he have been smart enough wait in the shadows shoot them first and take what he wanted?

The story is patently ludicrous.

Originally Posted by Missileer

Great post, from both of you. If you're not willing to fight evil, then there is no place in this world for you to hide.

Sorry I get a totally different view of his posts, I see a man who wants something similar to a wild west where every man and his dog walk around armed to the teeth and who has some deluded idea that this will disuade attackers.
However the problem with every man and his pet cat being armed is that those who want to break the rules are going to simply arm themselves with bigger weapons (aka the prohibition Al Capone type thing) and carry on doing what they are doing and you will have higher incidents of people using self defence to get away with murder in the end all you do is create an internal arms race.

Now I can understand 5.56X45mm he is a gun salesman with the same zeal as a used car salesman looking at a sucker with cash in his pocket but to claim that arming people to get around his fictional scenarios has anything to do with a pacifism or a lack of desire to defend ones self is plain crazy, I live in a country where weapons are heavily controlled at the very worst I am going to run into a guy with a sawn off shotgun but most likely a guy with a knife and I am pretty sure that even in my most pacifistic mode I have a better fighting chance against a knife than I do drawing a pistol against a guy already pointing one at close range.

Monty
I think you may of missed the salient post point(s) ... nature forces us to fight to survive ... to not fight is to die.

I am NOT advocating an armed society (and from the tenor of 5.56's post, I don't think he was either) ... what I am advocating is NOT turning the other cheek, I am stressing that your chance of survival increases when you do NOT lay down and allow the thief to slit your throat when you could at least have a 50/50 chance of surviving just by resisting.

The world was not "tamed" by man becoming the Lion's meal ... it was tamed by making the Lion the meal instead.

Pacifists would have us become the "meal".

I think its a fine line. One one hand Pacficists in Europe and the USA brought Hitler and Mao into power. On the other hand, the belief that the use of military force can solve all problems is equally dangerous and can make bad situations, worse. The use of military force, even in morally justifable wars almost always leaves unintended (and usually unpleasant) side effects.

Originally Posted by mmarsh

I think its a fine line. One one hand Pacficists in Europe and the USA brought Hitler and Mao into power. On the other hand, the belief that the use of military force can solve all problems is equally dangerous and can make bad situations, worse. The use of military force, even in morally justifable wars almost always leaves unintended (and usually unpleasant) side effects.

Very true!

However, what is worse - the side effects of the pill or the illness itself?

Originally Posted by mmarsh

I think its a fine line. One one hand Pacficists in Europe and the USA brought Hitler and Mao into power. On the other hand, the belief that the use of military force can solve all problems is equally dangerous and can make bad situations, worse. The use of military force, even in morally justifable wars almost always leaves unintended (and usually unpleasant) side effects.

I tend to agree with this.

My original response was mainly aimed at the first part of his post with the story about Jack and Jill Pacifisto and the demented sub-plot that they died because they werent armed.

As far as use of military force goes well I agree it is a fine line best illustrated in differences of world opinion over US operations in Afghanistan vs the invasion of Iraq, for right or wrong they are seen in very different lights.

I am NOT advocating an armed society (and from the tenor of 5.56's post, I don't think he was either)

To be perfectly honest I dont think it is possible to judge 5.56's tenor as he didnt post his views I am assuming that whole post is just a copy and paste of and editorial he agrees with.

Well, if scumbag jumps me and asks for my wllet. He'll get a chest full of led if I can fire them.

I would rather die knowing that at elast I tried to win the fight. Why would I simply give in to some scumbag? I wont, I fight to win and live. But if I die, the cops arriving on scene will see that I tried to defenmd myself and more than likely find a dead guy two hundred yards away from me.

Yes, I'm an Arms Dealer. Plain and simple. But I'm also becoming a Law Enforcement Officer in less than three months. I would rather see the citizens of my city that I will patrol be armed and safe than have to rely on me to protect them. Is it my duty to protect them, Yes. But I can't be everywhere at once. So if John and Jane Ciitizen can protect themselves. Good for them and the city. Because scumbags are chickens. They look for easy prey.

Hence why people conceal carry. Scumbag can't tell who is armed and who is not armed. So if 60% of the population carrys a pistol concealed. That means that scumbag still has 40% of those that he can safely target and prey. But the question is, will scumbag target folks that he knows they might or might not be carrying becfaus ehe cannot tell who is carrying. Hence why I still believe that an armed society is a polite society.

So if 60% of the population carrys a pistol concealed. That means that scumbag still has 40% of those that he can safely target and prey.

Untrue, if I ever decide to tale up "scumbagging" for a living and was following that stories plot above I would simply shoot first then I can prey on 100% of my targets safely.

Seriously if I (as a scumbag) know that the vast majority of those I interact with are armed then I am going to eliminate that option for them and this is and always has been the counter argument to the arm everyone argument.