The Portrait of a Pacifist: America's Black Sheep

[BamaLefty]

A Portrait of a Pacifist: America's Black Sheep

I am anti-war. It feels strange to label myself with such a strong set of words, but they are true. I am a pacifist, and I have been since my birth. I didn't embrace it until a few months ago. The realization of my anti-war sentiments came rather simply, not some grand revelation, but rather a divine "pulling back of the curtain." It was peaceful, and when I learned to accept my sentiments, I became more wholly me. War does not rebuild, it tears down. War does not give birth, it kills. War does not teach love, it shows hate. War does not uplift towards heaven, it descends down to hell. War is not just, it is mankind's injustice to itself. I have heard it said that war is our most natural state. Men go to boot camp for 9 months or more to learn how to point a gun at another man and fire upon him, not for personal gain but for a national gain. And yet, no man ever had to go to a boot camp to learn how to love, and who to love. War is not our natural state, and those who embrace this view don't honestly mean that it is. The very fact that someone presents that war is our natural state proves, to me, that it isn't. You see, these people are themselves trying to justify that which they know is a crime. In our hearts, in our very souls, that which is most divine in us cries and rebels against the notion of war. No man wishes to wage war on another, soliders must be taught to think of their enemies as "less than human." But they aren't, they are our brothers and our sisters, they are our counterparts.
War teaches all how to hate. A cycle of violence is never broken by more violence. The children of those killed at war learn to hate not war, but the other side of that war. And so, the anger begins and the hate and then war. There is no such thing as a war for peace. This is a lie, but those who believe it can't be blamed for it. It is a convincing lie, and easy one to buy. If we can say we fight one group for the peace of another, then magically we're given this divine acknowledgement that we are indeed to good guys once again. And so we send our young men to the desert, to give their war cries and to extingush the light in another young man's life. It is as if we wage war upon ourselves. It was once spoken "We can not war forever, mankind wiill either learn to be peaceful, or we shall all surely perish soon." And yet, we continue to war. We sing songs of "Let their be peace on Earth and let it begin with me." But we go back to our homes and do nothing to become this change that we so desire in our world. We do not live a life of peace. War is the result of mankind's thousand year journey away from the Garden.
I am anti-war. I do not hate the solider, I love him and embrace him for his determination. I do not love his job, I hurt for his hardship and I pray only for a safe return. Here's the pacifist difference: I pray this same prayer for the other side. In a sense, I pray not for my side to win, I pray that war could become a draw. That the soliders on both sides will come away alive. I've been told this is a senseless prayer, and yet I was told mountain moving was never an impossibility. And so, that has become the pacifist prayer, it is my prayer.