A reminder for the faux pacifists

[Renew Deal]

Saying that one side or the other must stop the violence is not pacifism. There is only one solution if you truly believe that this is all wrong. Condemn all sides and demand they stop immediately. Anything less is fraudulent pacifism.

[Deja Q]

1. What if they don't stop, the warmongers that is?

What if they don't stop then laugh at you?

What if they don't stop, laugh at you, then hit you?

What if they don't stop, laugh at you, hit you, then kill you?

At what point does pacifism not work?

And, indeed, pacifism only works when EVERYBODY is a pacifist.

[QuestionAll...]

4. thankyou, I think...

your post scared the shit out of me with it's complex simplicity.

""Pacifism only works when EVERYBODY is a pacifist""

[MoseyWalker]

5. If what you just wrote was true

then no wars would have ever have been solved.

Pacifism is not aquiesence (sp)

It involves much more, and for those who don't see it, I feel........

almost nothing.

[QuestionAll...]

12. I may be reading you wrong but

most wars are won by degress of aggression than by degrees of pacifity.
bear with me, I'm changing my mind too often lately, which could be good or bad, I don't know.

I consider myself a pacifist in the general way. I think that life is harsh enough for too many without the addition of bombs landing in your home or workplace and would not condone the throwing about of them for any reason.

But the pacifist in me would turn into an ugly grizzly under certain condtions (protection of family, etc.).
I say this on a one to one personal threat level tho.

[derby378]

2. I'm too busy paying attention to the victims of this skirmish

I ain't taking sides in this one. What Hezbollah did was wrong, but how Israel responded is wrong as well.

[Charlie Brown]

3. Yes, that is true

Laying the blame exclusively on Israel for the violent outcome is hypocritical for a pacifist. Hezbollah shares the blame and should be equally denounced for targeting and killing others.

The insurgents in Iraq who target civilians and US servicemen are equally responsible for the chaos and carnage in that theater, and they are no better than the US military.

I condemn all violence, and call for all who would do harm to others to cease. That is the way of peace.

[QuestionAll...]

7. bush and the neocons are responsible for what is happening in Iraq.

lest we forget.

[Charlie Brown]

10. that is true

but the people killing civilians certainly share the blame for the continued chaos.

[MoseyWalker]

8. hey charlie

I think you may be on to something there.........

[chimpymustgo]

9. No, ISRAEL is to blame for the wanton destruction and murder of hundreds

in Lebanon. Hezbollah is guilty of launching missiles and killing a few dozen Israelis. They are different crimes, different proportions. And both sides should stop. But Israel has inflicted exponentially more damage - on innocent people and their property.

[LiberalPartisan]

16. Proportionality is a doctrine of weakness

Either fight for total and complete victory or don't fight at all.
Israel is doing what is required and I support her 100%.

[BillZBubb]

18. Israel is a terrorist state and of course you support her.

Israel is behaving like a mindless thug and killing innocent people for no reason. And of course YOU support her.
There was no requirement to kill all the Lebanese, it was a policy decision. And of course YOU support it.

[readmoreoften]

20. Just to be clear: we're a terrorist state, too, right?

I just want to make sure. Because if Israel is, we most certainly are.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

21. Assuming that the "we" is America

My answer would be "violent, but not recently directly terrorist". Terrorism is a specific subset of violence.

None of America's recent military actions have been deliberately aimed at inflicting suffering on a civilian population to cow them into aquiescance, which is what Israel has been doing.

By no means all immoral acts are terrorist.

[readmoreoften]

17. Israel hasn't killed more people "exponentially"

A few dozen means under a hundred, hundreds means over a hundred. I think the Israelis should stop. I think Hezbollah should have never started. But let's not get carried away by saying "exponential".

[BillZBubb]

19. You don't think 12 to 1 is exponential?

Of course it's exponential. Take the log of 12 and get the damn exponent. When you add the dead in Gaze, Israel's thuggery is even more apparent.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

22. "Exponential" doesn't just mean "many".

As a mathematician, I feel bound to weigh in on this subthread.

Saying "X has killed exponentially more people than Y" is completely meaningless.

The confusion arises from the fact that exponential functions grow very fast, and so "growing exponentially" came - completely wrongly - to be used to imply "growing very fast", and hence "exponentially more" to mean "lots more", but that's usage that makes me shudder.

If I have 101 apples and you have 100 apples, then you can take the log of 1.01 to justify my having "exponentially" more apples than you, by your reasoning.

Try "an order of magnitude more people" or "12 times as many people". "Exponentially more" doesn't mean anything.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

23. No, but it has killed an awful lot more.

At the last time I checked, Israel had killed something between 10 and 15 times more civilians, and slightly under 10 more people in total, if I remember rightly.

"Exponentially more" is a meaningless phrase, but I think "an order of magnitude more" is probably accurate.

[jobycom]

6. So if a man is beating his wife I have to convince the wife to stop

fighting back as well as convince the man to stop beating her? Fascinating description of pacifism.

[CuteNFuzzy]

11. Oh I didn't see you post in this thread, Bleachers

I condemn crimes committed by both sides

[Renew Deal]

14. Thanks!

:thumbsup:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. Sort of.

Any solution that relies on both sides acting in concorde is impracticable.

It makes perfect sense to call on the Israelis to pull back out of Lebanon even though Hezbollah continues to bomb them, and at the same time to call on Hezbollah to stop the bombing even though Israel is still in Lebanon.

However, a lot of calls for "peace now! Stop all the killing!" come with the implicit assumption that one side stopping killing would to the other side doing so, and unfortunately that's not the case, and both sides know that it isn't.

Try and persuade the Israelis to stop killing, and try and persuade Hezbollah to stop killing (although in both cases the effort, while noble, is, I fear, worthless), rather than calling for an end to "the killing".

Hmm. It's late, and I'm not making myself terribly clear. However, as everything posted on DU put together has about as much influence on the Middle East crisis as a flea biting an elephant has on sunspot activity it probably doesn't matter much. A bunch of Canutes, the lot of us.

[Renew Deal]

15. You make a lot of sense.

And I agree about the flea reference.