Reply #47: Okay, let's keep it simple.

[JackRiddler]

This, from you:

"However, the main thing about pacifists in the real world that annoys those of us who aren't - and which is conspicuously absent with Tom Bombadil - is the smug self-righteousness they project and use as an ideological weapon (ironically) to beat down anyone who disagrees with them about the use of force. Tom Bombadil might have been a pacifist, but he didn't sit around calling Frodo, Gandalf, Gondor or Rohan "warmongers" for fighting the forces of Sauron, either. I respect people who have chosen to make an ideological commitment to nonviolence, but when said pacifists hold those who are willing to fight the battles they won't in open disdain, that respect starts to ebb away."

Is bullshit.

You're the one projecting self-righteousness on to "the pacifists." If by "the use of force" you mean support for US military actions in the world, then you're not supporting Gandalf or Gondor, and it's not Gandalf or Gondor whom "the pacifists" are calling "war-mongers." Because the US, when it bombs people in Yemen by a joystick operated in Nevada, is more like Saruman or Sauron.

"Those who are willing to fight the battles" of US imperialism are not doing any service, they're not providing defense. They aren't the primary perpetrators of the crimes, but they do not earn some special status by their participation. To smash open the doors of some Iraqi family takes a lot more disrespect for humanity than to criticize the one who is doing the door-smashing.