FYI I put the bottom half as the excerpt so you could get the gist of the whole article.
#8 If you would like to be a pacifist in theory but all your life you got into fistfights, admit to yourself you are bad at it and go on.
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
John Stuart Mill
A pacifists agenda only works with other pacifists.
A bully will keep coming until you punch him in the nose!
Are Freedom's
Parasites
This little poster got me threatened by a "pacifist" once.
You did good... Only the blissfully naive think that all that needs to happen for the violence is end is for one side not to fight back. The scary thing... some of the ignorant are in power.
Political pacifists are interested in keeping their hands clean and feeling superior to all us yahoos. It’s not really about changing anything.
"War is not the answer. Victory is."
Non-violence only works on people who have a conscience, people who can be shamed.
There is even a big difference between pacifism and passive resistance.
And armed resistance might be futile, if you are an unarmed minority fighting a larger power. In that case, the use of passive resistance is not unreasonable. But passive resistance has to be planned like a military operation, because it is still conflict. It also retains honor and dignity, unlike the cringing cowardice of pacifism.
In the case of Tibet, the Chinese are trying to consume Tibet by taking it over and repopulating the country with Han Chinese. This means that an effective campaign of passive resistance would start by trying to convince the Chinese that they are not wanted there. That they do not belong there. That it is not, and never will be their home or part of China.
Passive resistance would be a campaign of thousands of non-violent attacks. The Chinese language would be refused in favor of Tibetan. The Tibetans refuse to learn it or use it, and both corrupt it and say it poorly and filled with curses.
Even poor and shabbily dressed Tibetans can make fun of, and look down on the Chinese. Their children can be taught prejudice, that the Chinese are “dirty” and “corrupt” and deserve to be despised as inferior. That the Chinese military are invaders who are outsiders that will go “home” someday.
Any opportunity to put a Chinese run business out of business should be taken. Tibetans who work for Chinese should be encouraged to sabotage and do bad work that costs the business customers. Tibetan businesses should refuse Chinese customers or treat them poorly.
And every time the opportunity presents itself, the Tibetans should say to the Chinese, “You are not welcome in our country. You should go home to your own country.”
It takes years to make an invader feel unwelcome. But it is possible to convince them that what they are doing is not worth it, and that they don’t really want to be there. That it is not a pleasant place, and the people are unfriendly.
It should. If the Dalai Lama decides to resign and stop advising non-violence to Tibetans in Tibet they might decide to rely on their own conscience's in response to being treated like dirt under the soles of jackboots. Is it really that hard to see how they feel even while the DL is counseling patience, peacefulness and cooperation?
I know I'd have to be pretty upset to throw a rock at a special forces soldier holding an AK-47 while my most revered spiritual adviser was urging me to be calm.
bump