Response to Joseph Foreman

Date: February 13, 2000 12:16 AM Author: JL Foreman (acf@swva.net) Subject: I like you Kevin I've liked every Pacifist I've ever met From this thread
In School I had to read all the leading pacifist activist of our day From Ghandi the urine drinker and King the Bible quoting adulterer, to Yoder the kind and The Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger guilt manipulator who's name I can never remember. Everyone in school was a pacifist.	Ron Sider
Then professionally for 10 years I went all across the country beaten with my fellow pacifists, sued with them, arrested and imprisoned with them.
No Kevin I have had a bellyfull of that stuff from the experts, from the professors and from the actual practicioners. I was always kind, friendly and polite because they truly are emotionally nice and caring people.
You had a few technical inaccuracies in your assessments but you made all the same mistakes they did. For instance, you equate any form of lethal or potentially lethal action as violence. You say, with Walt Disney's Simba in the Lion King -- "No Scar I won't kill you then I would be just like you." This is such an obvious phalicy that has become common place that it slides by. It equates killing the one who threatens the life of the innocent with killing the innocent. It gives the same moral value to killing the rapist as raping the innocent child. Just to point out two obvious absurdities. Perhaps no killing at all is commanded by the Bible, I can at least recognize that as a possibility, but to say all killing is the same? That is sheer stupidity, or calculated deception.	If all killing is prohibited by God's Word, then all killing is autonomous rebellion against God, despite any theonomic rationalizations or glosses.
Another silly mistake is the idea that those who believe the use of lethal force is commanded by Scripture under some circumstances believe it is commanded under all circumstances. Thus the tiresome lecture on how I am too lazy to think of other possible forms of intervention.	Lethal force "commanded" vs. lethal force "permitted." A notable distinction.
Let's see, I've been arrested almost 100 times and led about 12,000 people into and out of jail. I've been a part of saving about 3,000 lives that I know of and countless more that are not documented. I've physically stepped between fighting individuals and warring gangs often armed with knives and razors and physically separated them at least 250 to 300 times on many occasions as the only white boy in the room. I've been trampled by horses, put into a holding tanks on several occasions as the only whitey who had it leaked by the police through another inmate that I was a police informant. Been beaten by jackbooted thugs 35 times one time dragged senseless through a pile of horseshit judging from what was all over my face and body when I came-to hogtied in the back of a car where I sat in the desert sun with the windows rolled up for the next 4 hours. Run over by cars and trucks (SUV), chained to the bottom of a police bus. And God help us, once in jail we spent a full 2 years worth in all with nothing to do but think of non-violent ways to disrupt the other side without hurting anyone or damaging anything. I've been spat on, peed on, shit on, ejaculated on, and bitten by members those who opposed me. Spent weeks in solitary confinement for leading worship services with inmates. (Sorry ed, but it's true I don't mean to talk about it too much because it is prideful, but one thing you'll like is that we sang only Psalms without accompanyment until the guards finally couldn't stand it any more and threw me in solitary for leading a jailhouse riot -- Psalms ed you should have been there. Think of it ed, solitary for defending the regulative principle!)	A very moving account.
In short I think I've thought through some non-violent alternative to the use of force. But you hear this sort of tripe thrown around as if I think we should use force because I've never thought of alternatives much less practiced them.	Obviously the vast majority of people have not acted with the same dedication as you have, nor thought through the issues. Despite your dedicated action, your theory may still be unBiblical.
When I say pacifists are cowards, I don't mean that personally they are not very courageous in withstanding punishment for their beliefs. I mean objectively their position is cowardly. In principle they are willing to let the innocent receive any sort of horrible death than use force if that is their only recourse. There are many reasons why I did not do more and will not do more than I have done to protect the weak and defenseless. But what I will never do is devise a principle of cowardice that in effect enables me wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and say, "I have done no wrong." while the evil continues on unabated while I might have done more.	I've never ever met a pacifist who is "willing to let the innocent receive any sort of horrible death" rather than take action to prevent it. The question is whether lethal action is either permitted or required. The pacifist says there is always more to do before lethal force is used. More and more to do. If everyone went as far as you do, lethal force would not be necessary or even contemplated. Gross, uncharitable slander, violation of the Ninth Commandment.
I've just lost a 110 million dollar law-suit which determined that anything I say is the same as a death threat. Why? Becuase I refused to back down on the idea that Pacifism as a principled belief system is evil.	This could be folly rather than wisdom.
Which brings up the third silly slight of hand Pacifists use to brow-beat the brave. They act as if taking nonviolent direct action is the same thing as pacifism. It isn't. There are many times that non-violent direct action is more powerful than the use of force. There are many times that being non-violent is the only reasonable way to act. But the difference between this and Pacifism is that the Pacifist condemns those who actually protect their neighbor when the use of force is all that will protect their neighbor at that time.	It cannot be proven that it is ever the case that lethal force is the only thing that will protect a neighbor.
Of course you object to being called a principled Pacifist -- anything that distinguishes you from your tactics is anathema to you because you want to think that pacifism means a series of brave tactics. I don't give a fig about the tactics, been there done that. But there is a difference and that is the principle that loving your neighbor enought to actually SAVE his life is evil if it means doing something more than our nice little protest tactics.	The principle is "What does God command us to do?" The principle is not "One man must be killed to prevent the killing of another." The Biblical model is in fact witness and conflict (marturiða) even unto death. Revelation 12:11 - [In Context\|Read Chapter\|Original Greek] And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
One final exposure of Oz the Great and Terrible behind his screen and then I really have to go for a few weeks. And that is your objection to my observation that you have your freedom to be a pacifist because brave men and women are willing to kill to protect your hide and those you love most.
You went off on the following four points as if you were being wronged by this government:
1) You said they stole money from you and called it taxes in order to pay for your protection in a way you didn't want to be protected.
Look, go live somewhere you don't have to pay taxes, such as give all your money away and be tax exempt. Or move to Ghana, Or the middle of the Amazon Jungle. Better yet, go to Chechnia and put your pacifistic theories into practice. I know a place you won't be taxed for pacifism, go to Sudan. No you will stay here because you prefer "the house that violence built" to use your terms.	This is a completely unethical response. Taxation is theft. You're saying if I don't approve of your act of theft that you will force me to allow you to steal my liberty and move the landmarks of my possession. A kind of inverse kidnapping.
2) They will put conscious objectors in jail who don't want to participate in the system at all and you said that all the nations of the earth do this, they are hostile to pacifism.
Yes they are. Here is someone who wants to enjoy the peace and prosperity of a political order such as it is, and yet wants a free ride because he disagrees with something. Particularly he disagrees with their protecting his skin. Why shouldn't you be thrown in jail or fined?	Because prison is kidnapping and fines are theft. The price of "personal peace and affluence" (your "political order") is global imperialism and mass death.
I hated it when I was with them professionally, and I hate it today, Pacifists whine about what is done to them for their views, when the very freedom to whine is protected by the life blood of others whom they call cowards.	The military industrial complex always destroys personal liberties in the end. 2005 update: The Troops Don't Defend Our Freedoms 2011 update: The Troops Don't Defend Our Freedoms Patriot Act
Pacifism is principled cowardice. Under the guise of loving your neighbor you claim it is wrong to love him in a way that would actually save his life if you had the power to do so.	Who is my neighbor? The Good Samaritan protected the life of his enemy, the Jew. "The power to do so" means "the power to kill my enemy."