“Nonviolence works with rational people. Gandhi would not have worked in Nazi Germany.” Mexican poet, poet, essayist, novelist and journalist Javier Sicilia quoted in Legítimo y digno tomar pistola para autodefensa (Legitimate and worthy to take a pistol for self-defense) [via excelsior.com]
Gandhi would have been in the camps before he could open his mouth in Nazi Germany.
Gandhi actually did not consider himself a pacifist. Also remember, there was quite a bit of ‘racial cleansing’ in India, especially around Calcutta after India won independence, and he played a big part in stopping that. If he was German, and had the respect and admiration of the German people that he had from Indians, I think he could have done a lot to stop Hitler.
The open carry marches we keep reading about are text-book civil disobedience. The entire fight for second amendment rights has taken many pages out of Gandhi’s playbook. We cannot win by force of arms, and any attempt would hurt our cause. That is the same reason Gandhi used civil disobedience (not pacifism).
Tom
Ghandi also called the disarmament of the Indian people one of the UK’s greatest crimes.
I believe that was referring to the military, not private ownership – correct me if I’m wrong
I’m not saying he was a pacifist. I’m saying he would probably qualify as “untermenschen” (sp?) just on the basis of his ethnicity and wardrobe.
I think we are assuming German Ghandi here. Blonde hair, blue eyes, thin as a rail, ribs showing through his nearly translucent pale Aryan skin.
Speaking of racism, in the USAF they made new arrivals at a base go to “human relations” classes. The signup sheet had a blank for “race.” I put “human.” The sergeant in charge called me and another guy, who had also put “human,” whose skin was about the color of a cup of coffee, over to chew us out. The other guy said, “I thought this was about getting over that race stuff.” I said, “Me, too.” The sergeant made some excuse, and said to do it anyway. So I put “aryan” just to piss them off. (I’m Pennsylvania Dutch, which is actually German, but the Svenskas and Norskas in Minnesnowta pronounced “deutcsh” “dutch.”)
B: I think the very Aryan Hans and Sophie Scholl would beg to differ, except that they can’t, because the Nazis cut off their heads for nonviolently resisting them.
I am pro pacifism and I encourage all my enemies to engage in it.
I am also pro-pacifism and I am always ready to use my EDC to make sure bad guys agree.
I too dabbled in pacifism.. Not in ‘Nam of course..
If only our leaders had a little bit of this person’s sense…
Our “leaders” have armed bodyguards hiding in every nook and cranny. [See, e.g., Bloomberg and Kelly.] And zero concern for the safety of their peons. Except as to how it affects their votes.
And in Chicago, they’ve solved that annoying little detail also.
The only reason the ruling class wants you alive is because dead men can’t vote outside of Cook county.
There were 11 million Gandhis in Nazi Germany.
Ay yay yay! Necisitamos un translacion, por favor.
“Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay- and claims a halo for his dishonesty” Robert A. Heinlein
Love Heinlien…. especially his view on ‘earning’ citizenship… If you don’t work for it, you’ll never truly appreciate it….
I wish more people would actually read Starship Troopers. The passages on juvenile delinquency are amazing. There are other good passages on morality too.
“I told you that ‘juvenile delinquent’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘Delinquent’ means ‘failing in duty.’ But duty is an adult virtue—indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be a ‘juvenile delinquent.’ But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents—people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail.”
I enjoyed the movie; it’s a great popcorn flick. But I was amazed when I read the book.
Matt, the movie had very little to do with the book.
I’m aware.
Matt – I loved the movie ’cause it had boobs!
My first commander had us read the book for OPD. It was really good and my frst exposure to Heinlein in my early 20’s.
What exactly is a “A-Rod?”
I discovered Heinlein’s books as a fourth grader at the neighborhood library. I credit his writing for a major part in the character and morality I grew to value as an adult. The man was a national treasure.
Not only irrational but psychopathic as well. Legalizing marijuana would have no impact on the behavior since harder drugs are more profitable and there is always kidnapping as a side job. The bad guys aren’t going to take up farming and factory work, unless it is for drugs. Meth production is a growing concern these days as is heroin.
Take a corrupt state, throw in a little gun control and a lot of poverty, and season with bravado you’ll get Mexico.
or the South and West sides of Chicago
Legalizing marijuana here would just shove more people onto welfare and SSI. Tokers will still be shut out of the mainstream labor force. For all the fashionability of pot smoking being a “victimless crime”, the fact remains that weedheads have higher absentee rates, lower productivity and higher workplace accident rates. Businesses won’t hire them and their insurers won’t cover them. So they’re marginalized and end up on welfare just like now.
There may be some decrease in street crime to support their habits, but only because extraction of that money from the productive class will have been outsourced to the IRS and redistributed via the tax code.
Meth and heroin are a more serious problem right now due to the addiction rates and physical damage these drugs do. I don’t think rational people are considering legalizing them plus Oxy and a few other prescriptions. Any federal legalization of weed will move the element into these drugs next.
Let’s see how the experiments with legal pot in a few states like Colorado and Ca go. Cal has had legalized pot to a certain degree for years and the result are growers all over the state. That has brought new problems which are harder to address.
I think it sad to see people using drugs to deal with life, there are better ways.
I agree, it is sad to see people using drugs to deal with life.
But what’s sadder is seeing productive citizens robbed of the fruits of their labors in the name of stopping people from using drugs.
But what’s even sadder is when the program that robs good people, to stop other people from using drugs, doesn’t even work and the people use drugs anyway.
But what’s even more sadder is when the program that robs good people, to stop other people from using drugs, doesn’t stop people from using drugs, and make billionaires of evil psychopaths.
Legalizine drugs is an all or nothing proposition. If you just legalize weed all you do is create a mechanism for the drug cartels to develop legal fronts to hide other drug related activities. That is what the mafia did with legalized gambling and prostituion in Nevada.
That’s painting with an absurdly broad brush. First, it is like saying that a judge who has a few glasses of wine in the evening is an alcoholic: Most people who consume cannabis do not do so all day everyday. I prefer wine, but from experience can tell you that some of the very best neurologists, attorneys, hospital presidents, and scientists regularly enjoy cannabis on the weekend. Meth and heroin? I’ve never seen a peer take either.
“…the fact remains that weedheads have higher absentee rates, lower productivity and higher workplace accident rates.”
You are completely FoS. The university I support has no idea and would never think I partake without a test result in their hands. I have one of the highest review rates among our personnel, I have one of the best attendance rates at the university, and I have had 0 accidents on the job. I am a mentor to new hires, and often I am asked to train them.
“Businesses won’t hire them and their insurers won’t cover them. So they’re marginalized and end up on welfare just like now.”
1. Wrong. Pre-employment drug screens can be passed. Very few smokers cannot stop for a month to pass one. Unlike the propaganda, it is not addictive on the level of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, and sugar. You and most employers would be amazed at the results if there were a blanket testing of their employees.
2. The only people that end up on welfare are the truly needy, and the enabled lazy.
Attitudes like yours are a reason that the socialists are making huge gains across the nation. You make assumptions based on crap data, and push your social beliefs into legislation. Legislating morality that does not deprive people of their life, liberty, or property will fail. Look at prohibition and what it has done to our second amendment rights.
That’s idiotic. There is no evidence that making marijuana legal will increase marijuana use, or that it will lead to marijuana users going on welfare.
Alcoholics have higher absentee rates and higher workplace accident rates. Putting aside that alcohol is physically addictive and marijuana isn’t, you seem to be missing the difference between use and abuse. And the number of alcoholics did not decrease during prohibition.
This is a TBD. In the places where weed is legal you get more people out and about. One such person almost killed my future daughter-in-law. When weed is legal people will be less restrictive about when and where they use it. Say what you want about prohibition, it did reduce the number of active alcoholics. The number of such people remained below pre-prohibition levles until about 1960. The number of people who use marijuana may not increase much but expect the frequency of use to go up. If the price, both in dollars and social/legal consequences, goes down then basic eocnomics says the quantity consumed is going to go up.
You misunderstand supply and demand. The rate of drug addiction has remained constant for over 40 years. Even though during that time both the price of various drugs, and the value of the dollar, changed significantly. Meanwhile, both the amount of drug laws and money spent on enforcing them has increased dramatically. Which demonstrates that drug prohibition simply does not work.
Then legalize the other drugs as well. It’s not that complicated.
You might want to change the translation of “digno” from “worthy” to “dignified.” Both are correct, but the author of the statement is a poet.
Oddly enough, while grocery shopping with the family on Sunday, I saw a college age, young adult (male) with a shirt that said, “War is not the way, it’s never the answer.”
I could only smile because I agree with the first part, but not the second. War is not the way, but it can be the answer. If I started to relentlessly beat the tar out of that young guy, I submit “war” is the only way to stop me-that’s a figurative representation, but no less accurate.
I love the line “violence never solved anything!” or it’s modern corollary as regurgitated by Secretary of State Kerry, “there is no military solution.”
Open a history book! Violence has solved thousands of things. Poorly planned, disorganized, unprincipled, half hearted violence rarely solves anything; but precise, timely, dedicated and thorough violence can solve a lot.
Heinlein again. I believe it was in “Tunnels in the Sky” that a student tells his teacher that violence never settled anything. The teacher responds with a list of good guys, bad guys, and complete societies that were totally “settled” by violence. It may be misused, but violence is most certainly never irrelevant.
No, once again Starship Troopers. (I did love Tunnels in the Sky, though.)
“My mother said violence never solves anything.” “So?” Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. “I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that.”
… and later in the same chapter …
“Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that “violence never solves anything” I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.”
bobmcd,
Maybe that’s where I picked it up. I did read that many years ago. I also saw first hand how many problems can be solved by a Mk-82; or as they are called in the electronic warfare community “500 pound all band jammers.”
Be kind, the poor lad has had the tit of freedom in his mouth his whole life. Don’t expect him to defend it.
I never understood pacifism. Passively accepting a beating is not morally superior to justifiably defending yourself. Violence, itself, is neither good nor evil… it is the application of violence, either in defense or through initiation of force, that is good or evil.
Succinctly put. My philosophy in a nutshell..
It gets worse when those engaging in “pacifism” are elected representatives. They have only the powers we’ve delegated to them and those do not include the power to subjugate us to barbarians and bullies.
It’s one thing to turn YOUR other cheek, it is another thing entirely to turn the other cheek of those who’ve hired you to defend BOTH cheeks!
What many pacifist do not understand is that pacifism can only be a choice if you have a way of defending yourself otherwise the other person chooses for you. Pacifism without force only makes you a victim.
In many martial arts you are taught to “not start a fight” but also “No retreat in battle In fighting”
Deterrence from a fight and thus peace comes from the ability to do damage if not left alone.
I had an algebra professor tell me there’s no way I could be a pacifist, simply because I’m Marine.
I’m not violent by nature, but sometimes you gotta whup a man’s (or country’s) ass
A pacifist is just someone who hasn’t been forced to reached their threshold of tolerance-everyone has a breaking point.
I submit that no parent which cares for their child can be a pacifist, any good parent would do unspeakable attacks of violence to protect their offspring from harm, if forced to do so.
Anyone who argues to the contrary isn’t being a pacifist, they are just not be a realist.
Mexico is a lost cause, a narco terrorist state right on our border complete with refugees, armed insurgents, established strongholds, and eventually we are going to be forced to deal with it.
Not as long as the current crew runs DC, but it will be a mess for someone to deal with. They will skip right over Big O and blame Bush for it at some point.
Gandhi actually did not consider himself a pacifist. Also remember, there was quite a bit of ‘racial cleansing’ in India, especially around Calcutta after India won independence, and he played a big part in stopping that. If he was German, and had the respect and admiration of the German people that he had from Indians, I think he could have done a lot to stop Hitler.
The open carry marches we keep reading about are text-book civil disobedience. The entire fight for second amendment rights has taken many pages out of Gandhi’s playbook. We cannot win by force of arms, and any attempt would hurt our cause. That is the same reason Gandhi used civil disobedience (not pacifism).
Tom
This again? Dude, Ghandi’s civil disobedience worked because his opponent’s goal was colonization and subjugation, not genocide.
When it got down to the brass tacks, the British were unwilling to commit mass murder against the people of India for the sake of the Crown, and that’s why Ghandi’s plan worked out. Adolf Hitler’s regime, meanwhile, was willing to commit mass murder against millions of people who had done absolutely nothing to them; if you really think they would have tolerated any actual opposition to their final solution, passive or otherwise, then you probably need to put the bong down and brush up on the White Rose.
They’re honored as national heroes in Germany and deservedly so for nonviolently resisting the Third Reich, to be sure, but most of their members went to the guillotine for their trouble and they certainly didn’t put a dent in Germany’s expansion into Europe and Eurasia or end the Holocaust; a shitload of men with guns, bombs and tanks had to step in and do that.
It wasn’t meant to be a repeat, I accidentally replied to the wrong post the first time.
The goals in Calcutta were also racial genocide, but I digress…My comments were more based on 1932-1935. Once it gets to the point it did in 1939-1945, I would have to agree with you.
Science fiction author Harry Turtledove has written a story on just this subject, “The Last Article”. You can read it here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5rMljbFiemoMWIxZjJkNjctOGJmMS00Njg1LTg4YzMtODRjNGQwM2JlZWEz/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1
Highly recommended.
Great Link, nice article
BTW, this quote is how I see anti-gun crowd. They must have all taken lessons from this man
The one means that wins the easiest victory over reason: terror and force
ADOLF HITLER, Mein Kamf
They use emotions and FUD to trump all reason and all manner of statistics. They use the government for the force electing brainless robots. The civilian disarmament organizations have studied this man very well.
They say that Gandhi was a valuable focus of media attention, but not the cause of India’s liberation from British rule. That liberation was in good part caused by WWII, during which the Japanese supplied Indian rebels with a large number of rifles. This made large parts of India too expensive in lives to hold on to.
I just finished my Master’s paper on Deitrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor who led a pacific resistance movement in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, and who was later involved in an actual plot to kill Hitler. Of this plot and its relation to messages of non-violence, Martin Luther King Jr. said:
“If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi and non-violence. But if your enemy has no conscience like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.”
In other words, there are some folks with whom negotiation is literally impossible, and it is better to eliminate them through violence than to allow them to continue to commit atrocities unchallenged.
Very good Magnus. I would love to read your thesis.
Bonhoeffer should be studied by all Christians, especially those who have erroneously selected pacifism as a philosophy.
“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”
— Mohandas Gandhi
“Nonviolence works with rational people.”
Utter nonsense. Cartel soldiers are rational to a fault and they have the billions to prove it.
Nonviolence works with nonviolent people. When it comes to violent people, nothing works except a bigger gun.
A core tenet of pacifism is active promotion of the ideal. There is a point at which peaceful methods will no longer work. You can’t just use nonviolence as a response to threats as you might use force. It must be applied to preempt the situation. This makes nonviolent resistance difficult. It is true, by the time hitler came to power, it was already too late for nonviolent means.
The link was a good read. Google translated it for me. I hope the translation was accurate.
I liked this statement:
Only “if people come out again” en masse to protest against the state and “make a peaceful civil resistance”, with demonstrations and pressure measurements and not go to the polls or not paying taxes, “we could do without weapons” she said.
And this one:
However, Sicily comprises “defensive violence” of the communities that have taken up arms to tackle organized crime. “Nonviolence works with rational people. Gandhi would not have worked in Nazi Germany,” he said.
I agree with that. Hitler would have gladly publicly slaughtered Gandi and then spoke to the world “What are you going to do about it?”
And I encourage the people of Mexico to take up arms and go kick their ridiculous well paid (probably in cocaina) politicians out of office. They can then make a Constitution in Mexico with the people having the RKBA. With the RKBA in place, drug trade and cartels will diminish.
I see many holes in the arguments being pushed on this thread. Start with Gandhi. Hitler would have loved nothing more, than to tie his Aryans with the people of India, if for no other reason than to limit British influence and power. The Nazis did send groups of scientist to the Northern portions of India, trying to trace the Germanic ‘Aryans’ to the real Aryans. Hitler could have easily changed the outcome of the war, by forming an alliance with Gandhi and others in India, who were against British colonialism.
As for the war on drugs and cannabis. Most users of cannabis have made a decision that affects their lives, yes it does affect others lives too – but less so than the use of alcohol – you kill someone driving drunk or high – you automatically are looking at a minimum of manslaughter. If you can re-legalize weed you are taking money out of the hands of the cartels. While many people will smoke the green, they have no desire to do meth, coke, or heroin. Cheaper cannabis and being able to legally grow your own, allows people to afford the medicine. The lost revenue from this will not kill the cartels, but it will hurt them, and make it easier to target the dangerous drugs coming into our country. Just like prohibition didn’t start or end the mafia, dealing in an easily produced illegal substance lead to tremendous power and influence, which declined steadily after the 21st Amendment.
I can tell you, that the higher your education, the less chance you will have to take a drug test -EVER. I’ve taken tests when working for places like Office Depot and Best Buy, however even though I was injured on the job(s), I never had a follow up test – not that I would have tested positive. I’ve never had to take test for my ‘Professional’ Jobs, just an FBI background check and fingerprinting. I’ve never failed a test or cheated on one. For what its worth, few people can smoke more and more weed all day long – sleep normally takes over once you’ve reached that limit.
The only violence I’ve ever seen over cannabis dealt with dealers fighting for turf and cops with ‘drug fighting’ money showing their worth. The militarization of our police forces began with federal funds to eradicate illegal drugs. Smokers aren’t worried about fighting just that next Dorito or krispy kreme (kinda like cops). Regardless the feds have no place in making a plant illegal, is that the 9th or 10th Amendment. We are so 2A active here, we sometimes forget about our other rights, and the limits on the Feds.
For those who disagree with my beliefs on cannabis, I pray you never have to deal with chemo or radiation treatments, or any of the serious GI problems that make it difficult to eat and process food. I can tell you that I got sick, lost over 60 pounds in less than 4 months. Without this illegal substance, I would be dead by now. It is a medicine and almost any medicine can be misused or abused.
My 2 cents.
Smoke it up Dave,
Should be your right. After all – its your body, no one else’s. I personally have never smoked weed , but I believe if a guy wants to smoke some weed or whatever – he should be able to do it. After all, it’s his life, his body, and they in fact do not belong to the government. The government thinks that your body needs to be regulated (for safety of course)…. and?… the majority opinion – that is what matters… not rights. So screw them and smoke it up.
That’s one of those dillemmas some of us face. There’s states with a laissez-faire attitude about getting high, but they’re usually anti-gun, and the states that are pro-gun seem to have an attitude like potheads are some kind of threat.
I believe in the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, but I also believe in the right to get high, which unfortunately isn’t explicitly protected by the Constitution, but that’s OK, because that sort of thing isn”t what the Constitution is about. And I’m fairly certain that the rights to those activities that constitute smoking pot, and the limits on the authorities’ power to stop you are covered in a sort of a piecemeal fashion, like freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
There are exactlly 18 Enumerated Powers:
1. To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
2. To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
3. To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
4. To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
5. To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
6. To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
7. To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
8. To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
9. To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
10. To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
11. To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
12. To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
13. To provide and maintain a Navy;
14. To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
15. To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
17. To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
18. To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
That’s all the Federal Government is supposed to do, period. And “throw people into iron cages for smoking dried flowers” is not one of those 18 powers.
Nullify!
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/11/14/nullification-in-one-lesson/
Gandhi on guns:
http://www.storyleak.com/fact-even-gandhi-opposed-gun-bans/
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