Pacifist Nation No Place for Wimps


 

 

 

 

A Challenge

FIRST OF ALL, I DON'T GET IT... are we Americans a bunch of wimps, or what? Where's our faith, the courage of our Christian (or Jewish or [fill in the blank]) convictions? We cower under a canopy of high-tech weaponry as our Top Guns bomb some poor third-world country even further into the stone age and glow with pride as if they [we]'ve just done something patriotic or humanitarian.

Where does the Golden Rule fit into this picture, or am I just thinking of religion from another planet? Why are we so squeamish about the words "forgiveness" and "compassion"?

If we had any guts, we'd be pacifists. But we don't have the stones. We're too afraid we'll lose something if we don't defend it, whatever it is, with fists or bullets or bombs. We lack the integrity to follow our conscience, which tells us that loving is right and killing is wrong, or did I misunderstand Jesus and the Big Ten Cs.?

Hey, Cultists of the Two Sacred Tablets: What part of "Thou shalt not kill" do you not understand?

Just what is our idea of a hero, anyway? Is the playground bully a hero because he can beat the snot out of anybody on the block! Or is the druggie behind the AK-47 a hero because he's not too chicken to point it at a (temporarily) live person and hold down the trigger? Is a general a hero because he isn't too afraid of collateral damage to point a smart bomb at a milk factory, or a water treatment plant?

Hero, shmero, I'll take Mohandas, Martin or César any day of the week over any one of these creeps. Now they had guts. So did Dorothy Day and Mother Jones, for that matter, as if gender mattered, although a woman politician out to prove that she has a Johnson after all scares me more than a man who just wants you to know the jumbo size of his.

So I'm here to issue America a challenge: I'm from Pacifist Nation and I say, stand up for your conscience! Stand up for love and compassion! Stand up for tolerance and forgiveness! Stand up for truth and consequence.

And be warned: Pacifist Nation is a tough 'hood, no place for wimps. Better not mind a little pain. Some Neanderthal fool will likely bloody your nose on account of being afraid you just may be right. Like he's got to protect his ignorance as if his manhood depended on it or something. Sheesh. Stop acting like punks and grow up. No guts, no glory. Be a man. Be a woman. Be a pacifist.

                                           Peace, Daniel