Selective Service

If the draft were instituted, what would you do?

  • Go to War

  • Go to Canada

  • Go to Jail

  • I don't know


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fieldsofwind

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A.

However, he was told not to use it at the time, but not "don't ever use it." Otherwise, why would Christ have let him have it with him at all. (one can imagine that if having a sword was completely wrong, then Christ would have informed His disciples that they were not to have them)

Furthermore: Luke 22:35-38

Then Jesus asked them, "When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?" "Nothing," they answered. He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment." The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords." "That is enough," he replied.

And the cool thing is that they can have the swords for defense, and yet still love their enemies, and pray for those who persecute them. We are always to be compassionate, but if compassion means we are to never use force against an aggressor, then how compasionate are we being towards the victim? In other words, by that definition we cannot be compassionate to both. So, some here would assert that we must choose the aggressor to be "compassionate" towards. I don't believe this at all. One can be compassionate towards both, and yet still use all of the force necessary to stop evil.

take care

FOW
 
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cenimo

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Look at history. Pacifism has worked in a variety of situations; India, S. Africa, and even Iran.

Hardly places where any American or anyone from a free world industrial nation would want to live, not to mention being very politically unstable...

for example, name one automobile made in any of those paradises...
 
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Originally posted by fieldsofwind
A.

However, he was told not to use it at the time, but not "don't ever use it." Otherwise, why would Christ have let him have it with him at all. (one can imagine that if having a sword was completely wrong, then Christ would have informed His disciples that they were not to have them)

Furthermore: Luke 22:35-38

Then Jesus asked them, "When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?" "Nothing," they answered. He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment." The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords." "That is enough," he replied.

And the cool thing is that they can have the swords for defense, and yet still love their enemies, and pray for those who persecute them. We are always to be compassionate, but if compassion means we are to never use force against an aggressor, then how compasionate are we being towards the victim? In other words, by that definition we cannot be compassionate to both. So, some here would asert that we must choose the aggressor to be "compassionate" towards. I don't believe this at all. One can be compassionate towards both, and yet still use all of the force necessary to stop evil.

take care

FOW

Good points, I agree.
 
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Gunny

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Originally posted by fin
Pacifism has proved to be a far greater weapon in achieving peace.
Look at history. Pacifism has worked in a variety of situations; India, S. Africa, and even Iran.


George Orwell Exposed Pacifists' Political Motives
by Jeff McMurdo


An exposure of the timeless 'peace activist'.

It is not an easy process when democracies debate going to war. Nor should it be. At the least though, discussion should be rationale and informed. And yet once again the world is witness to the spectacle of anti-war activists, intellectuals and celebrities as they agitate against President George Bush Jr. for his declared preparedness to use unilateral force in the likely event UN arms inspections in Iraq are, once again, unsuccessful. Recent anti-war manifestos issued by Hollywood actors, 12,000 American professors and prominent Canadians including such luminaries as Margaret Atwood recall the righteous protests of wars past.

A year ago it was opposition to U.S. support for the Northern Alliance against the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the start of the Kosovo conflict in 1999 a group of Toronto law professors at York University found their anti-war voice and attracted considerable media attention in Canada. Similar demonstrations were manifested in the lead-up to the Gulf War. And of course there was the mother of all anti-war movements during the Vietnam War.

There are two characteristics common to all of these protests. One is a single-minded attention to conflicts involving the U.S. The other is a lack of personal, on-the-ground experience of the issues and the brutal nature of conflict and oppression.

George Orwell knew war. He was not only a novelist and political theorist who first embraced and then rejected pacifism and socialism. He lived a life of action rich in worldly experience; colonial policeman in Burma, labourer, waiter, and volunteer soldier with the anti-fascist Republicans in the Spanish Civil War where he was wounded by a shot through the throat. During World War II he directed his attention to the critics of the Allies' prosecution of the war against the Axis forces. We can only speculate what Orwell would have thought of the current outcry against Bush's Iraq policy. But perhaps his writings on pacifists - today's anti-war activists - can provide some useful insights.

Pacifists, he said, had no understanding of what they preached against, "To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it." In his experience, they acted primarily in support of their own domestic political motives and propounded a moral relativism that echoes what we are hearing today. Prime Minister Blair is assailed as misguided and President Bush - not Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden - is declared the greatest threat to world peace, and - in the Canadian manifesto - a "thug" to boot.

It has been heard before. "Pacifist propaganda," Orwell wrote in the 1940s, "usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of the western countries."

Anti-war movements have always had an impact far beyond internal debate in the West. In one-party states that denied freedom of speech such as the Soviet Union, Milosevic's Yugoslavia, Taliban Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq of today, peace activists' very public words and actions have been critically helpful to dictators' diplomatic efforts to stymie or blunt international interventions. It is a consequence the anti-war movement dissociates itself from with a willful blindness.

Most significantly, there was the paralytic silence regarding atrocities in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos in the years following the communist victories of 1975. More civilians were killed by their communist liberators than died in the decades of war in Indochina the Vietnamese communists now candidly admit they instigated to achieve power. According to Hanoi's leading general, Vo Nguyen Giap, the impact of the western media's reporting of the anti-war movement during the long war was critical to North Vietnam's ultimate success. Giap candidly described them as his most effective guerrilla force.

George Orwell attributed pacifists' contrarian arguments as a manifestation of their separation from the roots of the common culture of their country and in particular the resolve of their own governments, and the people, to resist aggression. "The average intellectual of the [pacifist] Left believed," he wrote, "that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred of the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind."

Ordinary people who face the realities of daily life under dictatorship have, of course, their own unique perspective on the question of the use of force. During a tea break in Taliban-ruled pre-September 11 Afghanistan, an international aid worker asked his Afghan colleagues how long they thought the hated Taliban would remain in power. "Until the U.S. comes and drives them out" was the immediate reply. Everyone laughed at the inconceivable notion. But these Afghan relief workers had an acute appreciation of their situation. Only an exercise of violent force greater than the Taliban's could be of any help to them, their families and their country.

Living safe, comfortable lives in the West, the anti-war movement decries as senseless, immoral and impractical any suggestion of the use of force against Iraq. No doubt Saddam Hussein is counting on their success. One wonders though if they fear the risks war poses for Iraqi civilians as much as they may fear another military success for George Bush.

Orwell clearly had neither patience for such follies, nor any doubts of the need for democracies to be prepared to use force in their defense, pre-emptive or not. "Civilization," he said, "rests ultimately on coercion. What holds society together is not the policeman but the goodwill of common men, and yet that goodwill is powerless unless the policeman is there to back it up. . . . Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it."

This was plainly evident in an incident on the remote Philippine island of Basilan. Upon the completion of a six month U.S. military advisory mission in July, a contingent of Manila activists arrived to mount a demonstration during the troops' media-covered departure. To their surprise and consternation, the activists' buses were met by local Basilan residents who greeted them with a hail of rocks and invective. The counter-demonstrators later explained to journalists that they liked the American soldiers and they were grateful for the logistic and advisory support which had helped the Philippine army establish a measure of peace and security not known for many years. These simple people were not going to allow their more worldly countrymen from the metropolis of Manila to undermine any future need of U.S. assistance.

As the debate over Iraq approaches resolution, the voices of these ordinary people will not be heard as loudly as those of activists, academics and celebrities in distant cities and countries. Yet in facing oppression and the risk of terror in their daily lives, they have a far better understanding of the real world we live in. Even in a utopia of peace and understanding, force - and the threat of force - is the reality underpinning civilization. No doubt liberated Afghans, ordinary Iraqis, starving North Koreans, and the people of New York City and Bali appreciate this more than most. George Orwell certainly did and of pacifist ideals he was quite clear. "One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."
 
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fieldsofwind

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Don't worry cenimo, he has never faced a situation in which fighting would be necessary. If it were 64 years ago, and Australia was very worried about a Japanese invasion, then he may have different opinions. It is easy to sit in a chair all one's life and type about things that one will never get close to.

However, perhaps he still wouldn't fight. Maybe he would rather watch the women get raped, and the children go hungry. I know this seems very offensive towards evangelion, however, it is not meant to be. It is simply what would happen if one chose not to fight and their side lost. Read about what they did in the Philippines.

Anyways...

FOW
 
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Wolseley

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I have to agree that it's one thing to be a committed pacifist when you're facing nothing ugly and discussing wars in faraway places.

It is quite another to be a committed pacifist when four enemy soldiers smash the door down of your house---one of whom then proceeds to rape your teenage daughter while his partner rapes your wife, and the third is raping your mother after having shot your father, and the fourth is less than five feet away from you with a long nasty bayonet which he is determined to stick in your guts at all costs. He cannot be reasoned with, he cannot be dissuaded, he can't even be bribed. He couldn't care less about your views---he only wants to kill you. Once you're dead, then he can have his turn with your women after his chums are finished with them. The only thing that will stop these guys is to kill them before they kill you.

And that's a hell of a choice to have to make, either way. I know what I would do; I cannot speak for others.
 
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fieldsofwind

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The toughest thing to do, would be to forgive those who would do such a thing. And, that is what Christ commands of us. He also commands that we have compassion and love for those who persecute us. However, He never says not to stop them from doing wrong. In fact, if you are to love your children and wife, then it is obvious what actions you should take. This is what so many people fail to grasp.

Anyways...

FOW
 
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Rae

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I'm a conscientious objector myself, but I haven't bothered to apply for CO status because (a) if the U.S. gets around to drafting women in my lifetime, I'll probably be too old to go by that time, and (b) if the U.S. moves faster than that, I trust in the die hard "we don't want women in our Army" mindset to help me get CO status quickly ;)

Not that anyone cares, probably, but that's my answer.
 
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fin

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Gunnysgt, your essay was very well written and raises good points. However, I feel that I have already answered most of them. I will try and, once again, explain.

"There are two characteristics common to all of these protests. One is a single-minded attention to conflicts involving the U.S. The other is a lack of personal, on-the-ground experience of the issues and the brutal nature of conflict and oppression."

First, the protests are almost never single-minded. The people protesting usually have thought long and hard about the war in question, and have considered many different aspects of this war. Do you believe that people such as Einstein and Martin Luther King were single-minded? History refutes your second point. The "brutal nature of conflict and oppression" has been experienced by pacifists often. Look at the suffering, oppression, and pain experienced by protestors in China, S. Africa, and even the US (during the Cival Rights movement).

"Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of the western countries."

Pacifists are against all war, not just violence in defense of western countries. This is evident in S. Africa, Iran, and a number of other nonwestern countries where nonviolent protests changed the course of history.

You mention Vietnam and the causalities that resulted from the brutal dictators. I would recommend reading or listening to a speach by Martin Luther King called "Beyond Vietnam". It outlines the war and gives a brief history of the conflict in Vietnam. I do not wish to have this thread evaporate into another anti-US policy thread, but it needs to be stated that the US supported these dictators, even helped them gain power. King and other pacifists spoke against these atrocities and dictators. Also, it is pacifists that are against the atrocities in China today. The US government is ignoring the situation of oppressed people around the world; pacifists and others are working to help these people.

"Living safe, comfortable lives in the West, the anti-war movement decries as senseless, immoral and impractical any suggestion of the use of force against Iraq. No doubt Saddam Hussein is counting on their success."

This may be correct but it is irrelevant. In practice pacifism is neither safe nor comfortable. History shows this far better than I can explain.

"As the debate over Iraq approaches resolution, the voices of these ordinary people will not be heard as loudly as those of activists, academics and celebrities in distant cities and countries. "

Sadly you are correct. The voices of those who are oppressed are rarely heard. The poor, ordinary people of these countries will never be heard clearly by those in the rich countries. These voices cry for peace but all they recieve is war. In afghanistan we crushed the taliban. However, the present situation of the country is worse than before, especially for the poor. (Source: Washington Post Weekly Edition, V20 #5) The oppressed want freedom and peace. Only pacifism can bring this peace.

"One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."

Was Martin Luther King a fool? Was Einstein a fool? Was Ghandi a fool? Were the thousands of others who worked for peace through nonviolent means fools? History again proves my point far better than any explaination I can offer.
 
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Evangelion

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cenimo -

Evangelionrather bold to say that until you're in the situation...

The Bible gives me assurance that the situation will be just fine. :)

often in combat guys perceived to be wimps get real gutsy and guys whomwant everyone to think they would "john Wayne" it get timid...

Oh, very true.

But you obviously haven't read your Bible, because we are told that those who fight with Christ for his kingdom on Earth, will be those who have already been made immortal at the Judgement Seat!

As an immortal being, filled to the brim with divine power, I don't think I'll have too much to worry about!

ROTFL!!! :cool:
 
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Evangelion

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FOW -

Don't worry cenimo, he has never faced a situation in which fighting would be necessary.

Nope. Most of my generation haven't. But plenty of my family members have. (Two great-great-uncles and my grandfather.)

If it were 64 years ago, and Australia was very worried about a Japanese invasion, then he may have different opinions.

Nope. The options would remain the same, and so would my course of action.

It is easy to sit in a chair all one's life and type about things that one will never get close to.

My religious community has a proud history of conscientious objection. One of our brethren was excuted in Nazi Germany for refusing to join the army, while another became the test case for Canada. During the Nato/Serbian conflict, another of our brethren was regularly harried by the Serbian military police (even to the point of being threatened with imprisonment), but refused to serve. Such is our attitude towards the kingdoms of men, in which you place your trust.

At the 2nd Advent, however, it will be quite another story. :cool:
 
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Evangelion

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Wolseley -

I have to agree that it's one thing to be a committed pacifist when you're facing nothing ugly and discussing wars in faraway places.

Oh, I agree with this also. But as I have repeatedly stated on this thread, I am not a committed pacifist. In fact, I'm not a pacifist at all. It's just that (taking my lead from the Bible), I refuse to serve the kingdoms of men.

The bottom line here, is that you can serve God or mammon.

You can't serve both. :cool:
 
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