"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
A man 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."
WHO SAID THIS?
Sorry commenter, wrong again.
4 comments:
Not Jesus.
it is 2 separate quotes by 2 separate people and often misused as you are doing.
a pacifist is not someone unwilling to fight for anything. a pacifist is one who beleives that one should only fight when needed, and after peaceful options have been exhausted and when the fighting will actually achieve the desired goal. If fighting will not achieve the desired goal, it is a waste, a terrible waste, as the lives and very limbs of our service people have been.
Gene, this is good common sense, but not good Christian sense. (And no, they are not the same thing. The disciples continually balked at the impossible things Jesus said.)
And for heaven's sake why are you quoting this guy anyway? As far as I can see (which admittedly is not very far), he's a classical liberal utilitarian - well and good, but not Christian.
Mill cites the motive for pacifism as one's own "personal safety." That's a caricature. I could care less about my personal safety. I believe in non-violence, not because I am unwilling to sacrifice my own life, but because I am unwilling to sacrifice the life at the other end of the gun.
I'd turn it around. It's the ones who go out aggressively to "kill them before they kill us" who are really concerned about saving their skin. Bravery is not measured in bullets.
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. "
John Stuart Mill
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