Fine writers

Of columns, that is.

There are a number of people out there who do wonderful things with words. One I mentioned before, James Lileks. One of the others is Mark Steyn. For the first time he had a column for the London Telegraph pulled. I don't agree with that, but I can see why the column made a lot of people unhappy. It deals with a harsh subject: basically, shut up and die like a man, and family members should not cause more problems.

It is a harsh matter to deal with. Someone taken hostage, being abused and taped for publicity, then murdered. From what I understand, the dirtbags kept this man alive for a while precisely because he made statements critical of the British government, and his family helped.

Damn few people can know without question how they'd react in such a position, but I would hope they I could behave more like Fabrizio Quattrocchi. There died a man.

I once truly upset a friend of mine with a comment on the 23rd Psalm. I said that here is a warrior at peace with his God and himself, speaking his words as he moves into battle, prepared to die and unworried by it. She really didn't like that; she's one of the 'peace at any price' people, violence is always bad and should never be used no matter what. The idea that someone could someone could march toward death with peace and pride in their heart horrified her. Personally, the idea that you should quietly die or be a slave rather than fight, no matter what, is disgusting. 'Peace' is a fine thing; 'Freedom' a greater.

This brings me to pacifism. In some ways it seems a noble idea, but it doesn't work out that way. Being an actual pacifist means that in time of danger, you totally depend on others putting themselves in danger, 'dirtying their hands' with violence, to save you. And the 'I did not ask them to save me' line doesn't cut it. In a society that values the life of the individual, that values individual freedom, we cannot simply sit and see someone beaten or tortured or murdered because they say, "I don't want to be protected". We cannot say that these people can be safely beaten or killed because they don't want us to act, it would set the precedent that, as a matter of policy, not all will get protection from attack or harm because they are a different class of citazen, and not all get full protection. That is an abhorrent idea, and a society that will tolerate it as a matter of course is in the toilet.

We had that as both a matter of law and as custom in some areas for a long time; blacks were not real citazens. Hell, to many they were not real people. And that attitude is still causing problems. It's getting beaten down, and it stopped being a matter of law long ago. Same with Chinese and Japanese in some areas. No society that really gives a damn about the individual can allow it to be a matter of policy to make some people, for race or religeon or place of ancestral orgin or personal philosophy, second-class citazens.

So we cannot allow the "don't ever fight for me" attitude to cause us to let anyone be given less protection than others. And we cannot allow ourselves to be attacked with impunity because some people don't like the idea of us fighting back. And pacifists, whether they admit it or not, count on the protection of others for their very survival. Bunch of freeloaders.