The Fox's Den

I am a pacifist by nature. I don’t have a compulsion to hurt anyone else, and when faced with a fight I am the turn the other cheek sort. Some of my best friends and family members are soldiers. This puts me in a strange place of being morally (and by nature) opposed to the idea of war. I openly dream of a world in which war is no longer seen as needed by anybody.

Being honest, I believe war is an activity undertaken by adults too self-centered and unwilling to find a middle ground that they can’t do what they tell their children: Compromise. On the whole, it boils down to the fact that no people should ever fight, and yet we do.

Now we get to the part where I say that I support the armed forces and what they do.

That’s right. I might be a pacifist, and I might hate that war happens and find the whole matter discussing. But that does not change the fact that it’s happening around us. The strong abuse the weak, the rich abuse the poor… The like happens all over the world. All the time. I’m lucky, I’m a pacifist born in a place where I am free to be what I am without question. I’m not a pacifist who has to make a stand (like Tibet’s Monks). Instead I have a wall of defense and the good fortune to be in a country little effected by war on the whole.

It makes being a pacifist easy.

I’m not stupid, though. I know, based on the events of 9-11, that the enemy will bring the fight here given a chance. I don’t like it, but I won’t stand in the way of our soldiers. I won’t stand in the way of them having Veteran’s Benefits. I’ll even support certain operations they undertake (like the work they do to help following natural disasters).

I dream of a day when every soldier can hang up their gun. Today is, sadly, not that day: but I can dream.