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Originally Posted by zen_tom
Ouch - that's a bit harsh isn't it? I'd rather allow my beliefs to be subjugated than be asked to kill or make orphans of other people's children. Does that make me a slave? Or does being given a rifle and told to march for hours and to follow orders that you neither understand, nor agree with make you a freeer person? What if your commanding officer told you to torch the village where suspected members of the opposition lived? Would you follow your commands? Do as you were told? How free are you then? What belief do you believe in strongly enough to injure someone while they look at you? What do you believe in strongly enough for you to execute someone's son? Whatever it is, it had better be good...
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If I can walk up to you and tell you to lick my boots or die, then if you are not willing to respond with violence those really are your only options. Obviously you should not fight for a cause you do not believe in or follow orders you believe are immoral, but that is not the point. I believe the security of my family and friends is worth injuring someone while they look at me, and even if they do not. If me or mine are threatened by someone I will kick them in the balls, stab them in the back, gouge their eyes out, whatever it takes to remove the threat. I would execute someone if they were a threat, and their children too if they were of the same mind.
Depressingly there is another way of getting along in the world. People can follow idiotic pacifist ideals while hiding behind those brave enough to defend them and kind enough not to chain them, and they loudly protest, insult, and spit on them for doing so. Putting up with that and still protecting them with their lives is worthy of true respect.
One of my favorite quotes:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. That person 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 or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."- John Stuart Mill