PEACE FOR US, DEATH FOR THEM:

'A River of Peaceful People' (Mary McGrory, January 23, 2003, The Washington Post)

Danny Maguire, age 19, a college student with wide green eyes and face fuzz that may be a beard someday, rode a bus from Kansas City, Mo., for 23 hours. He hoped that the president, who makes much of his faith, was taking in the fact that the march was faith-based: The Catholic bishops, the National Council of Churches and many rabbinical organizations were opposed to an attack on Saddam Hussein.

Maguire is a history student, but his real passion is social justice, and his patron saint is Dorothy Day, the Catholic radical who took the Gospels literally.

Ms Day was a great woman and a genuine Christian pacifist. But most will be familiar with the Star Trek episode, City on the Edge of Forever, where Joan Collins played someone similar, who Captain Kirk had to make sure died, lest her activism lead to the United States staying out of WWII and Hitler winning. Ms Day, you see, was so serious about pacifism that she opposed America's entry into WWII, even after Pearl Harbor.

That's a perfectly honorable position and one with which I'm broadly sympathetic, but, as Pat Buchanan found out a few years ago, very few other people are. Before she starts speaking in such hushed tones about Ms Day and those who follow her example, Ms McGrory should probably explain to her readers why she's okay with the prospect of leaving folks like Hitler and Saddam in power to continue their murderous reigns.

There's nothing wrong with opposing war so long as you're willing to accept some measure of responsibility for the deeds of such men, the murders that you're willing to let continue. But it is this willingness that so often makes pacifism the moral low ground, rather than the high ground, and the failure to even wrestle with the reality comes close to making the position despicable.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 27, 2003 10:16 PM