something memorable

My oldest brother spends at least an hour in the quiet hours of his hectic morning doing what he calls 'memory work.'  It is a requirement of his household to not come a-knockin' when he is doing his memory work. That is amazing enough to me, when I consider that my brother dropped out of high school at the age of 16 and joined the Navy. I am not sure when he got his GED, but since he became a committed Christian, he has devoted the first part of his day to memorizing scripture. Very often, in Greek. He taught himself  New Testament Greek many years ago, and still studies the scriptures in that language. I haven't been as diligent in memorizing Scripture the way my brother does, but there are things worth memorizing, and there are things worth remembering, and I will make a vain attempt to combine the two in this post. I hope it is memorable enough to pass around. On its own, it is a bracing confrontation against unreality.

In the American Digest Sidelines:
summer patriot, winter soldier: "...to not resist aggression. it is immoral

The first thing about john jay's writing is that he uses no capitalization. And the punctuation isn't quite all polished. I am not sure why, but it adds to the ruminative quality of his writing. It reads like a brilliant flash, put to word, so that the very thought isn't lost before it gains expression. I am going to publish it here, in full, with thoughts of my own, interspersed:

it is immoral to not resist aggression.

whether in matters personal, political, religious or in statecraft, ... , it matters not, ... , to not resist aggression is to aid and abet the aggressor, and to assure that after your demise at his hands, he will seek the conquest of another. whatever you may feel the worth of the stance to you as a personal matter, by adopting such a stance, you assure the suffering of another: no high blown assertion of morality can escape this essential fact, and to inflict this suffering on another, perhaps less capable of protecting him or herself than you, is immoral, unethical, and unforgivable.

and, it is cowardice.

I don't remember her name. Only her story. It gripped the attention of Lancaster County, PA and then the rest of the country. It started off as one neighbor harassing another. The harasser was trying to goad the other into a violent confrontation. She simply wouldn't cooperate, but kept forgiving him. That is the Mennonite way. He kept upping the ante, banging on her door and threatening her, cutting her electricity, her phone, her cable. Finally she called the police when he personally threatened her with a knife. When the police came to arrest him, she had a change of heart and dropped the charges. She forgave him. That is the Mennonite way. He received an unmerited act of kindness and grace from her, and was all the more desirous to 'really go after her' this time. And he did. The next time he banged on her door, she answered, and he shot her, killing her. There would be no forgiveness this time. He stole her car, and fled the jurisdiction to parts unknown.

by not resisting such aggression, to the death if demanded by circumstance or dignity or honor, is to assure that someone else will bear the brunt of your folly, and that you engender your own fate upon the will of another.

i spit in the face of those who blather about ghandi and passive resistance.--

The police had issued an APB for the stolen car, but it was too late. He fled Pennsylvania and went to Indiana, where he killed another couple - complete  strangers - and fled with their car. Now a local problem that could be contained by a local police force and a local judicial system had expanded into other states. What was a local story now became a national story. And the murderer was only beginning his spree.

ghandi chose the tactics he chose in india because he knew that he did not face an aggressor who would destroy him in passivity, but because he knew that the english would respond to the moral suasion and historical and ethical argument he would bring to bear on them. ghandi was a privileged man, educated and trained, inculcated into the culture of locke and blackstone, and trained in the common law in england. he practiced law in england, and in south africa, enjoying the wealth, honor and privilege that only observance of the strictures of empire could bestow upon him. and, in learning the law of england, the great doctrines of the common law, and in learning the thought and doctrine of the west and its moralistic teachings of religion and philosophy, he knew that he had acquired the intellectual and political weapons he needed to throw off the yoke of empire.

then, and only then did he adopt his native swaddling.

passive resistance would not have served the indians against the nazi's.

The woman thought she was doing the highest, most noble act in the manner of Christ. To turn the other cheek. To forgive and forgive again, seventy times seven, if necessary. But all she accomplished was to add to her lengthening queue of victims murdered by her crazed neighbor. He felt no redemption in her noble act of generosity. She didn't win him over to Christ, but rather, she cast her pearls before swine, and they were trampled into dust. And then he killed her, leaving behind her grieving husband and children. She was only in her late twenties. And his next victims only became acquainted with her in death.

passive resistance did not serve european jews against the nazi's, nor the pogroms of eastern europe and the russians, ... , nor has it served the jews of israel against the transgressions and attacks of islamic arabia, nor will it serve the jews of israel against the rabid islamic islamic fundamentalism that sweeps turkey.

it is not moral not to resist your own murder, not to fight your murderer until your last drawn breath. it is immoral not to do so, it is unethical, and it is the height of historical folly for nations to adopt that conceit that the moral high road lies in "peace" against all provocation.

in this strategy,therein lies the lie.

to not resist aggression, is to aid, abet, further or encourage the acts of aggression taken against you. you do not dissuade your attacker by being passive, you encourage and embolden him, ... , in fact, you "egg him into" further acts taken against you.

Indeed, this is what she saw, time and time again. And after killing his victims in Indiana, he killed another man in Minnesota, and once again, fled with his car. The FBI tracked him down following his devastating path of personal destruction. He murdered and fled with the victims' car in Tennessee, and was finally cornered in Oregon, where he killed several FBI agents, before finally being dispatched. All told, and I forget the total body count, was it six or seven or eight? All of them, stemming from one too many acts of forgiveness.

and, you perform another act, not usually recognized or stated, but in not resisting your aggressor, you rouse in him his contempt for you, for your singular cowardice. in the mind of such an aggressor, you confirm the morality of his actions by the demonstration of your singular lack of worth to continue existing, this lack of worth proved by the simple fact that you do not believe in your own worth to exist. the aggressor simply concludes that if you do not feel, will not assert your own right to exist by defending yourself, then you simply to do deserve to be here. and, he condemns you for your idiocy.

i will say this again. passive resist in not only the fool's last act, before departing this vale of sin and tears at the hands of his attacker, ... , it is a positive act of immoral, unethical and cowardly commission.

even the mouse turns against his attacker.

these remarks will be expanded upon.

john jay @ 06.12.2010

I fantasize the following scenario: As the late Mrs. Weaver sits in Death's waiting room, pondering her fate and wondering if she'd made the right choice, what would she say to the new arrivals coming into her lobby? Would they introduce themselves, or would they ask her why? Why didn't you fight back? At least you could have prosecuted him, gotten him off the streets. You could have done something!

the survivors of the mufti of jerusalem, in the form of the pederast and child fornicator yasser arafat, and the p.l.o. and its successors in interest in abbas, hamas and hezbollah and the o.i.c. and the muslim brotherhood and the united nations, are seeing to the historical rehabilitation of hitler. already, the euro union and the scandanavians and the germans grow rabid and vocal in their anti semitism, and call for the demise of the jewish state: the reduction of hitler to simply germanic napoleon is not far behind.

and, the historical passivity of israel and the "thought" of the jewish left avails them absolutely nothing, save for dead israelis, dead jews, and continuous and unrelenting attack upon the jews, and upon the west.

this continuing tolerance of attack as preached & practiced by the west has been, is, and continues to be immoral. it establishes one fact, and one fact only, and that is that the political, religious and business leaders of the west do not see themselves as running out of chickens, ... , oh, yes, that would be you, ... , to toss to the ravening alligator's of islam. you are "perishable," and "expendable," in your willing plenty, and in your passive willingness to be gobbled whole.

and, this is indefensible, ... , in our leaders, who should be thrown out, ... , and in us, who deserve nothing better if we are incapable of defending ourselves.

if you are a mind to, go ahead and "defend" passive resistance to evil, with all your might. let us fight. right here. to the death.

I have always admired, for the most part, the Anabaptist community here. They are generous, to a fault, often being on the scenes of disasters all throughout the world with food, clothing, expertise on building, and offering aid and comfort to the suffering of this world. In that, they are truly a light in the darkness and a city set upon a hill. But there are times when the Mennonites and I must part ways.

I cannot accept that doing what the late Mrs. Weaver did was anything but moral cowardice. We are seeing so much of it these days. No. Take that back. We have seen it for more than twenty years now.

And I cannot agree with my Mennonite friends where Israel is concerned. To not defend Israel in the face of such vile, naked and genocidal action is immoral. And worse, they have often sided with the aggressors, believing the lie that they are 'oppressed victims of Israeli occupation. For a community which prides itself on maintaining its historical roots, I am baffled as to how ignorant of history they willingly are. It is unfathomable and sickening. And immoral. Resistance is never futile. Resistance is imperative.