I made this screen cap on May 9. It caught my attention because at first I thought it was Anna Frank and when I found out it was not, I had to Google who Sophie Scholl was and why it was so important. Mind you, I have been a WWII buff since my early teens and I had never heard of her. Then again the information still coming out of that era is mind-boggling.
Sophie Scholl was a member of the German resistance during the Nazi era (stop laughing, it gets better.) Not only Resistance but Pacifist, Non-Violence resistance, in a country that had a government with no morals. Her group was called the White Rose and they lasted about six moths before she ended with her neck in the guillotine.
Accomplishments by her and the rest of the White Rose organization? Zilch, nada, kaka, bupkis, etc.
The Germans were disarmed by the time Sophie got the bug of non-violent resistance. And a very efficient Gestapo getting rid of undesirables, wrong-thinkers and rebel-rousers made for a very “stable” and “peaceful” Germany. Pacifist at best are only accomplices of the powers that be because they only seek peace for peace sake’s and they are willing to forego Freedom to achieve it. Peace movements only work against a government that has some semblance of morality of fears punishment. A government that expects neither, can not only ignore Pacifists but actually get medieval on their asses.
“Gandhi and Stalin.” “What?” John asked. “I used to tell Monica that when we’d get into politics. She’d always talk about how great Gandhi was. I’d tell her the only reason Gandhi survived after his first protest was that he was dealing with the Brits. If Stalin had been running India, he’d of been dead in a second, his name forgotten.”
One Second After by William R. Forstchen.
If peaceful marches and sit-ins would work, Venezuela would be a free country by now. But the Socialist Regime has safely ignored the “Non-Violent and Peaceful Demonstrations” for close to a decade now. He is still in power and not really in any danger from outside forces to lose the presidency.
And Venezuela is only the latest example of the failed Pacifism Fashion. In my opinion, Pacifists fall in two categories: Agent Provocateurs for a group seeking power or Useful Assholes (the old soviet term of Useful Idiots is too benign) that are unknowingly helping a sinister group achieve power.
The fight against Tyranny is bloody and people will die. But Pacifism and has two unacceptable results: A very high body count and a total lack of achieving Freedom. Peace however is achieved, slaves do not get to protest or have opinions and therefore are very quiet.
I think Patton was a skosh more effective that Sophie against the Nazi evil. But that is just my opinion.
Read an alt. history story where the Germans had managed to push through the Middle East and take India. It ended exactly as the above.
It’s also why I like our current SoD.
Agreed. I view pacifists as cowards and the enemy from a slightly different view.
At the macro level their stance allows a government to be tyrannical. Epic moral failure.
This is crucial…
At the micro and personal level nearly all of them would use a weapon to defend themselves to save their own skin despite their stated opposition to use of force.
Here is the theoretical construct. The so-called pacifist, a loaded gun near them, and a murderous, aggressive, crazy SOB locked in a room with them. I bet 99% of the time they emerge with a smoking sidearm. The dead 1% were so stupid or programmed into denial as to be suicidal. If they still claim they would not kill on their own behalf, for those in mortal peril substitute in their kids, their pets, or the former POTUS they worship and they will empty the magazine with the last one a coup de grace. Yes, they are hypocrites.
Now tacking towards ultimate morality…
Sure plenty of Christians submitted to governmental persecution and death as martyrs to advance the Kingdom, but a bunch also fought against evil to destroy it. Which one is more effective in the end?
I can respect and in some cases admire people, who based on an their belief in a higher moral authority, make an individual commitment not to harm or kill others. However, I cannot stand people who insist on using the power of the state to impose their beliefs on society and thus deny my right to defend myself, and my family. The hypocrisy of demanding the state use the weapons they despise to force me to surrender my own weapons for no other cause than the fact that I have them seems lost on these “pacifists.”
On a similar note, when I hear some do-gooder pacifist state that “violence never solves anything” I remind them of Carthage, Slavery in the US, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, etc. all solved rather effectively by the overwhelming, and unremitting application of extreme violence.
I’ve heard of White Rose before, but they were so ineffective at anything besides getting themselves murdered by the Gestapo that they’re just a footnote of a footnote in history.
Pacifism worked for Gandhi because the British wouldn’t cross certain lines, and would rather lose India than be a party to genocide. The Nazis didn’t have those scruples.
Personally, I’m a very pacifistic person. Until you fuck with me or my family.
It’s been noted before that if India had been a German (or, God forbid, a Belgian) colony Ghandi and all his supporters would’ve been a footnote. Nonviolence only works against the civilized; and there are certain people for whom the response to a line like “What are you gonna do? You can’t kill all of us!” is a firm, “Sure I can.”
The documentary “The World at War” had an interview with Emmi Bonhoeffer where she was fruitlessly trying to tell her neighbors about the atrocities committed against the Jews. Her husband Klaus (brother of Dietrich) told her what she was doing was useless- to kill a snake, you don’t strike at the tail, but at the head.