Those sweet little Quakers
I'm impressed with how a little oatmeal advertising and some liberal mythology have gone a long way toward forging a good public perception of Quakers. Maybe it is their name, too: Quakers, ooooh sounds so sweet. Friends, awww.
But now, in point of fact, they are today a socialist organization, favoring government activism, over individualism. I'm amazed that, given all the evidence to the contrary, there is still one human being on earth who thinks these massive social programs work.
My ancestor was a Quaker, until he quit, joined the Union army, and actually did something to free the slaves. He laid down his life to fight the slavers. What have the Quakers done lately? One of my correspondents says they have planted trees! Bully.
'Pacifism" is a conceit peculiar to people who are not oppressed and works best with people who aren't actually oppressors. I'm thinking here in particular of Gandhi and the British. Worked well with the well-meaning Brits. Now imagine Idi Amin in charge. Idi would probably have fattened Gandhi up before eating him but Saddam would have used him for target practice.
As Kevin Willis notes in his comments, Christianity has been misused by liberals attempting to portray Christ as a social worker. A liberal friend of mine, who by the way IS a social worker, once told me that the meaning of Christianity is "to serve."
Sorry. That's not it. Christ didn't spend all his time serving. Indeed, He even refused to spend His money on the poor as Judas suggested because He, Christ, knew that you can't buy people out of poverty (something liberals still don't see).
Christ came for one reason: That YOU should find salvation through him. Repent, confess, be saved.
As Kevin Willis points out, Christ did not organize big food programs, or passive resistance campaigns. No, He called the individual to account.
But now, in point of fact, they are today a socialist organization, favoring government activism, over individualism. I'm amazed that, given all the evidence to the contrary, there is still one human being on earth who thinks these massive social programs work.
My ancestor was a Quaker, until he quit, joined the Union army, and actually did something to free the slaves. He laid down his life to fight the slavers. What have the Quakers done lately? One of my correspondents says they have planted trees! Bully.
'Pacifism" is a conceit peculiar to people who are not oppressed and works best with people who aren't actually oppressors. I'm thinking here in particular of Gandhi and the British. Worked well with the well-meaning Brits. Now imagine Idi Amin in charge. Idi would probably have fattened Gandhi up before eating him but Saddam would have used him for target practice.
As Kevin Willis notes in his comments, Christianity has been misused by liberals attempting to portray Christ as a social worker. A liberal friend of mine, who by the way IS a social worker, once told me that the meaning of Christianity is "to serve."
Sorry. That's not it. Christ didn't spend all his time serving. Indeed, He even refused to spend His money on the poor as Judas suggested because He, Christ, knew that you can't buy people out of poverty (something liberals still don't see).
Christ came for one reason: That YOU should find salvation through him. Repent, confess, be saved.
As Kevin Willis points out, Christ did not organize big food programs, or passive resistance campaigns. No, He called the individual to account.
posted by Walker at 8:44 AM
7 Comments:
Just a comment about the only Quaker I ever knew. At my advanced age, I had a number of friends who were WWII combat vets.
One froze his feet in the Battle of the Bulge, one carried shrapnel from Bouganville, one was haunted by the liberation of Ohrdurf death camp, another suffered malarial attacks from Guadalcanal..there are more. But in that context, the Quaker was of that generation.
He was my History prof, a very thin white-haired man, arthritic
pale and gentle. I later found that he had been jailed during
WWII, he could not kill, he could not fight, he could not disobey any ot the ten commandments. But
it was his fight too and he hated Nazis. So he volunteered for starvation experiments. The US
Army monitored his group at 900 cals a day. He lasted a almost a
year until his health had been permanently ruined. He served his country-he honored his faith and I was priveledged to be his pupil.
The Ten Commandments are not a suicide pact between Christians and the rest of the world.
The Quaker you knew sacrificed himself, but he didn't help fight nazis. The men who went out and hurt their hearts and bodies in combat did that.
Now, mine are arguments that Quakers have heard since the beginning of Quakerism. You might think it noble that Quakers have resisted these arguments and stayed pacifist. But I do not and, truly, neither does the world. Quakers used to account for one in every four people in the U.S. Their numbers are reduced today to just a handful of college professors and assorted socialists and there is a reason for that.
They don't fight evil. You might think they are cute like a puppy but they won't do a thing for you when the Muslims come for you. Well, actually, when they come for me. I'm a woman so they will come for me and you and the rest of the pacifist idiots will be talking about how wise you are while I'm wearing a f*king veil.
No thanks.
Huh, small wonder the Puritans executed them, the bounders!
Do you suppose the early Christian
martyrs, who refused service in the Roman army were considered pacifist? The history of Christianity is too long and complex to single out any for
internecine invective. One wonders why He is sometimes referred to as the Prince of Peace.
I agree, W., that certain societies handle pacifists in short order with no remorse, and it would take either great courage or real stupidity to be one. But,
I think we can tolerate a few Quakers. As for you wearing a f*king veil, my bet is you will meet them with a f*king gun!
Tolerance is not my problem, bb. Romanticizing them is.
Quakers are NOT 'the way Christians should be'.
Quakers have always accepted injustice, slavery, and oppression and, indeed, today they actually advocate full scale socialism.
It is absurd to pretend that pacifism has ever stopped a dictator bent on dictating. It never has. It never will.
Now you might think Quaker pacifists and socialists (but I repeat myself) are heartwarming to watch, but please don't pedal the idea to me that they do anything meaningful. I don't think they are cute like puppies.
And, btw, my gun won't stop the muslims. Only righteous people committed to stopping evil by any means will stop the Muslims.
If it was up to the Quakers, we would all be facing Mecca seven times a day. So, no, I don't think they are noble but, unlike Muslims, I tolerate the Quakers.
I tolerate the Quakers too, Walker, but I don't admire anyone who won't stand up for themselves or their families. I do have a serious problem finding anything noble in that.
I kind of liked the story of the kid that was hit up the side of the head by a bully. He turned his head so the other side of his face was toward the bully. The bully asked what he was doing and the kid said "my religion says I'm to turn the other cheek". The bully smiles and draws back to hit him again when the kid says "but be warned, that's where the instructions end."
Man, I did say a lot of great stuff, didn't I?
Walker writes: Quakers have always accepted injustice, slavery, and oppression and, indeed, today they actually advocate full scale socialism.
And it's worth noting that socialism is, functionally, institutionalized injustice--because in the utopian vision of socialism, the ends always justifies the means. And that isn't just because the socialist/communist state simply hasn't been done "right" yet: it has been done exactly right, because the institutionalization of injustice and inhumanity that we've seen in the Soviet Union, Vietnam, North Korea, China, Cuba, and see even now in Latin America is an inherent, indispensable part of socialism in practice. Just as economic inequality is inherent in capitalism and the free market, and bad leadership and nepotism will be inherent flaws in democracies, so political prisoners and wholesale slaughter--in addition to general political oppression and mass starvation--are features of socialism in action.
It's always fascinating to me how liberals who can easily see the natural "flaws" inherent to capitalism, the free market, and liberty cannot see that the repeated failures of socialism are natural flaws inherent to that system. But I digress.
The larger point is that Quakers, to the degree they agitate for socialism, are supporting current and unquestionably future oppression and brutality and despotism to that same degree.
They may not themselves raise a hand in violence, they may not themselves pull a trigger, put the generous pat on the back they give themselves for their pacifism is undeserved, as one of the natural consequences of their pacifism and their socialism is that they support and even actively agitate for systems that will not be (or are currently not) controlled or run by Quakers, and will be heartless, brutal, oppressive, violent and--like most socialist states--ban (or have banned) religion and persecute Christians. One might argue that Pontius Pilat and Herod make strange bedfellows for modern-day followers of Christ. But, that's up to them.
I'm entirely tolerant of Quakers, but I do not see them as examples to be followed, Christian or otherwise, and they certainly don't need any big pats of their back for their noble pacfisim. Especially from themselves.
George Orwell described pacifism best when he said: "Pacifists are inherently pro-fascist."
One could just easily say that pacifists are inherently nihlist. When you do not believe there is anything worth fighting for, you do not truly believe there is anything worth living for. You do not truly believe anything has any true worth at all.
So I'm all for the Quakers doing their Quaker thing, just like I'm all for the nihilists doing their nihilism thing. But neither are examples, to me, and neither deserve praise from my vantage point.
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