Torturing terrorists and hitting Nazis

Torturing terrorists and hitting Nazis January 28, 2017

CC0 Public Domain
Image CC0 Public Domain

 

Quotable words from a Facebook friend, applicable whenever we find ourselves cheering on violence as an antidote to fear, whether it is a blow to the head of a White Nationalist, or the waterboarding of a suspected terrorist:

 

It’s an expression of power and violence, not resistance borne of love. It is not the reluctant use of force when all else has been exhausted; it is a delight in one’s own capacity for violence, one’s own proud refusal to love an enemy. Ends don’t justify means, let alone delighting in injurious means. This all comes straight from hell. These are all the big lies.

I want to write more about this, particularly about the question of whether ideals still have a place in the conversation when talking about participants in movements that advocate for violence. I have too many thoughts on the topic to focus in, and there is so much else that calls for commentary. For now, another couple of quotes to ponder.

Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe.  – John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667

“We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood,the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence of Love


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