All I did was agree with Ann Coulter...

A reader called BP commented on my 04/22/2005 entry. Here’s my response to BP, (Please note, I have rearranged BP's comment to make response easier, to read his posting in its entirety follow the title link):

BP: Your logic is lacking. I don't have to count the number of times that Christians have killed people, even though one of the stronger doctrines is "turn the other cheek".

QC: Oh you are so, so right BP. Christians did commit some horrible deeds in the past, and there are some who profess belief in Christ even today that are capable of atrocities. They must be met with as fierce a resistance as the Islamo-Fascists.

However, please name for me the last Christian that strapped explosives to his/her body and homicide bombed a mosque, or restaurant, or wedding reception. Who was the last Christian to fly a hijacked plane full of innocents into a building filled with same. Whatever Christians may have done in the past, islamo-fascism is a threat today, in the here and now. It is a bloodthirsty dogma with adherents that will not hesitate to kill even a self-deprecating western pacifist like yourself, who humbly accepts the blame for all the "evils" that liberty, justice, democracy, and capitalism have wrought in the world. After all, how dare we Americans be prosperous and successful; it makes the third world (mired in its oligarchies, dictatorships and brutish customs) look bad!

Oh, and please don’t use Timothy McVeigh or Eric Robert Rudolph as your example of the good little Christ centered straight white male killer. While they may have professed to be Christians, they never claimed religion as a primary motivation.

BP: In fact, going and violently "fixing" things is virtually guaranteed to make the problem worse.

You can't even use "The Ends Justify the Means", because no violent campaigns have ever actually solved a cultural problem. But, then, you'd probably rather call it the War on Terrorism. I disagree with the entire premise.

QC: You’re absolutely right BP. War is never the answer and can never solve any problem. Okay it did end slavery, fascism, Nazism, Communism, the Taliban horrors, Baath Socialism, and freed Kuwait and South Korea from armed invaders. But other than that you’re right, war is useless.

Look, is war ever desirable? No, never. But sometimes the evil in the world forces a response we would not choose on our own. Remember, there is a difference between “force” and “violence”. Force should be applied judiciously with a prudent aim of mitigating destruction and injury, while violence is something which is applied indiscriminately without regard to destruction or injury*. Those of us who wish to fight the terrorist tactic of the islamo-fascists most definitely advocate the use of force. Remember, for a pacifistic philosophy to be sensible, it must be able to understand and accept the difference between force, which can be justified and violence which never is. Some greater men than I have said:

Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.
- George Orwell, writing about pacifists in Britain during 1942

The Bible is clear here: I am to love my neighbor as myself, in the manner needed, in a practical way, in the midst of the fallen world, at my particular point of history. This is why I am not a pacifist. Pacifism in this poor world in which we live - this lost world - means that we desert the people who need our greatest help.
- Francis Schaeffer

If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.
- George Washington

The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.
- General George S. Patton

BP: Plenty of evidence that our own attitudes can have an affect on our own level of violence here at home (for instance, our approach toward gay issues).

QC: I am concerned about gay rights and violence against gay individuals. And I believe that equality will be achieved, even though the struggle for it may seem terribly hard, bitter, and fruitless at times. Know this: America always does the right thing in the end. Always. And for now I’d rather be a gay man living in the USA where I am not allowed to marry, than be a gay man living in a primitive culture ruled by un-yielding sharia law that would behead me for even existing.

Fighting against hate and bigotry everywhere ultimately helps secure peace & liberty at home.

(* This is a paraphrase of a quote I read elsewhere - I just can't remember at the moment. If I haven't mangled it so badly its unrecognizable, someone let me know and I'll fix it and credit the author by name -- QC).