Pacifism is a Naive Belief System

A qualifying distinction before I go into defense and rebuttals is that the debate is not about the morality of violence or murder or death. It is about the effectiveness of a belief system. 1. Even if murder is not immoral, IF we have a course of action where there would be lesser deaths of people on your side and the method would lead to fulfillment of your objectives, it is effective- and definitely not naive. Death is a collateral damage, AS long as the objective of a revolution gets fulfilled, the lesser damage the better.2. Also, we are not arguing that violence can't be effective. The debate is solely about the merits of non violence, and its comparison to non violence. Now onto arguments. R1) The 200 page source was quoted because that explained the different historical examples where Pacifism lead to victory. The modern examples portion was merely page 15-43, of which I quoted further fewer examples. I'm not sure where the ridiculousness comes from, but alright. a) Britishers colonized India because it was an asset to their own country. The 'strength' of Britishers in that sense came from the economic strength India provided to Britain. Gandhi ensured that the India ceased to be just a source of strength for Britain. He asked people to boycott British goods (India became a bad market for British produce), and to resign from government offices, which was a dart direct to the heart of the colonialist. That is exactly what Pacifism is, identifying a strength and neutralizing it so that it ceases to be a strength. Even though they lost in WW2, (along with countless pawns in the system on both sides), they LEFT India because it ceased to be an asset. It ceased to be an asset because Gandhi made sure it ceased to be an asset. India ceased to be an economic asset to Britishers WHILE still being self reliant and not blown up by bombs. Regarding WW2, the contention is discussed in R2 (b). b) Apartheid is actually the perfect example of the victory of a non violent protest over a violent protest because it chronicles the movement from a non violent protest to a violent protest, and after realizing the futility of using arms against the continent’s most powerful military and a highly armed white citizenry fearing a racial war. Violence harmed the movement, as Zunes (1999) observed,( by justifying the repression of all the subsequent resistance efforts. ) [. http://tinyurl.com...;] It was only after the uselessness of a violent protest was recognized that by the early 1980s, the anti-apartheid forces united around a non violent protest which achieved maximum participation, bringing in the whites too along with international pressures on the government. The chronicling is why I chose this example. c) Danish Jews were helped by the Danes in their fight. This is where subversion of moral authority and its impact comes into the picture. The Nazis were NOT powerful in Denmark (Or Norway or Finland) because Danes refused to be ruled by them. There orders weren’t carried out, and there was an open flouting of laws and civil disobedience happening. Only 477 of the 8000 Jews to be captured were captured, and even these were stopped from being sent to Auschwitz. Danes also consolidated their power after successfully thwarting the Nazis and overthrew their government, which again, points out to the similarity in the successful revolutions. (. http://tinyurl.com...;)R2) a) Pro attacks my explanation of power (I didn't exactly set out to define it, but I thought the explanation was pretty clear. ) Joseph Nye, insofar he defines the term, is partially correct. Power IS the ability to affect others to get the outcome one wants, but he then goes out to explain HIS view on how that power can be achieved. That is exactly the contention of the debate. Power, as I explained in the previous round, is not something that can be imposed from above, but is instead a relationship formed by the granting of power from below. And what has been granted can just as surely be withdrawn. Thus the power of any ruler, whether we are talking about a democratically elected official or a tyrant who has seized office, is extremely fragile. His/her power depends on the consent or compliance of the ruled. If the relationship breaks down, the ruler is left with no one to rule. This is starkly visible in the Danish example. b) Moving on, the *source* of the power can be moral, or economic, or a mix of both, true. The American- Japanese war, for example, weakened the economic foundations. It also lead to death and destruction of centuries of generations of Japanese people. Was it the best solution? A pacifist solution would have been based on a nuanced understanding of the specific situation- in order to subvert the source of this economic power. The tools vary from economic sanctions, abolition of trade with a country (IF its significant ), refusal of using products produced (that grant them economic power), mass resignations, trade unions, etc. Achieving objective without the collateral damage. Secondly, Pro frames his argument as if to laud the war, as if the war helped the people/ disadvantaged and thus was acceptable. The deaths were acceptable in the *context* of the war- both of them agreed to play a game and Japan lost. That agreement to the game is the point of contention, however. The contention is- *would* the world have it better if the individual countries had responded to the warsin a different way? The WW started because of assassination of an Austrian archduke and his wife by Bosnian revolutionary. Notice how one small incident, and the declaration of war over war by countries so thoroughly messed up generations after generations. War breeds war. Peace breeds solution. R3) 1. I don't think Con really understood this point. Why would they carry out the threat? Because they believe the threat would scare people. What if it doesn't? What if they showed through active revolution that they don't fear the government. Machine guns are powerless against people protesting from their homes, for example. You don't need to walk into a grenade mine to herald a non violent revolution was the point of the example. That is subversion of their power. 2. The examples depict that cases where the government didn’t employ force, because it was too costly for them to. For example, The American colonies already had largely won their independence from Great Britain before there was violence in 1775. (. http://tinyurl.com... ,pg 7-9) Even Michael Stratford agrees with this. The war, in fact, postponed the independence rather than speeding it up. 3. All I'm talking about is *definitely* not setting a precedent. I'm talking about legitimacy. If people kill government forces, government can, within its power, respond by force. It's legitimate. They have *no other option*. That's what happened back when apartheid revolution occurred, for example. The government is usually better at it. I never conceded that I'd lose the moral argument- I believe morals are not the appropriate lens to view Pacifism. When we're talking of efficiency, I believe I speak for most people when they say they'd like to see fulfillment of their objectives with fewer deaths. Pacifism does that. That's efficiency. And that should be the parameter to jude. The problem with violence begets violence is that it focuses the revolution around violence, rather than the objective, as was demonstrated in the refugee example. Of course I'm not advocating mass suicide with my ideology- which I believe I addressed in C3(1). There are better ways to carry out a non violent protest. 4) I think I already challenged Pro's definition of violence as being too broad. What violence entails in Pacifism is any action carried out with the intention of killing/ injuring. aka taking up weapons and going on a rampage. That excludes a lot of people. Notice that by sanctions/ mass resignations, the people according to Pro's definition, are being violent. However, that is the fault of the definition, in the context of Pacifism. R4) a) I do not see how bringing in someone's definition of power addresses the chart. The entire contention is that it IS possible to subdue a power by cutting off his sources. Bin Laden, for example, relied on moral power, by recruiting naive individuals through his hate speech. Much like Nazis. 'Soft power' worked in Denmark, Finland and Bulgaria. Laden loses power as soon as he loses his moral upper ground. He gains power as he legitimizes force. And killing his people does that. That is exactly what people like him thrive on. b) True. However, I don't see how his economic poweress affects the resolution. The very reason Hitler *could* commit the atrocities was because he was given the power in form of validation from the public. Hitler had a moral hold over the populace. Had this been cut off, like what happened in Denmark he’d be powerless. What was needed was an effective persuasion of the general public towards the moral cause- something that would have been possible only through a non violent protest. R5) I really don't see how. Just because our existence is violent according to the vague definition Pro provided, it doesn't mean that every form of violence is effective. We are refusing to adopt violent practices that affect the revolution negatively. R6)That is a rather specific claim, but okay. I did keep it in mind and professed the substitute strategy. Of asking help from the third party- people outside their little bubble. That is how Pacifist organizations have routinely helped people- and Pro largely drops the rather detailed analysis of the situation I gave. I would prefer him to respond to that in the next round. Also he drops the contention of the impact of war on the people- which is the 'realist solution'. He still has to prove how its better than Pacifist solution. Over to Pro :)