lbo-talk-digest V1 #4326

[Gordon Fitch]

LeoCasey at aol.com:
> What you are saying here is that when faced with a choice of take life or 
> have your life and the lives of your loved ones be taken, a choice of take 
> life or be enslaved, the principle of take no life must win out. I have no 
> objection to you holding to such a belief for yourself, on a purely 
> individual basis, but I do not believe that it can successfully be put forth 
> as an universal rule which others must accept. In my early political days on 
> the Catholic Left, I held essentially that position, but only as a rule for 
> myself and for similar like minded pacifists. The Jews of the Warsaw ghetto 
> had every right to resist and kill the Nazis who came to kill them. Spartacus 
> had every right to kill the Romans who came to kill him and reenslave his 
> followers. Toussaint had every right to kill the French who came to kill him 
> and reenslave the Haitians... and so on. The alternative you pose is to 
> accept slavery and/or death. If you want a philosophical basis for this, 
> check Hegel's Phenomenology passage on lordship and bondage. Or remember 
> Gandhi's addage, it is better to resist violently, than to not resist at all. 

However, there is a considerable gap between resisting or
evading immediate attack, and planning war.  I am surprised
you did not run across this important distinction while you
were running around the Mahatma's neighborhood.  People
interested in _ahimsa_, non-violence, give a lot of thought
to such things -- usually.

By the way, having "a right" to kill people, or to do anything
else, introduces a whole new kettle of fish, the idea or issue
of transcendental rights.  (Surely no sublunary entity issued
Spartacus any rights: if he had any, they came from beyond.)
I don't know if you want to introduce it, since it is
difficult to argue conclusively about the gods or the
higher realms.  But perhaps one is forced to try.