"One man may not kill. If he kills a fellow-creature, he is a murderer. If two, ten, a hundred men do so, they, too, are murderers. But a government or a nation may kill as many men as it chooses, and that will not be murder, but a great and noble action. Only gather the people together on a large scale, and a battle of ten thousand men becomes an innocent action. But precisely how many people must there be to make it so?—that is the question. One man cannot plunder and pillage, but a whole nation can. But precisely how many are needed to make it permissible? Why is it that one man, ten, a hundred, may not break the law of God, but a great number may?"
The quote above is from Leo Tolstoy's book "The Kingdom of God is Within You" First Edition 1894. Tolstoy is quoting a pamphlet written by the American Adin Ballou an American proponent of Christian nonresistance, Christian anarchism, and Christian socialism. Adin Ballou was also an abolitionist and the founder of Hopedale Community. Adin Ballou and William Lloyd Garrison were leaders in the Christian non-resistance movement, which rejected war, capital punishment, and all violent government action. They influenced later champions of non-resistance and nonviolence - Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
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As heartbreaking as it is that the state of Israel has killed over 20,000 children in the Gaza Strip genocide the United States war machine killed 170 people in an Iranian girl's school most of them children. The weapon used was the Tomahawk missile. In 2016, the US Department of Defense purchased 149 Tomahawk Block IV missiles for $202.3 million. They are made by Raytheon who bribed U.S. politicians with $1,439,000 in 2021, the campaign donations going equally to corporation-owned Democrats and Republicans. With over a trillion dollars in unaudited taxpayer funds going to the Pentagon annually, it should not be surprising that the U.S. wants to use their deadly war toys and buy more. It's good for shareholders and CEO's - Raytheon stock is up 54% over the last year. The Pentagon has money to burn baby including a $98,329 Steinway & Sons grand piano for the Air Force chief of staff’s home.
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Happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow.
Hearing this Irish MP talk makes me proud of my Irish heritage.
Before giving our support to a cause, we should ask ourselves how many innocent children have to die to fulfil someone's political and economic goals. One? ten? 150? 20,000?
