Gun Control – Part 2: Moral Disarmament
Recalling the pacifist movement in France between WWI and WWII, Thomas Sowell in Intellectuals and Society describes how teachers’ unions in France worked toward the “moral disarmament” of students by rewriting textbooks. By emphasizing being “citizens of the world” over patriotism and fighting for one’s country, they believed that a next generation of pacifists would be the key to world peace.
The French teachers’ unions were more successful than they could have imagined, yet the outcome was the opposite of their expectations. Whereas in WWI the French had fought the Germans tooth and nail for four long years, in WWII despite being militarily primed they folded in six weeks. Hitler, who invaded France even sooner than his generals recommended, had predicted their collapse because he correctly surmised that the French lacked the fortitude to stop him.
Sowell goes on to describe numerous intellectuals who have celebrated pacifism despite the contrary reality of doing so. In advocating that Britain reduce is armed forces, famous atheist Bertrand Russell stated,
“…if we had neither armaments nor Empire, foreign states would let us alone. If they did not, we should have to yield without fighting.”
He further reasoned that if you declare yourself defenseless,
“…other people, having no longer any reason to fear you, will cease to hate you, and will lose all incentive to attack you.”
French socialist party head and subsequent premier, Leon Blume, likewise believed that if a nation disarmed, it didn’t incur any more risk because the “moral prestige” it would acquire and the “force of its example would induce all other states to follow.”
Of course history has proven the colossal wrongheadedness of such thinking that relies on a presumed basic goodness of mankind rather than its fallen nature, yet progressive mouthpieces and intellectuals persist in using the same theories to advocate gun control today (confirming Rom. 1:21).
In a Dec. 24 CNN interview regarding the Newtown school shooting, CODEPINK co-director Medea Benjamin rejected the suggestion of armed security in schools but instead called for “conflict resolution,” “school nurses,” and “guidance counselors” to thwart potential violence. Of course such support services are necessary (does she think they disappeared?), but would sitting down for nice heart-to-heart chat with Adam Lanza have precluded his rampage? His obvious mental derangement and/or evil disposition had ruled out that possibility long ago as his mother’s plans to institutionalize him attest. Once reasoning and counseling are no longer options and if guns are prohibited, what should we then use, harsh language?
The presence of evil is part of the fallen human condition and the secular progressive worldview has been woefully inadequate in acknowledging, assessing, and resisting it. Unless we recognize the difference between defense and aggression and have the guts to embrace the former, we will reap the consequences of the later.
Next time: Despite the Evidence