Everyday on my commute to and from work on 302, I am forced by geography to pass the Gunsmith's of Maine gunshop. The very fact that this place exists on the same planet as me is offensive enough. But the part that really gets me is that the owner of this shop is a card carrying Dittohead. How do I know, you ask? Am I a secret ammo fancier, you ask? uuummm...no. Actually this nutjob is the place where my dedication to Freedom of Speech runs head on into my sense of morality. He has a big sign out in front of his shop right by the road. One of those signs that you can take letters and spell things out. And instead of putting up his Lethal Weapon Special of the Week on this sign he puts up the Rushism of the week. I know. Just don't read it. Just ignore it. Just pretend it isn't even there. I don't know why I can't. It just puts me in a foul mood for the rest of the drive in to work. I harbor shameful fantasies of setting off a roman candle in the place and watching the fireworks that ensue.
Which brings me to the reason I am writing about this. There have been maybe 3 times in the 5 years I have driven past this sign where I have actually said, much to my chagrin, ok, I can see where he is coming from on that. Well this week, I didn't quite get that far but it did make me think. The big sign said "According to liberals, defending yourself promotes violence". I didn't really know what to do with that one for a while. In fact, I'm still not quite sure. I have a lot of meditating to do. Now for some of my fellow pacifists, this may be one of those no brainers. But I was raised by a violent, redneck bigot. There is still a little voice in the back of my head that says if someone is beating the crap out of you, you have every right to beat him back. If someone is raping and murdering your kid, you wouldn't think twice about killing that guy.
When I used to work with mentally ill adults and young adults they made us go through Mandt training. Which is supposed to be "Passive Restraint". It has 4 levels of "methods of redirection" from verbal to physical. You're supposed to start with verbal de-escalation and then you move through getting inside their "space" to physically restraining them. We were supposed to only use the physical restraint as a last resort if they were physically harming themselves or others. There is another school of thought in the mental health field that stems from a quote by Maslow "If your only tool is a hammer, you see every problem as a nail." In other words, if all you know how to do is restraint, passive or otherwise, you won't try to look for other methods of dealing with a situation. Now Ghandi and King were both proponents of "Passive Resistance". I wasn't around for either of those movements. But I can imagine that mothers watched their children beaten or killed and cried in anguish but stayed strong because there was a cause involved. Something that they knew was more important than the single lives they had brought into the world, however precious that life was to them. They had a tangible goal they were working toward. A prize to keep their eyes on, so to speak.
But is pacifism a goal in and of itself? Is it something worth sacrificing your children for? When it comes to war I can say unequivocally yes! War is never an answer to anything. Killing is wrong, all life is precious. Also for capital punishment. Absolutely it's wrong. Killing is wrong, all life is precious. And I can say that if someone was beating the crap out of me, I certainly wouldn't be thinking of anything but trying to get away or getting him to stop. Would I use passive restraint? Yes, because you can't talk to someone when they are in a frenzy of beating on you. But in the case of me walking into my kids room and seeing some guy raping and murdering them, can I say I wouldn't put a Louisville Slugger up side his head? Or take a kitchen knife to his hamstring? Goddess I wish I could say I wouldn't but I just don't know.
Which brings us back to the sign. Does defending yourself promote violence? The short answer would probably be yes. You're only using the hammer instead of looking at the problem as something other than a nail. I hope I am raising my kids to not have these little voices in the back of their heads. I hope they will be able to look at these things without having the violent, redneck, bigot filter applied to them. I have a long way to go before I can be the kind of person that pacifism comes easily to in all situations. But I'm working on it.
at 3:49 PM :: ~#~
