Wake, party, what’s the difference? Or are you saying that you oppose the mourning of American dead in Iraq, people who died implementing a policy you and I both agreed was the correct thing to do?

Mourning? Gimme a break, Andrew. You can't possibly be that naive. These people are not in mourning, they are using our dead for propaganda in support of positions that 99% of our combat soldiers despise.

Well, when the clock strikes 2000, why don’t you mourn? Indeed, why don’t you get together a mourning party? I am dead serious about this. Just because it’s being organized for one reason, doesn’t mean you can’t use it for another...

1. I think mourning is private, for families and friends. It is utterly different from what the nation does, which is to accept, as honored sacrifices, the deaths of our troops.

2. A wise person will have nothing to do with these festivities, even peripherally, because one would become entangled with the lies and deceptions that are at the heart of the "anti-war' movement. Faux mourning, faux patriotism, faux support-the-troops while defaming them, the lies about 100,000 dead and torture and war profiteering. The hatred for all things noble and honorable. These people are evil, and one should not even walk parallel to them.

3. If I were to commemorate our war dead, it would be in a form that those around me would not find acceptable, since I think the Iraq Campaign, and the War on Terror as a whole are campaigns of liberation to rival any in history, and that President Bush is, in this, another Epaminondas, and deserves to be treated as a hero. And the worms who have been attacking and hindering him are guilty of something close to treason, and, even worse, of cold-hearted peevishness...any party I held would be sparsely attended, to say the least...

And some of us take Memorial Day seriously and mourn our war dead then.

Some of us have to work memorial day.

This post is both utterly despicable, and quite funny.

Despicable because it accuses the Quakers--the Quakers, for God's sake--of "planning to PARTY when American deaths in Iraq hit 2,000." We do not celebrate the death of any human being, let alone American men and women whose sacrifice we honor even though we disagree with the path they have chosen.

Did you even bother to go the the AFSC website to see what was actually planned, or did you just run baying after the bandwagon with your tongue lolling out like the rest of those right-wing hate-mongers? If you had bothered to read about AFSC's plans, you would have seen the following description: "Events to mark the 2,000th reported U.S. military death will range from candlelight vigils to public actions that illustrate the size of the death toll." Yeah, party on, dude.

And it's funny because you describe the Quakers as "fake pacifists." (We'll leave aside the incoherent double-negative of "playing at being fake-pacifist, fake-leftist, anti-Americans," which if taken literally would totally vitiate what you were trying to say.) Quakers are fake pacifists? You are talking about the most consistent witness to non-violence one could imagine. For 350 years we have stood like a rock in resistance to war and violence, faithful to what the Inward Light of Christ and His words recorded in the gospels tell us.

Finally, I suggest you read a little bit about the Quakers before you indulge in more monkeyish feces-flinging like this statement:

"You only find "pacifists" in parts of the world where they are protected by tough men wielding deadly force."

Quakers may be peaceful, but they're not cowards. Like Gandhi, they know you can make a pacifist fomr a warrior more easily that from a coward.

Go read about the Friends Ambulance Unit in WWI and WWII. Go read about the three Friends in Gestapo headquarters just after Krystallnacht, reminding the Nazis of the Quakerspeisung (scroll down about halfway), which saved the lives of thousands of German children after WWI. (They gained permission to undertake relief efforts and expedited emigration for the Jews of Germany, but the governments of the West refused to cooperate with the latter.) Go read about the Quakers' indefatigable efforts against slavery, which was outlawed among Friends even before this country became a nation, and our role in the Underground Railway and the danger those Quaker men and women faced. All of that was motivated by the same belief--that there is "that of God" in every man--that underlies our testimony against violence, a testimony undertaken even in the face of great danger.

Now I don't know if I have that kind of courage myself, as I'm only a beginner in Quakerism, and my dedication to non-violence is still shaky. But I know personally, and you could have met Saturday before last at our party, Quakers with just that sort of courage. I have never known finer people in my life. They don't deserve this kind of calumny. You should be ashamed.

I am perfectly aware of things like the splendid courage of the AFS men in WWII, I've heard of some of those other deeds of Quakers, too. But all your examples are all in the PAST; they peter out with the 1940's.

And hmm, there is something else that shows a similar pattern in time. I like to give credit where it's due, and though I don't agree with them, the international leftist movements have, in the PAST, fought bravely to overthrow fascist dictators, and to spread democracy...but, funny thing, that too fizzled out not long after the 1940's. They don't do that anymore.

Countries too. The kind of places where you find parties called "Social Democrats," and "Christian Democrats." They used to be friends of democracy, and were willing to stand up to Communist threats. They had ideals and dreams, coming out of WWII in the 40's and 50's.. Not any longer.

We live in an age of big changes. Lots of things are not what they used to be. Lots of people coast along on the momentum of past achievements, and try to ignore change. New generations come along, and fill their elders' shoes, and say, "Nothing's changed." But everything is changed, and the old heroes have faded away.

I could be wrong. I'd LOVE to see evidence that I am wrong. But there is a pattern of change I see in almost all institutions that are not explicitly conservative. A drift into a vague leftism that is mostly a hatred of change, (symbolized, as change always is, by Americans and Jews, with President Bush recently added on). I think that's the Quakers too.

We could be making this comment-exchange about a thousand different institutions or groups. You might be calling me despicable for criticizing San Francisco, because it rose so bravely from the 'Quake and sent so many sons to fight in WWII. But that city is GONE, though the buildings remain. Now SF won't take one of America's most famous battleships as a museum!

I think your Quakers are gone. (Again I'd love to see evidence that I'm wrong.) Those astonishingly brave AFS men who carried the wounded in WWII are gone. Those guys LOVED America, and flew our flag with pride, and hated the tyrannies we were fighting. They didn't believe in using violence, but they were thrilled to help bring freedom and democracy to the oppressed. And if they were around today they would not have fought in Iraq, or Afghanistan, but they would have supported the cause of freedom, and pitched in to help with reconstruction and elections, and been overjoyed to see Saddam fall, and deeply grieved as they helped the Iraqi people dig the hundreds of thousands of victims out of the mass graves. They would have rejoiced at the splendid triumphs of the recent Iraqi and Afghan elections, and the steady progress those countries are making. They were warm-hearted for America. I remember a WWII memoir saying they were the most popular guys in the Army.

They were the OPPOSITE of what we have now.

Now we have fake pacifists. Fake because their faith has been subsumed into the leftish zeitgeist, and is always deployed to hinder America and her allies, or Israel. Hey, maybe I'm wrong. Show me I'm wrong! Go to your next vigil carrying a sign that reads "No to Jihad." Or "Stop Palestinian Murder of Israeli Children." Or "Stop Ba'athist Terrorists." Or "End North Korean Genocide." Those should be popular causes, right? Among pacifists, right? Or, why don't you point out to your friends that their "100,000 killed in Iraq" number is a hateful anti-American lie that has been thoroughly debunked?

And the leftists are fake now too. They used to believe in stuff, and fight for it. Socialism. Marxism. The Revolution. Comrade Stalin. Power to the People. Now they are not FOR anything, just against stuff. And that's exactly where you are. I have no doubt your Quaker friends are splendid people, and brave. As are you. Braver than me, I'd guess. But also, you are all afraid. That's my theory, anyway. Afraid of change. And that's why everything we hear from you is what you DON'T like.

There are bad changes happening in the world, but also thrilling and marvelous ones. But you don't seem to be able to see them, or rejoice in them.

Quakers here and abroad are addressing all manner of causes, and certainly many of the ones you mentioned. Google "quakers and north korea" and see what the AFSC is doing there. A analogous search will show you what we're doing in Israel, working with peace activists on both sides. Quakers would still be in the military too, as non-combatants, but since we no longer have a draft, I don't believe the military will take us, except perhaps as chaplains (and a Quaker chaplain would be a fairly subversive presence in the military, so I doubt even there). But I could be wrong about that.

(BTW, for a nuanced approach to Quaker pacificsm, read the essay at http://www.aetheling.com/essays/pacifism.htm)

But regardless of the cause we address, we will not do so violently, as that is not what the Inward Light, the Christ within, calls us to, nor is it in accord with his plain commandments as recorded in the Gospels, despite all the casuistic reasoning to the contrary that has filled countless books and sermons since the co-optation of the church by the state under Constantine.

In the words of the AFSC mission statement, "We seek to understand and address the root causes of poverty, injustice, and war. We hope to act with courage and vision in taking initiatives that may not be popular.

We are called to confront, nonviolently, powerful institutions of violence, evil, oppression, and injustice. Such actions may engage us in creative tumult and tension in the process of basic change. We seek opportunities to help reconcile enemies and to facilitate a peaceful and just resolution of conflict.

We work to relieve and prevent suffering through both immediate aid and long-term development and seek to serve the needs of people on all sides of violent strife."

Quakers have chosen the hard way, the way of the Cross, the way Christ commands: to love, to seek reconciliation, to resist evil non-violently, and, if necessary, to die rather than kill. And so people who, like you, have chosen the easy way, the old myth of redemptive violence that arose in ancient Babylon and has ruled the world ever since, revile us, for we, and all who follow that Inward Light, are a terrible threat to that myth. Christ came into the world to destroy the power of that myth, was killed by the authorities because of the threat he represented, and told us very plainly that there is only one way that we ourselves can help overcome that myth's power in our own lives: to take up our cross and follow Him.

And, to address the question from a purely secular level, ask yourself, isn't it also easier to point the finger at obvious injustice in other countries than to address often (thank God) more difficult to discern and certainly lesser injustice in one's own? And, given the preeminent position of America in the world, might not the injustice of American institutions and attitudes have a lot to do with injustice and oppression elsewhere, just as what's good about this country is responsible for much good elsewhere? And where, I might add, are we, as Americans, likely to have more influence?

As for not liking change, I certainly don't when it's the kind of change I see happening in the United States: a falling away from even a semblance of justice into a kind of Spencerian hell where the poor and disadvantaged go to the wall while the powerful act with greater and greater impunity, and a growing carelessness about human life that subordinates it to the hubristic dreams of little men who arrogate unto themselves the disposition of thousands of lives in countries far from our shores. That kind of change brings a judgment that is greatly to be feared, and we will reap the whirlwind unless we repent and learn to love kindness and do justice again. As Micah said, "He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" I see little justice, less kindness, and absolutely no humility in the present administration.

Finally, as for the statement that "everything we hear from you is what you DON'T like" (which is funny coming from someone whose blog is mostly ranting about "leftizoids" these days), why don't you go read any of the prophets in the First Testament. That's exactly the sort of thing kings and other defenders of injustice and the status quo said of them. And rightly so. They weren't there to praise what was right but to condemn what was wrong and call people back to right relationship with God. That is the prophetic mission. And all of the most wonderful visions of the prophets, the lion and the lamb and such, follow upon descriptions of horrors equal to anything we've seen in this century. They were not pleasant people to be around, because it was their function to remind people of how far short of righteousness they had fallen.

And that's a function I increasingly find myself called to, not that I would compare myself in any sense to Isaiah or Jeremaiah or others of that company. In the Quakers I've found a people who will not compromise on fundamentals, a purer incarnation of gospel order than I've ever encountered before, and a community that makes any other I've seen seem a pale reflection of such--which does not imply slavish agreement on any level. For as the Quaker Parker J. Palmer said in 1977:

"In a true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and the world. In fact, we might define true community as the place where the person you least want to live with always lives!"

It's a challenging environment, often requiring difficult choices, and wonderfully liberating.

And it's no fake. Perhaps, over time, you'll come to understand that.

Arguing with you is like punching the Pillsbury Doughboy, but, I'll do it for my own satisfaction anyway..

"And that's a function I increasingly find myself called to, not that I would compare myself in any sense to Isaiah or Jeremiah..." That won't work, being a Jeremiah. At least as far as the political/social realm goes. (I won't comment on the personal and spiritual realm.) It won't work because you do not have a political philosophy. You have nothing that will tell you what is good or bad, except a bundle of prejudices. It is easy to denounce the "rich and the powerful," but often rich people are supporting the causes you seem to favor, and grass-roots movements and humble people are working against them. You have no way to discriminate, to make a judgement. (And we conservatives argue about our philosophy constantly, so your lack is obvious to us)

Without a philosophy, without core political principles, your jeremiads are just expressions of your personal whims and prejudices. This is particularly noticeable since your prejudices happen to track very closely with a certain political flavor, which you do not have the honesty to avow openly. I frequently follow political squabbles in the Blogosphere, with leftish people making a claim, and rightish ones angrily denouncing and debunking it.....and then, a week later, you make the same claim, with an air of being a detached bystander who has pondered deeply the evils of our time, and has just had a profound thought. The phoniness is obvious. You want to "denounce," but you invariably denounce exactly what moveon.org happens to be denouncing. Coincidence, no doubt.

And a Jeremiah has to have a scrupulous commitment to honesty and fairness. You don't. I can see that, because you often write about things that I am personally knowledgeable on. And where you have no interest in my opinion. If I wrote prejudiced screeds about SF writers, you would know that I'm wrong, not by opinion, but by personal experience. And if I was not interested in checking my facts with actual SF writers, you would know that I was being dishonest. Well, I have long experience of the factions and quarrels and inner-workings of the conservative/Republican world. I happen know, for instance, that a large part of what's driving the Miers controversy is the frustration of neoconish types who feel excluded from power and influence. So when you denounce the sinister neocons, you just look like a fool to me. I know better. You are just parroting the rubbish that's circulated on lefty-blogs. And since you have been, so far, utterly indifferent to any knowledge I might impart, you look like a dishonest fool.

In the real world good and evil are usually intertwined, and a Jeremiah has to be able to make difficult choices and discernments. I did Google "Quakers North Korea." [link]. SO, my question, Mr Jeremiah, is: What is your position on propping up the most cruel tyranny on today's earth? After the Holocaust, people of good will said, "Never again." Yet here you are lending legitimacy to a place that has concentration camps so brutal that a quarter of inmates die each year. DEATH CAMPS. What does your political philosophy say? I say the blood of millions of Koreans is on your hands.

And what if Quakers had been giving agricultural aid to Nazi Germany? That sounds like a similar situation to me. Is that OK by you? And also, these are not "farms" you are giving help to, they are "collective farms." They are in no wise voluntary. They are equivalent to Nazi farms worked by Jewish slave laborers. Would Quakers helping those farms be OK with you? Would that promote "international understanding?"

In fact the N Korea example just reinforces my previous point. Your Quakerism is, in this example, not much different from leftism. Goin' off to the old collective farm to work with the smiling peasants, as they build a better future." Where have we heard that before? Tyranny and mass-murder are nothing to work up a sweat about, as long as they are communist. Only criticizing America or her political allies is exciting. Sounds like fake pacifism to me.

PS: My blog is displaying 18 posts at the moment. 6 are strongly negative, 9 are about things I feel strongly positive about (including 4 on why I like Miers) 2 are mixed, and 1 isn't either. My question: Why are the positives invisible to you? Especially since I often give posts titles like "good news," or "this is cool..."

I have little or no interest in your opinion because to my eyes most of your blog posts have the intellectual content of a bumper sticker (and not a very good one, at that): a mishmash of vituperation, binary thinking, ad hominem attacks, RNC/Limbaugh talking points, non-sequiturs, logic holes you could drive an Abrams tank through, and rhetorical devices that were worn out before the Athenians killed Socrates. To use a technical rhetorical term, your posts are almost entirely pathetic.

Let's look at a couple of recent posts.

"Freedom's Wall..." You quote one Johannes about how the troops don't want their deaths to be used as a prop. A bit of question begging there, since loading the question with the phrase "used your death" guarantees the answer the interlocutor wanted. And we know that not all the troops would say that what they're doing in Iraq is worthwhile, otherwise there wouldn't be groups like "Iraq Veterans Against the War."

And then comes the tired claim, in effect, that those who use the number 2000 as a symbol of a futile war are somehow wrongly exploiting that particular death, and elevating it above number 1435, and turning deaths into numbers, and despising the troops, etc. Right. Your side can use the magic number 911 or 3000, but we can't use 2000. Talk about dishonesty.

Total intellectual content: "Anti-war activists despise the troops." Not even close to QED. Just a pathetic fart.

And then there's the usual Cindy Sheehan rant, this time asking her why she doesn't chain herself to the Syrian embassy. What the hell does that have to do with anything? She's an American, not a Syrian. Her business is with her own government, where she has a much better chance of making a difference.

Total intellectual content: "They're worse than we are, so nyaah, nyahh." (Which is also part of the content of Freedom's Wall--at least you managed to jam two bumper stickers into that post.)

I can't see how you expect anyone to deduce any political philosophy from this sort of tripe other than a mixture of "Bush is a god," "dissent is disloyalty," foreigners are worse than we are," and "liberals are un-American."

But I will admit that you may find it difficult to discern my philosophy, because it's very much in flux. I started out, as you well know, where you are. But two things happened.

1) I noticed that all the people I most respected disagreed with me, and had good reasons for doing so.

2) I noticed that what I heard in church each Sunday, and what I read in the Bible, didn't agree with me either. (And one thing I'm certain of: Jeremaiah would not be a Republican--at least, not your sort of Republican.)

Now I don't know much about your religious views. I know from conversation that you're not very familiar with the Bible. I also know you now attend a Catholic church, which makes me suspect you're something of a cafeteria Christian, since I know you support the death penalty and the war in Iraq in despite of that church's teachings, but are likely happy to accept its support on other socially conservative causes with which you agree.

That's not surprising, since I've seen, as I remarked in a blog post some time back, your apparent attachment to what Lewis called "Christianity and...": Christianity as something that is useful to support one's political views.

Something you said in your last reply lends force to that supposition, about Quakers "lending legitimacy to the NK regime" because we try to help people on collective farms. I suppose you think it would be better to stand by and let them starve so as to overthrow the regime even sooner, eh? Not a very Christian view--in fact, it puts you very much in the other camp, I'd say.

As Quakers, we have very little influence over the NK government, but we can and have made a difference in the lives of the prisoners at those farms. Our hope is that even a brutal Stalinist (also a bearer of the Inward Light) may be touched by the love of God as seen in the selfless action of a Quaker volunteer, even if only for a moment (just as happened with the Gestapo), and that the program will help "increase trust and involvement between North Korea and other countries." One can never know what difference one might make unless one tries.

Furthermore, this sort of action is exactly what Christ commands. Read Matthew 25:34-46 and ask yourself where you'll be standing.

Finally, you're a fool if you think that the Quaker volunteers don't know what's going on. However, unlike you, they are not willing to view those prisoners as mere political pawns in a game designed to overthrow the NK tyranny. They know those people are starving human beings and children of God, bearers of the Inward Light, and Christ died for them just as for you and me. Our imperative is clear.

In short, John, as far as I'm concerned your political philosophy (to dignify it beyond its deserts), to the extent that any can be deduced from your blog and your comments, is of the Devil. It has nothing to offer me, or any other decent human being.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything? She's an American, not a Syrian..." The small thing is the the government of Syria sends terrorists across the border to murder people in Iraq.

The BIG THING is that the people of Syria are her neighbors, and they suffer under a cruel police state.

My sort of Christians are going to break down the prison door, and free those captives. (And it will be, as always, a messy process, political, full of compromises and pain and mistakes.) It will happen.

Your crowd are going to cross to the other side of the road, and hold your noses, and sneer and complain and do nothing to help.

The group you are in is the Pharisees.