Can a pacifist support the troops?

Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 19:50:12 EST Sounds pretty impossible. Let me explain.

If you define vegetarian as people who eat meals with no meat in them, then nearly everyone is a vegetarian. If you define pacifist as someone who doesn't like war, then nearly everyone is a pacifist. If you define white as the color of any surface capable of reflecting light, then anything but black is white. But with those definitions, the words become so all-inclusive as to be meaningless.

A vegetarian is someone who never eats meat. A pacifist is someone who never goes to war. White is the color of any surface that reflects all colors equally.

People who have studied that issue for quite a while come to different conclusions. Even the President's Commission decided that the using of the atomic bomb was only part of the reason Japan surrendered. I suspect from your .edu address that you're in school. I also suspect that you're in a ROTC program. I'd suggest to your ROTC instructors that they haven't been telling you the whole truth, which is to say they haven't been telling the truth.
Russell Nelson
Last modified: Thu Jul 27 10:56:06 EDT 2000