Posted by David Kopel: Only One Review Law Publishes BOTH Obama and Kopel: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_12_07-2008_12_13.shtml#1228887279
That review is the [1]Charleston Law Review. President-elect Obama's foreword to volume 2, issue 1 (2007) is available [2]here. As for my own article in Charleston, it's forthcoming in volume 3, which is at the printer. But available now in final form at SSRN: [3]Pacifist-Aggressives vs. the Second Amendment: An Analysis of Modern Philosophies of Compulsory Non-Violence. The article begins with the observation that, domestically and internationally, there are many religious organizations and leaders who denounce self-defense, and who seek to ban or drastically restrict guns in order to impose their own morality. The article examines some leading religious pacifist philosophers, and some historical examples of how pacifism has worked in real-world conditions. The article has high praise for John Howard Yoder (perhaps the greatest pacifist writer of all time), and for Thomas Merton (an influential advocate of non-violence, but not a pacifist). The article is more critical of Stanley Hauerwas, more critical still of Leo Tolstoy, and dismayed with the shallow and factually inaccurate writings of Tony Campolo. The article sets the record straight on the Danish rescue of the Jews during World War II. King Christian X never wore a yellow star. The Danish response to the Nazis was very cowardly at the start, at a time when bravery might have changed the course the war. The 1943 rescue of the Danish Jews, smuggling them to Sweden, was very noble, but it was not an example of successful pacifism in action. Switzerland, which was armed to the teeth and ready to fight, ended the war with even a better record of protecting its native Jews than did Denmark. The American Civil Rights Movement used pacifist tactics at some times, even as civil rights workers armed themselves for protection against Ku Klux Klan attacks. The slogan "violence never solves anything" is the ethical equivalent of flat-Earth geography. It is a purportedly empirical claim which is contradicted by ample and obvious evidence. In the real world, there are plenty of brave pacifists, including the Moriori tribe of the Chatham Islands, who chose to suffer genocide rather than use violence. The article does not attempt to refute arguments that pacifism is mandated by Christian scripture, or by other sources of religious authority. Rather, the article suggests that the argument which some pacifists make--that pacifism always, necessarily, leads to better real-world results, is empirically false. In a free society, the government should not force pacifists to use force. Likewise, pacifists should not attempt to use government force to deprive other people of the means or the right of self-defense. VC readers saw a draft version on this article on SSRN a little over a year ago. The Charleston staff did a great job with the article; it's a tighter, more precise piece thanks to their cite-checking. Thanks also to Eugene Volokh, for coining the term "pacifist-aggressives." He too has been published in a law journal which has also published Obama, namely the Harvard Law Review. References 1. http://www.charlestonlawreview.org/ 2. http://www.charlestonlawreview.org/obama.pdf 3. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1028682 _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
