re: #641 Dave AAA

So the millions systematically murdered aren’t the catch; it’s the sincerity of one mass murder’s last-second repentance?

Yep.

That shit just ain’t right. Or decent. Or moral. In the fucking least.

If sin can’t be forgiven,then why stop sinning? I should suspect that even if Stalin thought he repented enough St Peter would be going over his record with a fine-tooth comb before letting him in - and do you really think he’d have thought all of his crimes were unjustified?

If one’s sins, however many and heinous they may be, can be forgiven in one’s final moments, why stop sinning until those final moments arrive? Why not just fuck everybody else over, secure in the knowledge that you have a Get Out Of Hell Free card as your ace in the hole, to be played the moment death approached, but not before?

It reminds me of St. Augustine’s prayer: “God, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

Gandhi was nonviolent from the beginning to the end

Fortunately for him, quite a few other Indians were not. I’m sure the Japanese would have been intrigued by his views and would have wanted to subscribe to his newsletter. I don’t see the virtue in permitting others to be enslaved, raped, tortured, and murdered because one is too good to fight or support others who do. There’s also more than a little doubt about how saintly Gandhi ‘s personal life really was.

We tend to agree here; as George Orwell stated, “Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside…”

- which is why he failed in South Africa, and was deported from there,

He wasn’t deported from South Africa, nor did he fail there. In fact, when he left he was in reasonably good standing with the authorities, having negotiated an agreement with the Union government on the repeal of a discriminatory tax.

I was unaware that he had achieved these things. Nevertheless, my point stands that a Hitler or Stalin or Mao would have just killed him and dumped his limed corpse in a trench.

but as it happens, most of them DID go peacefully, and shaming didn’t work.

Gee, who would have thought Nazis wouldn’t be shamed, ya know, besides everyone? What a sanctimonious little prick.

He did have an unshakeable faith in the efficacy of nonviolent protest. It was even unshaken by contradicting facts. Kinda like those true believers who embrace Genesis Literalism, despite conclusive empirical evidence to the contrary.