Two Just Stop Oil supporters who sprayed Heathrow departure boards with orange paint during the Oil Kills, international uprising to end fossil fuels last July have won a temporary reprieve as their jury failed to reach a majority decision.
Two Just Stop Oil supporters who sprayed Heathrow departure boards with orange paint during the Oil Kills, international uprising to end fossil fuels last July have won a temporary reprieve as their jury failed to reach a majority decision.
The law says I must kill anyone 2 shades of white below mine.
My willingness to disobey the law is absolutely not worthless, but morally imperative.
Let’s modify the argument slightly to say I must allow corporations to kill millions.
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Ever wonder why laws like that don’t exist.
The closest we got is prejudicial reporting laws. Germany in WW2.
But a less racist example/ Draft during the same war. Draft is the only time it has been a crime to refuse to kill. And at the time, society truly believed you had an obligation to kill for your nation. Pacifism was just seen as another word for coward.
Many people suffered prison and other punishment. For refusing to fight during the second world war. If those people were not willing to risk prison. They would have been ignored. But because many were willing to go to prison. And be forced to work mines rather than fight and kill. (PS, My grandfather brother died in those mines.)
Mining at that time was generally more dangerous than joining the soldiers. And according to my grandfather, he knew the risk when he refused to fight. For context ill add my grandfather was an engineer for smiths. So was in a protected profession. He made instrumentation for spitfires. I raise all this just to point out the discussions I had with him. As he considers himself to have grown from his brother’s experience. He was angry that he was not able to fight during the beginning of the war. As was the case for many young men in protected professions in the first years. Learning of his brother, experience and death in forced labour. Made him realise and respect the sacrifice he and other pacifists made.
Other options were presented late in the war. Plus more recently. Remember the recent election. And the Tories trying to reintroduce national service. If no event like pacifists going to jail during WW2 had happened. Then the Tories would not have bothered to offer so many non-military options.
We as a society now respect the concept of pacifism because people took risk to fight for the rights not to kill. Same with mmost other modern ideals.
Women’s right to vote was won by the women willing to be jailed and beaten by police. Not the people running church coffee mornings.