Nope. Not buying it.
This nation came into being through violence. It remains a strong and safe nation through the implementation of violence and the assurance that violence will result if we are attacked. If these people wish to take advantage of what violence brought forth for them, and continues to provide to them, they need to respect the price paid.
Every person that died to provide this national environment for all of us, is trashed by their delusional disgusting behavior.
If they don’t like it here, they should GTFO. I can recommend a number of nations around the world that will get them real religion should they move there.
@ Chickensoup: Thanks for your note.
@ Reeses: We certainly agree about free speech rights to voice our opinion and criticize the Mennonites. My concern is not speaking out against the inconsistency of Mennonite doctrine — I’m **VERY** willing to do that for a whole long list of reasons.
My real concern centers on the comments by some who, by their comments, seem to believe that pacifists should be told to get out of the United States or that the government should take action against people who refuse to sing the National Anthem. That goes down a very slippery slope I do not wish to go down, unless we’re talking about a Christian nation formally committed to biblical obedience. Maybe I’d trust a President Oliver Cromwell or a President John Knox or a President Abraham Kuyper to do that in the context of a Christian nation, but I do not trust even the best-intentioned of Christian elected officials in a secular government to tell our churches and our church-related colleges what they must do or to levy penalties for noncompliance with a government edict that contradicts teachings of a specific church. We have no Constitutional way to assure that their successors will share their values.
You’re quite right in questioning how it is that the Mennonites even have a football team, or for that matter, other forms of contact sports. I had that argument a number of times with Mennonites who were cheering and applauding sharp-elbowed basketball players on their school teams. Their argument is twofold: nobody is intentionally hurt in playing sports, and the people on both sides are volunteering, not drafted. Nobody makes a Mennonite play contact sports, and those who have conscientious objections to contact sports are not (or at least are not supposed to be) pressured to participate.
Well, seems to me like the second half of that argument applies quite well to the current wars between volunteer American soldiers and Islamofascists who in most cases have volunteered to become insurgents. Is it really a violation of pacifist principles if we help the Islamofascists who want to be martyred accomplish their goal of getting 72 virgins via martyrdom? It seems to me like the best way to accomoplish peace, which is the goal of pacifism, is to support our soldiers who volunteer to give the insurgents what they want before they can kill or maim anyone else.
Of course, the Mennonites have no consistent answer to that because their religion is biblically inconsistent. They fundamentally misunderstand that not all killing is murder, and once they’ve made that error in their doctrine, they have to come up will all sorts of explanations of how a just God could order the Old Testament Israelites not only to go to war but to exterminate entire nations of wicked evildoers.
@ DoughtyOne, we have no disagreement on this country being brought about by the power of the sword, and I happen to believe it was a just use of the sword by lesser magistrates to throw off the yoke of an oppressive King and Parliament which had broken faith with its colonies. Taxation without representation was one of many violations of the colonists’ liberties as British citizens, and the lesser magistrates had the biblical right to defend their people against abuse.
However, we need to pay serious attention to Constitutional original intent. Why is it that the Quakers and Mennonites, who existed here at the formation of the United States, were not expelled from the United States or held to lesser level of privileges because of their refusal to bear arms? The Quakers were even — by the text of the Constitution itself — allowed to affirm rather than swear their oaths of allegience to the Constitution upon election to office. Today the affirmation rather than oath is sometimes used by atheists, but at the time of the Constitutional Convention there can be no doubt that “affirm” language was written to allow for the scruples of the Quakers, without which they would have been barred from participation in government.
It may have bene a mistake to allow Quakers, Mennonites and others to have the full privileges of citizenship despite their refusal to bear arms. However, if it was a mistake, it was a mistake of the Founding Fathers.
In a Constitutional republic, we need to live with the text of the Constitution, including anything we may believe is flawed, until and unless we can follow the prescribed procedure for amending it.