Uncritical pacifism.

George Handlery thinks that if unrestrained militarism is not what the doctor ordered, we aren’t well served by embracing schoolgirl pacifism when the nation is in danger:

Today the cultural preference for war yields to the West’s rejection of military responses. This does not always happen because better means than force are available. It is done due to doubts whether self-defense is practically or morally justified. The danger of the past had been the conditioned reflex of mindless militarism. The threat for us to fear now is an uncritical, and towards those daring to question its premises, aggressive dogmatic pacifism.

This kind of pacifism goes hand in hand with the belief that there is no such thing as an external danger, only a danger from people, predominantly white, who argue in favor of limited government, the rule of law, and personal responsibility and reject any group’s assertion of eternal victim status.

Pacifists see only foreigners whose seemingly hostile actions are solely a result of the moral failings of the pacifists' own government and the traditional culture that does not celebrate revolution and license. If the latter will only be as pure and kind as the former, foreign people – who read more widely, think more rationally, decide more judiciously, order their societies more justly, and never utter a discouraging word – will lay down their arms and agree to harmonize clashing national interests in forums like the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice imbued los dos with a rarified humanity-embracing perspective obtained from . . . well, from somewhere.

"Duly Noted: The Depressed Terrorist and the First Lady." By George Handlery Brussels Journal, 10/18/08.