What the hell is a pacifist Communist?

I want to rehash a little paradoxical nostalgia. A conversation I once had with a friend. He was a good guy—liked to drink, fight, tell wild stories and explore life. We met due to unforeseen circumstances after a night of heavy drinking—we were going to fight. In the end both of us and another friend took a pretty good beating from bouncers. He was tough little son of a bitch. I liked that. I though I was a tough little son of a bitch too. It was an easy understanding to start out with. About a year later things got fucked up and we both wound up in University. There were three us. Two writers and a painter (artist for you academics) walking from one world into another. Four years later and an English degree later the university had killed his brain. He fell under its pseudo rebel spell. It started out with a Noam Chomsky book and ended with a conversation we had. The transformation was gradual. The conversation was not:

Pipeliner writer: Well I’m a pacifist Communist.

Angryroughneck: You can’t be a pacifist Communist. That’s impossible.

:Pipeliner writer: What do you mean? I’m against war and I believe in Communal living. What’s wrong with that?

Angryroughneck: Well what if I say no?

Pipeliner writer: No to what?

Angryroughneck: No to everything. No to you taking my house, my money, my land, no to you telling me where to work, where to live, no to you telling me which books to read and how to educate my children. No to everything!

Pipeliner writer: Well I wouldn’t do those things?

Angryroughneck: How do you think they are decided under Communist rule?

Pipeliner writer: Well if everyone shared--

Angryroughneck: I already told you once, fucking well NO! So what do you do about it? Do you just sit idly by? Because then other people would tell you no, and then the system would crumble. How do you enforce communism if you are against violence? It’s a logical absurdity.

Pipeliner writer: I would reason with you.

Angryroughneck: I told you fucking no. Pretend I’m crazy and it’s impossible to convince me. Pretend. So what do you do then?

Pipeliner writer: You’re impossible to reason with!

He walked away from the table. Most conversations with collectivists end this way. It’s sad when friendships do. It’s a wonder I like to stay home and drink too much beer.

Peace

Leftism loves to simplify. For the left war is always a choice. To fight or not to fight that is the question. You either want war or you don’t. And by the same intellectual rules of engagement—peace is a choice as well. Thus young idealists make peace their primary principle, believing all other conflicts can be sorted out in a rational matter as long as we make peace a primary principle.

This may be true. If you are unwilling to believe in anything then most likely you would be unwilling to fight for anything as well. Thus, it goes without saying, if the slave owner arrives and demands servitude from you then you can secure your peace by accepting servitude. Simply put— if you are unwilling to fight for liberty then you will not have to. A value is defined as that which you are willing to work for or work to maintain. Conflicts arise when people cannot agree on primary values. Americans agree on the primary values of reason and freedom that is why they can peacefully disagree about the price of a specified commodity without violence— because the buyer respects the seller’s right to choose his own price (freedom to choose being the higher principle). For the pacifist making peace a priority value is in effect the negation of the peace proprietor’s other values. He has relinquished all of his values to maintain peace. These values include freedom, equality, freedom of expression, and the right to own land.

So the academic points out my example of the acceptable negotiation of contracts and claims we need to do the same on a global stage with such matters as occupation, boarders, and nuclear weapons. But how do you negotiate with a gun? How do you reason with a terrorist? How do you compromise freedom—it either is or isn’t? The answer is that you cannot because they do not accept liberty as a value. Primary values cannot be compromised. The terrorist’s primary value is Allah so where is the recourse? Once again you either are or you’re not. The only choice is to fight or surrender.

Peace is a symptom of shared values. The best way to limit war is by repressing government’s power which is done by limiting their taxation abilities, their power to redistribute and create wealth through legislation— a constitution.

No two liberal democracies have ever gone to war with each other and that is not a coincidence.