I think that for the vast majority, the term “Anti-War” conjures up images of “peace-loving hippies” with no job, spouting rhetoric about love for their fellow man.
I do have love for my fellow man, but I am not a pacifist. I own guns, and I am willing to use defensive violence to defend myself and my family, to the point of depriving another of their life should they threaten our lives.
I’m against aggressive violence. I do not commit acts of aggression against others.
I do not support the State committing acts of aggression against other people in my name. That is the first principle. If I cannot morally attack another, I cannot condone aggression against others by a nation state that claims to act in my interest.
Our statist indoctrination has conditioned us to believe that war is natural, and that people living oceans away from us aren’t “real” people, but simply objects to be manipulated. As if their bodies and the bodies of their family members getting ripped apart by shrapnel aren’t real, have no meaning.
The fact is that we live under the largest, most violent government in the history of the world. Politicians, under the guise of “protecting our interests” are killing people the world over, manipulating the state they’re subjected to, installing dictators that rob them of their essential liberty.
We’re conditioned to support such aggression because we believe we are exceptional, and the rest of “them” are “third-world” – somehow less than human.
But that’s not even my primary reason for being anti-war.
I understand that War is the Health of the State, as poignantly stated by Randolph Bourne. The State thrives on war. War rallies the people around the State, and enriches the politicians and their friends in the Military Industrial Complex. It is a means to keep the populace afraid, looking to the State to protect them from the next bogeyman.
War gives the State legitimacy and fuels its growth. It is during times of war that the people are most willing to give up their liberty in exchange for safety, and liberties given up are never regained. It’s the slippery slope.
So War, even if you have no sympathy for the non-people your nation state is killing, is the primary means by which you give up your own freedom. The State loves War. You are not being protected, you are being robbed of your liberty.
Wave your flags. Cheer on the killing. You are paying with your own freedom, and more importantly the freedom of your children.