Gandhi, I honor you
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
Page 446. An autobiography: the story of my experiments with truth By Gandhi (Mahatma), Mahadev Haribhai Desai
I love this quote. Gandhi, the iconic pacifist, recognized that free people require arms to defend themselves and their ideals. He did not believe arms were inherently evil or that the world would be better without them.
Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 and would have turned 140 this year.
The above image comes from Ecorazzi.com, a "green" blog.
Nice quote
That quote is been one of my favorites for years. The Dalai Lama had a good one too.
“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”—The Dalai Lama (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times), speaking at the “Educating Heart Summit” in Portland, Oregon, when asked by a girl how to react when a shooter takes aim at a classmate.
Fred, that is very interesting. Do you have a direct link to the quote? I think most people would not believe he said that!
Well that explains the whole peaceful protest thing, they would have got their asses kicked otherwise.
The Dalai Lama quote originated here:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20010515&slug=dalai15m0
Thanks Shane for finding it. I saw it a couple years ago and long lost the source, just had it in my quotes on facebook, along with Gandhi’s and some other good ones.
Funny how the most well known pacifists in recent times believe arms are useful for personal defense.
“All that is required for evil to flourish is for a good man to do nothing.”
that’s from The Boondock Saints movie lol. I do believe this though. Very insightful and philosophic of you to post this Steve. I’m glad to see this on here.
CMathews, as much as I love the Boondock movie, the quote precedes it by a hundred years
It is commonly attributed to Edmund Burke, although it may have been around before him. But as you say, a very good quote.
Sadly I bet very, very few people think depriving an entire nation’s civilians of the best means of self-defense is a tragedy at all.
I’m sure most people would delusionally think it a great thing.
Lol I was sure someone else had said it but instead of making it up I just quoted the movie. But to that I will add, that a firearm allows the good man to do something. Whether it be fend off an attacker, or fend off an
opposing nation.
Steve,
The farce in this is that the Indian Republic, which Gandhi helped liberate, is even more anti gun than the British ever were. The average Indian has no option with which to legally defend him or herself and the worst of these laws were enacted by the Congress Party which Gandhi led and which is in power at the moment.
While he was a great man, no doubt, his political successors are the worst kind of socialist thieves that India has known in its history.
Mehul, I know and it is very sad and ironic. What is also sad and ironic, although maybe justice, is that Britain ended up banning the guns of their own citizens not much later.