nonresistance
Amish File Lawsuit
An Amish man in upstate New York has filed a lawsuit in a local court to exempt his three kids from vaccinations, which a recent state law has mandated for all school children. Among a host of news reports published on October 21 about the development, an Associated Press story reported by Syracuse.com and another […]
Some Peaceful People Are Birdwatchers [a tenth anniversary reflection]
I was delighted when Jody and her husband Mark sat down at our table at the Christmas Bird Count dinner on Saturday evening, December 20th. Before we had even started eating, Jody asked what I was doing during my retirement years, so I told her about peaceful societies and this website. She expressed interest and […]
Torture of Peaceful Hutterites by American Soldiers
A few days ago, Duane Stoltzfus of Goshen College delivered a lecture describing the way the American Army in 1918 tortured two Hutterites to death because they refused to fight. This story of American extreme human rights abuses highlights what can happen when a majority society refuses to tolerate the peacefulness and nonresistance of a […]
Labor Strikes in Peaceful Societies
Unrest among civil service employees has broken out in both Ladakh and in Tahiti, where government employees are striking to improve their retirement pay scales. While these two developments are purely coincidental, they suggest an important question: do strikes and other forceful activities, which try to compel others into taking a desired course of action, […]
Indiana Amish Refuse to Fight in American Wars [book review]
The tourist brochures at the Indiana Turnpike rest area on Tuesday afternoon seemed to promise smiling Amish kids and scenes of perpetual summer in Shipshewana. Despite the overcast, rainy afternoon in mid-February, perhaps it was worth a look. Patches of old, dirty snow and numerous pieces of trash speckled the countryside along the highway, which […]
Amish and Hutterites Not Threatened by the Draft
The U.S. Government denies speculation that there are plans to reinstate a draft to supply more troops for the American military in Iraq. According to a story in the Christian Century on January 25, Cassandra Costley, Director of Alternative Service for the U.S. Selective Service, just happened to drop by the Brethren Service Center in […]
