Uncommon Commentary #405: When Peaceniks Nix Peace (Alternate Title: Putting the "Fist" in "Pacifist")

One of the great misconceptions of our time is the idea that leftists oppose war.  The truth is merely that their motivation for waging wars differs from that of rightists.  Rightists tend to be intensely patriotic, and thus to feel a duty to serve their country under arms even if they disagree with the reason for the belligerency.  For leftists, by contrast, whether to fight a war or to refuse to do so is a purely ideological question, the answer thereto depending on whether they expect their cause to benefit more from war or from peace.  Indeed, since some religious sects forbid their members to kill fellow human beings, and religious persons lean politically "conservative" rather than "liberal", there probably are more genuine pacifists on the Right than on the Left.