by James Austin Bishop

The leaders of the West Chester, Pa., "Peace" movement are Fascists.

I labor under no illusions - I know that if any one of them were to read that statement, they would become apoplectic with indignation, quite possibly to the point of busting an artery. I am truly sorry for that, but the statement stands. Those people (Led by a local public figure named Karen Porter, an activist frequently quoted in local news accounts), are Fascists. They are Fascist in their Ideology, in their tactics, and in the objective effects of their “anti-war” activities.

I mention Porter and her Useful Followers only as an example of the newest generation of “peace” activists to arise in response to the newest war – the war of Western Civilization against a version of Radical Islam that is stuck somewhere in middle-ages, having never experience the type of religious enlightenment that moved Christianity up and out of the age of Inquisitions and other abuses of civilized life. Islam never emerged from its own Dark Ages, and we are all paying for that now.

But I digress. This is about the response of pacifists to the real threats against civilized nations, and what would happen if groups like that led by Karen Porter were to have their way.

There exist legitimate political, philosophical and moral arguments against the war with Islamic Fascism. Wrong-headed though those arguments may be, they are nonetheless deserving of a respectful hearing and civil retort, inasmuch as they are held in good faith. How sad for those who cling to pacifism as a moral principle, then, that they are drowned out of the debate by a cacophony of rabid anti-Americansim for its own sake - a shrill hysteria facilitated and amplified to obscene levels by the electronics of the sympathetic State media.

George Orwell wrote of the pacifists in England during WWII that "Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.''' The immorality of pacifism in response to evil was as evident then as it is today. The refusal of "principled" pacifists to acknowledge that distances them from reality.

Let’s take a look at Reality for a moment. Let’s imagine Reality as represented by a metaphysical orb - The Sphere of Reality. Inside of this imaginary sphere, principled pacifism would occupy a position on the outer edge of the sphere, well away from the center. Accepting my image, placing reality at the center and principled pacifism on the fringes, how much more detached from the center would we then find those who are so loudly arrayed against us – The West Chester Peace Movement-style of leftover 60's radicals, the European Socialists, the academic and practicing Communists, the New York Times and other media and academic institutions? In fact, they occupy no position in my Sphere of Reality, but float aimlessly, well outside of our orb.

Far from acting out of any motive remotely resembling principle, the forces and individuals mentioned above are driven by blind hatred for the United States and nothing more. None of those ideologies, institutions, groups or individuals have ever been adverse to killing in all its forms - from the murder of an unborn infant up to and including mass starvation, torture and genocide - as a principled pacifist would be. It is only when the United States stands to benefit that they find themselves suddenly horrified by talk of war.

Principle, then, even misguided principle, demonstrated by consistency, would be a requirement for a position within the orb. But the Useful Idiots arrayed against the United States are anything but consistent, and regularly demonstrate their lack of principle by their hypocrisy and unabashed hatred (as is manifestly demonstrated every weekend in the Center of West Chester, Pa.) They form alliances between despots, murderers and sundry generic loons, yet are treated by the media as if they were somehow deserving of enclosure in the orb.

Consider these disconnects from reality:

President Bush's various approval ratings soar in the polls by more than 20 points in one amazing night, January 28, 2003. In describing this unprecedented surge in support, and after citing the actual incredible poll numbers, NBC reports that "we found that people had not changed their minds in significant numbers." (NBC Nightly News, Wednesday, January 29)

A former Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clark, in attempting to defend radical Islam, compares Jesus Christ, in a country where 80 percent of the population identify themselves as Christians, to terrorists.

Washington Post television reviewer Tom Shales characterizes President Bush's call for an end to the practice of infanticide that is euphemistically termed "partial-birth abortion" as "a sop to the far right," which if true would place the 70 percent of the population who are opposed to that grisly procedure on the "far right" (making the "far right," in reality, the center).

The Socialist Party, with Tom Daschle and Teddy Kennedy leading the way, accuse Bush of a "rush to war" and of not having made a convincing case to the international community. Over 80 percent of the population disagreed at the time.

These same suspects, along with the academic Communists, facilitated by the State media, and the European Socialists, repeatedly accuse the United States of acting "unilaterally" with respect to Iraq, as if Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Australia, Turkey and Israel were potted plants.

Convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal gets top billing at a "peace" rally.

Tom Daschle. Sean Penn. Hillary Clinton. Mumia Abu Jamal. Dan Rather and the Communist World Workers Party. Michael Moore and Sean Penn, Communists and Socialists, murderers and morons, floating around in the void, runny noses pressed against the outside of the orb, hurling invective at those on the inside.

Such is the state of the modern “peace movement.” The adherents of that movement remain now, as they were then, Idiots; useful to the forces of Socialism, Islam, Communism, Anarchy, and any institution, policy, religion, or political ideology that is anti-American. If it’s bad for America, it’s good for the “pacifists,” by definition.

I sat with my young son at the top of our back yard late on a cool October evening. A small fire crackled in the fireplace and hot dogs sizzled over the flames. We were poking at the coals and talking about the brooding woods around us, here at the top of this dark hill.

Our little home is nestled into the southern side of a hill, a steep, wooded ridge running Northeast to Southwest, a few miles north of Philadelphia. The woods were infused with a palpable sense of history that night up on that hill, a feeling that filtered down through the shadowy branches of the trees, mixing with the starlight.

We were enjoying our cookout on hallowed ground, my son and I. The steep backyard where we live our comfortable suburban lives had been consecrated by the blood of patriots, and it was important to me that my boy should understand the significance of that.

There was another teen aged boy, I told him, quite possibly just your age, who sat on this same hill among the trees. The boy's name was Joe. Joseph Plum Martin, in fact, and he sat on our hill, maybe right here in this same spot, two hundred and thirty years ago.

It wasn't a cool October night when that boy was here, though. It was the first week in December, 1777, and while winter hadn't officially begun, it was already brutally cold. And Joe, even though he was only as old as you are now, was already a seasoned veteran of war.

Joe was cold that night, and he was hungry, and he was very, very tired. He hadn't been paid since summer. He and the other young men serving under General George Washington had suffered two major defeats in battle. Philadelphia had fallen to the British. Washington's spies had determined that the British, commanded by Sir William Howe, were well entrenched in Philadelphia and were far too strong to attack.

But Joe was itching for a fight, so he hoped that Howe would come to them. They were dug in up here on this fortified hill, after all, and felt confident of their position. Besides, they wanted to take out their frustration on some Redcoats.

Years later an aging Joseph Plum Martin wrote down some of his memories of that night on this hill:

"We had a commanding position and were very sensible of it. We were kept constantly on the alert, and wished nothing more than to have them engage us, being in excellent fighting trim, as we were starved and as cross and ill-natured as curs. While we lay there, there happened very remarkable northern lights. At one time the whole visible heavens appeared, for some time, as if covered with crimson velvet. Some of the soldiers prognosticated a bloody battle about to be fought, but time, which always speaks the truth, showed them to be false prophets."

But a bloody battle was just what Howe wanted, too. He desperately wanted to destroy Washington's army and have done with it before winter set in. So Joe got his wish, and Howe marched 12,000 British and German troops - nearly his whole army - out of Philadelphia.

But try as they might, the British couldn't find a break in Washington's lines. They moved back and forth, about a mile away, and Washington's troops shadowed them. They tried to outflank the line on the left, right here on this hill, on the bitterly cold night of December 7th, 1777, in a series of fire fights that became known as the Battle of Edge Hill.

Finally Howe gave up, much to the disappointment of General Washington (and Joe), and retreated to Philadelphia to settle down for the winter. They were too strong to be attacked, so Washington took his army away too, leaving behind the blood of 90 dead and wounded to seep into the ground that you and I are sitting on now.

Joe marched away with the Continental Army to their winter quarters and settled down for what was to become one of the cruelest winters that any man has ever endured It was the winter of trial for men with the moral strength to risk and sacrifice all for a noble cause. It was the Winter of 1777 in Valley Forge.