I'm not a pacifist... but in fact, pacifists have been killed being "human shields" in many locations...and no, it doesn't generally die with them in that case-other people often take up the same work.
I guess it worked the same way when the Romans were persecuting the early Christians-the Christians died because they refused to honor the Roman state gods.
Pacifists who die defending causes often advance said cause.
But I see pacifism as a more modern thing...I compare the attitude of Britain or America to their colonies versus Attilla the Hun.
Pacifism essentially works because the other party is willing to be guilted into being vaguely decent...if the other party is more willing to just kill everybody, then pacifism doesn't work, does it?
If Britain had been willing to mow down a couple million Indians, they might still hold India as a colony...but they had a preconceived notion of their own human decency...that and being broke after WW2 led them to free India.
We white people slaughtered at least 20 million Native Americans, we still hold the United States...Pacifism and War were both tried as methods of stopping us from that dispossession and genocide, but we were too ruthless and just pretty much killed everybody.
We didn't care.
:shrug:
Although I guess that doesn't answer your question, I'll have to think about it for a while.
