Non Violence as Action

I stand before you today fully aware that my words will spark outrage and dismissal from many corners of our divided nation. I expect the hashtags and the think pieces to begin before I even finish speaking. But I ask for just a few moments of your consideration.

In an era where everyone seems to be shouting, I want to speak about the radical power of refusing to meet hate with hate—a message drawn from voices history once vilified.

Malcolm X, a man many of you were taught to fear, came to understand that "The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy." Look around at our current climate—can any of us truly say this cycle of escalation is working?

I can see the skepticism on your faces. In a nation where strength is often equated with force, peaceful opposition sounds like surrender. But Eugene Debs, imprisoned for his moral stance against war, reminded us that true courage often looks different than we expect: "I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets."

Some of you are already dismissing these as the naïve words of those who don't understand "the real world." Your social media feeds and preferred news sources have likely already prepared counterarguments about necessary force and justified retaliation. But consider Emma Goldman's observation that "The most violent element in society is ignorance." Perhaps our certainty about the necessity of force reveals our limited imagination rather than our pragmatism.

I know many of you believe that in today's America—with its political polarization, economic inequality, and social conflicts—peaceful protest and moral persuasion are inadequate. You may believe that only dramatic confrontation can achieve change. Yet even Ho Chi Minh, before turning to armed struggle, acknowledged: "The path of violence is a path of tragedy and sorrow."

The hardest truth I offer today is this: our addiction to force—whether through militant rhetoric, dehumanizing language, or actual physical confrontation—has not healed our nation but deepened its wounds. And I expect to be labeled weak, unrealistic, and even unpatriotic for suggesting it.

But I ask you: What strength does it really take to respond to aggression with aggression? Any child can strike back when struck. The true challenge—the real test of American greatness—is finding the courage to stand firm without hatred, to oppose injustice without creating new victims.

I don't stand here claiming this path of principled restraint is easy. It may be the hardest road before us. But as Gandhi, once considered a dangerous subversive by authorities, noted: "Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man."

I expect many of you to walk away unmoved. Some will mock these words on social media; others will write them off as disconnected from reality. But to those few willing to consider this unpopular perspective—this moral courage to break cycles of retaliation might be exactly the revolutionary approach our troubled times require.

Thank you for listening, even through your disagreement.