Useful Idiots of the Day

[ImaginalDisc]

Mycroft, Skeptic, you're both basically right. That's why I advocate a more prosperous, free and therefore more peaceful world. I don't like being forced to chose between being a cog in a bloody machine, and being a free-loader.

If there was a Military option avilable which was more like the original concept of the National Gaurd, a domestic defense organization which wouldn't get involved in invasions, and other much more questionable actions, then I'd happily take it.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Double Post.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

This is the point where you and I disagree.

If you want to live your own life like that, that's fine. People make choices. I prefer to let them.

But...to expect that there is even the remotest possibility that everyone will choose this way of life, crosses over into being delusional. There are bad people that must be dealt with by force. Always have been. Always will be. Its one of the unpleasant things we have to deal with in the human experience, but it is reality.

I was going to point out anyway that where you and I disagree is that sometimes, I think the only way a society can be changed is to overthrow its existing government by force. So we are left in those cases with two, and only two, choices. 1: Overthrow the government by force, and allow for changes for the better. 2: Decide you can't/don't want to overthrow it by force, and sit by and watch the society go its own course.

When you are dealing with completely totalitarian governments like North Korea, there really isn't any practical 3rd option. There is no way to influence that much control inside a nation like that.

It's through economic development that we've got our cherished freedom. The Founding Fathers were mostly rich guys who got tired of the new, more protectionist and exploitative, policies of the Empire. I think the world's a less violent, and more free place today than it was in any previous century. The more prosperous, fair and educated we can make everyone, the more liberty and peace we'll share.

You're right, the problem of an staunchly unreasonable and violet "rouge state" is, for lack of a strong enough term, a pickle. I honestly think that openly inviting them to full economic partnership, and never waivering in that, unless we're put into immediate peril is probably the best course.

 

[rikzilla]

Bravo for you! Good thing there are some solid sheepdogs that make it more likely you will live than die.

True. You should love and respect the sheepdogs ID...your pascifism would look more like a suicide-pact than a "philosophy" without them.

-z

PS: I'll still buy you that beer at TAM...but it's looking more and more like you'll be offered a Miller Lite rather than a nice micro-brew porter....

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I didn't think to explicitely state this earlier, but here goes. I'll try to be breif without being obscure, this isn't a manifesto.

If we want this peace thing to catch on, we've really got to sell it. The Fidel Castros and Kim Jong Ils of the world won't be able to push for isolationism and sabre-rattling if we make peace really attractive. As it is, our model of globalization is very unfair. The lion's share of benefit goes to lare corportations, and the richest countries. If we pushed peace, world-wide prosperity, and liberty as hard as we puch defense spending, we'd have a lot less of a need to defend ourselves.

Most people chose not to take up a life of crime because they have far more to gain my participating in society, than they do by violating society. If we make peace with us provide for more prsoperity, more fainess, and more liberty, and not just more than war, we'll have to fight fewer wars.

We need to seduce the rest of the world with freedom, and a high quality of life, and then deliver on those promises.

 

[RandFan]

Throw money at them.

Woo them with medicine, good education, reason, and economic oppurtunities. Conflicts arrise through scarcity. Scarcity in our modern world is, well, scarce. World wide food production is high enough to feed everyone quite well every single day. There's not enough resources for everyone to live like upper class Americans, but there's enough wealth and resources for the quality of life for everyone to go way up.

The problem with Kim Jong Il isn't that he's nuts, it's that he's in control of a small country that isn't part of our wealthy world. Prosperity breeds contentment, peace, and tolerance. Even at the hieght of the Roman Empire, when Rome was behaving like a sword waving, city sacking beast, life *inside* of Rome was much more tolerant and progessive than life anywhere else. We in the richer countries of the world have a good thing going, if we could only get everyone to buy into it in a way that gives every person on the planet equal oppurtunity for advancement and security, it would solve a great many conflicts.

Yes, there will always nutcases, but people immigrate to the U.S. every day, desperate get int our prosperous, tolerant system. It's very attractive.

I'm sorry but I think you are answering the question with more platitudes. Nations don't invade other nations simply because they don't have enough resources. Your example of Rome perfectly illustrates the point. Further, education and resources hardly seems relevant to the Muslim world. Many of these problems have had money thrown at them. That didn't solve the problems. Education is worthless when children are being taught from a very young age that Democracy and secularism is the root of all evil.

As for NK, it is poor as a direct result of Kim Jong Il. He precipitated a horrific famine that killed as many as 2 million people. He is currently refusing help from the west and might trigger another major famine.

They guy lives in the lap of luxury while millions of his people slowly starve to death. Men, women and children. It is a painful and agonizing situation that is nothing less than torture. I can imagine nothing worse than watching my child starve to death. Is he nuts? Yeah, I think so. But who gives a sh!t the guy is a monster.

I find your notions of problem solving naive at best.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I'm sorry but I think you are answering the question with more platitudes. Nations don't invade other nations simply because they don't have enough resources. Your example of Rome perfectly illustrates the point. Further, education and resources hardly seems relevant to the Muslim world. Many of these problems have had money thrown at them. That didn't solve the problems. Education is worthless when children are being taught from a very young age that Democracy and secularism is the root of all evil.

As for NK, it is poor as a direct result of Kim Jong Il. He precipitated a horrific famine that killed as many as 2 million people. He is currently refusing help from the west and might trigger another major famine.

They guy lives in the lap of luxury while millions of his people slowly starve to death. Men, women and children. It is a painful and agonizing situation that is nothing less than torture. I can imagine nothing worse than watching my child starve to death. Is he nuts? Yeah, I think so. But who gives a sh!t the guy is a monster.

I find your notions of problem solving naive at best.

We have spent very, very little trying to make the Middle-East prosperous and educated. We've spent vast sums of money buying Oil off of them, but not doing much of anything else. How about we try my plan? We used similar models to rebuild Germany and Japan after the Second World War, and they're now economic powerhouses, and our allies (even if they're not enthused about this particular war).

 

[ImaginalDisc]

TPS: I'll still buy you that beer at TAM...but it's looking more and more like you'll be offered a Miller Lite rather than a nice micro-brew porter....

I appreciate that, but try this instead: Find the person you abhor at TAM the most. Offer to buy *them* a beer.

 

[Freakshow]

We used similar models to rebuild Germany and Japan after the Second World War, and they're now economic powerhouses, and our allies (even if they're not enthused about this particular war).

We first had to overthrow their governments with wars.

 

[Freakshow]

Most people chose not to take up a life of crime because they have far more to gain my participating in society, than they do by violating society. If we make peace with us provide for more prsoperity, more fainess, and more liberty, and not just more than war, we'll have to fight fewer wars.

"Most people". What do pacifists do about the few people that refuse to live a peaceful life? How do stop a violent serial rapist, without the use of force?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

We first had to overthrow their governments with wars.

Yeah, because before WWII, we were very isolationist, and regarded Europe as "not our problem". Today, we still regard a great many countries as "not our problem." Civil war in Sri Lanka, not our problem, China occupies Tibet, not our problem. Indonesia invades East Timor, not our problem.

I understand carrot and stick diplomacy, I just think we've got an awfully big stick, and a dinky little carrot. Changing things around overnight would be of a huge long term benefit, we'd still have the short term problems of, for example, Kim Jong Il. However, every problem gets approached with the same violent, short term approach.

 

[Mycroft]

PS: I'll still buy you that beer at TAM...but it's looking more and more like you'll be offered a Miller Lite rather than a nice micro-brew porter....

I'd love to take you up on that, but I won't be making TAM this year. Hopefully in the future?

 

[Ziggurat]

I wasn't clear. I'm sorry. I meant that we need to improve with economies, and allow them to participate in ours.

I agree that this is something we should do, and that excluding poor countries with agricultural subsidies, for example, increases the misery of the world. But that alone cannot and will not solve the problem. It is a necessary condition for peace, but it is not sufficient. Some of the problems in the world arise from people who are precisely trying to STOP economic exchange between their country and the outside world. The Taliban are an extreme example, but not the only one: economic ties to the outside world are sometimes viewed as a corrupting or threatening influence by those who hold the levers of power, and they will fight precisely to stop such ties. There is no purely economic counter to such actors.

Decmoracy and private rights have historically arrisen because of ecnomic pressures. The Magna Carta was written because the rich got tired of being bossed around. I have a lot of bad things to say about the perils of laizze-faire capitolism, but properous populaces give their governments way less leeway than poor populaces, because prosperous people have the power and modivation to protect their assests, which include civil liberties.

Yes, indeed. But such forces don't work well in poor countries which have a rich natural resource, such as oil or diamonds. In such cases, oppressive governments can survive with only a small fraction of the populace (the fraction holding the guns and exploiting said resource) even functioning. Democracy can only emerge internally in places where the government's stability, even an oppressive government, depends on the functioning of a civil society. That was true in eastern Europe, but it is not true in much of the middle east. The governments of such countries do not depend on taxation from the citizenry, and so even if a middle class emerges, they have little leverage against a leadership which does not depend on their cooperation or their wellbeing. Thus Saddam, for example, was able to lead his people to the brink of starvation, and to crush an uprising which was backed by the majority of the population without destroying his own regime in the process.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

"Most people". What do pacifists do about the few people that refuse to live a peaceful life? How do stop a violent serial rapist, without the use of force?

Perhaps I was unclear. Force can be acceptable, but I draw the line at lethal force. If someone tries to kill me, I'll try to stop them, but I won't try to kill them in order to stop them. Responsible cops follow that same principle, using reasonable force. Irresponsible cops have their exploits filmed, and show before a jury.

I don't oppose all militaries in principle, I oppose our military, right now, because of how it's been behaving since WWII. The WWII U.S. military was, overall, completely leaving aside Dresden, and the post war purchase of Japanesse biological and chemical weapon research, a thing to be quite proud of.

Edit: It's principle, not principal.

 

[hammegk]

...I'd rather die a fool than live with blood on my hands.

I sincerely hope that the many people around you, who are the 'wolves' under discussion, don't find you.

 

[Mycroft]

We have spent very, very little trying to make the Middle-East prosperous and educated. We've spent vast sums of money buying Oil off of them, but not doing much of anything else. How about we try my plan? We used similar models to rebuild Germany and Japan after the Second World War, and they're now economic powerhouses, and our allies (even if they're not enthused about this particular war).

A Marshal plan for the Middle East? Sure, but we'd have to devestate them through war, first.

The problem here isn't that they lack the resources, the problem is that their resources are under the control of a select few who have little or no motivation to reform. Reform in Egypt, for example, would mean those in power now might be elected out of power, and someone else would have control of those resources.

 

[rikzilla]

It's through economic development that we've got our cherished freedom.

You'd be quite wrong there. This nation was still a barely populated wilderness during the war for independence. We didn't buy our independence. Our ancestors bled for it.

The Founding Fathers were mostly rich guys who got tired of the new, more protectionist and exploitative, policies of the Empire.

Well ID; luckily the Founding Fathers actually told us in their own words why they went to war against the empire:

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
  
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
  
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
  
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
  
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
  
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
  
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
  
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
  
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
  
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
  
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
  
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
  
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
  
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
  
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
  
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
  
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
  
• For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
  
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
  
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
  
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
  
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
  
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
  
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
  
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
  
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
  
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
  
• In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

I bolded and bulleted the specific reasons cited...didn't see yours. I included the rest of it because...well...it's good stuff that I think you must have forgotten somewhere along the line. Do you really think, ID, that rich white guys scamming for a greater bit of lucre would "pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."?? Personally I think they were a bit deeper than that.

I think the world's a less violent, and more free place today than it was in any previous century. The more prosperous, fair and educated we can make everyone, the more liberty and peace we'll share.

...and who do we thank for this fortuitous turn of events? The tyrant? The pascifist?

You're right, the problem of an staunchly unreasonable and violet "rouge state" is, for lack of a strong enough term, a pickle. I honestly think that openly inviting them to full economic partnership, and never waivering in that, unless we're put into immediate peril is probably the best course.

It's called appeasment. It doesn't ever work.
-z

 

[rikzilla]

I'd love to take you up on that, but I won't be making TAM this year. Hopefully in the future?

That was directed at ID, not you. For you Mycroft I'd have Henninger Bier shipped in fresh from Frankfurt Germany....(best stuff I ever tasted).

Randfan and I will raise a glass to you!

-z

 

[RandFan]

We have spent very, very little trying to make the Middle-East prosperous and educated. We've spent vast sums of money buying Oil off of them, but not doing much of anything else. How about we try my plan? We used similar models to rebuild Germany and Japan after the Second World War, and they're now economic powerhouses, and our allies (even if they're not enthused about this particular war).

Germany and Japan worked because they were conquered in war. The Socio-economic system and government they have was forced on them by us.

The only way we could try your plan is to invade and seize a nation in the Middle East and then install a democratic government.... Hmmmm.... that's an idea.

Until then the leaders simply don't care. They are quite adept at gaming the system to their own needs. Any money we give them will simply be taken by those in power (see Iraqi oil for food program). I'm sorry but your plan is a non-starter. There is no basis in reality that it will work, unless...

I suppose if Iraq, in the long run, turns out like Japan and Germany then the Japan and Germany model will have proved successful in the Middle East.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Ok, rik, your exmaination of the causes of the American Revolution aren't taking all the facts. Before the French and Indian War, the Empire considered trade to be purpose of the colonies. If the colonies traded goods with Brittain, and became a market for Brittish goods, their Mercantalist economic model said that would make Brittain very wealthy. Unfortunately for the colonies, the French and Indian War was costly, in terms of money, and Brittain was in an on-again off-again war against France in other places. The Brittish government changed their policy of low taxation on the colonies into a policy of high taxation, arguing that since the French and Indian War benefitted the colonies directly, they ought to foot the bill.

The colonist however, were very upset that their fathers, sons and brothers had fought and died in the war, and been told that the Empire would pick up the monetary cost. The colonists had their tricorn hats in a twist at having thier blood sacrifice for the Empire so callously scoffed at, and then being exploited for it.

Also, the empire began to comandeer colonial merchant ships, and to press gang colonial sailors. That really got out nickerbockers in a twist, since wealthy investors and shipping company owners had become wealthy in the prosperous, free, and unregulated Mercantalist trade model. John Hancock lost a fortune when his ship was taken by the Brittish navy. Look at the Declaration of Independence, whose name is first, and biggest on it?

The colonies during the mid to late 1700's were not an untamed wilderness, they were very well cultivated, and had numerous large cities. Boston was a oung but thriving metopolis. New York was also a very important trade city and population center, and that's why General Howe took it with his 50,000 Red Coats when he got here, with the largest amphibious assault in history, up until that time.

We like to think of our founding father as the englightened, reasonable men that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence paint them as. Those two documents are masterworks of Englightenment reasoning, and rhetoric. Benjamin Franklin, the self made man, and genius, was very atypical of the Founding Fathers. Jefferson, the slave owner, and platation master, and Hancock, the wealthy Bostonian shipping magnate, were much more the norm.

These highlights show the reasons which they fought for, which are directly related to trade, wealth, and self-regulation, three things the colonies were quite used to, until the Brittish government changed its mind, post French and Indian War.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.