Saturday, January 5, 2013

Endless War....And Where You Fit In

By, Chris Rossini
Email | Twitter

It's really sad to point this out, but if you're an American, try to think of time in your life when the U.S. government was not militarily involved somewhere.

I know that in my life, I can't think of a time.

If you believe you have a year, check it against this History of U.S. Military Interventions since 1890. But get ready to use the scroll on your mouse. It's not a short list.

Now, after looking at that horrendous list, some questions must be asked:

Why?

Who gains from constant war?

And where does your life, freedom, and property fit in?

Seasoned libertarians have undoubtedly read or heard of the following quote from Randolph Bourne: "War is the health of the State".

But what if you're new to the liberty movement, and that statement is just too broad for you? You need more details....some specifics.

Well, the following should hit the spot. It was written by a man named Bernard Baruch on Aug. 7th, 1918, during World War I (also known as "the war to ends all wars").

Baruch was Chairman of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's War Industries Board. He spells out exactly where you fit in. He wrote:
"Every man's life is at the call of the nation and so must be every man's property. We are living today in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is his only as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and possessions at the call of the state."

"Enforced and involuntary service for a private master is and has been clearly and repeatedly defined by our Supreme Court as slavery. A soldier serves the nation directly. There is but one master in the case and that master is America. He serves to profit no one but the country as a whole."
Is it any wonder why a small group of men would want keep war alive?

That huge list of military interventions doesn't just fall out of the sky. That takes effort.

But look at the prize...Everything is at their disposal.

And with each passing year, it really keeps creeping toward literally everything. We all see the headlines....warrantless spying, warrantless searches, warrantless.......

The next time you're at the airport, waiting in line for a shot of government radiation or to have your genitals grabbed by a government employee, think back to the above Baruch quote.

Then ponder the thought that just maybe, the target of endless war is your freedom.




6 comments:

  1. In fall 2008, amidst the crisis, I was attending a catechism class to become godfather to a new nephew.

    When one of the laity leaders of the class (there were 3) told two of us that the Church had moved more in a "humanist" direction, it affirmed for me in a small way what I was dealing with. I had not attended church regularly for 20 years.

    I attempted to use the class to pass on libertarian and traditional teachings of the Catholic Church, schooling the schoolers. You can imagine how much they seemed to hate me.

    One of the leaders worked for a large chemical conglomerate, another at a large medical university in NJ. There was brief talk of what was going on in the country, and I could not always hold back my fight for truth, and decency.

    One night, near the end of class, I heard these two briefly mention Bernard Baruch to each other, in amusement. I knew Baruch ran the War Industries Board during WWI, a fascist/socialist organizing of the economy.

    Surely I don't blame two upper-middle-class men for all that has gone wrong. The oldsters made their bones post WW2, when Austrian economics was hardly heard by anyone who had not attended FEE, Mises' classes at NYU, or read Ayn Rand.

    I held my tongue in disgust. What can one do, but find, build and nurture the remnant. I have hope in younger people, who are paying into the system and are slowly becoming aware it is a ponzi scheme. I have great respect for my elders, and we need to take care of them. But the warfare/welfare state is the worst way imaginable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a tribe of cannibals and I want to stand up and say, "Maybe we shouldn't eat people." Then I realize I don't want to be eaten, so I keep my mouth shut.

      Delete
  2. I've said it before...

    It's not about gun control.
    It's not about pollution control.
    It's not about terrorist control.

    It's about self-control, and other-control.

    It's about a class of people that cannot control themselves, but are obsessed with controlling every other person on the planet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Who gains from constant war?

    http://peureport.blogspot.com/2013/01/banner-year-for-general-peter-pace.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Maybe the next Pentagon Chief will profit from war:

    http://peureport.blogspot.com/2012/12/chuck-hagel-peu.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."-James Madison

    ReplyDelete