Tag Archives | Terror

The Atrocity of Hope, Part 7: Our Ignoble Laureate

So our President Incarnate, his hands dripping (metaphorically – I’m sure he washes them regularly) with the blood of Pakistani and Afghan children, along with shredded bits of the principles of Nuremberg, jets off to Norway to accept a prize that is supposed to be awarded only to those who have worked for “the abolition or reduction of standing armies.”

Obushma

There, having given Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King a patronisingly dismissive pat on the head, he adds: “But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation [Note: clearly he must have taken some secret version of the oath of office, because that’s not what the public one says], I cannot be guided by their examples alone.” And then he has the effrontery to propound a bizarro version of history in which, “for more than six decades,” the united states has “brought stability,” “helped underwrite global security,” “enabled democracy to take hold,” and “promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea.” (I suppose this would be an example of the u.s. promoting peace and prosperity in Korea.)

And as if all that weren’t audacity enough, he has the nerve to tell an audience of Scandinavians that “a non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies.”

That’s right: the president of the country that turned away Jews who were attempting to escape the Holocaust belittles the accomplishments of the people who actually saved their Jews from Hitler’s goons through the use of nonviolent resistance. As Bryan Caplan reminds us:

Danish, Norwegian, and Dutch resistance to Nazism from 1940 to 1945 was pronounced and fairly successful. In Norway, for example, teachers refused to promote fascism in the schools. For this, the Nazis imprisoned a thousand teachers. But, the remaining teachers stood firm, giving anti-fascist instruction to children and teaching in their homes. This policy made the pro-fascist Quisling government so unpopular that it eventually released all of the imprisoned teachers and dropped its attempt to dominate the schools. … In Copenhagen, Danes used a general strike to liberalize martial law. …

But, surely the most amazing but widely neglected case of nonviolent resistance against Nazi Germany was the protection of Jews and other persecuted minorities from deportation, imprisonment, and murder. … Gene Sharp shows how the nations which nonviolently resisted National Socialist racial persecutions saved almost all of their Jews, while Jews in other Nazi-controlled nations were vastly more likely to be placed in concentration camps and killed. The effort to arrest Norway’s seventeen hundred Jews sparked internal resistance and protest resignations; most of the Norwegian Jews fled to Sweden. … When Himmler tried to crack down on Danish Jews, the Danes thwarted his efforts. Not only did the Danish government and people resist – through bureaucratic slowdowns and noncooperation – but, surprisingly, the German commander in Denmark also refused to help organize Jewish deportations. This prompted Himmler to import special troops to arrest Jews. But, in the end almost all Danish Jews escaped unharmed. …

The omnipresent pattern … is that totalitarian governments are not omnipotent. They need the cooperation of the ruled to exert their will. If a people denies cooperation, even a government as vicious as Hitler’s, bound by few moral constraints, might be unable to get what it wants.
(The Literature of Nonviolent Resistance and Civilian-Based Defense)

Then after collecting his prize and insulting the givers, Obama jets away again, snubbing the traditional ceremonies. Note to Scandinavia: don’t give our president any more prizes. Really. You don’t need to stay in this abusive relationship.


Six Hours of Your Life That You’ll Never Get Back

DESTROY THIS MAD BRUTE -- ENLIST

Today commemorates the day that thousands lost their lives during the six hours after an end to World War I had been officially agreed to through negotiation, because the powers that be wanted the symbolism of ending the war at 11:00 on 11/11 (hell, why not 11:11 on 11/11?); see World War I: Wasted Lives on Armistice Day. (CHT Jesse Walker.)

Of course, the lives that were lost in World War I before Armistice Day were pretty much wasted too; but at least it was pretended (on both sides) that those lives were lost in the service of some cause of great significance – democracy, or Kultur, or an end to all further war. By contrast, on Armistice Day the pointlessness of all the mass slaughter, along with the attitude of the powerful to those under their control, was revealed without disguise, in all its naked unloveliness. Happy Armistice Day.


Anniversaries, Happy and Otherwise

Today is the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I haven’t got a goddamn thing new to say about them – but check out my previous comments here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Today is also the seventh anniversary of this blog, pursuant whereto I present the latest batch of Austro-Athenian Imperial Statistics. (For previous blog stats see here.) Thanks, Brandon!

Orange Beach

Orange Beach

In addition, today is the seventh anniversary of the Molinari Institute, so it seems appropriate to announce (even though the detailed schedule won’t be posted online for another few days) that Charles Johnson and I will both be speaking on Molinarian topics at the Alabama Philosophical Society meetings in Orange Beach, 2-3 October.

Here are the abstracts:

Charles Johnson (Molinari Institute): “Can Anyone Ever Consent to the State?”
I defend a strong incompatibility claim that anything which could count as a state is conceptually incompatible with any possible consent of the governed. Not only do states necessarily operate without the unanimous consent of all the governed, but in fact, as territorial monopolies on the use of force, states preclude any subject from consenting – even those who want it, and actively try to give consent to government. If government authority is legitimate, it must derive from an account of legitimate command and subordination; any principled requirement for consent and political equality entails anarchism.

Roderick T. Long (Auburn University): “Left-Libertarianism, Class Conflict, and Historical Theories of Distributive Justice”
A frequent objection to the “historical” (in Nozick’s sense) approach to distributive justice is that it serves to legitimate existing massive inequalities of wealth. I argue that, on the contrary, the historical approach, thanks to its fit with the libertarian theory of class conflict, represents a far more effective tool for challenging these inequalities than do relatively end-oriented approaches such as utilitarianism and Rawlsianism.


Non-Attack of the 120,000-Foot Man

Today on LRC, Laurence Vance quotes the following passage from Vicesimus Knox’s 1800 essay “On the Folly and Wickedness of War”:

The calamities attendant on a state of war seem to have prevented the mind of man from viewing it in the light of an absurdity, and an object of ridicule as well as pity. But if we could suppose a superior Being capable of beholding us, miserable mortals, without compassion, there is, I think, very little doubt but the variety of military manœuvres and formalities, the pride, pomp, and circumstance of war, and all the ingenious contrivances for the glorious purposes of mutual destruction, which seem to constitute the business of many whole kingdoms, would furnish him with an entertainment like that which is received by us from the exhibition of a farce or puppet-show. …

Knox and Voltaire

Knox and Voltaire

The causes of war are for the most part such as must disgrace an animal pretending to rationality. Two poor mortals take offence at each other, without any reason, or with the very bad one of wishing for an opportunity of aggrandizing themselves, by making reciprocal depredations. The creatures of the court, and the leading men of the nation, who are usually under the influence of the court, resolve (for it is their interest) to support their royal master, and are never at a loss to invent some colourable pretence for engaging the nation in the horrors of war. Taxes of the most burthensome kind are levied, soldiers are collected so as to leave a paucity of husbandmen, reviews and encampments succeed, and at last a hundred thousand men meet on a plain, and coolly shed each others blood, without the smallest personal animosity, or the shadow of a provocation. The kings, in the mean time, and the grandees, who have employed these poor innocent victims to shoot bullets at each other’s heads, remain quietly at home, and amuse themselves, in the intervals of balls, hunting schemes, and pleasures of every species, with reading at the fire side, over a cup of chocolate, the dispatches from the army, and the news in the Extraordinary Gazette.

(Read the rest.)

I can’t help wondering whether Knox’s idea of viewing petty human warfare from a superior cosmic standpoint might have been inspired by Voltaire’s 1752 novella Micromégas, in which a 120,000-foot giant from outer space comes to Earth and learns from a friendly philosopher what all the anthill scurrying at his feet is about:

“[A]t this very moment there are 100,000 fools of our species who wear hats, slaying 100,000 fellow creatures who wear turbans, or being massacred by them, and over almost all of Earth such practices have been going on from time immemorial.”

The Sirian shuddered, and asked what could cause such horrible quarrels between those miserable little creatures.

Micromegas“The dispute concerns a lump of clay,” said the philosopher, “no bigger than your heel. Not that a single one of those millions of men who get their throats cut has the slightest interest in this clod of earth. The only point in question is whether it shall belong to a certain man who is called Sultan, or another who, I know not why, is called Cæsar. Neither has seen, or is ever likely to see, the little corner of ground which is the bone of contention; and hardly one of those animals, who are cutting each other’s throats has ever seen the animal for whom they fight so desperately.”

“Ah! wretched creatures!” exclaimed the Sirian with indignation; “Can anyone imagine such frantic ferocity! I should like to take two or three steps, and stamp upon the whole swarm of these ridiculous assassins.”

“No need,” answered the philosopher; “they are working hard enough to destroy themselves. I assure you, at the end of 10 years, not a hundredth part of those wretches will be left; even if they had never drawn the sword, famine, fatigue, or intemperance will sweep them almost all away. Besides, it is not they who deserve punishment, but rather those armchair barbarians, who from the privacy of their cabinets, and during the process of digestion, command the massacre of a million men, and afterward ordain a solemn thanksgiving to God.”


What Republicans Really Mean By Supporting the Troops

Here’s what Loathsome bastard Lt. Col. Ralph Peters had to say about captured soldier Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl:

BergdahlHe is an apparent deserter. Reports are indeed that he abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post, and walked off. We’ll see what the ultimate truth of it is, but if he did … he’s a deserter at wartime ….

On that video, he is collaborating with the enemy. Under duress or not – that’s really not relevant – he’s making accusations about the behavior of the military in Afghanistan that are unfounded, saying that there are no rules, he’s lying about how he was captured, saying he lagged behind the patrol. … So we know that this private is a liar. We’re not sure if he’s a deserter. But the media needs to hit the pause button, and not portray this guy as a hero. … He’s making anti-American statements, I mean, he wants to investigate Islam, blah blah blah. …

If he walked away from his post and his buddies at wartime … I don’t care how hard it sounds, as far as I’m concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.


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