As Neilson wrote, "Citizens who desire peace can indulge in no greater folly than that which is summed up in the phrase, 'the best way to preserve peace is to prepare for war.' … Governments have made the war; only the peoples can make an unarmed peace."It's not the weapons.
Good grief.
I used to think Lew Rockwell was smarter than this.
[Via Paul W. Davis]
13 comments:
"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those that don't."
8)
Seems to be saying that gun control for NATIONS can work and is a good idea.
Playing into the hands of the UN, for sure. Shaakashvili sounds like he has lots of support among his countrymen. To them, he's not a "rogue leader," he reflects their ideals. The UN doesn't distinguish between legitimate governments and unrecognized ones; IT wants to be the only armed power. For now, the UN is content to have marxists armed and their victims disarmed, but eventually anyone who could challenge UN rule will be stripped of the ability to make war. By force.
Then we do whatever Ban-ki Moon or the Secretary General at the time says.
Bill Clinton wants the job. Mugabe wouldn't turn it down.
The answer is not to disarm, but to arm the victims. As always.
I don't think much of Bush's adventurism either, but it doesn't drive me to cut off my trigger finger and poke out my dominant eye.
Sure would be nice if the mainstream media gave us the full story. Ever.
There's no such thing as an "unarmed peace," there's only the interval between rapes by those bigger and stronger than you.
Japan continued to fight for THREE DAYS after the bombing of Hiroshima. It took destroying another entire city to convince them that we had the superior might AND WERE WILLING TO USE IT. It's the only thing they understood. It wasn't reason and appeasement that brought peace because it wasn't coexistence they were after.
I actually think that Rockwell has a point.
And FYI Rockwell would never call for the disarmament of the American people. He's not directly calling for a Chamberlain-like response.
Explain it then, Chef, because I'm not getting it.
If my concerns were about the recent Russian incursion, I could point to all kinds of blunders and intelligence/strategy failures.
They're not.
I'm sure all those people who got stomped on by the Kaisers' troops, Hitlers' goons, Stalins' creeps, and Maos' revolutionary murderers, all could acknowledge the folly of being armed. If only they weren't dead. I am wholly interested in Mr. Rockwells' opinion of the Jews defending themselves against all their hostile neighbors. If my memory serves me, he doesn't care for it.
Well, Rockwell's comment seems stupid, but I've been reading his site for a long time and he doesn't believe in any gun control at all, so I know he's not calling for us to turn in our guns.
Zachary,
I been reading Rockwell's writing for years. The weight of all his writings point to this:
America is bad for her "adventurism" and "empire-building" while hardly a breath about Russia and China and the devastation communism has wrought by the thuggery of their leaders. There is ZERO, and I mean ZERO balance in his writings.
Face it, Lew Rockwell is a front man and apologist for communism.
I became concerned about Rockwell back in 2001 when he declared that we (the USA) had "no right" to spy on China and "we" were at fault for the P-3 incident. Somehow, he determined that our prop-driven aircraft intentionally collided with the faster, more maneuverable Chinese jet fighter.
As a retired Air Force puke who has studied aircraft since age 5, I have to say something is wrong with that whole concept.
As to the issue at hand, just what do any of us think will happen to our guns if the Russians and Chinese win dominance in the world?
BTW, Rockwell's not the only "Libertarian" holding the view that "America" is bad and evil. We have our problems, but I would rather live here than anywhere else in the world.
That "peace" needs more qualifiers than simply "unarmed". There was "peace" in Franco's Spain, for example.
That's painful to read. I consider myself a conservative libertarian, and I've read lewrockwell.com for quite a while. Its been at its best when its hosted John Lott and economists of the Austrian school, in my opinion.
The isolationist or non-entanglement school of foreign policy has a lot to recommend it, but it seems to be being extended to a moral equivalency between the United States and Russia or China. Such an equivalency is not just false but dangerously, misleadingly false.
The Georgia situation specifically is more complex than Rockwell admits. Its true that Georgia fired first. Its also the case that the Russian troops who responded had already been staged, over and above the Russian peacekeeping forces in Ossetia. I still don't know if Georgia screwed up by giving Russia the provocation it wanted, or knew it had to happen sometime and decided to get it over with on their own timetable.
In any case, Russian troops moved past Ossetia to occupy parts of Georgia proper, close to the capital. They are apparently seeking to control Georgia's pipeline. Most importantly, Russian troops have threatened to kill Georgian civilians if they didn't move out of their houses and land. Taken at their word, Russia is very close to engaging in ethnic cleansing. Suggesting that Georgians disarm in the face of that is a blow to Rockwell's credibility that I am still processing.
Saakashvili himself is no angel (unless compared to Putin), but he is at least moving his country in the direction of a free market and western democracy. Why we should surrender that to a resurgent nationalistic Russian empire just to satisfy our own America is always wrong crowd is not clear to me.
Pushing unsuccesfully for Georgian membership in NATO may have been a serious strategic error by the Bush administration, but in principle I think it is proper to encourage the spread of free markets and personal liberty under the rule of law. I have trouble seeing the libertarian spirit in turning over freedom-loving sovereign nations to totalitarian rule.
Just you all know, I received a reply to my e-mail to Lew Rockwell. I will give my e-mail first, then his reply.
Sir,
Regarding your article at http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/georgia-fiasco.html
As I thought, we should disarm while the Russians are not required to disarm (or won't). A very nice recipe for a communist takeover of the world. I have observed your writings for years and have seen a pro-communist, anti-American slant in everything you write. Nice to see you come out of the closet plainly.
"Over just a few short days, we saw this whole process beginning to play itself out, in an ominous sign for the future. But it is a future that can change. As Neilson wrote, "Citizens who desire peace can indulge in no greater folly than that which is summed up in the phrase, 'the best way to preserve peace is to prepare for war.' … Governments have made the war; only the peoples can make an unarmed peace.""
This is quite the contrast to the statement made in the Federalist 51 which has no other meaning than to say that men are inherently evil.
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
Since all men are inherently evil, only a fool or a communist agent suggests that we ought to disarm in the face of the world. Someone will rule the world as that is the nature of man. Yet, you seem to ignore the fact that Russia, as a communist nation, has been and is responsible for the deaths of millions over the last century. No, you conveniently place virtually all the blame for the trouble in this world on America.
America is not without sin, and will be judged for her sin, but to suggest that there be a general disarmament is a patent denial of the nature of man, and an open invitation to communist domination of the world.
Your real name must be Karl, Jr.
In Liberty,
Paul W. Davis
Lew Rockwell's reply (I have bolded two particularly interesting sections):
Well, inherently flawed. But that includes the men in the Pentagon, the US Army, the CIA, the White House, and the rest of the US world empire, doesn't it? And the authors of the lying political pamphlets called the Federalist Papers, designed to fool Americans into abandoning the limited-government Articles of Confederation in favor of the centralizing, bigger-government Constitution. Look where that has led--to the biggest government in the history of the world. The USSR, thank God, is gone; the American Empire is still ruling the globe, and murdering millions. Wake up. Stop watching FOX. Read a book.
A LOT of assumptions in his reply.
I don't watch TV (haven't for years).
I read constantly.
I am retired military and maintain a significant interest in all military affairs (in particular, weapon systems).
I am keenly interested in the strategic deception engaged in by the Bloc nations and how it is emerging (exactly as Anatoliy Golitsyn wrote that it would - about 97% accurate thus far).
If Lew Rockwell made some incredible assumptions about someone he knows nothing about, what assumptions is he making on other things? Or, is it simply the old communist tactic of bluster and accuse when caught?
Mr. Davis:
> America is bad for her "adventurism" and "empire-building"
Did you mean to imply that you're still unacquainted with the crucial distinction between "the U.S." (that is, the central government) and "America" (the country)?
> while hardly a breath about Russia and China and the devastation communism has wrought by the thuggery of their leaders.
"Hardly a breath"???
> There is ZERO, and I mean ZERO balance in his writings.
I invite everyone to read and judge that for themselves.
> Face it, Lew Rockwell is a front man and apologist for communism.
An apologist for a Communist? Maybe. A front man and apologist for Communism? No. (I've got a lot higher nominations on who he publishes that could be; but "publishes" is not the same thing as "agrees with".)
> Somehow, he determined that our prop-driven aircraft intentionally collided with the faster, more maneuverable Chinese jet fighter.
Is this what you're referring to? If so, then what part of it do you find to be inaccurate? I submit that the USG telling falsifiable lies about other, previous, similar incidents is more than sufficient cause to regard their claim--of not intentionally colliding with the Chinese jet--with deep suspicion at the very least.
Nevertheless, it is true that "Nations don't distrust each other because they're armed; they're armed because they distrust each other.". I submit that the primary reason they distrust each other is that they're run by despots (which is to say, violent criminals).
It is also true that some people are just more susceptible to "charm offensives" than others.
Neilson could have put it better and more-accurately, e.g.: "Governments have made the war; only the peoples can make a peace by depriving 'their' governments of arms.". If the people can't do so because the government is too strong....well, right there's your problem, innit?
Mark Odell
This was dismaying and somewhat surprising. I admit I haven't read the Lew Rockwell site as closely insofar as foreign affairs are concerned. cycjec
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