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The fighting "we"

Political ·Monday January 11, 2010 @ 23:30 EST (link)

How many wars as the US fought in where it was attacked first? I can only find a handful: This is less than half of all the conflicts the US has been involved in (source); in the rest, the US were the aggressors.

For what purpose are we killing our people and wasting our resources on wars when we are not endangered? Molyneux notes:

The fact of the matter is that we do not face threats to our lives and property from foreign governments, but rather from our own. The State will tell us that it must exist, at the very least, to protect us from foreign governments, but that is morally equivalent to the local Mafia don telling us that we have to pay him 50% of our income so that he can protect us from the Mafia in Paraguay. Are we given the choice to buy a gun and defend ourselves? Of course not. Who endangers us more—the local Mafia guy, or some guy in Paraguay we have never met that our local Mafia guy says just might want a piece of us? I know which chance I would take.

… Even if we do not count the physical casualties of the war, given the massive national debt being run up to pay for the Iraq war, how well is the property of American citizens being protected? How much power would Bush [or Obama] have to wage war if he did not have the power to steal almost half the wealth of the entire country? The government does not need taxes in order to wage war; it wages war because it already has the power of taxation - and it uses the war to raise taxes, either on the current citizens through increases and inflation, or on future citizens through deficits.

This simple fact helps explain why there were almost no wars in Western Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the start of World War One in 1914. This was largely because governments could not afford wars - but then they all got their very own Central Banks and were able to pave the bloody path to the Great War with printed money and deficit financing. World War One resulted from an increase in State power - and in turn swelled State power, and set the stage for the next war. Thus, the idea that we need to give governments the power to tax us in order to protect us is ludicrous—because it is taxation that gives governments the power to wage war.

For pacifist countries, this "war" may be a war on poverty, or illiteracy, or drugs, or for universal health care, or whatever. It does not matter. The moment a government takes the power—and moral "right"—to forcibly take money from citizens, the stage is set for the ever-growing power of the State.

One of the biggest propaganda* "articles of faith" of our government is that it is "we" who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan (and it was "we" in Korea and Viet Nam). It's second only to the "fighting to make the world safe for democracy" canard started with (Democratic president) Wilson as justification to enter World War I. If they want democracy - or better still, a constitutional democracy with an iron rule of non-aggression overriding all - let them show it, and let volunteers aid them at their own expense.

But it is not "we"; it is "them": a few powerful people at the top who were elected to pay off special interests (if you're on the left, think of your vitriol toward Bush; if you're on the right, think of Obama's broken promises to extricate "us" from Iraq) and soldiers who have voluntarily sworn blind obedience to their superiors (see note, "Will Americans kill Americans?"). I am even questioning my stance of "Oppose the war, but support the troops" on the twin grounds that (1) it makes little sense to oppose the crime and support the criminals, and (2) they intentionally signed up to use deadly force in blind obedience to whoever is put over them, knowing full well about past aggressive and failed wars such as Korea and Viet Nam. (Of course, it availed little to have signed up for, say, the National Guard—with the goal of protecting our shores—instead of the Army; you were still subject to being sent overseas, but they evoke more sympathy since defense of the nation was why they signed up, not pounding sand in the world's biggest powder-keg.)

Why do "we" fight these wars of aggression? Is it just bread and circuses - warriors we can cheer in a distant sandy arena?—is it government Soma to make us forget about the individual rights they erode daily? Is it because central banks allow for an infinite money spigot, so powerful people will send "us" to war at the slightest insult (and so, will ending the Federal Reserve turn off the spigot and make us sensible non-interventionists again)? Somebody explain it to me, please.

(Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio is an anarchist writer with several books online. I first heard of him when I saw his video "The Social Contract: Defined and Destroyed in Under Five Minutes. His arguments are well thought out and worth reading; Practical Anarchy seems like a good place to start. Among other things, it contains thorough rebuttals to many knee-jerk reactions to the idea of a stateless society, e.g., "What about the roads?", "Will the poor be educated?", "What about crime?".)

* Advertising appeals to choice and self-interest; propaganda uses rhetoric to morally justify the absence of choice and self-interest. Advertising can only stimulate a one-time demand; propaganda permanently suppresses rationality. Advertising generally uses the argument from effect (you will be better off); propaganda always uses the argument from morality (you are evil for doubting).

DVDs finished: Double Jeopardy.