www.thornwalker.com/ditch/critic.htm
An
encounter with a reader
on war and
empire
In April 2003, after the apparent close of the heaviest fighting in the imperial invasion and conquest of Iraq, I posted the following installment to the "Stop and think" section of the TLD home page. Nicholas Strakon
The Empire and the end of history. I remember reading before the war that leading archaeologists and historians of the ancient world were worried about the fate of Iraq's antiquities, and ABC News confirmed that the other day, adding the important detail that the scholars actually warned the Pentagon to be careful and received indifferent shrugs in return. We shouldn't be surprised.In "The Consequences of World War II to Britain," libertarian revisionist James J. Martin noted that the increasing barbarism of modern warfare was exemplified on the American and British side by "barely literate young aviators who undertook the obliteration of Europe's ancient cities and cultural achievements with the lack of compunction displayed ... by a housewife dousing an anthill with a kettle of boiling water." Roosevelt and Churchill's jitterbugging, comic-book-reading, pinup-ogling young primitives happily pulverized and incinerated museums, galleries, libraries, universities, monuments, concert halls, opera houses, historic churches, and all the glories of Mediaeval and Baroque architecture they could encompass in their bombsights, in the course of murdering hundreds of thousands of noncombatant men, women, and children.
In light of that record, I suppose we should be thankful that the mouth-breathers of today's Imperial military didn't actually join in the fun and help destroy those Iraqi antiquities, after napalming the custodians.
Back to this department's
table of
contents.
On April 22, I
received this response from a reader,
which I posted as the new "Stop and think" installment,
along with my prefatory comment:
If someone were to break into your home in the middle
of the night and threaten your life, would you read
them a good book or show them your membership cards
in various cultural organizations? You probably would.
However, there are many who would like the legal right
to defend themselves, even if that meant using deadly
force.
The Last Ditch is just one more radical publication that
is a waste of resources that could be put to better use.
Get an honest job, then take a bath!
Conservative8 [partial e-mail
address]
Back to TOC.
We and our readers did indeed find a few things to say
in reply, starting with TLD contributing editor
David T.
Wright:
Imagine! Just allowing everyone to do as they please!
We can't have that in a free society!
Mr. Conservative8 appears to be suffering from
cognitive dissonance. After he rejects the idea of
personal freedom, he turns around and says, "There are
many who would like the legal right to defend
themselves, even if that meant using deadly force."
That's right. And I'm one of them. And it's the cops and
our rulers, who sent the troops to Iraq to address a
threat to us that didn't exist, who want to take that
right away from us.
So I say to you, Mr. Conservative8, make up your
mind.
Do you want the freedom to defend yourself, and all the
other freedoms that the Founders said were given us by
God? You can't pick and choose, you know; they all go
together. You compromise one, and pretty soon you
lose them all, as is happening to us now.
Or do you want a society in which you can be
stopped on the streets and told, "Your papers, please"?
One in which The Authorities can come into your house
and search without a warrant? That's what new
legislation being pushed by those great "conservatives"
George W. Bush and John Ashcroft would allow. This
war furnishes them with a great excuse.
Perhaps you want the latter, and you are confusing the
right of self-defense with the right of a bunch of
politicians to strut about and do whatever they want to
whomever they choose.
Let me spell it out for you. This war has nothing to do
with defense, and Saddam was never a threat to us.
Where are all those "weapons of mass destruction" of
which we were supposed to be scared to death? All this
war has accomplished is to get a lot more Muslims mad
at us, and give politicians excuses to destroy what
freedom we have left. It's made us less safe, not
more.
So to answer your question, yes, I do want to abolish
the military and the state that uses it to
expand its own power. Like the Founders, I think a
standing army is a threat to our freedom and safety,
because sooner or later it will be used against us.
As for the cops, they scare me more than the criminals
do. Given a choice between being "protected" by police
and by my own 9mm Browning Hi-Power, I'll take the
Hi-Power. My neighbors and I can take responsibility
for our own defense, thank you very much. April 25, 2003
Back to TOC.
Senior editor Ronn Neff
comments
You, apparently, think that someone who is basically
concerned with their own survival should be more
concerned with the protection of antiquities.
I have to say that I don't quite get how a person can call
himself a conservative and be indifferent to the theft,
destruction, and looting of museum antiquities.
Conserve ... museum ... conserve ... antiquities. Get
it?
April 26, 2003
Back to TOC.
Nicholas
Strakon replies
Thanks to the others who responded, there is little I am
obliged to add. Nevertheless I'll address a couple of
issues, since Mr. Conservative8's comments, including
the incivilities, were aimed squarely at me.
I have written previously of the "40 IQ points" most
people seem automatically to lose in wartime. By Mr.
Conservative8's way of thinking, opposing criminal,
imperialistic war and the individual war crimes
subordinate to it, and doing one's very best to avoid
having anything to do with all of that, is equivalent to
adopting pacifism: equivalent, that is, to permitting
urban home invaders to break down one's door and
assault one's family without encountering the righteous
sanction of some magnum double-O buck issuing with
dispatch from an 18-inch barrel. That's an impressive
mental leap straight into absurdity. It's a
prime example of statish thinking, of deliberately
retarding and disturbing one's own precious mind in the
service of statism. Unfortunately, it is an example of
long standing: Draft resisters know that the same
gibberish was grunted routinely by the stink-smeared
gorillas of the conscription system during each of the
United State's great explosions of mass murder,
1917-1970. [That latter date should be 1973 ed.]
Now here is the second point I wish to make, even
though other responders touched on it. Saddam Hussein
& Co. never committed any crime against me. I have no
reason to consider them my enemy. But George W. Bush
& Co. and their precedessors, along with the other
politicians around them, the bureaucrats under them,
and the permanent ruling class over them, have
committed many crimes against me. They have
burdened my life with a strangling web of regulatory
decrees; cartelized, distorted, and wrecked the
economy in which I work; debased the currency in
which I must trade; helped corrupt and pull apart the
civilization I cherish; sought to control whom I might
associate with and whom I might spurn; interfered with
my right of self-defense and in many of their
jurisdictions denied that right altogether; gone
rampaging out into the world, murdering and
destroying, doing evil in my name and making me a
hostage to it; and robbed me over and over and over,
every day of my life, behind their euphemism of
"taxation." Do I want to "abolish" them and all their
works? Since the secret police are lurking always, I
will answer with a simple but emphatic Yes!
while keeping to myself what I think ought really to
happen to them.
They are my enemy. They are our enemy. Chances are,
they are even the enemy of Mr. Conservative8, as much
as he may whimper to be their little friend. April 25, 2003
Back to TOC.
From the friends of
TLD
Mr. Strakon invited readers to comment on the e-mail
he received from Mr. Conservative8, but that's really
asking a lot. It's difficult to respond because the
message in question displays such disorganized, sloppy
thinking that I don't quite know where to begin. Each and
every sentence goes off on some new tangent or states
some incomplete idea. About all one can do is to offer
some general thoughts.
Obviously, you have never been involved in any
combat. I, for one, have not and thank
Heaven for it.
You apparently think that someone who is basically
concerned with their own survival should be more
concerned with the protection of antiquities. Say
what? Listen, buddy: the United States attacked an
innocent nation that had never done Americans any
harm, remember? The United States then decimated the
ridiculously ill-equipped Iraqi soldiery wow!
what bravery! The United States murdered in cold blood
hundreds if not thousands of innocent Iraqi women and
children "Hey, the chick got in the way," saith
one of our valiant soldiers. After that, our brave boys
stood by while mobs looted Iraqi museums of the
treasure of fifty centuries and not a few hand-rubbing
little New York antique dealers started drooling. And
just for good measure the U.S. military saw to it that a
few ancient libraries were burned and a Catholic
monastery or two were blown up.
Is any of this registering yet, Mr. Conservative8? Who,
in fact, is "totally out of touch with reality"?
What do you think the military is there for? I
presume to pillage, murder, rape, and commit foul
aggression against innocent people, acting like mindless
robots so as to do the dirty work of Israel, via the
corrupt United States of America.
Have I missed anything substantial? Do you think we
should abolish the military and let people like Saddam
rule the roost? No, we should rein in the military
but only after they take action to prevent
madmen like Bush, Cheney, and Sharon from ruling the
roost any longer.
Do you think we should abolish the various
police forces in our country? Huh? I thought we
were talking about Iraq. If someone were to break
into your home in the middle of the night and threaten
your life, would you read them a good book or show
them your membership cards in various cultural
organizations? Ahhhh ... yeah. Sure. However
there are many who would like the legal right to defend
themselves, even if that meant using deadly force.
Does that include Iraqis defending their home, family,
and land from invading barbarians the type of
barbarians that made the producers of "American
Beauty" multimillionaires?
Get an honest job, then take a bath! Alas, I
already work an honest job to feed my wife and nine
children, and I shower every morning. (And as often as
possible I try to enjoy a fine French wine with my
dinner.)
Poor Mr. Conservative8 needs to switch off Rush
Limbaugh and the nightly news, and start getting his
head into some good books. I recommend he begin with
the classics so as to help his mind start to reason and
reflect. Dickens, Chesterton, Aquinas, Shakespeare,
Villon, and Belloc would help him, I believe. Once he has
begun to see simple truths unfold before his eyes he
can then start to read thoughtful contemporary
political writing, particularly the kind that can be found
on excellent websites such as The Last Ditch. And Sobran's.
The only other thing I can say is that letters like Mr.
Conservative8's depress me profoundly. They make me
think very seriously about packing my things and
moving to Europe. I don't say it is necessarily any
better there, but at least I wouldn't have to wake up
every morning and hear all the incessant blather about
living in "the land of the free and home of the brave"
coming from idiots who are neither free nor brave.
Dan Guenzel
Sherwin vs.
Guenzel
In regards to the letter from the "conservative" person
that Mr. Strakon printed, I would offer Ayn Rand's
devastating question:
"But what are the 'conservatives'? What is it
that they are seeking to 'conserve?'"
That's from "Conservatism: An Obituary," one of the
essays included in Capitalism: The Unknown
Ideal.
I don't expect a rational answer, of course.
Any time some yammerhead describes himself as a
conservative, I think back on how long That Woman's
question has been hanging out there in space.
John Lopez
Anarchists and libertarians are unjustly tagged as
utopians. In my view, it is the statists who are utopian.
The issue is not whether politicians, generals,
bureaucrats, cops, and judges prevent some crime.
Surely they must. The issue is whether they prevent
more crime than they preserve.
Over the last 20 years, the U.S. government has
bombed Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua,
Panama, Iraq, Bosnia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan,
and Iraq again. That track record does not compare
favorably to that of the Axis of Evil: Iraq has attacked
only Israel, Iran, and Kuwait over that period, while
Iran has attacked only Iraq, and North Korea hasn't
attacked anybody. Mr. Sherwin, presumably, finds all
the American adventurism defensible. That's his right.
But I certainly don't see what's so "conservative" about
it.
I also find his invocation of the Founding Fathers
curious. Is he familiar with Madison's warnings against
large standing armies? How about Jefferson's and
Washington's exhortations that the republic steer clear
of "entangling alliances"?
I, too, once espoused the republican (small "r") values
to which Mr. Sherwin pays lip service. I've since gone
over to the anarchist side, as I find it highly implausible
that any government will ever abide by any constitution
designed to limit its power. Mr. Sherwin, remarkably,
labors under the illusion that such constraints are still
in place.
Tony Pivetta
Nicholas Strakon comments
Mr. Pivetta touches on a point that we should declare as loudly, plainly, and often as we can from every rooftop available to us: It is precisely the proponents of "limited government" who are the utopians. (Sad to say, the deliberate totalitarians are not: they are very practical folks.)
May 1, 2003
I'm distressed to find myself in agreement with
anything that the impolite Mr. Sherwin has to say, but
the truth is to be faced squarely, perhaps all the more
so when it is unpleasant. When Mr. Sherwin writes,
"What the Founders had to say on the subject may have
been relevant in their time. It most certainly is not
relevant in our time," I must conclude that he is correct
very much less to my satisfaction than to his,
I am sure. The words of men long dead can have no
effect, save by the humility and teachability of those
who live, think, and act at a later time, such as the
present. The idea of Mr. Sherwin or his many
brothers in modern "conservatism"
contemplating the writings of Washington or Jefferson
bring to mind a saying of Jesus: "Do not give what is
holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before
swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and
turn and tear you to pieces."
Indeed, Mr. Sherwin is correct: what the Founders had
to say is not, in fact, relevant to our time. So much the
worse for our time.
Jim Wetzel
Back to TOC.
Our critic replies to
Mr. Wright
On April 26 I received another letter from our critic,
which I posted to the top of "Stop and think," again with
some prefatory comment:
I doubt we're ever going to get through to this fellow,
so I was thinking of closing the correspondence once
this exchange was complete. However, since our
correspondent is so aghast at our proposing the
abolition of the military, I cannot resist challenging him
to name one instance in the past one hundred
years of the U.S. military's defending the freedom
of Americans 1) against an enemy that the United State
had not first helped to create and 2) without wrecking
freedom in the course of "defending" it. Americans who
have gone abroad and put themselves in harm's way do
not qualify. Also, since we're talking about the old
days, I might mention that while conscription is gone, it
is not forgotten, at least not hereabouts. I expect our
correspondent would have a hard time showing that an
organization that depended on enslavement for its own
staffing could possibly defend anything resembling
freedom, or even be interested in defending it.
Nicholas Strakon
You then stated that I rejected the concept of personal
freedom, then wanted the right to defend myself. You
really should read what others have to say more
carefully. I never said I reject the idea of personal
freedom. It is a consequence of your own imagination.
Then, after attributing something to me which I had not
said, you go on and on pointing out imaginary
contradictions. You really are confused.
There is, however, a difference between having the
right to do anything one pleases and having a legal right
to defend oneself. Even though you are having difficulty
making that distinction.
Then you, somehow, claim that one cannot have any
freedom unless one has any and all freedoms. That
conclusion is the product of your own faulty thinking. It
does not necessarily follow.
You say you are in favor of abolishing the military.
That statement demonstrates how out of touch with
reality you are. While what the Founders had to say on
the subject may have been relevant in their time. It
most certainly is not relevant in our time. But then,
you are having trouble making that distinction, as
well.
While you, obviously, have the right to your own
opinions, you are just as annoying as the rest of the
crowd of bash America first, or blame everything that
is less than desirable on the US All you can do is find
fault with our country. Apparently, in your limited
perspective, the rest of the world does everything
right while we do everything wrong. Were we
Imperialistic war mongers during W.W. II, as well? Or
is it only George Bush and the Republicans who are at
fault?
By the way, the museum was looted by the Iraqi people,
and a few war correspondents, not our military. The
Iraqi people primarily took old office equipment. The
more valuable artifacts were locked in vaults which
required keys to open. It was high-ranking museum
officials who took that material. And do you think that
Saddam would have left anything of real value in the
museum over the many years he had complete
control?
You complained we have not found weapons of mass
destruction. We have only been there four weeks.
Again, you are out of touch with reality. Obviously, if
these weapons exist, they are well hidden or were sent
out of the country. Saddam may have been a despot, but
he was certainly not a moron. You, apparently, think he
should have left them in plain sight so, if they exist, can
be easily found. And you use your moronic observation
to "prove" that these weapons do not exist.
And for someone who touts his endorsement of culture
and higher sensitivities, you sound more like a vigilante
waving your Browning around purporting to be acting in
self defense.
One last comment. I wish you had not stopped taking
your medication. I wish you God speed and please start
taking your medication again.
Richard Sherwin
Back to TOC.
David T. Wright
replies
Mr. Sherwin writes: It sounds like you are in favor
of everyone doing anything they please, which includes
rape, murder, and armed robbery, etc. When I allude to
restrictions placed upon those who would abuse
personal freedom, you insist that I am, somehow,
restricting your personal freedom.
I'm not saying that Mr. Sherwin is taking away my
freedoms. I'm saying only that his approach will
eventually result in all of us losing our freedoms.
My point is that in a truly free society, people are free
to do as they choose, until they hurt someone else.
English common law and, until recently, our
own legal system included prohibitions against
prior restraint, meaning that the state couldn't restrict
a person just because someone thought he might do
something criminal. That may seem like a fine point to
Mr. Sherwin, but one of the biggest problems we have
these days is having our lives run by the state when
we're minding our own business, hurting no one.
I am reminded of a conversation I had recently with a
dear friend, a very nice person who is also a
conventional Jewish-type liberal. When I speculated on
what people might be able to do with the vast amount of
income confiscated from them every year by the state
if allowed to keep it, she said, "If you let them keep
more of their money, they'd just spend it on SUVs and
use up all the oil!" That's the way liberals think: if it
isn't officially endorsed, it shouldn't be allowed. I find it
highly ironic that one claiming to be a "conservative"
seems to take the same kind of attitude.
You then stated that I rejected the concept of
personal freedom, then wanted the right to defend
myself. You really should read what others have to say
more carefully. I never said I reject the idea of
personal freedom. It is a consequence of your own
imagination. Then, after attributing something to me
which I had not said, you go on and on pointing out
imaginary contradictions. You really are
confused.
I simply drew the logical conclusion from what Mr.
Sherwin wrote in the first paragraph of his original
missive. It's all about whether "we" meaning,
the state should let people do things. See
above.
There is, however, a difference between having the
right to do anything one pleases and having a legal right
to defend oneself. Even though you are having difficulty
making that distinction.
No, I think Mr. Sherwin is having trouble distinguishing
between the concept of liberty and that of "legal
rights." "Legal rights" are something given you by the
state, which can take them away again, as it is doing
now. Soon it will take away entirely the right to defend
oneself, as the British state has done already. Today,
people in Britain are given jail time for using their
umbrellas to fight off muggers.
Then you, somehow, claim that one cannot have any
freedom unless one has any and all freedoms. That
conclusion is the product of your own faulty thinking. It
does not necessarily follow.
That's not what I said at all. Here's what I said: "You
can't pick and choose, you know; they [the freedoms
that the Founders said were given us by God] all go
together. You compromise one, and pretty soon you
lose them all, as is happening to us now."
The point should be self evident: If the people's freedom
to keep and bear arms is diminished, the state's fear of
their rebellion is greatly relieved, and it feels more
able to take away other freedoms. If their right to free
expression is lost, the state lets them know only what
it wants them to know, and so it can get away with
taking away other freedoms. If their freedom to own
property is compromised, the people become wards of
the state: their property is no longer their own and it
can be confiscated if they do something the state
doesn't like. And so on. Mr. Sherwin may benefit from
reading the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist
papers.
You say you are in favor of abolishing the military.
That statement demonstrates how out of touch with
reality you are. While what the Founders had to say on
the subject may have been relevant in their time. It
most certainly is not relevant in our time. But then,
you are having trouble making that distinction, as
well.
I just love this argument. It's the same one the liberals
use against the freedom of self-defense, against the
concept (beloved by "conservatives") of limited,
decentralized government, and so forth. It's the
argument underlying all those power-grabbing Supreme
Court rulings the "conservatives" hate. I thought
conservatives believed in immutable, "self-evident"
truths. I guess not.
While you, obviously, have the right to your own
opinions, you are just as annoying as the rest of the
crowd of bash America first, or blame everything that
is less than desirable on the US All you can do is find
fault with our country. Apparently, in your limited
perspective, the rest of the world does everything
right while we do everything wrong. Were we
Imperialistic war mongers during W.W.II, as well? Or is
it only George Bush and the Republicans who are at
fault?
Excuse me, but when did I say that "the rest of the
world does everything right?" And who is "we?"
As for World War II, well, I would advise Mr. Sherwin
to read Robert B. Stinnett's seminal book Day of
Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor,
which makes a convincing case not only that Franklin
Roosevelt provoked war with Japan which
students of history knew already but also that
he knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor before it
happened.
By the way, the museum was looted by the Iraqi
people, and a few war correspondents, not our
military. The Iraqi people primarily took old office
equipment. The more valuable artifacts were locked in
vaults which required keys to open. It was high ranking
museum officials who took that material. And do you
think that Saddam would have left anything of real
value in the museum over the many years he had
complete control?
What's Mr. Sherwin's point?
You complained we have not found weapons of mass
destruction. We have only been there four weeks.
Again, you are out of touch with reality. Obviously, if
these weapons exist, they are well hidden or were sent
out of the country. Saddam may have been a despot but
he was certainly not a moron. You, apparently, think he
should have left them in plain sight so, if they exist, can
be easily found. And you use your moronic observation
to "prove" that these weapons do not exist.
I'm out of touch with reality? Obviously, if these
weapons exist, they are well hidden or were sent out of
the country. And just as obviously, if pink
elephants exist, they hide when people go looking for
them. There never was any evidence that Iraq had any
usable "weapons of mass destruction." If it did have
them, they obviously were no threat to us. And by "us,"
I mean the American people. Not the Israelis, not the oil
companies, and not some "conservative's" plan for
world domination. They weren't used against
invading troops. Does that tell Mr. Sherwin
nothing?
And for someone who touts his endorsement of
culture and higher sensitivities, you sound more like a
vigilante waving your Browning around purporting to be
acting in self defense.
Again, what's Mr. Sherwin's point? By the way, I don't
wave firearms around. Ever. And I have never had to
use them in self-defense. Yet.
One last comment. I wish you had not stopped taking
your medication. I wish you God speed and please start
taking your medication again.
Okay, 'fess up, Mr. Sherwin. You're in high school,
right?
April 29, 2003
Back to TOC.
Ronn Neff
comments
While what the Founders had to say on the subject
may have been relevant in their time. It most certainly
is not relevant in our time.
Ah, yes, the old "horse-and-buggy-days" criticism of
the Constitution. I guess it's easier than advocating the
passing of appropriate amendments to the Constitution,
as I would expect a conservative to do. Or at least as
conservatives once said should be done.
But, you know, there's a familiarity to this
"horse-and-buggy-days" argument. Just which
conservative was it who used to make that argument so
effectively? That the Constitution, as it reads, traps
America in the past? That what the Founders had to
say was not relevant for our day? Hang on, it will come
to me ...
Ah of course! Franklin Roosevelt! Yes, well,
they're certainly putting out a strange crop of
conservatives these days, aren't they?
But then I never believed they cared any more about the
Constitution than the liberals. They just say they do
until it's not convenient.
I suppose one shouldn't blame Mr. Sherwin too much.
After all, he hasn't had any real conservative role
models for about 60 years.
April 27, 2003
Back to TOC.
Mr. Sherwin replies
to Strakon
You misunderstand me. I agree with many of the points
you raise. However, there are other points, which you
stated, with which I cannot agree. In fact, some of
those statements are gross distortions. It is the gross
distortions, exaggerations and blatant
misrepresentations to which I object.
And while I deplore the fact that many of our personal
freedoms have been eroded or abolished, no matter
what the excuse, this is still the greatest country on
the planet. What I do not appreciate, concerning your
comments, is the fact that you have absolutely nothing
to say about this country that is good. Yet, you live
here and have the right to express your opinions in this
forum. And, I take it, are flourishing over the
years.
If there is a better place to live, why do you not go
there? If this is the most favorable place to live, why
do you have nothing good to say about it? That is, along
with your criticisms.
You appear to be against all wars. Sounds noble.
However, that is why you are unrealistic. You gave the
time span of 1917 onward. What would you have had us
do when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor? After
Pearl Harbor, the Germans declared war upon us
before we could do likewise. There were provocations.
However, they were on both sides, not exclusively on
the part of the U.S. Do you think there is ever a
justification for war? Interesting how you think it fine
to employ violence in defense of your home and/or
family, however, it is never justifiable, in your mind,
for the U.S. to go to war on it's own behalf.
Frankly, I did not think the U.S. should have gone to war
in Iraq. However, once that decision had been made, I
want our troops fully supported. The time for debate is
before hostilities, not after they commence.
You quote the Founders. Well, George Washington led
Americans in a military venture against the British. Or
don't you count that war? I notice, your chronology
starts with W.W. I. I guess you choose to ignore
everything that took place before that date. It would
appear that your outrage against war is highly
selective. Just as you opposition to violence may be. No
violence during wartime. However, violence against
intruders in your home, fine.
Richard Sherwin
Back to TOC.
Strakon
replies to Mr. Sherwin
Since he does not address them at all
it appears that among the many points I make with
which Mr. Sherwin agrees are the two main points in
my first reply: namely, that there is a vast and crucial
difference between opposing criminal, imperialistic
war and being a pacifist; and that it is Mr. Bush & Co.,
not Mr. Hussein & Co., who have committed crimes
against me and deserve to be called my enemy.
But now that he is straightened out on anti-imperialism
versus pacifism, Mr. Sherwin immediately expresses
another fundamental, and disastrous, confusion, as
revealed by: What I do not appreciate ... is the fact
that you have absolutely nothing to say about this
country that is good.
We see here revealed one of the premises that have led
us in this country to our present predicament; it is one
that I seek to unseat at every opportunity. The belief
that the country of America is equivalent to the polity
of the United State is utterly totalitarian. On
that point let me cite a true authority, a man who is
totalitarian down to every last nucleotide of his DNA:
Bill Clinton. In a speech at Michigan State University on
May 5, 1995, Clinton said "there is nothing patriotic
about ... pretending that you can love your country but
despise your government."
American history is full of ironies. One might think that
an American, of all people, would be the least likely to
confuse country and state, given the concern about
tyranny evinced by the Founders some of it
apparently sincere and given all the traditional
hooraw about the Bill of Rights, and about government's
being a necessary evil, and so forth. But in an irony of
perhaps unparalleled tragic significance for the history
of our civilization, all that business about "limited,
constitutional, representative government" has proved
to be nothing less than a broad, ultra-smooth
expressway leading straight to Polite Totalitarianism.
For two hundred years the message was: We can
neglect our own unsleeping vigilance and instead rely on
the Constitution to protect us from tyranny! And even
worse was the related message: We are the
government how could we oppress
us? The myth of "democracy" blinds those who
would be sentinels of freedom, with the result that Americans such as
Mr. Sherwin can no longer see their country past the
statist monster that is enveloping, raping, corrupting,
and consuming her. Even worse, they mistake it for
her.
If he is interested in exploring this question further, I
refer our correspondent to my column of September
28, 2001,
"Are you
'anti-American,' too?" On a Website with links
always available, there is probably little point to this
kind of repetition, but I cannot resist quoting the last
portion of that column:
Or if they prefer that in American English: Don't tread
on me.
Ronn Neff, TLD's senior editor, has done superb work on
the question of the failure and intrinsic defects of
constitutionalism. It is so superb that none of the
System's universities will ever be able to include it in
their teachings: it must be blacked out entirely. Anyone
interested in advancing his education in the field might
first consult Mr. Neff's "'Gun-control' libertarians," and
then proceed to his magisterial series, "Fifty Ron
Pauls and the government with Only One Law," as
well as the resulting "Five
questions to Ronald N. Neff by Jacob G. Hornberger
with Mr. Neff's reply."
Before moving on, I must say that this assumption
of Mr. Sherwin's just about had me on the floor: And,
I take it, [you] are flourishing over the years. Has
Mr. Sherwin confused me with William Kristol, David
Brooks, Jonah Goldberg, or one of the other
cosmopolitan scribblers whose personal fortunes are
automatically arranged by the War Establishment? For
his information, every month I must struggle
desperately to keep my electricity and phone from
being turned off, in order to keep The Last Ditch on the
air for another few weeks. For heaven's sake, man, this
is a dissident site. ***
While Mr. Sherwin seems to be clear now on the
difference between anti-imperialism and pacifism, he
does ask me whether I oppose all wars. Actually there
are two American wars that I do not condemn
rather, each had an important aspect that I do not
condemn. I hold that the two American Wars of
Independence, one beginning in 1775 and the other in
1861, were moral endeavors in their aspect of
people's wars against tyranny. In their aspect of
state wars against other states, I condemn them. I am
an anarchist; I consider all polities illegitimate by
nature; and I condemn all their wars. As I have noted
before, it was the conventional statist nature of the
Confederates' War of Independence that kept Southern
statehouses and courthouses and sheriff's offices
functioning in Confederate territory right up until the
end. Had the entire war been an unconventional people's
war, fought only, and massively, by private guerrillas,
the institution of chattel slavery would have collapsed
forthwith in the South. Meanwhile, the Southrons could
have done to the Union Army what the Viet Cong did to
it a hundred years later, despite all the B-52s it had
collected in the meantime.
Now, I do reserve the right to celebrate the heroism
and honor of some of those in the official Patriot and
Confederate forces. Visitors to my bunker will find
portraits of Lee, Jackson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest
on the wall of my living room. On another wall they will
find the Gadsden Flag ("Don't Tread on Me") and the
Confederate Battle Flag, which I keep insisting was a
people's flag, and never the flag of a polity,
though it was of course carried by various C.S.
military formations. Perhaps someone, someday, will
succeed in driving me from the field on this point; but it
won't be Mr. Sherwin.
The wars fought by Robert E. Lee and by George
Washington before him were immoral insofar as they
were state wars, but those men were fighting real
enemies, and the right enemies, and they were doing so
on the soil of their own country. In the sharpest
possible contrast, the imperial invasion and conquest of
Iraq, including the conquest not only of the Iraqi state
apparatus but also of the country and people of Iraq,
may be termed "meta-immoral," that is, morally
indefensible even within the canons of
constitutionalism, traditional Anglo-American
restrictions on government, and international law that
almost all the non-anarchists out there claim to
respect. ***
Mr. Sherwin notes that I gave the time span of 1917
onward, and, later in his letter, that my
chronology starts with W.W. I. I guess you choose to
ignore everything that took place before that date.
Ye gods. In the absence of a context, perhaps a
youngster would not have understood the significance
of the time period 1917-1970 that I cited; but I did
provide a clear context: "Draft resisters know that the
same gibberish was grunted routinely by the
stink-smeared gorillas of the conscription system
during each of the United State's great explosions of
mass murder, 1917-1970." (Though the references to conscription are clear enough, I got the latter date wrong, despite the fact that I lived through the entire Vietnam Era: the draft actually ended in 1973.) It is embarrassing to have to spell out something so elementary, but I was
referring to the period of time in this country when the
Selective "Service" System was busily enslaving young
men. There was no military conscription between 1865
and 1917, and there has been none since 1973 (though teenage boys are still ordered to register). In the
unlikely event that anyone reads me as condoning the
conscription carried out by the United State and the
Confederate States in the 1860s, let me explicitly
condemn that, too.
By the way, one of the gorillas' specific grunts was,
"Would you stand by and let someone rape your
sister?" According to the official policy of the United
State and its slavery boards (staffed by volunteer
"community leaders" in every town), wishing not to be enslaved to fight in the regime's criminal foreign adventures was the same as standing by and letting a thug rape one's sister. I cannot find the words to
properly express my disgust, but I will observe that decades of that kind of anti-thinking may go far toward explaining why so many Americans stand by and let official thugs rape their freedom.
Mr. Sherwin asks, What would you have had us do
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor? By "us," I
take it he means our rulers in Washington and New
York. I would have had them mind their own damn
business before Pearl Harbor. I also would have
had them refrain from engaging in an illegal naval war
against the Kriesgmarine in the Atlantic. Moreover I
would have had them refrain from plotting with British
Intelligence to blackmail American politicians,
disseminate fraudulent polling data, subvert elections,
manufacture evidence, and otherwise manipulate
America into war. (To "read more about it," see "The conquest of the
United States by Britain," Stephen J. Sniegoski's
review-essay on Thomas E. Mahl's Desperate
Deception.) And I would have had them keep their
sticky thieving fingers off Americans' tax money and
not use it to subsidize British Imperialism and Russian
Stalinism. It is really nonsensical to ask a question like
that, stripped of historical context, and I won't play the
game.
Mr. Sherwin does allow as how there were
provocations on both sides, but, as formulated, that's
the contextual equivalent of a string monokini. I've been
trying to think of provocations from the other side. I
recall that in the '30s the Japanese shot up some U.S.
gunboat in Chinese waters; but then it had no business
being there in the first place, did it? That incident
doesn't seem to measure up all that impressively
against Roosevelt's oil embargo and his other acts of
economic warfare.
Speaking of provocations reminds me of something that
Steve
Sniegoski pointed out. If the U.S. pre-emptive
strike against Iraq was proper, in terms of the
provocations Iraq is said to have offered the United
State, by what possible standard can the Japanese
pre-emptive strike at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines
be deemed improper? In fact the United State offered
Japan much more grievous provocations for war than
Iraq ever offered the United State.
While we're on the subject, I'll go ahead and point out
that the United State offered Iraq much more
grievous provocations than Iraq ever offered the United
State including 12 years of intermittent
bombing, the seizure of half of Iraq's air space, and the
starving and poisoning, by means of a criminal
blockade, of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
I strongly recommend two of Dr. Sniegoski's articles to
Mr. Sherwin, one of them here at TLD and the other at
The Occidental Quarterly. They are, respectively, "Pearl Harbor: facing
facts" and "The Case for Pearl Harbor Revisionism." ***
I see the barn looming on the horizon, so I shall try to
pull the wagon faster.
Mr. Sherwin points out that it is never justifiable, in
your mind, for the U.S. to go to war on it's [sic] own
behalf. Right, except let's make that "in its own
behalf," i.e., for its own benefit. The United State only
ever goes to war in its own behalf, never in our behalf.
And it could not go to war on our behalf even if
it wanted to, for it is not our agent.
He writes, once that decision [to go to war] had been
made, I want our troops fully supported. He is free
to support his troops as fully as he is able. However, I
have no troops. But on this whole question, I refer him
to my recent column, "'Support Our Troops.'"
Our correspondent alleges also that the time for
debate is before hostilities, not after they
commence. Says who? Why? Here I must pass
along another priceless observation from Dr. Sniegoski, who
wonders whether Mr. Sherwin would have applied the
same rule to the Germans after the Wehrmacht invaded
Poland on September 1, 1939. I suppose the
pamphleteers of the White Rose would not have
bothered, had they listened to Mr. Sherwin.
And once again I must quote myself. This time it's from
a note in "'Support Our Troops'":
What the "patriotic" war fans are really telling us,
then, is to shut up forever. What ugly children
they are. And what good little United Statians, toddling
their way all by themselves so far down the road to
serfdom.
To forestall one objection, I'll stipulate that Mr.
Sherwin has given us some reason to believe that he is
not one of those constitutionalists: While what the
Founders had to say ... may have been relevant in their
time[, it] most certainly is not relevant in our
time. On the other hand, it is possible that once
again I have misunderstood Mr. Sherwin. ***
There's only one oddity left to answer. Mr. Sherwin
writes, You quote the Founders. In our present
discussion? Where, please? I am careful about quoting the
men who, in their constitutional coup d'etat, founded the
central government of the United States and began the
dissolution of those states into the United State.
April 30, 2003
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of contents.
The following is a letter to the
editor I received about my most recent "Stop and
think" installment on the loss of the Iraqi antiquities
and the barbarism of the Imperial military. Though the
letter is unsigned, to judge by his e-mail address (only
part of which I am publishing here) the writer
considers himself a conservative. I urge all TLD
writers and friends of TLD to unburden themselves on
the matters raised by our correspondent and also on
the type of conservatism he represents.
Nicholas Strakon
These are some of the most
ridiculous comments and/or statements I have ever
read. Obviously, you have never been involved in
combat. You, apparently, think that someone who is
basically concerned with their own survival should be
more concerned with the protection of antiquities. You
are totally out of touch with reality. What do you think
the military is there for? Do you think we should
abolish the military and allow people like Saddam to
rule the roost? Do you think we should abolish the
various police forces in our country. Just allow
everyone to do what they please, hoping that everyone
will interact in a highly cultured and civilized
manner?
April 24, 2003
April 25, 2003
Royal Oak, Michigan
April 28, 2003
Leo, Indiana
April 29, 2003Mr. Conservative8 is back, now
using a regular name and attacking Mr. David T. Wright
in what we are coming to recognize as his
characteristic style, complete with gratuitous insults.
Again I invite TLD writers and friends of TLD to
respond.
It sounds like you [Mr. Wright]
are in favor of everyone doing anything they please,
which includes rape, murder, and armed robbery, etc.
When I allude to restrictions placed upon those who
would abuse personal freedom, you insist that I am,
somehow, restricting your personal freedom. This is
only true if you count yourself among those criminals I
have already mentioned. But then, you know yourself
better than I do.
["Conservative8"]
April 26, 2003
April 27, 2003I must close with a personal word about
the new blood libel being crafted by our adversaries,
because if I may reverse Michael Corleone's
formulation it's rapidly becoming "personal,
not business." I worship America the Beautiful, and
every day I mourn her long, tortured passing. So here's
a warning to anyone who may be inclined to call me
anti-American to my face. My ancestors first came to
this lovely land no less than 200 years ago, but before
arriving on these shores the Scotch-Irish among them,
like the outlaw Josey Wales, "lived by the feud." Nota
bene.
I find especially revolting the bellowed
declarations of many "patriotic" Americans
most of them Constitution-ravers to the effect
that we war resisters have to shut up now that the
shooting has started. But since it did not declare war
under the Constitution, the regime is under no
presumed obligation ever to declare peace. And as a
practical matter George W. Bush's Crusade against
World Evil would result in the closest thing to an
eternal state of warfare as could readily be
imagined.
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