Forum Post: Violence is the soul of government
Posted 11 years ago on Oct. 16, 2012, 7:29 p.m. EST by darrenlobo
(204)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
“What essentially sets a nation-state apart,” declared candidate Barack Obama, is that it has a “monopoly on violence.” Clearly Obama was referring to aggressive, not defensive, force, for the use of defensive force is never limited to government. We all retain that right by nature. Only government routinely uses aggressive force or the threat of force. The threat of violence compels the payment of every tax, and ultimately, whatever behavior it desires of the people.
http://www.selectsmart.com/DISCUSS/read.php?16,929082
Yet again, the US and its allies spread mass human misery though a policy that is as morally indefensible as it is counter-productive
The Economist this week describes the intensifying suffering of 75 million Iranian citizens as a result of the sanctions regime being imposed on them by the US and its allies [my emphasis]:
"Six years ago, when America and Europe were putting in place the first raft of measures to press Iran to come clean over its nuclear ambitions, the talk was of "smart" sanctions. The West, it was stressed, had no quarrel with the Iranian people—only with a regime that seemed bent on getting a nuclear bomb, or at least the capacity for making one. Yet, as sanctions have become increasingly punitive in the face of Iran's intransigence, it is ordinary Iranians who are paying the price.
"On October 1st and 2nd Iran's rial lost more than 25% of its value against the dollar. Since the end of last year it has depreciated by over 80%, most of that in just the past month. Despite subsidies intended to help the poor, prices for staples, such as milk, bread, rice, yogurt and vegetables, have at least doubled since the beginning of the year. Chicken has become so scarce that when scant supplies become available they prompt riots. On October 3rd police in Tehran fired tear-gas at people demonstrating over the rial's collapse. The city's main bazaar closed because of the impossibility of quoting accurate prices. . . .
"Unemployment is thought to be around three times higher than the official rate of 12%, and millions of unskilled factory workers are on wages well below the official poverty line of 10m rials (about $300) a month."
Pervasive unemployment, inflation, medicine shortages, and even food riots have been reported elsewhere.
That sanctions on Muslim countries cause mass human suffering is not only inevitable but part of their design. In 2006, the senior Israeli official Dov Weisglass infamously described the purpose of his nation's blockade on Gaza with this candid admission: "'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger." Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman justified the Iran sanctions regime this way: "Critics of sanctions argue that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that."
Even more infamously, the beloved former Democratic Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - when asked in 1996 by 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl about reports that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US-imposed sanctions on that country - stoically replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." So extreme was the suffering caused by sanctions in Iraq that one former UN official, Denis Halliday, resigned in protest, saying that the sanctions policy met the formal definition of "genocide":
"We are now in there responsible for killing people, destroying their families, their children, allowing their older parents to die for lack of basic medicines. We're in there allowing children to die who were not born yet when Saddam Hussein made the mistake of invading Kuwait."
In an excellent Op-Ed for Al Jazeera last week, Murtaza Hussain extensively documented the devastation wrought on 26 million Iraqis by that sanctions regime - the one Albright declared as "worth it" - and argues: "that tragedy is being willfully replayed, only this time the target is the population of Iran". He explained:
"Intensifying sanctions against the country have sent the Iran's rial into an unprecedented free-fall, causing it to plummet in value by 75 per cent since the start of the year; and, stunningly, almost 60 per cent in the past week alone.
"Ordinary Iranians completely unconnected to the government have had their lives effectively ground to a halt as the sudden and unprecedented collapse of the financial system has rendered any meaningful form of commerce effectively impossible. In recent weeks, the price of staples such as rice and cooking oil have skyrocketed and once ubiquitous foods such as chicken have been rendered completely out of the reach of the average citizen."
That is a fact that should be deeply disturbing to any decent person.
Oppose war = oppose govt
You live in a very dark, lonely world, don't you? Do you even trust yourself?
???? I live in a dark world where people use force on peaceful people like me. Shame on them. Shame on their defenders.
Just too funny. I live in a community where people help one another. I wish that for you as well. I don't spend all my time worrying about what others are taking from me as I learned how to share a long time ago. It is much more pleasant that way.
Sharing is great, but robbery is something else. I refuse to endorse such evil.
Libertarian economics is what is evil. All the other nonsense you guys believe sounds really great. Freedom. Yeah right. Freedom to carry a gun. Freedom to not educate my kids. Freedom to have no health insurance. Yeah. Yeah. Great. And, what you really end up with is economic shackles as you give economic freedom to the capitalists who will charge you a toll to drive down your own street.
Ask your libertarian leaders if they'd be willing to even out every single American in terms of wealth before implementing their precious Austrian free market economic system with all checks and balances gone. What will they say? No way. Why? Because they want to protect the wealth they have accumulated and they know they can do that and build on that wealth with the economic "freedom" to exploit.
When people talk about freedom, liberty, democracy, et cetera, i think the point we're really trying to get at is equal rights. Just being alive is all kinds of valuable, period. Anyone can have a good idea.
Nonsense, we're the advocates of civilization & harmony. You that advocate evening out by force are barbarians. Stop trying to hide your dictatorship behind this phoney outrage.
Yes, freedom to be carry guns, people are safer that way. Try freedom to educate kids outside of the public indoctrination system, you know, the one that trains the kids to be cannon fodder. Try freedom to choose the treatment you want not have a medical cartel rammed down your throat. Try the freedom of private roads were there are no police preying on innocent drivers:
Police State Checkpoint Nullification in Upper Moreland, PA
The problem with these checkpoints is that they're warrantless, arbitrary searches. This goes against all standards of civilized behavior and is not tolerable in a free society. Not only are checkpoints violating our rights they're not effective. "Traditional police patrols are three times more likely to locate genuinely impaired drivers than these suspicionless checkpoints," according to James Babb, founder of the Valley Forge Revolutionaries. "So not only are these checkpoints blatantly immoral and illegal, they're also a waste of police time and tax dollars. It's long past time someone took a stand for fiscal responsibility, the rule of law, and plain common sense."
http://theinternationallibertarian.blogspot.com/2012/06/police-state-checkpoint-nullification.html
Which do you want, beautifulworld, liberty or papers please?
I don't disagree with you regarding our civil liberties, but that is not what I am talking about here. You fail to address my reply, which is about economic matters. It's okay, I understand why. The consequences of a truly free market system would be devastating to most, and libertarians try to hide this fact with all the sexy "freedom" stuff. It's very cute, but some of us are on to them and what they are really after, which is freedom to exploit.
A free economic system is the one that allows prosperity. It is the mixed economy that we have problems with. They aren't the same thing. The mixed economy uses force, the free economy is voluntary. That's my question, do you think that force should be used on peaceful people? You can't answer no without also supporting a free market.
You misunderstand a "free" market. In a "free" market few people become prosperous because, you see, to become prosperous you must exploit capital and labor to extract a profit. Therefore, for every "prosperous" person you have many laborers who are exploited and who will never become prosperous, and when the capitalists becomes more and more powerful, the worker becomes less and less so and his wages decline. Our economy could never possibly support 300 million entrepreneurs or "prosperous" capitalists because it is the labor of "workers" that makes them so and so their numbers are few.
Thank you for the respectful reply. I disagree with the surplus value idea. It is based on the discredited labor theory of value which has been replaced by marginal utility. Wages are based on productivity which itself depends on capital accumulation. Workers can be quite productive & therefore well paid if they have the capital to work with. This necessitates private property & free enterprise. It most definitely doesn't require everyone to be an entrepreneur.
The big mistake you make is not to see that it is through govt intervention in the economy that "capitalists becomes more and more powerful, the worker becomes less and less so and his wages decline." The free market protects the little guy by taking away from the elites the tools they need to exploit.
We can agree to respectfully disagree. Let me say, though, that your last 3 sentences in paragraph one seem to condone workers owning the means of production which I like. Also, government intervention and regulation does not have to be pro-corporation. Regulation can easily be made to work for all people and should do nothing less. A "free" market would give the elites all the tools they need to exploit, so I disagree wholeheartedly with you there.
Not true... a world that was devastating to most would not exist in a world without civil liberties. Your world of civility is exactly what empowers the few over the many.
An unregulated economic system is not civil. It is anything but, and it is what empowers the few over the many.
No, it is through regulation that the few have power over the many. The biggest example is the Federal Reserve System. People say it was put in place to take power away from JP Morgan. They ignore the fact that he was behind its creation. The same applies to many other industries. That's why you don't hear big business calling for the end of the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies.
Well, okay, the wrong kind of regulation can certainly lead to problems, but no regulation such as that proposed by libertarian economics would be deleterious for the masses. There is no way around this since the premise of capitalism is exploitation.
It is the nature of the beast for regulation to be of the wrong kind. Free markets aren't perfect or a utopia, but they work.
Re. your "Free markets aren't perfect or a utopia, but they work" - work for who ? 'Modern High Finance Crapitalism' uses all the language and and rhetoric of (pseudo) Free Markets but actually acts in a way that is antithetical to all the lip service and results not in 'Trickle Down' but 'Hoover Up Kaptualism' and as a result, it is not conducive to the well being and best interests of most 'natural born' people. See :
I suspect that any "regulation" is only effective in a truly democratic country, where the real interests of The 99% take precedence, so your view of The Lincolnian Definition of Democracy would be interesting.
Government planning and taxation is wrongly accused of being “the road to serfdom,” as if “free markets” controlled by bankers given leeway to act recklessly is not planned by special interests in ways that are oligarchic, not democratic. Governments are told to pay bailout debts taken on not to defend countries in military warfare as in times past, but to benefit the wealthiest layer of the population by shifting its losses onto taxpayers.
You may philosophically subscribe to notions of a personalised and individualistic 'libertarianism' but Corporations have usurped the rights of individuals by claiming that they ARE de facto individuals and 'libertarian' rhetoric is being used by Corporations & their PR arms to enable this. Corporations are NOT 'people' and Libertarianism is being used as a fig leaf by The Corporations and their 0.01%er Owners !!!
e tenebris, lux ...
I'm not talking at all about economy - I'm talking about civility; more, I am talking about a civility that has been force-lawed to ensure subjugation and conformity.
In a state of nature, in a survival of the fittest world, the oppressed eventually rise to challenge those in power.
How much do you give? Do you give all to the community or do you retain enough for yourself?
Obama's world is a world in which we are not permitted to retain enough for ourselves.
Bush's pre recession world from 2001 to 2007 was one in which we were not permitted to retain enough for ourselves either. The lower 90% shared just 2% of the growth. An extra $110 a year.
http://stateofworkingamerica.org/who-gains/#/?start=2001&end=2007
I don't disagree; but this administration is no better - it's merely a continuation of past economic policy which greatly favors the rich.
Completely agree. If the partisans would take off their political blinders and take an unbiased look at our country's problems, they would see it's economic body having half of it's blood supply diverted to the head. The legs have been real shaky since 2008, and if they continue to be deprived of nourishment, they will buckle and take the entire country down.
I think in reference to the "audacity" found in this forum, my impression is that many are party hacks - they have but one purpose and that is to derive benefit directly from the party. I've known too many of them in my lifetime not to recognize the characteristics of a benefit by party motivated psyche.
Partisans are afraid. Their belief or illusion is so comfortable that they are unwilling to leave that comfort and face an uncomfortable reality.
I've felt the discomfort myself, raised in the belief that America is just and always does the right thing. It wasn't a pleasant realization to find out the truth, but now the discomfort I feel is seeing others trapped in their illusions.
Maybe that's Occupy's real message. Break free from the illusion of American prosperity for all. The reality is that most of the wealth is going to the few at the expense of the many.
This isn't merely partisan; that's my point - many of these people expect sinecures from the party.
What Obama is actually doing is trying to prevent this realization so they can continue to enrich themselves, on a level that this country has never before seen.
Please. I never mentioned Obama here. There is plenty for everyone. If you are worried about socialism read this:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/what-is-socialism-it-is-the-solution-to-the-worlds/
I'm not worried about socialism at all - I'm worried about slavery.
Slavery is what you'll get in an unregulated capitalist system. They just will tell you that you are "free" while the economic shackles appear invisibly on your ankles.
You may not realize how correct you are - what Free Trade does is allow us to move labor to China, from China to Vietnam, from Vietnam to Bangladesh - while all along this shareholder watchtower of a labor route, labor is devalued ever more; it will continue until the entire world is enslaved to the need to work for nothing - absolutely, this is a path of eventual slavery.
Couple this with the loss of jobs, the devalue of American labor through immigration, both legal and illegal, and an ever increasing tax burden, and we ourselves must ultimately be enslaved.
I am a self-labeled evolutionary "paleo-conservative"; I'm not concerned with "socialism" - this is, theoretically, a wealth capable nation - healthcare, elderly care, education, a general prosperity, if structured properly we can and should do all these things and more.
The problem is that we have entered an era of tax overburden relative to social welfare because we have not structured ourselves properly. There is absolutely nothing good that has come of our current Congress; it has served to exacerbate the decline of a general prosperity to the favor of corporations and shareholder value. Not all of us can live as "gentlemen"; as financially aloof by benefit of our investments; in fact, very few can - we need to turn this around.
When you say paleo-conservative do you mean the same thing as paleolibertarian? Just curious. We certainly have a lot of economic problems as a nation and as a global community, but I disagree that to solve them we need to de-regulate the economy. We need the right regulation to make the economy work for all people here and all over the world.
No, I actually see "conservative" as evolutionary. Libertarian is but a reaction to over regulation; and my paleo is not libertarian in the sense of a state-of-nature existence.
Okay. Interesting.
no it ain't. Pres Obama wants everyone to have opportunity and a level playing field so that they can find work/start a business and succeed.
He believes the free market system is the most powerful job creating engine in all of human history.
Stop lying.
What free market? It's run by the 1% and often exploits workers.
The imaginary, idealistic free market that we have been brainwashed into believing exists.
Remember?
lol
A free market is not supposed to be a pyramid scheme where the mega rich are free to control and manipulate the masses.
That's right.
Very good. My point was that Pres Obama is not a socialist who wants us to give all we have, and not allow us to retain enough for ourselves.
Just trying to counter the repub talkin point the Pres Obama is a socialist.
I am to assume then that the party is saving a job for you? Because the theft here is blatant.
No job for me.
What "theft" are you referring to?
I'm talking about QEing; I'm talking about Gore growing his investments 100 times; I'm talking about virtually everything this Fed has funded.
Oh.
Cool.
Do you even understand the OP?
Good grief. Me, me, me. That's what the post is about.
Go back to your fantasy world and leave reality to the adults. Your unicorns need grooming.
Aww, resorting to ad hominem.
I wonder if you said the same thing about your parents, when they asked you to behave yourself?
Hence indefinite detention and all the arrests of protesters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8viuSB9J5aA
All law is based on violence. Disobey the powers that be and sooner or later men with guns will come to your home.
You are correct - all law is militaristic at its core. Law enforced is force-law. A world of civility requires that we voluntarily submit or face some restriction of freedom, or loss of possessions, or worse, at the hands of militaristic force.
A world of true anarchy is a survivalist world. Murder, rape, child abuse, theft, all is permissible subject only to community censure. And in a community without hierarchy there is no one to judge and no militaristic force to force our submission in the enforce of some perceived-to-be more favorable action.
Annihilate those who challenge our power, force the weak to submit, and we own the community. A man's world, a perfectly true-to-self world, a beautiful thing - if you're a testosterone fueled man or woman.
This was America in its inception - a world without law, a world without hierarchy - with one very unique difference: it had outlawed the violence in favor of a civility. Because civility empowers the lesser, the weak, and promotes a general prosperity which we later labeled, and then redefined to misuse, in our Constitution as the "general welfare."
The problem is that we have so empowered civility that it has become the prohibition of challenge to tyrannical governance.
So there're two ideas to be made.
On one hand weakness is the lack of animal aggression to take what you want.
On the other, weakness is the lack of willpower to put mind over animal matter.
In the world of animal aggression we stab and tear one another apart just to stand at the top of a hill.
In the world of mental willpower we work together to enjoy the entire planet and conscious evolution.
Hmm...
Your world of mental willpower requires that you conquer the world; and in fact, a common mindset is the goal of all mankind. The problem is that you cannot conquer those that disagree with but a mind.
I'm trying really hard to see what you're talking about. Conquer the world, no. Conquer our addictions, yes. Why would anyone disagree with equal rights? Only somebody with a god complex, and they are welcome to that, so long as it doesn't destroy my individuality (or planet).
America has long been active in its desire to conquer the world through common mindset. It is the goal of all mankind, of every people - you here yourself promote a common mindset of your choosing.
My personal belief is that the absolutes of equal rights end at "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But from the moment of our birth limits are imposed; civility imposes limit on our survivalist ability. And I don't see this necessarily as a good thing.
How does civility impose limits on survivability? Is it that since we are not fighting we become something that isn't prepared to fight?
Now isn't that what sports are for? Imagine what could happen if the money we put into killing innocent people was put into more complex game exercises or arenas. And what about education, survivability would skyrocket.
No... sports do not serve the purpose of war preparation. They are a form of interaction which are utilized in tribal societies to aid in establishing a pecking order, i.e., hierarchy - it's political.
Civility imposes limits in that we are not permitted to simply take what we want. Civility requires diplomacy, negotiation - it is an "equalizer." As communal creatures it is entirely self-serving but it can also impart a negativity.
Well sports can mean many things. Specifically talking war preparation, we train for that all the time. The point i think you made is that lack of competitive aggression would make us a species of submissive lemmings. But the fact is that we find all sorts of ways to compete and challenge ourselves. War is not very special. But try to explain how killing innocent people with a long range missile is going to sharpen our skills more than anything.
There is really one limit, that it is not right to let the indulgence of any person ruin the lives of others, but there is no negetive effect to our species. Take what you want and do great things, i'll even help, with all due respect. The disadvantage is that people cannot turn the whole world into some personal sex toy, or poison the future. Not bad. One person cannot know better than the tested results of all people, because if they do know better, they are included, no limit. Tyrannical governance however is limited by the stupidity of people acting out delusions of grandeur.
Maybe the overcomplication of terms is confusing our conversation. When i hear civility i think of respect. But i understand what you mean by the prohibition of challenge to tyranny. Abusing freedom to orchestrate prison. Likewise, you're saying civility doesn't permit us to take what we want, but also that civility is what empowers tyranny. I think you're saying that law has been twisted around so much it suppresses our freedoms and caters to few. It has. That's why it's painfully urgent we refresh the government with evidently discovered understanding. Adapt already.
Actually no, I meant exactly what I said - "sports" have nothing at all to do with military exercise. It is a means of establishing a pecking order - we are a hierarchical creature because we require organizational structure; sexuality also comes into play here - it's resources and reproduction.
There was a time, not that long ago, when man possessed no rules, no laws, but only those of an innate morality. It was a survival of the fittest world. You can say it's not "right" but this is merely civility as self serving. We could just as easily lop off the heads of those that have; instead we utilize diplomacy in an effort to coerce, persuade, or dissuade - this is "civility."
Tyrannical governance is only limited by its ability to militaristic-ly impose. But in a nation where civility itself is force-lawed into the belief system, civility itself becomes the power of imposition. We are at war with a minority as Congress yet we are powerless.
As i've heard it, sports are any kind of physical game or challenge, such as hunting, running, swimming, etc. But what you're saying about sports really has nothing to do with the conversation.
Tyrannical governance is limited by the tyrant, because they are few people making the decisions for everyone, no matter how they impose it. There's also a big difference betwen civility and our currently twisted laws. I'm starting to think you are deliberately attempting to make this confusing, under some disguise of being against slavery.
Civility is more like common sense for a good reason. What you're talking about is really the designer law that has been manipulated. This is not civil at all, it's ninjutsu, and it is evil.
Hunting and fishing, as per colonial definition, are the only permissible sports. This partly the result of clashes with James, who eventually insisted that only the Book of Sports be read during religious services. This one event was the "last straw" that caused many to emigrate.
I see increased population density as the root cause of the demand for greater civility. And I agree, we have far less freedom today than our colonials did 400 years ago.
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What Obama failed to say is that the monopoly of violence in a nation of law is but a monopoly of governance. And within living memory no one has heretofore been more aggressive in his desire to force-law - micro management is but macro tyranny.