War is a Goverment Program
Have not checked out one of my favorite libertarian screed sites in quite some time…Sheldon Richman asks in War is a Government Program:
So why aren’t people who claim to be suspicious of other government programs suspicious of war? I can see only two reasons, neither of them flattering: power lust or nationalistic zeal.
I’ve always thought the warfare - welfare connection is something Republicrats have deliberately failed to comprehend.
War is useful in keeping the population in a state of fear and therefore trustful of their rulers. H.L. Mencken said it well: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Word. Call me a hobgoblinphobe.
Finally on the bureaucracy enabling aspects of war he quotes Madison:
Most unappreciated of all is that war is the midwife of intrusive bureaucracy. James Madison understood this. “Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few…. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
August 21st, 2007 at 12:13 pm
It seems like that is so obvious, but we keep making the same mistakes over and over.
When I was reading about how we responded to the Spanish flu, I discovered what Woodrow Wilson did to personal freedoms in the U.S. after he brought us into WWI. The massive government sponsored patriotic parades also helped to dramatically increase the death rate here from the disease.
If it isn’t religion promoting hatred and fear for control, it’s war - and they go very well together.