Thanks Bush

[jilbagh]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4571338/


Bush is telling people to re-elect him because he's done alot for terrorism and how he handled 9-11....but today reports came out that he ignored it cause he was too passionate about Iraq, and was passionate to find a link to tie Iraq with 9-11 when he had warnings about AL-Queda and did nothing about it. Yes, Clinton also didn't act, but President Clinton's first word of advice was get Bin Ladin, get Al Queda!

Paul O'Neals statments earlier regarding this are consistant...They'll start stepping up one by one to make out who the real lier is.

He wanted to trash Sen. Kerry and saying he was unpatriotic and unamerican for voting against the 87 billion, he voted no for a section of it. And it was Bush who cut veteran benefits....Thanks Bush!

[ckBejug]

It would almost be funny, if this wasn't the leader of the freakin free world.

Aide's Book Details Bush 9/11 Response

Spotting Richard A. Clarke, his counterterrorism coordinator, Bush pulled him and a small group of aides into the dark paneled room.

"Go back over everything, everything," Bush said, according to Clarke's account. "See if Saddam did this."

"But Mr. President, al Qaeda did this," Clarke replied.

"I know, I know, but . . . see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred."

Reminded that the CIA, FBI and White House staffs had sought and found no such link before, Clarke said, Bush spoke "testily." As he left the room, Bush said a third time, "Look into Iraq, Saddam."

(EDITORIAL NOTE: CBS News, on Sixty Minutes, verified this exchange with two independent sources - including an eyewitness)

Can you kindof imagine this sort of thing going on in the White House?

Q: Mr. President, what are we going to do about unemployment?
Bush: Look into Iraq, Saddam.


Q: Mr. President, your economic program is causing record deficits and spending is getting out of control.
Bush: Look into Iraq, Saddam.


Q: Mr. President, we're underfunding homeland security and our citizens still aren't safe.
Bush: Look into Iraq, Saddam.


Q: Mr. President, the guy who didn't get the most votes won the election. How did that happen?
Bush: Look into Iraq, Saddam.


How do you stand behind this guy Surfer. HOW?!?!

:mad:

George Bush fights the war on terror the way he's done everything else in his life: coasting through with talk and no real solutions. He makes up this language we're busy trying to figure out what the hell he's talking about while he proceeds to run this country into the ground. Every day he's the leader of this country we're unsafe because he refuses to bite the bullet, do the tough thing, and declare a true war on the people who want to destroy us. George Bush's focus on securing favors and graft for his supporters with an eye towards getting reelected is going to get a lot of innocent people killed. It may be now, or a ways down the line, but if we continue on this path - it's going to happen. Heck it already IS happening all over the place.

[Anonymouse]

I pointed this out to surfer several months ago, during the initial phase of the Iraq war.

I pointed out how the chief architects of Bush's War Party, the Zionist Wolfowitz, and Perle, were advocating striking Iraq DAYS AFTER Sept. 11.

Moreover, the neoconservative think tank, Project For A New American Century, was divising this for years, back during the Clinton administration.

And they say "conspiracy" doesn't exist.

[jilbagh]

Negative Ad's "approved by George Bush" point to Sen. Kerry being "wrong on defense"

2 prominant Republican supports have come out and said that 'Sen. Kerry is NOT wrong on defense'!!!
Sen. McCain and Sen. Hagel have gone on record about this...

how about a new ad...Bush: Wrong on Facts!

...here's a new nickname for him...

George ''Saddam Did It'' Bush

what a voor

[Anonymouse]

Criticizing Bush yet at the same time trying to praise Kerry is just as shortsighted as those that support Bush.

[jilbagh]

Originally posted by Anonymouse Criticizing Bush yet at the same time trying to praise Kerry is just as shortsighted as those that support Bush.

we're left with 2 realistic choices, a wrong one and a right one. And John Kerry is the right one

[Anonymouse]

There is no choice. Only delusional grandeur would make people believe there is a choice.

[Siggie]

RE-elect him? He wasn't elected in the first place.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse There is no choice. Only delusional grandeur would make people believe there is a choice.

There is a choice to be as personally successful as you can be, have a nice family, some cool friends, and enjoy your life. The country isn't perfect, but it does give you that opportunity. If you don't like it, there are plenty of other countries that will give you the same opportunity.

[jilbagh]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml

[dstyle]

Come on, theyre both the same, every four years a new politician promises they're going to push the Genocide issue, every year we beleive them. Forget them, the only one I cared to vote for was Dole, cuz Bobe Dole cares about us as a people. Other then that i dont like democrats damn it. Liberal bastards lollllllllll.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname There is a choice to be as personally successful as you can be, have a nice family, some cool friends, and enjoy your life. The country isn't perfect, but it does give you that opportunity. If you don't like it, there are plenty of other countries that will give you the same opportunity.

Oh no, not the "love it or leave it" rhetoric. Please, save me the worthless text that will take up disk space.

Only ignorant fools continue to vote and believe there is a choice. But that ignorance stems from lack of knowledge of the basics of American government, history, and Constitution.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse Oh no, not the "love it or leave it" rhetoric. Please, save me the worthless text that will take up disk space.

Only ignorant fools continue to vote and believe there is a choice. But that ignorance stems from lack of knowledge of the basics of American government, history, and Constitution.

Do you not believe you have the opportunity to be personally successful and have a nice family and enjoy your life?

[Anonymouse]

I never questioned that. That has nothing to do with the criticism of government.

Prosperity is attributed to economics, not government. The whole reason the West is living a nice life is because of the capitalist revolution and the division of labor, not government or politicians.

That is a fallacy because what we are criticizing and discussing here you are trying to tie in to something totally different, which has nothing to do with Imperialistic politics. Try again.

[loseyourname]

I wasn't trying to tie in anything. I was making an unrelated point and you came in and jumped on me for no good reason.

[Anonymouse]

Fair enough. How about we get back on topic then?

[loseyourname]

Sure. They're both scumbags. Vote for neither.

[Anonymouse]

To paraphrase Biafra of the Dead Kennedes said, if voting would change anything it would be illegal.

[loseyourname]

I vote. I vote no on all ballot initiatives and referendums. If 5% of the populace voted for a third-party candidate, it would at least make a small difference, because that party would then receive federal funding and recognition at televised debates.

Also, don't forget what would happen if everyone failed to vote. The president, and all other elected officials, would simply be appointed. They would have no further reason to even appease special interests, much less the general populace. We would lose all say whatsoever.

[Anonymouse]

Be appointed? If no one voted, no one would express a willingness to place these people in office, thus they would not be legitimate in the eyes of the people, and whom would they rule? Themselves?

[loseyourname]

Are you under the impression that a government requires the consent of its populace to rule? What gave you that idea?

[Anonymouse]

A government doesn't need the consent to rule, but it needs believers. Voting is the symbolic illusion that serves that purpose, that we have the ability to "vote".

[loseyourname]

Government doesn't need any believers outside of the government. All it needs is the means to put down any rebellions. There are plenty of believers in the military, and there will continue to be, whether or not you vote. Now give up your pipe dreams and move to an uninhabited island.

[Anonymouse]

It's not in tanks that the government draws it's strength, it's in the faith the masses have in the government.

At any point people can oust the government, since they outnumber it, but they don't because they all have faith that they somehow rule the government, which is silly at best.

[loseyourname]

Have you ever stopped to consider that perhaps they don't because they are happy with the way things are? Perhaps most Americans actually believe that their country gives them the opportunities that they want, and so they see no need to overthrow anything. Perhaps most Americans don't want to control the government; they just want to control their own lives.

[Anonymouse]

Or perhaps most people are brainwashed having matrix type illusions being fed to them to keep them subservient. Most people don't have control over their lives, that is the problem.

[loseyourname]

What is it that you hope to control, exactly? I don't think my family or my schooling or my job is any matrix-type illusion, and guess what? I'm happy with as a means to get where I hope to eventually be. If anything keeps me from getting there, it sure as hell isn't the government. Maybe you need to quit whining so much about that which is outside of your control and worry about what you can control. You are freer here than in almost any society in the history of the planet, and you are living in a tremendously affluent nation that affords you many opportunities that your home country could not. Perhaps you should appreciate what the nation has given you as you drive to school on public roads to obtain an education at a public university and are kept safe by a public police force. Dissent is an essential part of the democratic process and I'm not saying keep your mouth shut and never complain. I hold this nation to an extremely high standard that I know it will never reach, and I will never stop criticizing it and I will never stop giving my input. But I do realize that without this nation, the land here would still be a mishmash of competing and fighting colonies, I might very well be living in slavery, and you would be back in Armenia, struggling every day to keep afloat. This government is not ideal, and none ever will be, but affluence on the scale we see today would not be possible without the existence of large, unified nations. You can theorize all you want, but the only time large-scale non-governmental rule of the kind you advocate has ever proliferated has been in tribal peoples, and we can see how far they got.

[Anonymouse]

Governments do not create wealth, prosperity, or jobs. That you attribute all prosperity to government shows your lack of knowledge regarding economics. I still don't see a point to what you're saying and what the thread is about.

[loseyourname]

Try actually reading what I post. I never said governments create wealth or jobs or prosperity. I credit governments for making these possible. If you don't think this is the case, then you will have to do some explaining as to why only nation-states have managed to achieve this kind of prosperity. Strangely, we don't see any of this on south Pacific Islands or in the Australian outback. The old west didn't have large corporations and booming economies.

This doesn't tie in to the original purpose of the thread. You brought it off-topic when you went into your usual tired rant about why you don't vote, and I kept it off-topic by responding.

P.S. Do you not see how you continually criticize Fadix for doing exactly what you are doing here?

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Try actually reading what I post. I never said governments create wealth or jobs or prosperity. I credit governments for making these possible. If you don't think this is the case, then you will have to do some explaining as to why only nation-states have managed to achieve this kind of prosperity. Strangely, we don't see any of this on south Pacific Islands or in the Australian outback. The old west didn't have large corporations and booming economies.

This doesn't tie in to the original purpose of the thread. You brought it off-topic when you went into your usual tired rant about why you don't vote, and I kept it off-topic by responding.

P.S. Do you not see how you continually criticize Fadix for doing exactly what you are doing here?

You threw this thread off topic loser, by this following post:

There is a choice to be as personally successful as you can be, have a nice family, some cool friends, and enjoy your life. The country isn't perfect, but it does give you that opportunity. If you don't like it, there are plenty of other countries that will give you the same opportunity.

Now, as far as your assertions about economics and nation-states, nation-states have done nothing more than restrict economic prosperity and the one vibrant case I can point out to, is Armenia itself. And this is a no brainer, the reason why the West is enjoying prosperity is a result of the industrial revolution, not governments. Governments don't "allow" prosperity, but only hamper on it, like a mafia of "this is my turf".

When you're ready to go back on topic, please tell me.

[loseyourname]

Then tell me why history shows such a remarkable pattern of people that are arranged into nation-states being more affluent and powerful than those who are not.

I agree that our government, and all governments, for that matter, interfere way too much with free markets, and they could do much better. This doesn't change the fact that governments are necessary for a variety of non-economic reasons.

P.S. I don't see why you're whining about the thread being off-topic. We're the only people posting in here, so we may as well take it where it goes. If it's that important to you to keep this contained as a discussion of George Bush's questionable moral fabric, then I'll split the thread.

[Anonymouse]

Okay, now that you clarified it, we are headed toward a more economic slant. The the idea that the "nation-states" are far more rich than others is unfounded. Almost every country now is a nation-state, as is the way it goes with evolution war and politics. With that said, not every country is rich. Precisely why Europe, or the West, or America is enjoying it's prosperity is a result of the industrial revolution, free markets, etc., and not governments. The reason why other societies are not wealthy is because they did not go through this transition. Now, the West is starting to show signs that are unhealthy, chest pains akin to a person prone to heart attack.

With that said, it was because of no restrictions that the initial companies that were rising during the industrial revolution were able to go and, in the minds of the Marxists "exploit" people. The present course is not sustainable for the West because it has largely gravitated away from laissez faire, and is, to a scary degree, very socialistic.

One can point to the false "prosperity" generated by the illusion of the U.S. economy, by printing endless fiat money. The present real estate boom is an example of this illusion. The Federal Reserve can lower interest rates, sure, and thereby create a illusion of success, but interest rates go back up, and so then reality will begin to hit, and the prosperity bubble will burst. We are already on the beginnings of an inflationary depression, all this because government meddles in the free market, whether it was taking the economy off the gold-standard to the present worthless fiat money, to imposing embargoes and anti free market legislation. The Federal Reserve, which came to be as a result of government policy, has been slowly depreciating the value of the American dollar. By manipulating money and interest and bringing about the business cycle, it causes unemployment because inflation ( as we are experiencing now ), not only raises prices, but in the process labor is misallocated.

It's all part of the grand illusion which we call the United States Empire. And if you are protecting the country and it's principles now, you are obviously against the principles the Republic was founded on.

[jilbagh]

thanks g.w. for creating and airing distorted negative ad's that totally deceives the public with false accusations of Sen. Kerry's voting record and policies.
thanks g.w. vooridzag

[loseyourname]

Do you just get off on twisting every argument your fellow posters make? Right after I finish saying that government meddles too much in free markets, you come back and say the exact same thing, but in 300 words. If you read anything I actually post on this forum, you would know that I support very little of what our government currently does. I do, however, support its existence, and I very strongly support the principles on which it was founded - the stated principles, anyway.

If not for the existence of nation-states, there would have been no industrial revolution. Look at all of the peoples that have historically been wealthy, that have accumulated capital, that have produced great art and architecture. Every one of them was either an empire, nation-state, or city-state. No group of people living outside of a centralized government has ever done anything but be conquered by people that had a government.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Do you just get off on twisting every argument your fellow posters make? Right after I finish saying that government meddles too much in free markets, you come back and say the exact same thing, but in 300 words. If you read anything I actually post on this forum, you would know that I support very little of what our government currently does. I do, however, support its existence, and I very strongly support the principles on which it was founded - the stated principles, anyway.

If not for the existence of nation-states, there would have been no industrial revolution. Look at all of the peoples that have historically been wealthy, that have accumulated capital, that have produced great art and architecture. Every one of them was either an empire, nation-state, or city-state. No group of people living outside of a centralized government has ever done anything but be conquered by people that had a government.

I never twisted youre argument. You contradicted yourself, by claiming at one hand how government interferes in free-market economics, yet attributing prosperity to the nation-State ( the government ). You attributing the Industrial revolution to nation-states is exactly the anti-thesis of how economics works, and as Mises would say, ignoring the single most evident axiom - that man acts. And it is because man acts that man was able to make the necessary "gains from trade", as Adam Smith would say. Individual economic actors bring about economic prosperity. That you attribute the rise of the Industrial Revolution to the nation-State, I am sorry to say, shows your misunderstanding of economics.

Any basic student in economics knows that it was a result of mass production, the factory system, etc., bringing in new methods of production and marketing, resulting in better tools, mines, farms, inventions, etc. It is this fact, along with competition that leads to the expansion of the system. In fact, why this system arose in the first place is because it made the political system accomodate itself, making for conditions that made capital accumulation safe.

[loseyourname]

Okay, you have again twisted my argument. I never said that nation-states caused the industrial revolution. I was quite explicit in saying that the necessity of government is separate from economic concerns. Government brings about the state of affairs necessary for there to be an industrial revolution. You have ignored every objection I made to your babbling. Either address them, or I'm through with this thread. I'm getting sicker and sicker of your constant evasion.

[Anonymouse]

Everytime I shatter your argument, you say the same thing "you evade my question", and resort to name calling in other threads. It's okay loser, I know I intimidate you and it infuriates you that I do. But with that said, anyone who is reading this discussion will judge for themselves who said what and who appeared contradictory and evasive.

P.S. Bush and Kerry are Skull Bones, is there a difference whom you vote for folks?

[loseyourname]

You just love arguing with yourself, don't you?

Why have all historically affluent peoples been organized into empires, nation-states, or city-states? Not answered.

Why have all peoples not under a government been conquered by those who were? Not answered.

I am fully confident that you will continue to ignore these and argue with something else I didn't say.

[Anonymouse]

Well, the same old loser tries to save himself trying to hide an obvious error in economics. Hehe, it happens, I've made lots of errors talking about physics since it isn't my endeavor.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by loseyourname I am fully confident that you will continue to ignore these and argue with something else I didn't say.

I know you well, don't I?

[Anonymouse]

You see, you are making the same assumption in your questions, attributing prosperity with empires or states.

Question: Why have all historically affluent peoples been organized into empires, nation-states, or city-states?

What we know as city is precisely that which since ancient times is synonymous with trade, irrespective of the State aspect or not. It is because of cities which we signify trade, and ergo prosperity. This question is faulty for it assumes only the obvious that there are affluent people in empires, nation-states, or city states. You speak of it as if it's something good, not realizing that because of invasions and wars, it hampers on trade, and prosperity therefore those that are prosperous lose out in times of wars, and depressions, caused by them. If you read The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups by Mancur Olsen, you will see he brilliantly displays his study on collective action, in which he states that iindividuals have no economic incentive to participate in seeking large group collective goods unless forced through coercion, or presented with some sort of selective alternative.

Obviously due to your lack of knowledge regrding economics, you have asked a question which is the heart of Austrian economics, and it will take more than paragraphs to answer you, but suffice to say that you attributed the Industrial Revolution to Nation-States, i.e. politics, and not praxaeological laws of human action, highlights your misconception. In his own words regarding political economy, he says "They do not tell us much about the relationships between the form of government and the fortunes of the economy or adequately explain why some societies are rich and others are poor". Of course he likens government to a stationary bandit, which will protect its "goods" and invest in "public goods" but only to a limited extent. Since politicians do not produce goods or services, i.e. do not have to labor for their income like the rest of people, because their income is guaranteed through coercion ( taxation ) there is no way to know what the price of their labor is, or how to calculate the GDP, and yes it means the present "GDP" is a false one, not yielding a true result of the conditions given.

Question:Why have all peoples not under a government been conquered by those who were?

This has already been answered in my many boring and tedious discussions with you and surfer and everyone else. All governments come into existence via force. This is not a question of government, since even the family is a form of government, it's a question of what type, i.e. individual, familial, central, etc.?

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse You see, you are making the same assumption in your questions, attributing prosperity with empires or states.

Must I really state again that I don't attribute prosperity to nation-states, I only view them as necessary for the maintenance of it?

What we know as city is precisely that which since ancient times is synonymous with trade, irrespective of the State aspect or not. It is because of cities which we signify trade, and ergo prosperity. This question is faulty for it assumes only the obvious that there are affluent people in empires, nation-states, or city states. You speak of it as if it's something good, not realizing that because of invasions and wars, it hampers on trade, and prosperity therefore those that are prosperous lose out in times of wars, and depressions, caused by them. If you read The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups by Mancur Olsen, you will see he brilliantly displays his study on collective action, in which he states that iindividuals have no economic incentive to participate in seeking large group collective goods unless forced through coercion, or presented with some sort of selective alternative.

All you have done is state that yes, the existence of cities makes conditions more favorable for prosperity. That is what I have already said.


This has already been answered in my many boring and tedious discussions with you and surfer and everyone else. All governments come into existence via force. This is not a question of government, since even the family is a form of government, it's a question of what type, i.e. individual, familial, central, etc.?

That is why I was careful to say those not under a central government (those that are tribal or individualistic) are conquered by those that are. You have never answered this objection, as much as it may have been discussed. You can throw economics all you want, but this is not an economic matter. There can be no free market for a conquered people.

[Anonymouse]

I have answered this objection plenty of times. This is precisely why all vertically integrated empires fail over time, you just supported my argument that societies that induce situations counter to the will of that segment that is coerced will have no incentive to support that said society, i.e. Iraq, a clear case of one big brother invading the little guy, ergo will have no room for trade or free markets. The type of economies which you are referring to only succeed in the short term, and tend to deteriorate over time, but the free market and trade have been going on for thousands of years, surely there must be a reason for this, and many empires have come and gone, yet the market remains, trade remains, and inviduals are still there acting.

[loseyourname]

Did I not just say that this is not an economic matter? Need I say that I feel a government should not, to any extent, intervene in the free market. I'm pretty hardline about this. Government is necessary for other reasons - mostly, to keep us from being conquered, to ensure that individuals and entities do not cheat one another, and to keep guys like me from murdering half of the people I meet. I can promise you I would do if it were not illegal.

[jilbagh]

This debate would be a great one to air on c-span:D or maybe Horizon would like to pick it up. We can even start a reality series and have you guys live in the same house and all...wow i need to make some phone calls on this one

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Did I not just say that this is not an economic matter? Need I say that I feel a government should not, to any extent, intervene in the free market. I'm pretty hardline about this. Government is necessary for other reasons - mostly, to keep us from being conquered, to ensure that individuals and entities do not cheat one another, and to keep guys like me from murdering half of the people I meet. I can promise you I would do if it were not illegal.

Aww, the famous argument of "we need government to protect us from not being conquered". See The Myth of National Defense.

[loseyourname]

You have already conceded that, historically, people not governed by a central authority have a tendency to be conquered by those who are. Are you now going to dispute this?

By the way, that was only one of three reasons I gave for the existence of government. But it's cool, continue your pattern of ignoring most of what is said.

[Anonymouse]

You are misconstruing "government", or the idea of it. The modern State, is not the same government as Feudal lords, or Bedoin tribesman.

Now for the myth of national defense:

The Myth of National Defense

by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

[This is the introduction to The Myth of National Defense: Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production (Mises Institute, 2003), posted October 24, 2003.]

In the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson affirmed

these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is in their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

More than 200 years after the Declaration of Independence, it seems appropriate to raise the question whether governments have in fact done what they were designed to do, or if experience or theory has provided us with grounds to consider other possibly more effective guards for our future security.

The present volume aims to provide an answer to this fundamental question.

In fact, this question has recently assumed new urgency through the events of September 11, 2001. Governments are supposed to protect us from terrorism. Yet what has been the U.S. government’s role in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

The U.S. government commands a "defense" budget of $400 billion per annum, a sum equal to the combined annual defense budgets of the next 24 biggest government spenders. It employs a worldwide network of spies and informants. However, it was unable to prevent commercial airliners from being hijacked and used as missiles against prominent civilian and military targets.

Worse, the U.S. government did not only fail to prevent the disaster of September 11, it actually contributed to the likelihood of such an event. In pursuing an interventionist foreign policy (taking the form of economic sanctions, troops stationed in more than 100 countries, relentless bombings, propping up despotic regimes, taking sides in irresolvable land and ethnic disputes, and otherwise attempting political and military management of whole areas of the globe), the government provided the very motivation for foreign terrorists and made the U.S. their prime target.

Moreover, how was it possible that men armed with no more than box cutters could inflict the terrible damage they did? Obviously, this was possible only because the government prohibited airlines and pilots from protecting their own property by force of arms, thus rendering every commercial airline vulnerable and unprotected against hijackers. A $50 pistol in the xxxxpit could have done what $400 billion in the hands of government were unable to do.

And what was the lesson drawn from such failures? In the aftermath of the events, the U.S. foreign policy became even more aggressively interventionist and threatening. The U.S. military overthrew the Afghani government that was said to be "harboring" the terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. In the course of this, thousands of innocent civilians were killed as "collateral damage," but bin Laden has not been captured or punished to this day, almost two years after the attacks. And once a U.S. approved government had been installed in Afghanistan, the U.S. government turned its attention to wars against other enemy states, in particular Iraq with its huge oil reserves. The U.S. refused even to rule out the employment of nuclear weapons against enemy regimes. No doubt, this policy helped to further increase the number of recruits into the ranks of people willing to use extreme violence against the U.S. as a means of retribution.

At the same time, domestically the government used the crisis which it had helped to provoke to further increase its own power at the expense of the people’s liberty and property rights. Government spending, in particular on "defense," was vastly increased, and a new government department for "homeland security" was created. Airport security was taken over by the federal government and government bureaucrats, and decisive steps toward a complete electronic citizen surveillance were taken.

Truly, then, the current events cry out for a systematic rethinking of the issues of defense and security and the respective roles of government, the market, and society in providing them.

http://www.mises.org/fullarticle.asp?control=1356

You can read the rest of the article at the link, which totally demolishes the idea of "national defense".

[Anonymouse]

Another nice analysis of the State which is too long to post hereso go here (http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=527&FS=The+State%3A+Its+Rise+and+Decline).

The State: Its Rise and Decline

[loseyourname]

All that addressed was interventionist government and infringement on civil liberties. Again, you are not addressing me, as I am staunchly isolationist and libertarian. I am not in any way attempting to defend out current government.

You still haven't addressed my other two points, but again, I expected that.

[Anonymouse]

Once again, loser goes into the argument of trying to put evasion on me when it was he who showed lack of knowledge regarding economics and he carefully maneuvered to tilt away from his blunder, now throwing vague questions, which have already been answered. Just which questions need further clarification?

[clubbin714]

Bush has certainly done a lot in his first years in office, but that doesn't mean any of it is good for us as common citizens. I contend that he has done more damage to the principles that I believe define what the American democratic experiment stands for.

I believe in an America that tells its citizens that they can do anything, not in an America that tells them they can't. We should seek more freedom, and not to restrict anyone's choices.

This administration has done more to restrict personal and civil liberties than any other in modern history. They have done it in the name of patriotism, which disgusts me. They have gotten away with it by exploiting our deepest fears, and the only people who have benefited are the corporations that have contributed to the Bush campaign. American taxpayers bought the bombs, and we're footing the entire bill for the reconstruction and we are in more danger now than we have ever been. It infuriates me that Americans (who are so pathetic in their knowledge of world geography that 80% of our school children don't even know that the Tigris is a river, much less where it is) would seek to dictate terms of existence to any culture at gunpoint because we do it better than they do.

The America of 8 years ago was a role model to the world of an open economy and free mindset that was emulated by western nations. Today those nations fear us instead of respect us because our foreign policy is that of a bully instead of a champion.

I like republicans. I like republicans who stand for small government and do not seek to legislate morality. I like republicans that believe in the concept of the republic and let state governments operate in confederation with the federal government. When you start thinking about what the republican party is supposed to stand for, and then you see what the republican party is really standing for, all you registered republicans out there should really questioning your party hard. Today's republicans aren't representing the true ideology of the party in any sense. They are representing the ideology of fascist oligarchy, and the Bush dynasty is evidence of a modified form of hereditary assumption of power. That's right; they are actively recreating the exact form of government that we revolted against more than 200 years ago. And without appropriate checks and balances from the other two branches of government, they disturbingly begin to resemble the regimes we have helped to dismantle in the past 50 years.

Some say that the democrats or Nader would not defend the nation as well as Bush. Charles Krautheimer, a noted conservative columnist who actually thinks and reasons rather than March in lock step with the PR machine like so many other pundits, beautifully explains away this fallacy: Everyone believes in use of force for self defense - liberal, conservative, democrat or republican. Liberals, however, balk at any armed intervention that seeks to promote the national interest because they equate the national interest with the self interest of the administration that is in power. They do however support armed intervention for humanitarian reasons, which explains the many military actions of the Clinton administration. Liberals are tolerant of forms of government other than American democracy, but conservatives find them a threat and seek to supplant regimes with those they can control.

Consider all of this in light of the War on Terror, which like the war on drugs is really only a war on American taxpayers. It was sold to us as critical for our national defense, and when that turned out to be untrue, it was retouched as a humanitarian intervention. But it was too late to sway anyone but the most fanatical supporters of the administration.

And why do those people support the administration? Because your taxes went down? Unless you make in the neighborhood of $250,000 a year, your taxes did not go down, and if you think they did, you are not paying attention to the details. Your taxes have been restructured, and the middle class is actually shouldering more burden than ever and getting less service for their money. Where are all those tax dollars going? Into non competitive contracts for companies that are mired in the CEO and tax accounting scandals.

It was said by Hermann Goering during his trial at Nuremberg. The angriest person is the one who suddenly realizes that they have been taken advantage of. If you are a republican and you aren't pissed as hell, you have no idea of what a republican really is.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse Once again, loser goes into the argument of trying to put evasion on me when it was he who showed lack of knowledge regarding economics and he carefully maneuvered to tilt away from his blunder, now throwing vague questions, which have already been answered. Just which questions need further clarification?

Can you not see that my economic opinion is exactly the same as yours? Are you really that dense? You're like a broken record come to life and given a megaphone. Maybe if I say this a little louder you will hear it: GOVERNMENT IS NECESSARY FOR NON-ECONOMIC REASONS.

You have not answered this: Why should we live under no central government when all people who have historically done so have either been victim to lawlessness (old west, for example) or have been conquered by those who were under a central government?

Now please detach your lips from the base of your own penis and rejoin the human race.

[dusken]

Originally posted by loseyourname Now please detach your lips from the base of your own penis and rejoin the human race.

Anonymouse: You lucky bastard. Why do you even bother foruming?

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Can you not see that my economic opinion is exactly the same as yours? Are you really that dense? You're like a broken record come to life and given a megaphone. Maybe if I say this a little louder you will hear it: GOVERNMENT IS NECESSARY FOR NON-ECONOMIC REASONS.

You have not answered this: Why should we live under no central government when all people who have historically done so have either been victim to lawlessness (old west, for example) or have been conquered by those who were under a central government?

Now please detach your lips from the base of your own penis and rejoin the human race.

This is a misconception of the Old West. I refer you to the article. However you should read the entire thing which is a little lengthy, so you can see McMaken dispell many myths about the West. And loser, the more you name call, the more your frustration and desperation seap:

The American West: A Heritage of Peace

By Ryan McMaken

century ago, the American West, and the process of homesteading and Americanization that took place in the lands West of the Mississippi River was seen as a triumph of American drive, ingenuity, and courage; a sheer act of will that required hard work, perseverance, and above all, a spirit of independence and individualism.

In the decades following the closing of the Frontier (as pronounced by Frederick Turner in 1890), this perception of the West changed dramatically. The old view of a divinely inspired spread of Americanism changed to a more ambivalent view by mid-century, and finally, to an openly hostile view today that Western society was (and is) violent, murderous, and chaotic. We are now told that the West, after the coming of the white man, was a land of sadistic Indian murderers, psychopathic outlaws, and misfits who had abandoned the more peaceful life back in the good ol' civilized U.S. of A.

Whether promoting or condemning the West, though, novelists, filmmakers, and even historians never shied away from giving us many images of murdering Indians, or roaming outlaws, or crazy misfits, but what in an earlier era would have been abnormal behavior in films and images of the West, became standard behavior for denizens of the West in later times.

Much of this revolves around the treatment of Native Americans (and other currently popular minority groups) in film, and with the coming of films like Little Big Man (1970) and Dances with Wolves (1990). Americans have been treated to images of a bucolic, ideal world disrupted by barbaric Americans who stripped the land and all of its people of everything that was good and decent, destroying not only the Native peoples, but also themselves in the process.

There is certainly no doubt that Native American tribes suffered greatly at the hands of government and quasi-government operations aimed at "civilizing" the West, but the unrelenting focus in recent years of these murderous exploits illustrates for us a larger agenda surrounding how we acquire modern perceptions of the American West. This agenda is one of convincing Americans that the American West was inherently violent, unusually unjust, and generally unfit for civilized human habitation. And this indictment now extends not merely to bands of conquering soldiers, but to the common settlers, fathers, husbands, and pretty much everybody else.

Consider the 1992 film Unforgiven. Sometimes called the "unwestern," this film portrays the West as a place of capricious violence and chaos where law and order is regularly undone by crooked sheriffs, vengeful bounty hunters, and abusive cowpokes.

In recent years, this image of the West as the home of unusually sadistic and frequent violence has been an ever more popular topic of research on the West, with typical additions being Glenda Riley's A Place to Grow: Women in the American West and Clare V. McKanna's Homicide, Race, And Justice in the American West, 1880–1920. Both of these works build on the violent image of the West already provided in Hollywood movies while providing a realistic revisionist picture of nonheroic violence perpetuated by drunks and the "gun culture."

The Myth of the Brutal Frontier

The assumption that violence has more often than not been a central reality about Frontier life has long been popular. How we see the violence, though, and whether or not the violence is heroic or just meaningless and tragic has depended on just who is writing the screenplays or doing the research.

This latter point was made recently by William Handley in his book Marriage, Violence, and the Nation in the American Literary West. Handley notes that violence has always been an inherent part of literature and film about the West. The difference between the modern variety of violence, and the older variety, however, is that while newer descriptions of violence in the West are intended to highlight the victimization of a wide variety of groups, the violence of earlier authors like Willa Cather and Zane Grey was intended to illustrate the necessity of violence in establishing civilization in a wild and untamed land.

Of course, with the rise of Post-modernism in the 1960's, traditional rationales for the settlement of the West lost almost all of their defenders. The last thirty years or so have been bad decades for the reputation of the West.

Thus, while the explanations for the violence changes over the decades, the assumption that violence was the general modus operandi of settlers on the Frontier remained in full force. Yet, since at least the 1970's, research has indicated that both camps may have been wrong about violence in the West. Excluding the Indian wars of the mid to late 19th century which were lopsided affairs conducted by the United States government, we find that the allegedly inherent violence of the West was not noticeably any greater than that of points east. Historian Richard Shenkman largely attributes this to the legacy of those reliably-violent Western films. "Many more people have died in Hollywood Westerns than ever died on the real Frontier…[i]n the real Dodge City, for example, there were just five killings in 1878, the most homicidal year in the little town's Frontier history: scarcely enough to sustain a typical two-hour movie."

Shenkman was basing this comment on Historian W. Eugene Hollon's research in which he notes that in many places like Dodge City, tales of violence were actually accentuated to appeal to the tourist trade in the latter years of the Frontier. This is not difficult to understand considering the movement made popular by promoters of the "West cure," a fad (much promoted by proto-yuppie Theodore Roosevelt) that claimed that a period of hunting and tough travel out West would make men more masculine....

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1449

[loseyourname]

Post another one, Mouse. If you honestly think history can be re-written in such a way that the strong do not inherently conquer or exploit the weak if given the opportunity, you're not the student you claim to be. I can guarantee you that if I had a gun, and I knew where you lived, and there existed no laws or police forces, you would be dead by morning. If you feel your freedom is being infringed upon and you are being put in so much danger by the US government, you are free to relocate to Borneo.

On second thought, maybe we should have no government. Then I could run around and do whatever I pleased. I wouldn't work. I'd just steal what I needed from small children and old ladies. I wouldn't need a degree. I could get a better education at the public library anyway. Legalize rape and burglary and murder.

This is boring. I'll read anything more you post in here, because I always give the courtesy of at least reading whatever is posted in threads I've been in, but don't bother arguing with me further. The simple fact is, we have no idea what this land would be like without laws or regulation or government. It's nothing like the old west. As much as I'd hate to see the Crips take over the city, maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they'd become legitimate businessmen and all crime would disappear and terrorists would cease to hate us and we wouldn't need public highways or railroads or buses or anything like that. Heck, corporations would probably start to voluntarily respect the environment and not cheat stockholders. Child molestors that were released from prison would be miraculously reformed.

Oh well. I'm out.

[patlajan]

Come to think of it, a good anarchist is also a good satanist. Oooh I bet that hurt. :p

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Post another one, Mouse. If you honestly think history can be re-written in such a way that the strong do not inherently conquer or exploit the weak if given the opportunity, you're not the student you claim to be. I can guarantee you that if I had a gun, and I knew where you lived, and there existed no laws or police forces, you would be dead by morning. If you feel your freedom is being infringed upon and you are being put in so much danger by the US government, you are free to relocate to Borneo.

This is perhaps the most ignorant paragraph I've heard from you yet. I've actually expected more substance from you, but oh well. First off, I have never once stated that the strong do not conquer the weak. Can you point to a time when I said otherwise? I have always maintained might is right, and that is the rule. As far as having a gun and no laws, this assumes that all morality is somehow based on statute law. That to assume if there are no police forces one will kill another is silly and childish. Currently there are many many laws and police forces and people still kill people. Moreoever, no one ever said we would have a utopia or there won't be murder. In fact, the old West, proves that a society without a central government is often more peaceful, and less violence. That to assume no laws mean I will kill you ultimatley insinuates that our morality and our 'guilt' is based on some human statute law, and not our conscience. What reason would I pose for you to kill me, other than the missing laws? Moreoever, let me ask you a question on morality. If there were no police forces, would you kill someone because there are no laws, or would you not kill someone because you have a sense of 'morality' that doesn't emanate from human statute law, but from within yourself?

Originally posted by loseyourname On second thought, maybe we should have no government. Then I could run around and do whatever I pleased. I wouldn't work. I'd just steal what I needed from small children and old ladies. I wouldn't need a degree. I could get a better education at the public library anyway. Legalize rape and burglary and murder.

This is about a central omnipotent government, not any government. I have already conceded that government is a part of man, since an individual technically speaking is itself a government, as well as a family entity.

Originally posted by loseyourname This is boring. I'll read anything more you post in here, because I always give the courtesy of at least reading whatever is posted in threads I've been in, but don't bother arguing with me further. The simple fact is, we have no idea what this land would be like without laws or regulation or government. It's nothing like the old west. As much as I'd hate to see the Crips take over the city, maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they'd become legitimate businessmen and all crime would disappear and terrorists would cease to hate us and we wouldn't need public highways or railroads or buses or anything like that. Heck, corporations would probably start to voluntarily respect the environment and not cheat stockholders. Child molestors that were released from prison would be miraculously reformed.

Oh well. I'm out.

You believe that I am speaking of some utopia. I am not. Violence is violence it is part of man, but the degree to which we will have death and suffering would not be as high as this, since the State literally creates offenders, by creating so many statute laws that one cannot not do anything without being a criminal, e.g., marijuana since halfour jails are filled with people for possession of this.

[jilbagh]

President Bush has frozen funding for student aid. This is in addition to cutting Federal educational loans and grants in 2002, 2003 and now 2004. And now he's hitting young people up for a massive loan. His new budget will increase the national debt by a half-trillion dollars this year alone. Of course, young people are the ones who will have to pay down Bush's debt through higher taxes and cuts to vital services.

Students, send this message to Bush: LOAN DENIED!

President Bush has asked all Americans to go into further debt, not for priorities such as education but for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and our war with Iraq. Bush, in his most recent budget, has asked all of us for a 4,500 dollar loan against our future earnings. This is in addition to the 13,000 dollars each of us already owes for the national debt, now totaling more than seven trillion dollars.