Barbarism without limit War and Morality

by Llewellyn H. Rockwell
By what ethical standard should we judge the state?
One tradition, which we might call anti-liberal, asserts that there are special laws of morality that apply to the state alone. Another tradition, the liberal tradition, says that states must abide by the moral standards that apply to everyone in all times and all places.
The first view is the ancient one. It permitted and expected states to pillage and kill. The right and wrong of statecraft was dictated by the sword. The idea of universal moral laws and universal human rights did not find favor among the Caesars and Pharaohs, any more than this idea appealed to later dictators.
Yet the liberal tradition gradually abolished the idea of caste and special legal privilege. It asserted, more generally, that no group possesses a special license to lord it over others. St. Augustine might have been the first to observe that the moral status of Alexander the Great's conquests was more egregious than the pirate's depredations.
The pirate molests the sea, but the emperor molests the world.The view that states can do wrong is the most powerful theory of politics in the history of the world. It led to the birth of the dream of universal freedom. Slavery, imperialism, colonialism, militarism, and authoritarianism all came to exist under a moral cloud.
At the same time, freedom and individualism unleashed human energies and, in the setting of free economies, created a prosperity beyond any ever known. This made possible the vast expansion of the world's population, and human flourishing as never seen before. Given this history, and the central role that the American Revolution had in furthering the liberal idea, we must ask the question: what does the US government not understand about the evil of imperialism, the immorality of enslaving a foreign people, the malice of colonialism, and the intolerable brutality of authoritarianism?
In fact, the theory of the modern American regime is a throwback to the ancient view, that the US operates under special rules. The US believes it can starve foreign countries such as Iraq by imposing killer sanctions that a high US official said were worth the lives of hundreds of thousands of children. The US believes that it can use its weapons of mass destruction to threaten any country in the world on the very suspicion that it might be trying to defend itself. The US can then phony up intelligence, overthrow a leader, and install a regime of its choosing. Not to worry: its magical military Midas touch will transform that country into a paragon of democratic freedom — just as soon as all political opposition is silenced or destroyed.
In short, the US government believes that it operates under a different moral standard, not only from the moral standard that regular people apply to their own affairs, but even different from the moral standard that the US applies to other states. And who pays the price for this moral hypocrisy?
The victims of war. Of all forms of collectivist central planning, war is the most egregious. It is generated by the coercive force of taxation and monetary depreciation. Its means are economic regimentation and the violation of the freedom to associate and trade. Its ends are destruction and killing — crime on a mass scale. War leaves in its wake orphans, widows, parents without children, sickness, hatred, and spiritual and psychological trauma. It gives power to dictators on all sides. It is based on a lie that mass death can ever accord with justice. It attempts to silence those who tell the truth. Indeed, war is a kind of totalitarianism. It is a policy without limit. It demands from us all that we have to give: our money, our children, our minds, even our souls. Too often people give it all. Too often, Americans give it all. George Bush was brazen enough to make the doctrine explicit. If you are not for him, he says, you are for the terrorists. He said it because the state fears the advocates of peace. It fears the truth, and those who tell the truth. It fears those who dare to judge the state by normal standards of morality.
The state fears you. Why? Because you hold the opinions that you do, and refuse to surrender your mind, your talents, your soul. By joining the resistance, you help thwart their plans. You help establish the basis for peace in the future. You help preserve and develop civilization, for the human family can only thrive in a setting of peace.
So I say to you: Keep making the sacrifice. Believe in peace. Proclaim peace. Stand up to the state. Be a dissident. Tell what is true. And do not fear the emperor-pirates. They, after all, fear you. For you help tilt the balance of history against their barbarism, and in favor of peace and freedom.

This reminds me of this poem that I wrote not long ago.

Warrior Poet

Your commercial talks about the soldiers
being the ones to keep this country free
You seem to forget those of us who do,
have done both
Without the poet, protester and words,
the ideas, ideologies can't be shared,
it would just be fighting
Without the words to get people to to realize
when things need to be stopped wars
wouldn't end
Remember balance in all things
Without one there wouldn't be the other

Now flip your coin

Ok so how stupid can they get?!? Wait don't answer that...

High school project considered potential threat to Bush "The thumbtack in the photo was apparently placed somewhere on Bush's head." [ROFL!] 24 Sep 2005 A high school student's class project on freedoms in the U.S. attracted Secret Service agents to his school this week... In the student's photograph, a photograph of Bush is shown fastened to a wall with a thumbtack. Over the picture of Bush is a "thumbs-down" sign. The thumbtack in the photo was apparently placed somewhere on Bush's head, school spokeswoman Sandy Kinzel, said. Concerned that the thumbtack might represent a potential threat to the pResident, the company that developed the student's film notified authorities.

Cause this shows they can be real stupid.
1. Like a high school student would really have a chance to get close to shrub.
2. A high school student could afford to track down and follow shrub to get a chance to do anything.
3. Like the secret service would let JUST ANY one get too close to the idiot shrub anyway.

Gives me serious wonder just what the politicians are up to that they have the time to go after a high school child.

THOM HARTMANN DEVOTES MOST OF SHOW TO STOP ROBERTS MOVEMENT

If you were listening to Thom Hartmann on his widely syndicated radio program today, you know he was breathing fire in opposition to John Roberts. You also know from your own experience that the primary toll-free telephone number for Congress (877-762-8762) is mysteriously and suddenly out of commission with just a fast circuit busy signal (try it yourself), even in the middle of the night. Yes, Thom thought that was extremely odd also, especially with so many of us calling to declare our strong opposition to John Roberts.
WHAT WE MUST NOW DO is create a permanent record of this situation and use that to generate even more messages and phone calls to the Senate in the next 24 hours. If you are a member of any BLOGS go to ALL of them overnight and start a new thread or article, and/or leave a comment on an existing one. In your own words there are three simple key points we need to make in any order you like:1) Whether we have in fact overloaded the primary toll-free number with our calls or whether someone deliberately cut the line to slow down the calls, it is in FACT down now.2) There is a growing ground swell of opposition to the stealth reactionary Roberts that can no longer be ignored.3) To take action there are two alternative toll-free numbers still working, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588, plus an action page that will give you all the direct phone and fax numbers of your own senators, http://www.millionphonemarch.com.What we want to accomplish is to create as many entries on as many blog threads as possible, to reach as many people as we can who wish they knew what to do to stop this administration from scuttling our Supreme Court, but who just don't where to start. Feel free to make your own arguments as to why Roberts must be stopped, just as you do when you send your personal messages to your senators. If you would like some additional ideas, this piece from OpEd News might be useful:http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_thepen_050914_we_can_stop_roberts_.htmLeahy, Feingold and Kohl have been excoriated on the blogs for their judiciary committee votes, which even they admit were "close calls." All we have to do is get one or two of them to heed the voice of the people and the MOMENTUM is on our side. All they simply need to say is that they have been hearing from their constituents, and while they may have been initially inclined to support Roberts, they can no longer do so.And you can also send your friends who want to know more about why Roberts must be stopped to the one click congressional email and letter to the editor action page, where there are many informative links, athttp://www.millionphonemarch.comALSO be sure to submit the email submission part of the above page yourself in addition to the calls you have already made. Take heart that we have achieved alot of radio visibility in the last couple days. More and more people are starting the question why Roberts is being hustled through the process without even a proper examination of what he really stands for. Will it be enough? That is entirely up to us alone. First we must BELIEVE we can win. After that the rest is easy.We must reach out to our fellow citizens every way we can. Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

Ok I have already done at lest 2 blogs against Roberts. Now I do this one. I will not repeat myself, but I will say Roberts is not the person for the job. We need to go forward not backwards.

Gas Stations near U that don't buy Saudi gas [Boycott~ Pass it ON]

I thought this was most useful.
To All..... WHERE TO BUY YOUR USA-GAS: Saudi Gas boycott
WHERE TO BUY YOUR USA-GAS, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON-- Why didn't George W. think of this? Gas rationing in the 80's worked even though we grumbled about it. It might even be good for us! The Saudis are boycotting American goods. We should return the favor. An interesting thought is to boycott their GAS. Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis. Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends. I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best to buy gas from and which major companies import Middle Eastern oil.
These companies import Middle Eastern oil:
Shell............................ 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco......... 144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil............... 130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway... 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco............................62,231,000 barrels
If you do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION! (oil is now $55-$60 a barrel)
Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:
Citgo......................0 barrels
Sunoco...................0 barrels
Conoco..................0 barrels
Sinclair.................0 barrels
BP/Phillips............0 barrels
Hess.......................0 barrels
ARC0....................0 barrels
All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and each is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It's really simple to do. Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!! I'm sending this note to about thirty people.
If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) .. and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers !!!!!!!
If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it ..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!! Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next eight days!

I got this from one of the yahoo groups that I'm a part of and think this is important. I don't drive, but when things can make a difference I tend to go for it.

When Dick Met Katrina - I got this from a friend of mine

The entire world has been shocked by the chaos and deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and across Louisiana and Mississipi.
In the words of one Afghan it looks more like Africa than America – most of the victims are black and the government response was so late and badly organised that it’s hard to believe that these poor suffering people could be citizens of the country boasting the most powerful government on earth. Afghanistan – one of the poorest countries on earth - is giving foreign aid to the US.
Was the Bush Administration to Blame in any way?
Were State and Local Government to blame as well?
‘Welfare state’ or poverty and no way out for the poor?
Does Global Warming exist? Is it man–made? Did it make Katrina worse?
Will the disaster change Bush administration policies or lose them support?
Is the US government really too democratic to respond to a crisis?
What lessons can we learn from this tragedy so we can save lives in the future?

Was the Bush Administration to Blame in any way?
Michael Moore seemed to overstate the case when he said that the deaths in Louisiana were NOT (in his capital letters) caused by the hurricane.
Clearly the hurricane caused the flooding, which caused most of the deaths – and hurricanes are not preventable.
Moore is right though that there are several reasons to think that the Bush administration’s policies were negligent and have probably led to more people dying than might otherwise have died.
Spending on flood defences for New Orleans had been inadequate for decades – but under the Bush administration it was reduced to lower levels than ever before. Spending on strengthening the levees on the Mississippi river was stopped altogether for the first time in almost 40 years. If spending had been higher it may or may not have been enough to limit the flooding to some areas or stop it happening altogether. We can’t be certain. We do know though that what’s happened in New Orleans has been predicted for years.
If people weren’t dying it would have been almost comic to hear the Bush administration’s claims that no-one could have predicted the disaster or been prepared to deal with it. It was entirely predictable, it was predicted repeatedly for years by scientists, by the media and even by theFederal Emergency Management Agency and it was predicted to the Bush administration – and they were negligent.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency which organises aid and evacuation in emergencies was merged into the new Department of Homeland Security in 2003. It’s budget was cut, it lost 500 staff (from over 5,000) and at the same time it was asked to do more with less by having to plan for terrorist attacks as well as natural disasters.
So it’s clear that the US federal governments preparation for and response to the disaster was inadequate and probably resulted in many people dying who might otherwise have survived – and what’s equally certain is that the Bush administration’s ideologically driven policies were the main cause of this. Bush has at least admitted that there were failures at a federal level.
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Were State and Local Government to blame as well?
The Bush administration has blamed the Louisiana State and local governments (mostly run by Democrats) for the lack of emergency aid to survivors.
First they claimed Louisiana’s governor had refused to approve a declaration of martial law or access for National Guard forces from other states. Whether you believe this will probably depend on your prior political affiliations. The Louisiana state government has provided documents which seem to show that they had requested both these things and federal aid before the hurricane struck.
There are also reports that the Department of Homeland Security prevented the Red Cross entering New Orleans because they want everyone to evacuate it due to the risks of disease from corpses, polluted water and malaria from mosquitoes. Was this the Louisiana state Homeland Security Department or the Federal one?
The policy of evacuating everyone may be wise. The problem is that the government(s) failed to evacuate people quickly and didn’t provide them with enough food or water while they were waiting to be evacuated – and even possibly prevented aid agencies supplying it.
There have been various other reports which allege that some local government officials at various levels were negligent.
It seems likely that there were failures at local and state level but a response to an emergency on this scale could only ever be effectively mounted at a national level by the Federal government so the majority of the blame must be placed with those with the majority of the power – the Bush administration.
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‘Welfare state’ or poverty and no way out for the poor?
What lessons have radical right wing commentators learned from Katrina? Some very strange ones. A popular theory for many right wing pundits is that the relief effort to New Orleans failed because the people of New Orleans failed to help themselves and/or failed to behave in a civilised way . This inability to look after themselves and/or barbaric behaviour is caused supposedly by the welfare state undermining people’s development of the ability to cope – and their morality.
The slight problem with this theory is that the welfare state in the US has been being cut constantly since Reagan came into power in the 80s. Under Clinton this continued with the President approving ‘welfare to work’ schemes which were another euphemism for welfare cuts , putting time limits on claiming benefit. Between 1993 and 1999 the number of Americans receiving welfare payments halved from 14 to 7 million. Further cuts under Bush increased the proportion of Americans living in poverty to 12.4%.
Nor was there any welfare state, or even any proper aid or evacuation programme, in New Orleans. It was lack of effective government, not too much government that was the problem.
In New Orleans before the flood 28% of the population were in poverty. These people couldn’t afford cars and there was no public transport provided by local,state or federal government – and only a 3 hour warning to evacuate – too little time to escape on foot. Then armed police closed the main bridge across the Mississippi to those who hadn’t had cars to escape earlier.
These police feared looting spreading to their areas – and no level of government had evacuated the poor or provided them with supplies or troops to prevent crime or fighting over what little food and water there was.
So much for the ‘welfare state’ causing ‘moral breakdown’. The government wouldn’t tax people on higher incomes to provide proper flood defences – and the government didn’t provide any way out for the poor. Some police even stopped them leaving. People in poverty don’t have the income to buy extra food to store for emergencies, they weren’t getting emergency supplies – so they stole it rather than die or see their children die. This doesn’t explain rapes or murders of course – these were the result of criminals taking advantage of chaos.
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Does Global Warming exist? Is it man–made? Did it make Katrina worse?
We can argue about whether global warming is being accelerated and intensified by the burning of fossil fuels (many scientists believe it is and personally I believe it is) and we could note that most of the members of the Bush administration are former heads of oil or oil services firms (most notoriously ‘Ricky’ Dick Cheney – former Chief Executive of Halliburton – ok I admit only I call him Ricky and only to get a better title).
While we know that hurricanes took place in the 19th century before oil and gas were burnt on a large scale some scientists also believe the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and other natural disasters is increased by man-made global warming.
It would be sensible to change our energy policies given the certainty that fossil fuels cause air pollution and contribute to causing lung diseases including asthma – and even the possibility that fossil fuels are intensifying global warming should make use change our energy sources.
However it remains difficult to persuade many people on the global warming issue despite the majority of scientists arguing that their research indicates it has a large man-made element to it. This is due to the amount of extremely dubious ‘research’ funded by oil companies –like the report last year which claimed that climate change is a ‘myth’ which was largely funded by companies like Exxon-Mobil. They even invented a petition supposedly signed by 17,000 scientists denying climate change and used fronts like the ‘Heartland Institute’ to publicise it. It’s common knowledge that Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice used to be on Exxon’s Board of Directors.
Exxon also employed Phillip Cooney who worked as a White House official writing up policy documents on climate change which distorted the scientific evidence in the same way intelligence on Iraq was distorted. When his link to Exxon was revealed he resigned – and immediately got a job working for Exxon again.
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Will the disaster change Bush administration policies or lose them support?
Bush has definitely lost support as a result of the failure to provide food, water and medical treatment to survivors as fast as it could have been provided. In the latest polls under 40% of Americans approve of the job he’s doing as President – and in every poll over 50% disapprove. Whether the right lessons will be learned or whether the failures will be put down to some lack of the mystical property of ‘leadership’ is another matter.
The priority for the Bush administration remains massive redistribution of wealth – to the wealthiest. More tax cuts for the wealthy, more welfare ‘reform’ (i.e cuts in spending for the poorest) – and federal reconstruction contracts in Louisiana for firms they used to be executives of or got donations from (the same firms getting reconstruction contracts in Iraq - including subsidiaries of Halliburton). The firms getting these contracts in Louisiana won’t even have to pay the minimum wage to the people they employ.
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Is the US government really too democratic to respond to a crisis?
The other explanation repeated by many news agencies (who’ve all obviously been briefed by the White House) is that the US system of government is just too democratic for it’s own good. No one person has the power to organise quick and effective action in an emergency. Bush couldn’t have just sent in FEMA and the National Guard because he’d have been accused of being a dictator.
This is really quite weak stuff. When has the Bush administration ever worried about going beyond its constitutional powers, threatening people’s civil rights, or pushing the President’s massive powers to the limit? The idea that they have suddenly become strict constitutionalists who make the American Civil Liberties Union look authoritarian isn’t convincing.
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What lessons can we learn from this tragedy so we can save lives in the future?
The real lessons Katrina has taught us are simpler and we’ve known them for a long time.
Charities will never have enough funds to match public services – and private companies in a de-regulated market will always care about profits before anything else. Only a welfare state, public works and government emergency services funded by taxation can ensure a civilised society that can deal with man-made or natural disasters without collapsing into chaos.
Polluting our environment causes illnesses and deaths – and if we have an unequal society with no proper welfare state or public services the poorest will suffer and die from everything from lack of healthcare to pollution and environmental catastrophes.
Hurricane Katrina has shown that natural disasters can make a super-power look like a third world country when it’s run by a government that doesn’t believe in public services funded by taxation (unless they’re the police, the military or secret police and even then they favour mercenaries and part-privatisation and under-fund these services).
We’ve seen the most powerful government on earth fail tragically to protect its own citizens. There are lessons for governments on what policies work and for voters on what policies to vote. There are also lessons for each of us in how much we use cars as opposed to trains and bicycles for instance – but time, energy, health and inequality will limit what individuals can do without changes in government policies.
From Africa to America these problems can only be solved by co-operation on a large scale – and from Africa to America any country that doesn’t learn this will be vulnerable.
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copyright©Duncan McFarlane 2005

Duncan McFarlane

This is from one of Yahoo's news services.

Roberts eases concerns, but leaves plenty of wiggle room
2 hours, 51 minutes ago
John Roberts more than lived up to his billing Tuesday as a knowledgeable, superbly prepared, genial and highly articulate legal mind - and as a nominee determined not to answer any question that could cause him trouble. But all-day testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee nevertheless offered some new impressions of the prospective chief justice.
The first is that he is more likely to be a cautious, establishment jurist than a firebrand in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas or at least that is the impression he sought to convey.
Most notably, Roberts distanced himself from some of his most troubling past writings, attributing them to youth (many were written when he was in his 20s), the need to reflect the views of his employer (the Reagan administration) or to misinterpretation (a comment about not wanting homemakers to become attorneys was just a lawyer joke).
If that is self-serving, it is nevertheless enlightening.
On privacy, which Roberts once referred to as a "so-called right," he reversed field, asserting flatly that such a right exists even though it is not explicit in the Constitution. Scalia and Thomas both have questioned that premise, the cornerstone of landmark decisions asserting a woman's right to use birth control or seek an abortion. Roberts also expressed healthy respect for the importance of the court's precedents generally.
On discrimination against women, which he had once mocked, he expressed deep personal concern. On civil rights and voting rights, he similarly dismissed past statements.
All are encouraging reversals, though Roberts, as nominees generally do, left himself plenty of wiggle room.
Most notably, the nominee resolutely refused to discuss his views on abortion, and in doing so he gave both sides in the debate something to worry about. He seemed to signal that the barrier to reversing
Roe v. Wade would be high but not impossible.
Similarly, on civil rights and women's rights, the most critical question was left unanswered: What remedies would he allow the government to apply?
That is a matter of concern, and it was reinforced by his refusal to discuss the reach of Congress' power to regulate issues affecting health, safety, the environment, the workplace and other matters. His previous record has been raising questions.
Though no one expects Roberts to discuss pending cases, he could have been more forthcoming on key issues of settled law.
Still, the dominant impression left by his testimony was of a man who would likely be a dynamic chief justice with an independent - though surely conservative - mind. He went some distance toward easing concerns that he's outside the judicial mainstream.

I'm not convinced, nor satified that he is a good candidate for the court, let alone the head of said court! I have sent email after email to my Senators etc... and because they are bush kiss asses they will vote him(Roberts) in. Their view of morality is dark ages at best and Neo-Con to the inth degree.
They forget that not everyone in this country is the same religion as them and even some that are "christian" do not agree on the interpretation of the "scriptures".
Well our government will be bushed up for years. I just hope we can overcome the bushups shortly after he is gone.