Curiouser and Curiouser! on history http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic history Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb What do I know about Germany, or anywhere else for that matter? Mon, 09 Dec 2002 15:11:47 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><A href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk/2558083.stm">What do you know about Germany?</A>. UK schools children are only taught about Germany's Nazi past, says the new German ambassador. Test you knowledge of German history. [<A href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk/default.stm">BBC News | UK | UK Edition</A>]</P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P>4 out of 10, not great.&nbsp; But I'd like to think I could do that badly on English history too...</P> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000975.html Cotton? We don't want no stinkin cotton Mon, 17 Feb 2003 09:10:54 +0000 <P>Just been reading a little about the history of another <EM>just war</EM> to bring freedom and democracy to an oppressed people.</P> <P><A href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson11.html">http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson11.html</A></P> <P>Which war is that?&nbsp; Why, the American civil war...</P> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001168.html The insanity of the state Thu, 27 Feb 2003 08:49:55 +0000 <P>Another stimulating piece by Butler Shafer (my summary, the whole article is better):</P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P>And now we find Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and George Bush being referred to as "madmen" by one faction or another, depending upon which side of the battlefield you are on.</P> <P>Confining our focus on the demented state of mind of tyrants and war-lovers is to overlook the more important consideration:<I> the</I> <EM>insanity of the state itself. </EM>After pointing out to my students how FDR manipulated the Japanese into an attack on Pearl Harbor in order to get America into World War II, I often hear the response "<EM>our </EM>government wouldn’t do <EM>that</EM>!"</P> <P>The courts, a branch of the state, have provided a fairly consistent <EM>expansion </EM>of the allegedly "limited" powers granted to the state, and a <EM>restrictive </EM>definition of the "rights" it was the announced purpose of this scheme to "protect."</P> <P>If the state enjoys a monopoly on the use of force, and there is no device or principle that can restrain the scope of such authority, what would we expect government officials to do with such power? Much what we would expect a group of children to do if a bowl of candy was placed before them: grab as much of it as they can!</P> <P>It should be evident to any thoughtful person that politics mobilizes the most vicious, socially destructive attitudes and practices known to mankind. The state represents the "dark side" of the human character, and so we are disinclined to stare it in the face, out of a fear that we might see something of ourselves reflected back.</P> <P>If the <I>United</I> <I>States</I> has created chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, we will go to war with <I>Iraq</I> for allegedly trying to acquire such weapons for themselves. <I>America </I>will condemn <I>North Korea </I>for <I>having</I> nuclear missiles, even though the <I>United</I> <I>States</I> is the only country in history that has actually <I>used </I>such weapons against civilian populations!</P> <P>No matter how strong or deserving the criticism of any foreign regime, statists can never allow the censure to rise to the level of an attack upon the idea of the <I>state itself.</I></P> <P>And so it is that the Hitlers, Stalins, Maos, Pol Pots, and other tyrants, must be <I>marginalized </I>and <I>isolated </I>as <I>aberrations</I> of an otherwise wondrous system. What better way of accomplishing such state-saving ends than to declare them to be "madmen," "crazed lunatics" who managed to get into power by some untoward means?</P> <P>In the language of "chaos" theory, the state becomes an "attractor" for the kinds of people who are disposed to use violence and intimidation against others; people who are willing to exploit the sociopathic nature of all political systems.</P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P>[From <A href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer36.html">LewRockwell.com</A>]</P> <P>&nbsp;</P> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001218.html