"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Readers have already noted I have used (agreed with) quotes from famous opponents of Conservative or Christian thinkers. Bertrand Russell was the last, and you can add John Stuart Mill to the list. Mill had lots of interesting things to say about man, morals, faith and politics. Some good, some bad. Mostly bad. Unless you are a hedonist, and your moral code comes down to whatever makes you happiest.
Naturally, what makes you happy can cause great distress to others, so Mill convinced himself that certain refined people, such as himself, could best determine the greatest amount of happiness that could be delivered to the greatest number of people. In today's society we call it liberalism [pokes with a stick]
Still, I started talking about war so I will end speaking of war. Deciding when to fight must be one of the hardest decisions to make. It's one of the occasions where waiting to see what will happen is often far worse than acting promptly, and one of the hardest things ever to prove unless we wait too long.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
-- Edmund Burke
"Never turn your back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"
-- Winston Churchill
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress."
-- Frederick Douglas
-- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Readers have already noted I have used (agreed with) quotes from famous opponents of Conservative or Christian thinkers. Bertrand Russell was the last, and you can add John Stuart Mill to the list. Mill had lots of interesting things to say about man, morals, faith and politics. Some good, some bad. Mostly bad. Unless you are a hedonist, and your moral code comes down to whatever makes you happiest.
Naturally, what makes you happy can cause great distress to others, so Mill convinced himself that certain refined people, such as himself, could best determine the greatest amount of happiness that could be delivered to the greatest number of people. In today's society we call it liberalism [pokes with a stick]
Still, I started talking about war so I will end speaking of war. Deciding when to fight must be one of the hardest decisions to make. It's one of the occasions where waiting to see what will happen is often far worse than acting promptly, and one of the hardest things ever to prove unless we wait too long.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
-- Edmund Burke
"Never turn your back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"
-- Winston Churchill
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress."
-- Frederick Douglas
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTo add another- don't comment when you have been drinking moonshine, because half the time you have grabbed the wrong end of the stick!
ReplyDelete;-)
That must be my problem too. Whenever I think of Mill, I too think that on half a pint of shandy he was particularly ill:
ReplyDeleteImmanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy begger
Who could think you under the table,
David Hume could out-consume,
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say could stick it away,
Half a crate of whiskey everyday.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René DesCartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed...
--You've reminded me, I'll have to have a rant about some of these characters.
Zen. Great post, thanks for that, nice little collection of quotes too. Loved the poem :D
ReplyDeleteYeah, nice quotes, thanks Zen.
ReplyDelete"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
ReplyDelete-- Benjamin Franklin
this is a very apt description of what has happened in the USofA, Australia, UK, et al ever since "the world changed forever"
It is not a call to arms as much as call to reason and thought, to reject the "If you're not with us you're against us" dualism of Bush and co.
And I always mazed at the war lust of xtians, those who have never truly absorbed Jesus message of peace.
ReplyDelete'But then, xtians were always at one with hypocrisy.
FYI
ReplyDeleteI've just blogged Mark Twain's War Prayer.
@fugs
Don't be an idiot. Re-read the title of this post, and stop spitting insults.
"The only way there could be war is if they start it; we're not going to start a war."
ReplyDelete-- Ronald Reagan (the man who won the Cold War against an empire with 40,000 nuclear weapons "without a shot being fired")
"Rarely do we hear that Iraq has never committed any aggression against the United States. No one in the media questions our aggression against Iraq for the past 12 years by continuous bombing and imposed sanctions responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. [...] Only tyrants can take a nation to war without the consent of the people. The planned war against Iraq without a Declaration of War is illegal. It is unwise because of many unforeseen consequences that are likely to result. It is immoral and unjust, because it has nothing to do with US security and because Iraq has not initiated aggression against us. We must understand that the American people become less secure when we risk a major conflict driven by commercial interests and not constitutionally authorized by Congress. Victory under these circumstances is always elusive, and unintended consequences are inevitable"
-- Ron Paul
"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. ... War settles nothing."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it."
-- Pope John Paul II
"today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a "just war.""
-- Pope Benedict XVI
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end International Workers of the World slogan during the Great War.
ReplyDeletethe technology has changed, but not those who are at each end.
Yeah, and all the international workers of the world moved to the safety of Lenin and Stalin's Russia.
ReplyDelete"A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end International Workers of the World slogan during the Great War."
ReplyDeleteWell, that makes most leftists I know safe....
And what is is with the likes of the odious fugley, who cling to an ideology that's killed more people than any other in the past couple of hundred years, yet they're rabidly anti-war?
I guess "war" isn't quite the same thing as actions taken in support of the democratic people's republic of xyz, eh?
Great quotes Universal. I particularly like most of whatever John Paul II says. He of course, lived through hard times in Poland during WWII, and then continuing hard times when the Soviet Union was appeased and Poland betrayed at Yalta by her allies.
ReplyDelete(And one of my favourite films is "Karol")
I am presuming we both agree that war is ugly, war is bad and that some wars do need to be fought - such as WWII?
I wonder if we had been prepared to step in on Rwanda (1 million dead); Congo recently (6 million dead); Sierra Leone (the 1 million plus amputees are part of that horror equation) and countless other mass slaughters, if the outcome would have been better? I suspect so.
I thought your quote from Ron Paul was interesting too, especially this bit:
No one in the media questions our aggression against Iraq for the past 12 years by continuous bombing and imposed sanctions responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. [...]
Bit of a warped view, because Saddam invaded Kuwait; killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds; and persecuted many, many citizens.
Then Ron Paul has the gaul to use the bogus figures pushed by the US Media that 500,000 children died because of the trade sanctions...that's more children that died by avoiding war than engaging in war. Impressive, except that those figures were disproved years ago.
What is also ignored is that the UN presided over useless inspections, was guilty of funneling huge amounts of money off from the sanctions, which found even the Australian Wheat Board guilty of greed at the expense of Iraqi citizens, and Saddam still profiting personally. It was disgusting, and showed yet again the United Nations has no ability to secure peace. If they had done their job, war could have been avoided.
Saddam kept pushing. Lining up arms deals with France and Russia, preparing to bring in more weapons even as the left negotiated to remove the sanctions and give Saddam free reign. The same Saddam that had tried to build nuclear weapons using the construction of nuclear power stations as a front.
The same Saddam that paid US$20K to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers that got into Israel.
He kept pushing, the world ignored him until America finally acted. I personally didn't support America going to war against Iraq, but I supported them once they started (with the hope they could end things quickly and help the Iraqi people prosper without the murderous Saddam at the helm). Even so, Saddam's role in his own demise should not be underestimated.
I am presuming we both agree... that some wars do need to be fought - such as WWII?
ReplyDeleteWe do agree that some wars must be fought, as I've stated about four times and counting. However only when they are defensive wars, where the threat is real and imminent, that there is an ability to win and that it won't cause more evil than it will stop.
However we do not agree that we needed to fight World War II. In support I will give you another quote:
"One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'."
-- Winston Churchill in his book "The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm"
I recommend Pat Buchanan's brilliant book: Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World
Then Ron Paul has the gaul to use the bogus figures pushed by the US Media that 500,000 children died because of the trade sanctions...that's more children that died by avoiding war than engaging in war. Impressive, except that those figures were disproved years ago.
The sanctions weren't imposed to avoid a war, they were imposed directly following one! And sanctions are an act of aggression, which is why Ron Paul mentioned them. It wasn't Saddam acting aggressively towards the US it was in the opposite direction. If any nation tried to stop US trading as freely as it wished they would take that as an act of war, and rightfully so because it is. The exact figure is then beside the point, although 1 is too many, and the number is very large, and you have not provided any disproof of the figure either.
What is also ignored is that the UN presided over useless inspections, was guilty of funneling huge amounts of money off from the sanctions,
I do not support the sanctions, nor do I support the UN. Perhaps those arguments might be useful towards someone who believes in world government or that sanctions are "peaceful." Sanctions are essentially building an impenetrable fence around a country waiting for them to starve instead of shooting them, there is very little distinction.
The same Saddam that had tried to build nuclear weapons using the construction of nuclear power stations as a front.
And a threatened party, Israel defended themselves using their very capable military. No American intervention was required. Israel doesn't need it's hand held.
He kept pushing, the world ignored him until America finally acted.
Yes he kept pushing for conventional weapons that were no threat to the United States. And a nation has every right to defend themselves, unless you think innocent Iraqis deserved to have Iranian tanks roll over the top of them?
You do remember how the Iraqi Survey Group found no WMDs and no evidence of them nor any projects to construct them (except a few lost caches of chemicals that America sold them in the 80s, the same chemicals Saddam used on the Kurds without any objections from America at the time).
I personally didn't support America going to war against Iraq, but I supported them once they started
I neither supported it then nor anytime since. In fact everything I predicted has come true, Iraq has been a bloodbath with 100s of 1000s of deaths that needn't have ever occurred, that evil is far greater than what the war stopped. America is bankrupting itself and by extension, the world. And the entire region has been destabilised with 4 million Iraqis displaced internally and often externally.
Even so, Saddam's role in his own demise should not be underestimated.
The tyranny of a ruler is not sufficient justification for war. If it were then we should be at war with most of the world. There are better ways to deal with tyranny in other nations.
Ah, Buchanan. And THAT book.
ReplyDeleteI really have to restrain myself when he gets brought into the equation.
Later, when I have more time.
Sorry Universal, but when you tell me Pat Buchanan's book makes sense to you, then I know this is going to be a long and probably fruitless conversation.
ReplyDeleteConsider this logic, as you tell me you would have been with the group arguing to appease Hitler and leave him alone or even side with him:
Why not pretend the USA is Hitler then, and argue that Saddam should have accepted what ever he wanted? Why not accept that Iraq should annex the oil fields and hand them over? If anyone complained, why not accept that the US could round them up and gas them? How on earth can you justify going along with Hitler, and then expect it is consistent to complain about any other act of aggression?
As for the sanctions: Iraq attacked Kuwait. So making out sanctions were opposed as an act of aggression seems to sidestep the issue that Saddam was the aggressor. Again, we come to the point that America is wrong for getting involved in any way.
When I speak of the United Nation's failure, your point that you don't support them is irrelevant. The point is that if the UN is a failure, it doesn't leave many options to contain dictators keen to go nuclear. The UN are so corrupt, their inability to find weapons is hardly reason to not be suspicious of Saddam's motives, given he proved himself over and over again of having much bigger aspirations than conventional weapons.
Interestingly, you say Iran is no threat, and you use them as a justification for Saddam to arm himself. You appear to excuse almost any action of Iraq and Iran (and it appears, Germany of 1938) but can only see US actions in one light, almost operating in a vacuum.
You say there are better ways of dealing with tyranny, and no doubt we should try them and some were tried with Iraq.
But the failure to act decisively over DRC, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Bosnia, Sierra Leone suggest to me that sometimes war is still better than doing nothing.
Even the body count in Iraq is less than what Saddam achieved in his time. You seem to think that body count should not justify intervention, and whilst the US did not intervene for that reason, the blood on Saddam's hands was always going to be a good indication that peaceful inaction would achieve nothing in the long run with Iraq.
Regarding Churchill's comment about WWII being the "unnecessary war".
ReplyDeleteI hope you are not relying on Buchanan's spin to understand that Churchill thought we needed to stand up to Hitler sooner.
Churchill also said of the hand he had been dealt was "To wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime."
Buchanan's thesis is wrong, and his ideas are dangerous. I guess that's why we must go through this tedium of discussing it.
If intelligent discussion is "tedium" to you then I shan't discuss it further. And we part, neither convinced by the other, and I wonder why you bother argue at all if you find it such a pain.
ReplyDeleteOn second thought, I don't care if you find it tedious. People have to know that interventionism and preemptive war are wrong so I shall continue arguing!
ReplyDeleteGood on you!
ReplyDeleteAlthough I think you may have taken my use of the word tedious too strongly. I meant it in the meaning:
"wordy so as to cause weariness"
from the perspective that I can see this conversation being very wordy, considering the gulf. After all, entire books are devoted to this subject and it is hard enough to present an argument within a book as within relatively short comments on a blog.
So no disrespect was meant to you with that turn of phrase.
Since Hitler and WWII is perhaps the poster war for a "necessary" war, we should probably stick to this war.
Firstly, I would avoid the use of describing a war as a "good war" or a "just war". War is too horrible for that. But my argument is that some wars are indeed necessary, just as self defence (in response to an attack) using violence can be necessary.
So, please, weary me with copious amounts of justification that WWII was unnecessary and we should have just sat back and let Hitler do what he will.
This is going to be interesting. Still .. restraining myself ..
ReplyDeleteThere are worse things than war.
ReplyDeleteMuch worse than war is the enslavement of whole populations by totalitarian regimes.
Worse than war are the destruction of cultures and societies in the name of whatever ideology.
The ability to sit in comfort and pontificate about the finer philosophical points of pre-emptive or purely reactive/defensive conflict is a luxury brought to you by those who were prepared to fight for it.
No thanks expected, but some acknowledgement of the cost of the freedom you enjoy would be pleasant.
(and no doubt some North Korean slaving away in a prison camp would find this discussion most enlightening, Universal)
ReplyDelete