by Nathan Barton
Good morning, and a good weekend to all.
This commentary is intended, in part, and dedicated to remembering that 100 years ago, a war started that soon spanned the globe, and began a century of horrors, a century of war in which vast, uncountable numbers of people were killed, wounded, driven insane, made refugees, and beggared. A war that destroyed much of the promise of Western Civilization, even as it allowed the West to temporarily dominate most of the world.
A good brief synopsis of what happened a century ago (and could happen today or in the near future) is found here: The First World War: Tragedy of Tragedies. Please, please, read it and ponder it carefully, viewing it from the tragedy of lost liberty. And look at some of the photos (including some very VERY rare color ones) by Googling “World War 1 photos” or go to the Atlantic for several galleries. Look in the faces and eyes of those men (and women) of long ago; see their living and dead bodies; see the war damage fresh and horrific.
Part of my sermon this last Sunday pointed out the impact of the Great War on our world today, and how we have been hampered, harmed, and hurt time and time again as the direct result of this war. My grandfather missed serving in the American Expeditionary Force by the skin of his teeth, and my wife’s grandfather survived, barely, his service in France. My family would almost certainly have been much different if not for the Great War. Together with millions of other American, Canadian, Brit/Commonwealth, and European families.
World War One was caused by a series of stupid mistakes caused in part by a failure to preserve and protect and expand liberty in many places in the world, but especially in the US, UK, France, Germany, and Russia.
It CAN happen again, history CAN repeat itself, and the world could once again collapse into the same sort of “civilized” savagery that ripped the world from 1914 to today. Although statism was not nearly so strong in 1914 as today, nevertheless hundreds of millions of people submitted to it, to the consequences of the stupid intrigues of those seeking MORE power to the state, and too many people accepted that it was in the power (and “right”) of their governments to demand everything, includes their lives and those of their children, parents, family and neighbors. Although the FedGov was already insanely corrupted and had grasped amazing power prior to the US entry in 1917 (such as the “Honest Abe” Administration, Teddy’s reign, and the evils of Woodrow Wilson’s progressive policies including the income tax, Federal Reserve, and direct election of senators), without the fanning effect and damage of WW1, it is possible that many of these things would have had far less impact.
The time periods are telling: WW1 was from 1914 to 1918, but the series of civil wars, rebellions, bloody coups, and suppressions really did not end until 1923 or so. The various brush wars of the 1920s and early 1930s (Spain, Ethiopia, the Caucasus, Baltic, and various US interventions in Latin America) were overshadowed by the much more massive bloodletting in Manchuria and China of the 1930s. WW2 began in September 1939, expanded enormously in mid 1941 and again in December 1941 to engulf virtually of the world, including every sea and most landmasses (except Latin America), at least indirectly. Supposedly it ended in May 1945 in Europe and September 1945 in Asia and the Pacific, but again a long, drawn-out series of brush wars followed, from Canaan in 1948 and Indochina through 1954, Korea 1950-53, Greece and Algeria and India and Pakistan and the Sinai, so that since then, there has been NO year without multiple fairly hard-fought wars.
Looking back 100 years, we see that the seeds of destruction of Western Civilization, not just empires but cultures and nations and states, were already planted long before that fateful year of 1914. Too many germinated then and later to recount them all. But we have seen institution after institution crumble: the list is even longer: churches and other religions, empires and nations and provinces and districts and cities and towns, corporations and educational institutions, medical and political organizations. Some have crashed with loud noise (and loud hosannas), while others have vanished with little notice or concern.
The evolution, the progression, continues: evolution and progression is NOT about things getting better and better, but about things crumbling more and more: our technology (even including the technology of war) has DELAYED, and SLOWED the collapse, but has not reversed it or ended it, because OTHER technologies, including those of the totalitarian and tyrannical and nanny states have made it possible to tear down “civilization” more and more, and ever more quickly.
The only solution is liberty: giving and regaining and keeping and expanding freedom – but WITH it ensuring that responsibility for your own actions is constant and key. I hope – I PRAY – that is going to happen, but it is often hard to see progress in that direction.
On to a few news items:
The elderly woman, intruders with weapons having broken into her home downstairs, grabs her pistol and calls 911. The 911 operator repeatedly tells her to put down her gun. Now MAYBE this is because the 911 operator is afraid the police (when they responded ten minutes later, too late to catch the fleeing intruders) would shoot the old woman. But it maybe because the operator was trained that the State has a monopoly of force…
I thought that I had read that the man had been released, but apparently the Mexican government continues to hold an American Marine as essentially a political prisoner or a prisoner of war, and the FedGov – especially the Fuehrer – refuses to do anything. This kind of thing can have grave consequences to more than the person and his family. Remember that it has only been about 98 or so years since the US was actively FIGHTING in Mexico against “revolutionaries” in a warm-up for WW1.
Plouffe: Republicans ‘Rightly Are Viewed as Being Intolerant’ on Immigration, a lie made by deleting just one word: “illegal.” This is part of the fussing and name-calling and bitterness between the two old parties. It is not that dissimilar to what happened in the various legislatures of Europe – and between the monarchs (most very closely related to each other) of Europe also.
As with the earlier stories about the growing brutality and tyranny of New York City and other localities, we see more extremism in government in other states. Consider what a Catholic Cardinal says about a new Massachusetts law. It is ‘Unjust Limitation on Free Speech’ and if anyone knows what limits on free speech can be, it is a Roman Catholic clergyman.
But not to worry, right? After all, the Federal Courts will keep the states in line, just like they do Congress and the White House. The Fuehrer says ‘I’m bound by the Constitution’ “[T]he American people don’t want me just standing around twiddling my thumbs and waiting for Congress to get something done,” the guy living at 1600 PA said on Wednesday. But even as he takes unilateral action, “I’m bound by the Constitution,” he said. Must be his own personal version. I knew a preacher who once studied with a woman and made an important point, stating “it is right here in your Bible,” stating the book, chapter, and verse. “No, it’s not in my Bible,” says the woman, and points to where that verse has been carefully whited-out.” I’d LOVE to see the Fuehrer’s constitution (and Nancy Pelosi’s Bible).
So, is this why we have things like this? A New Jersey cop says that since the Fuehrer does not follow the Constitution, then he (the cop) doesn’t either. After all, Befehl ist Befehl. (Orders are orders). Officer Richard Recine was so adamant that he went so far as to tell Wronko that, “Obama has decimated the friggin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn, ’cause if he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to.”
Kurdish Gov’t, Fighting ISIS, Asks for Airstrikes and Humanitarian Aid and the FedGov is going to give it to them. Now, the Kurds are a whole lot better than the Arabs in the rest of “Iraq” (Mesopotamia) but this is like letting a con artist set you up to rob you blind AGAIN.
Cambodian tribunal convicts Khmer Rouge leaders. Three and a half decades after the genocidal rule of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge ended, a U.N.-backed tribunal on Thursday sentenced two top leaders of the former regime to life in prison for crimes against humanity during the country’s 1970s terror period that left close to 2 million people dead. Justice delayed is justice denied. Their victims have been dead for THIRTY-FIVE YEARS and their killers get to live on and on…
Ivy League School’s response to student requesting to carry concealed
handgun to defend herself from dangerous stalker: NO.
Mama’s Note: The girl has just announced to the entire world that she is a helpless victim in waiting. If she has a brain in her head, she will carry anyway… regardless of the school’s permission or policy. Does she really think the guy who stalked her previously is the only danger? Why would staying at Dartmouth be more important than her life. Totally insane.
Nathan: Too many people have been enchanted and cannot see any way that they can live without submitting to the State (the King, the ruler, the authority figure). She may be this way. OR she may be setting the stage to go ahead and carry, but protecting herself against the inevitable.
The First World War was the beginning of the end for the British Empire and Commonwealth, thanks in part to Imperial overreach and a few bad apples (Grey and Churchill are mentioned in the article). But part of it was spending money and blood BOTH like water to maintain locations and systems that were not critical to defense of the Empire, nor to the economic system of the era. The Brits seem to be doing the same thing again in Afghanistan, where they have stated that British troops could AGAIN return to the mountains if Kabul is unable to contain the Taleban (and worse). To me, that is like saying that we’ll get up IF the sun comes up tomorrow morning.
This is where the mandating of politically correct speech leads us – a gardening show in England is being attacked as “racist” and “nativisitic” because of the common gardening discussions heard on the show. Dr Ben Pitcher, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Westminster, claimed the programme’s regular discussions on soil purity and non-native species promoted nationalist and fascist beliefs. This may sound funny… but it is not a joke. What better illustrates the pitiful excuse for a free people that a century of war has left Great Britain?
Politics 2014: The Fuehrer is not only unreliable as President, but he is unreliable as an “ally” for Congress as they try to get things done. Congressional Democrats are starting to get very nervous about the upcoming 2014 midterm elections … so nervous that they are throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at their Republican foes. This kind of stupid reaction and overreaction is actually very funny: Pelosi telling another member of Congress that he is “inconsequential,” the Dem saying that filing a lawsuit against the Fuehrer was a “coup,” and of course, the constant yapping about racism.
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The Price of Liberty 
A century of war (Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-31D)
by Nathan Barton
Good morning, and a good weekend to all.
This commentary is intended, in part, and dedicated to remembering that 100 years ago, a war started that soon spanned the globe, and began a century of horrors, a century of war in which vast, uncountable numbers of people were killed, wounded, driven insane, made refugees, and beggared. A war that destroyed much of the promise of Western Civilization, even as it allowed the West to temporarily dominate most of the world.
A good brief synopsis of what happened a century ago (and could happen today or in the near future) is found here: The First World War: Tragedy of Tragedies. Please, please, read it and ponder it carefully, viewing it from the tragedy of lost liberty. And look at some of the photos (including some very VERY rare color ones) by Googling “World War 1 photos” or go to the Atlantic for several galleries. Look in the faces and eyes of those men (and women) of long ago; see their living and dead bodies; see the war damage fresh and horrific.
Part of my sermon this last Sunday pointed out the impact of the Great War on our world today, and how we have been hampered, harmed, and hurt time and time again as the direct result of this war. My grandfather missed serving in the American Expeditionary Force by the skin of his teeth, and my wife’s grandfather survived, barely, his service in France. My family would almost certainly have been much different if not for the Great War. Together with millions of other American, Canadian, Brit/Commonwealth, and European families.
World War One was caused by a series of stupid mistakes caused in part by a failure to preserve and protect and expand liberty in many places in the world, but especially in the US, UK, France, Germany, and Russia.
It CAN happen again, history CAN repeat itself, and the world could once again collapse into the same sort of “civilized” savagery that ripped the world from 1914 to today. Although statism was not nearly so strong in 1914 as today, nevertheless hundreds of millions of people submitted to it, to the consequences of the stupid intrigues of those seeking MORE power to the state, and too many people accepted that it was in the power (and “right”) of their governments to demand everything, includes their lives and those of their children, parents, family and neighbors. Although the FedGov was already insanely corrupted and had grasped amazing power prior to the US entry in 1917 (such as the “Honest Abe” Administration, Teddy’s reign, and the evils of Woodrow Wilson’s progressive policies including the income tax, Federal Reserve, and direct election of senators), without the fanning effect and damage of WW1, it is possible that many of these things would have had far less impact.
The time periods are telling: WW1 was from 1914 to 1918, but the series of civil wars, rebellions, bloody coups, and suppressions really did not end until 1923 or so. The various brush wars of the 1920s and early 1930s (Spain, Ethiopia, the Caucasus, Baltic, and various US interventions in Latin America) were overshadowed by the much more massive bloodletting in Manchuria and China of the 1930s. WW2 began in September 1939, expanded enormously in mid 1941 and again in December 1941 to engulf virtually of the world, including every sea and most landmasses (except Latin America), at least indirectly. Supposedly it ended in May 1945 in Europe and September 1945 in Asia and the Pacific, but again a long, drawn-out series of brush wars followed, from Canaan in 1948 and Indochina through 1954, Korea 1950-53, Greece and Algeria and India and Pakistan and the Sinai, so that since then, there has been NO year without multiple fairly hard-fought wars.
Looking back 100 years, we see that the seeds of destruction of Western Civilization, not just empires but cultures and nations and states, were already planted long before that fateful year of 1914. Too many germinated then and later to recount them all. But we have seen institution after institution crumble: the list is even longer: churches and other religions, empires and nations and provinces and districts and cities and towns, corporations and educational institutions, medical and political organizations. Some have crashed with loud noise (and loud hosannas), while others have vanished with little notice or concern.
The evolution, the progression, continues: evolution and progression is NOT about things getting better and better, but about things crumbling more and more: our technology (even including the technology of war) has DELAYED, and SLOWED the collapse, but has not reversed it or ended it, because OTHER technologies, including those of the totalitarian and tyrannical and nanny states have made it possible to tear down “civilization” more and more, and ever more quickly.
The only solution is liberty: giving and regaining and keeping and expanding freedom – but WITH it ensuring that responsibility for your own actions is constant and key. I hope – I PRAY – that is going to happen, but it is often hard to see progress in that direction.
On to a few news items:
The elderly woman, intruders with weapons having broken into her home downstairs, grabs her pistol and calls 911. The 911 operator repeatedly tells her to put down her gun. Now MAYBE this is because the 911 operator is afraid the police (when they responded ten minutes later, too late to catch the fleeing intruders) would shoot the old woman. But it maybe because the operator was trained that the State has a monopoly of force…
I thought that I had read that the man had been released, but apparently the Mexican government continues to hold an American Marine as essentially a political prisoner or a prisoner of war, and the FedGov – especially the Fuehrer – refuses to do anything. This kind of thing can have grave consequences to more than the person and his family. Remember that it has only been about 98 or so years since the US was actively FIGHTING in Mexico against “revolutionaries” in a warm-up for WW1.
Plouffe: Republicans ‘Rightly Are Viewed as Being Intolerant’ on Immigration, a lie made by deleting just one word: “illegal.” This is part of the fussing and name-calling and bitterness between the two old parties. It is not that dissimilar to what happened in the various legislatures of Europe – and between the monarchs (most very closely related to each other) of Europe also.
As with the earlier stories about the growing brutality and tyranny of New York City and other localities, we see more extremism in government in other states. Consider what a Catholic Cardinal says about a new Massachusetts law. It is ‘Unjust Limitation on Free Speech’ and if anyone knows what limits on free speech can be, it is a Roman Catholic clergyman.
But not to worry, right? After all, the Federal Courts will keep the states in line, just like they do Congress and the White House. The Fuehrer says ‘I’m bound by the Constitution’ “[T]he American people don’t want me just standing around twiddling my thumbs and waiting for Congress to get something done,” the guy living at 1600 PA said on Wednesday. But even as he takes unilateral action, “I’m bound by the Constitution,” he said. Must be his own personal version. I knew a preacher who once studied with a woman and made an important point, stating “it is right here in your Bible,” stating the book, chapter, and verse. “No, it’s not in my Bible,” says the woman, and points to where that verse has been carefully whited-out.” I’d LOVE to see the Fuehrer’s constitution (and Nancy Pelosi’s Bible).
So, is this why we have things like this? A New Jersey cop says that since the Fuehrer does not follow the Constitution, then he (the cop) doesn’t either. After all, Befehl ist Befehl. (Orders are orders). Officer Richard Recine was so adamant that he went so far as to tell Wronko that, “Obama has decimated the friggin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn, ’cause if he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to.”
Kurdish Gov’t, Fighting ISIS, Asks for Airstrikes and Humanitarian Aid and the FedGov is going to give it to them. Now, the Kurds are a whole lot better than the Arabs in the rest of “Iraq” (Mesopotamia) but this is like letting a con artist set you up to rob you blind AGAIN.
Cambodian tribunal convicts Khmer Rouge leaders. Three and a half decades after the genocidal rule of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge ended, a U.N.-backed tribunal on Thursday sentenced two top leaders of the former regime to life in prison for crimes against humanity during the country’s 1970s terror period that left close to 2 million people dead. Justice delayed is justice denied. Their victims have been dead for THIRTY-FIVE YEARS and their killers get to live on and on…
Ivy League School’s response to student requesting to carry concealed
handgun to defend herself from dangerous stalker: NO.
Mama’s Note: The girl has just announced to the entire world that she is a helpless victim in waiting. If she has a brain in her head, she will carry anyway… regardless of the school’s permission or policy. Does she really think the guy who stalked her previously is the only danger? Why would staying at Dartmouth be more important than her life. Totally insane.
Nathan: Too many people have been enchanted and cannot see any way that they can live without submitting to the State (the King, the ruler, the authority figure). She may be this way. OR she may be setting the stage to go ahead and carry, but protecting herself against the inevitable.
The First World War was the beginning of the end for the British Empire and Commonwealth, thanks in part to Imperial overreach and a few bad apples (Grey and Churchill are mentioned in the article). But part of it was spending money and blood BOTH like water to maintain locations and systems that were not critical to defense of the Empire, nor to the economic system of the era. The Brits seem to be doing the same thing again in Afghanistan, where they have stated that British troops could AGAIN return to the mountains if Kabul is unable to contain the Taleban (and worse). To me, that is like saying that we’ll get up IF the sun comes up tomorrow morning.
This is where the mandating of politically correct speech leads us – a gardening show in England is being attacked as “racist” and “nativisitic” because of the common gardening discussions heard on the show. Dr Ben Pitcher, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Westminster, claimed the programme’s regular discussions on soil purity and non-native species promoted nationalist and fascist beliefs. This may sound funny… but it is not a joke. What better illustrates the pitiful excuse for a free people that a century of war has left Great Britain?
Politics 2014: The Fuehrer is not only unreliable as President, but he is unreliable as an “ally” for Congress as they try to get things done. Congressional Democrats are starting to get very nervous about the upcoming 2014 midterm elections … so nervous that they are throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at their Republican foes. This kind of stupid reaction and overreaction is actually very funny: Pelosi telling another member of Congress that he is “inconsequential,” the Dem saying that filing a lawsuit against the Fuehrer was a “coup,” and of course, the constant yapping about racism.
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About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.