www.thornwalker.com/ditch/critic.htm


 

An encounter with a reader
on war and empire

 

In April 2003, after the apparent close of the heaviest fighting in the imperial invasion and conquest of Iraq, I posted the following installment to the "Stop and think" section of the TLD home page.Nicholas Strakon

The Empire and the end of history. I remember reading before the war that leading archaeologists and historians of the ancient world were worried about the fate of Iraq's antiquities, and ABC News confirmed that the other day, adding the important detail that the scholars actually warned the Pentagon to be careful — and received indifferent shrugs in return. We shouldn't be surprised.

In "The Consequences of World War II to Britain," libertarian revisionist James J. Martin noted that the increasing barbarism of modern warfare was exemplified on the American and British side by "barely literate young aviators who undertook the obliteration of Europe's ancient cities and cultural achievements with the lack of compunction displayed ... by a housewife dousing an anthill with a kettle of boiling water." Roosevelt and Churchill's jitterbugging, comic-book-reading, pinup-ogling young primitives happily pulverized and incinerated museums, galleries, libraries, universities, monuments, concert halls, opera houses, historic churches, and all the glories of Mediaeval and Baroque architecture they could encompass in their bombsights, in the course of murdering hundreds of thousands of noncombatant men, women, and children.

In light of that record, I suppose we should be thankful that the mouth-breathers of today's Imperial military didn't actually join in the fun and help destroy those Iraqi antiquities, after napalming the custodians.

Back to this department's
table of contents.


On April 22, I received this response from a reader, which I posted as the new "Stop and think" installment, along with my prefatory comment:

The following is a letter to the editor I received about my most recent "Stop and think" installment on the loss of the Iraqi antiquities and the barbarism of the Imperial military. Though the letter is unsigned, to judge by his e-mail address (only part of which I am publishing here) the writer considers himself a conservative. I urge all TLD writers and friends of TLD to unburden themselves on the matters raised by our correspondent and also on the type of conservatism he represents. — Nicholas Strakon

These are some of the most ridiculous comments and/or statements I have ever read. Obviously, you have never been involved in combat. You, apparently, think that someone who is basically concerned with their own survival should be more concerned with the protection of antiquities. You are totally out of touch with reality. What do you think the military is there for? Do you think we should abolish the military and allow people like Saddam to rule the roost? Do you think we should abolish the various police forces in our country. Just allow everyone to do what they please, hoping that everyone will interact in a highly cultured and civilized manner?

If someone were to break into your home in the middle of the night and threaten your life, would you read them a good book or show them your membership cards in various cultural organizations? You probably would. However, there are many who would like the legal right to defend themselves, even if that meant using deadly force.

The Last Ditch is just one more radical publication that is a waste of resources that could be put to better use. Get an honest job, then take a bath!

Conservative8 [partial e-mail address]

Back to TOC.


 

We and our readers did indeed find a few things to say in reply, starting with TLD contributing editor  David T. Wright:

 

Imagine! Just allowing everyone to do as they please! We can't have that in a free society!

Mr. Conservative8 appears to be suffering from cognitive dissonance. After he rejects the idea of personal freedom, he turns around and says, "There are many who would like the legal right to defend themselves, even if that meant using deadly force."

That's right. And I'm one of them. And it's the cops and our rulers, who sent the troops to Iraq to address a threat to us that didn't exist, who want to take that right away from us.

So I say to you, Mr. Conservative8, make up your mind.

Do you want the freedom to defend yourself, and all the other freedoms that the Founders said were given us by God? You can't pick and choose, you know; they all go together. You compromise one, and pretty soon you lose them all, as is happening to us now.

Or do you want a society in which you can be stopped on the streets and told, "Your papers, please"? One in which The Authorities can come into your house and search without a warrant? That's what new legislation being pushed by those great "conservatives" George W. Bush and John Ashcroft would allow. This war furnishes them with a great excuse.

Perhaps you want the latter, and you are confusing the right of self-defense with the right of a bunch of politicians to strut about and do whatever they want to whomever they choose.

Let me spell it out for you. This war has nothing to do with defense, and Saddam was never a threat to us. Where are all those "weapons of mass destruction" of which we were supposed to be scared to death? All this war has accomplished is to get a lot more Muslims mad at us, and give politicians excuses to destroy what freedom we have left. It's made us less safe, not more.

So to answer your question, yes, I do want to abolish the military — and the state that uses it to expand its own power. Like the Founders, I think a standing army is a threat to our freedom and safety, because sooner or later it will be used against us.

As for the cops, they scare me more than the criminals do. Given a choice between being "protected" by police and by my own 9mm Browning Hi-Power, I'll take the Hi-Power. My neighbors and I can take responsibility for our own defense, thank you very much.

April 25, 2003

Back to TOC.


 

Senior editor Ronn Neff comments

You, apparently, think that someone who is basically concerned with their own survival should be more concerned with the protection of antiquities.

I have to say that I don't quite get how a person can call himself a conservative and be indifferent to the theft, destruction, and looting of museum antiquities.

Conserve ... museum ... conserve ... antiquities. Get it?

April 26, 2003

Back to TOC.


 

Nicholas Strakon replies

Thanks to the others who responded, there is little I am obliged to add. Nevertheless I'll address a couple of issues, since Mr. Conservative8's comments, including the incivilities, were aimed squarely at me.

I have written previously of the "40 IQ points" most people seem automatically to lose in wartime. By Mr. Conservative8's way of thinking, opposing criminal, imperialistic war and the individual war crimes subordinate to it, and doing one's very best to avoid having anything to do with all of that, is equivalent to adopting pacifism: equivalent, that is, to permitting urban home invaders to break down one's door and assault one's family without encountering the righteous sanction of some magnum double-O buck issuing with dispatch from an 18-inch barrel. That's an impressive mental leap — straight into absurdity. It's a prime example of statish thinking, of deliberately retarding and disturbing one's own precious mind in the service of statism. Unfortunately, it is an example of long standing: Draft resisters know that the same gibberish was grunted routinely by the stink-smeared gorillas of the conscription system during each of the United State's great explosions of mass murder, 1917-1970. [That latter date should be 1973 — ed.]

Now here is the second point I wish to make, even though other responders touched on it. Saddam Hussein & Co. never committed any crime against me. I have no reason to consider them my enemy. But George W. Bush & Co. and their precedessors, along with the other politicians around them, the bureaucrats under them, and the permanent ruling class over them, have committed many crimes against me. They have burdened my life with a strangling web of regulatory decrees; cartelized, distorted, and wrecked the economy in which I work; debased the currency in which I must trade; helped corrupt and pull apart the civilization I cherish; sought to control whom I might associate with and whom I might spurn; interfered with my right of self-defense and in many of their jurisdictions denied that right altogether; gone rampaging out into the world, murdering and destroying, doing evil in my name and making me a hostage to it; and robbed me over and over and over, every day of my life, behind their euphemism of "taxation." Do I want to "abolish" them and all their works? Since the secret police are lurking always, I will answer with a simple but emphatic Yes! while keeping to myself what I think ought really to happen to them.

They are my enemy. They are our enemy. Chances are, they are even the enemy of Mr. Conservative8, as much as he may whimper to be their little friend.

April 25, 2003

Back to TOC.


 

From the friends of TLD

 

Mr. Strakon invited readers to comment on the e-mail he received from Mr. Conservative8, but that's really asking a lot. It's difficult to respond because the message in question displays such disorganized, sloppy thinking that I don't quite know where to begin. Each and every sentence goes off on some new tangent or states some incomplete idea. About all one can do is to offer some general thoughts.

Obviously, you have never been involved in any combat. I, for one, have not — and thank Heaven for it.

You apparently think that someone who is basically concerned with their own survival should be more concerned with the protection of antiquities. Say what? Listen, buddy: the United States attacked an innocent nation that had never done Americans any harm, remember? The United States then decimated the ridiculously ill-equipped Iraqi soldiery — wow! what bravery! The United States murdered in cold blood hundreds if not thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children — "Hey, the chick got in the way," saith one of our valiant soldiers. After that, our brave boys stood by while mobs looted Iraqi museums of the treasure of fifty centuries and not a few hand-rubbing little New York antique dealers started drooling. And just for good measure the U.S. military saw to it that a few ancient libraries were burned and a Catholic monastery or two were blown up.

Is any of this registering yet, Mr. Conservative8? Who, in fact, is "totally out of touch with reality"?

What do you think the military is there for? I presume to pillage, murder, rape, and commit foul aggression against innocent people, acting like mindless robots so as to do the dirty work of Israel, via the corrupt United States of America.

Have I missed anything substantial? Do you think we should abolish the military and let people like Saddam rule the roost? No, we should rein in the military — but only after they take action to prevent madmen like Bush, Cheney, and Sharon from ruling the roost any longer.

Do you think we should abolish the various police forces in our country? Huh? I thought we were talking about Iraq. If someone were to break into your home in the middle of the night and threaten your life, would you read them a good book or show them your membership cards in various cultural organizations? Ahhhh ... yeah. Sure. However there are many who would like the legal right to defend themselves, even if that meant using deadly force. Does that include Iraqis defending their home, family, and land from invading barbarians — the type of barbarians that made the producers of "American Beauty" multimillionaires?

Get an honest job, then take a bath! Alas, I already work an honest job to feed my wife and nine children, and I shower every morning. (And as often as possible I try to enjoy a fine French wine with my dinner.)

Poor Mr. Conservative8 needs to switch off Rush Limbaugh and the nightly news, and start getting his head into some good books. I recommend he begin with the classics so as to help his mind start to reason and reflect. Dickens, Chesterton, Aquinas, Shakespeare, Villon, and Belloc would help him, I believe. Once he has begun to see simple truths unfold before his eyes he can then start to read thoughtful contemporary political writing, particularly the kind that can be found on excellent websites such as The Last Ditch. And Sobran's.

The only other thing I can say is that letters like Mr. Conservative8's depress me profoundly. They make me think very seriously about packing my things and moving to Europe. I don't say it is necessarily any better there, but at least I wouldn't have to wake up every morning and hear all the incessant blather about living in "the land of the free and home of the brave" coming from idiots who are neither free nor brave.

Dan Guenzel
April 24, 2003

Sherwin vs. Guenzel


 

In regards to the letter from the "conservative" person that Mr. Strakon printed, I would offer Ayn Rand's devastating question: "But what are the 'conservatives'? What is it that they are seeking to 'conserve?'"

That's from "Conservatism: An Obituary," one of the essays included in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

I don't expect a rational answer, of course.

Any time some yammerhead describes himself as a conservative, I think back on how long That Woman's question has been hanging out there in space.

John Lopez
April 25, 2003

Sherwin vs. Lopez


 

Anarchists and libertarians are unjustly tagged as utopians. In my view, it is the statists who are utopian. The issue is not whether politicians, generals, bureaucrats, cops, and judges prevent some crime. Surely they must. The issue is whether they prevent more crime than they preserve.

Over the last 20 years, the U.S. government has bombed Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Bosnia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq again. That track record does not compare favorably to that of the Axis of Evil: Iraq has attacked only Israel, Iran, and Kuwait over that period, while Iran has attacked only Iraq, and North Korea hasn't attacked anybody. Mr. Sherwin, presumably, finds all the American adventurism defensible. That's his right. But I certainly don't see what's so "conservative" about it.

I also find his invocation of the Founding Fathers curious. Is he familiar with Madison's warnings against large standing armies? How about Jefferson's and Washington's exhortations that the republic steer clear of "entangling alliances"?

I, too, once espoused the republican (small "r") values to which Mr. Sherwin pays lip service. I've since gone over to the anarchist side, as I find it highly implausible that any government will ever abide by any constitution designed to limit its power. Mr. Sherwin, remarkably, labors under the illusion that such constraints are still in place.

Tony Pivetta
Royal Oak, Michigan
April 28, 2003

 

Nicholas Strakon comments

Mr. Pivetta touches on a point that we should declare as loudly, plainly, and often as we can from every rooftop available to us: It is precisely the proponents of "limited government" who are the utopians. (Sad to say, the deliberate totalitarians are not: they are very practical folks.)

May 1, 2003


 

I'm distressed to find myself in agreement with anything that the impolite Mr. Sherwin has to say, but the truth is to be faced squarely, perhaps all the more so when it is unpleasant. When Mr. Sherwin writes, "What the Founders had to say on the subject may have been relevant in their time. It most certainly is not relevant in our time," I must conclude that he is correct — very much less to my satisfaction than to his, I am sure. The words of men long dead can have no effect, save by the humility and teachability of those who live, think, and act at a later time, such as the present. The idea of Mr. Sherwin — or his many brothers in modern "conservatism" — contemplating the writings of Washington or Jefferson bring to mind a saying of Jesus: "Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

Indeed, Mr. Sherwin is correct: what the Founders had to say is not, in fact, relevant to our time. So much the worse for our time.

Jim Wetzel
Leo, Indiana
April 29, 2003

Back to TOC.


 

Our critic replies to Mr. Wright

On April 26 I received another letter from our critic, which I posted to the top of "Stop and think," again with some prefatory comment:

Mr. Conservative8 is back, now using a regular name and attacking Mr. David T. Wright in what we are coming to recognize as his characteristic style, complete with gratuitous insults. Again I invite TLD writers and friends of TLD to respond.

I doubt we're ever going to get through to this fellow, so I was thinking of closing the correspondence once this exchange was complete. However, since our correspondent is so aghast at our proposing the abolition of the military, I cannot resist challenging him to name one instance in the past one hundred years of the U.S. military's defending the freedom of Americans 1) against an enemy that the United State had not first helped to create and 2) without wrecking freedom in the course of "defending" it. Americans who have gone abroad and put themselves in harm's way do not qualify. Also, since we're talking about the old days, I might mention that while conscription is gone, it is not forgotten, at least not hereabouts. I expect our correspondent would have a hard time showing that an organization that depended on enslavement for its own staffing could possibly defend anything resembling freedom, or even be interested in defending it. — Nicholas Strakon

It sounds like you [Mr. Wright] are in favor of everyone doing anything they please, which includes rape, murder, and armed robbery, etc. When I allude to restrictions placed upon those who would abuse personal freedom, you insist that I am, somehow, restricting your personal freedom. This is only true if you count yourself among those criminals I have already mentioned. But then, you know yourself better than I do.

You then stated that I rejected the concept of personal freedom, then wanted the right to defend myself. You really should read what others have to say more carefully. I never said I reject the idea of personal freedom. It is a consequence of your own imagination. Then, after attributing something to me which I had not said, you go on and on pointing out imaginary contradictions. You really are confused.

There is, however, a difference between having the right to do anything one pleases and having a legal right to defend oneself. Even though you are having difficulty making that distinction.

Then you, somehow, claim that one cannot have any freedom unless one has any and all freedoms. That conclusion is the product of your own faulty thinking. It does not necessarily follow.

You say you are in favor of abolishing the military. That statement demonstrates how out of touch with reality you are. While what the Founders had to say on the subject may have been relevant in their time. It most certainly is not relevant in our time. But then, you are having trouble making that distinction, as well.

While you, obviously, have the right to your own opinions, you are just as annoying as the rest of the crowd of bash America first, or blame everything that is less than desirable on the US All you can do is find fault with our country. Apparently, in your limited perspective, the rest of the world does everything right while we do everything wrong. Were we Imperialistic war mongers during W.W. II, as well? Or is it only George Bush and the Republicans who are at fault?

By the way, the museum was looted by the Iraqi people, and a few war correspondents, not our military. The Iraqi people primarily took old office equipment. The more valuable artifacts were locked in vaults which required keys to open. It was high-ranking museum officials who took that material. And do you think that Saddam would have left anything of real value in the museum over the many years he had complete control?

You complained we have not found weapons of mass destruction. We have only been there four weeks. Again, you are out of touch with reality. Obviously, if these weapons exist, they are well hidden or were sent out of the country. Saddam may have been a despot, but he was certainly not a moron. You, apparently, think he should have left them in plain sight so, if they exist, can be easily found. And you use your moronic observation to "prove" that these weapons do not exist.

And for someone who touts his endorsement of culture and higher sensitivities, you sound more like a vigilante waving your Browning around purporting to be acting in self defense.

One last comment. I wish you had not stopped taking your medication. I wish you God speed and please start taking your medication again.

Richard Sherwin
["Conservative8"]
April 26, 2003

Back to TOC.


 

David T. Wright replies

Mr. Sherwin writes: It sounds like you are in favor of everyone doing anything they please, which includes rape, murder, and armed robbery, etc. When I allude to restrictions placed upon those who would abuse personal freedom, you insist that I am, somehow, restricting your personal freedom.

I'm not saying that Mr. Sherwin is taking away my freedoms. I'm saying only that his approach will eventually result in all of us losing our freedoms.

My point is that in a truly free society, people are free to do as they choose, until they hurt someone else. English common law — and, until recently, our own legal system — included prohibitions against prior restraint, meaning that the state couldn't restrict a person just because someone thought he might do something criminal. That may seem like a fine point to Mr. Sherwin, but one of the biggest problems we have these days is having our lives run by the state when we're minding our own business, hurting no one.

I am reminded of a conversation I had recently with a dear friend, a very nice person who is also a conventional Jewish-type liberal. When I speculated on what people might be able to do with the vast amount of income confiscated from them every year by the state if allowed to keep it, she said, "If you let them keep more of their money, they'd just spend it on SUVs and use up all the oil!" That's the way liberals think: if it isn't officially endorsed, it shouldn't be allowed. I find it highly ironic that one claiming to be a "conservative" seems to take the same kind of attitude.

You then stated that I rejected the concept of personal freedom, then wanted the right to defend myself. You really should read what others have to say more carefully. I never said I reject the idea of personal freedom. It is a consequence of your own imagination. Then, after attributing something to me which I had not said, you go on and on pointing out imaginary contradictions. You really are confused.

I simply drew the logical conclusion from what Mr. Sherwin wrote in the first paragraph of his original missive. It's all about whether "we" — meaning, the state — should let people do things. See above.

There is, however, a difference between having the right to do anything one pleases and having a legal right to defend oneself. Even though you are having difficulty making that distinction.

No, I think Mr. Sherwin is having trouble distinguishing between the concept of liberty and that of "legal rights." "Legal rights" are something given you by the state, which can take them away again, as it is doing now. Soon it will take away entirely the right to defend oneself, as the British state has done already. Today, people in Britain are given jail time for using their umbrellas to fight off muggers.

Then you, somehow, claim that one cannot have any freedom unless one has any and all freedoms. That conclusion is the product of your own faulty thinking. It does not necessarily follow.

That's not what I said at all. Here's what I said: "You can't pick and choose, you know; they [the freedoms that the Founders said were given us by God] all go together. You compromise one, and pretty soon you lose them all, as is happening to us now."

The point should be self evident: If the people's freedom to keep and bear arms is diminished, the state's fear of their rebellion is greatly relieved, and it feels more able to take away other freedoms. If their right to free expression is lost, the state lets them know only what it wants them to know, and so it can get away with taking away other freedoms. If their freedom to own property is compromised, the people become wards of the state: their property is no longer their own and it can be confiscated if they do something the state doesn't like. And so on. Mr. Sherwin may benefit from reading the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist papers.

You say you are in favor of abolishing the military. That statement demonstrates how out of touch with reality you are. While what the Founders had to say on the subject may have been relevant in their time. It most certainly is not relevant in our time. But then, you are having trouble making that distinction, as well.

I just love this argument. It's the same one the liberals use against the freedom of self-defense, against the concept (beloved by "conservatives") of limited, decentralized government, and so forth. It's the argument underlying all those power-grabbing Supreme Court rulings the "conservatives" hate. I thought conservatives believed in immutable, "self-evident" truths. I guess not.

While you, obviously, have the right to your own opinions, you are just as annoying as the rest of the crowd of bash America first, or blame everything that is less than desirable on the US All you can do is find fault with our country. Apparently, in your limited perspective, the rest of the world does everything right while we do everything wrong. Were we Imperialistic war mongers during W.W.II, as well? Or is it only George Bush and the Republicans who are at fault?

Excuse me, but when did I say that "the rest of the world does everything right?" And who is "we?"

As for World War II, well, I would advise Mr. Sherwin to read Robert B. Stinnett's seminal book Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, which makes a convincing case not only that Franklin Roosevelt provoked war with Japan — which students of history knew already — but also that he knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor before it happened.

By the way, the museum was looted by the Iraqi people, and a few war correspondents, not our military. The Iraqi people primarily took old office equipment. The more valuable artifacts were locked in vaults which required keys to open. It was high ranking museum officials who took that material. And do you think that Saddam would have left anything of real value in the museum over the many years he had complete control?

What's Mr. Sherwin's point?

You complained we have not found weapons of mass destruction. We have only been there four weeks. Again, you are out of touch with reality. Obviously, if these weapons exist, they are well hidden or were sent out of the country. Saddam may have been a despot but he was certainly not a moron. You, apparently, think he should have left them in plain sight so, if they exist, can be easily found. And you use your moronic observation to "prove" that these weapons do not exist.

I'm out of touch with reality? Obviously, if these weapons exist, they are well hidden or were sent out of the country. And just as obviously, if pink elephants exist, they hide when people go looking for them. There never was any evidence that Iraq had any usable "weapons of mass destruction." If it did have them, they obviously were no threat to us. And by "us," I mean the American people. Not the Israelis, not the oil companies, and not some "conservative's" plan for world domination. They weren't used against invading troops. Does that tell Mr. Sherwin nothing?

And for someone who touts his endorsement of culture and higher sensitivities, you sound more like a vigilante waving your Browning around purporting to be acting in self defense.

Again, what's Mr. Sherwin's point? By the way, I don't wave firearms around. Ever. And I have never had to use them in self-defense. Yet.

One last comment. I wish you had not stopped taking your medication. I wish you God speed and please start taking your medication again.

Okay, 'fess up, Mr. Sherwin. You're in high school, right?

April 29, 2003

Back to TOC.


 

Ronn Neff comments

While what the Founders had to say on the subject may have been relevant in their time. It most certainly is not relevant in our time.

Ah, yes, the old "horse-and-buggy-days" criticism of the Constitution. I guess it's easier than advocating the passing of appropriate amendments to the Constitution, as I would expect a conservative to do. Or at least as conservatives once said should be done.

But, you know, there's a familiarity to this "horse-and-buggy-days" argument. Just which conservative was it who used to make that argument so effectively? That the Constitution, as it reads, traps America in the past? That what the Founders had to say was not relevant for our day? Hang on, it will come to me ...

Ah — of course! Franklin Roosevelt! Yes, well, they're certainly putting out a strange crop of conservatives these days, aren't they?

But then I never believed they cared any more about the Constitution than the liberals. They just say they do until it's not convenient.

I suppose one shouldn't blame Mr. Sherwin too much. After all, he hasn't had any real conservative role models for about 60 years.

April 27, 2003

Back to TOC.


 

Mr. Sherwin replies to Strakon

You misunderstand me. I agree with many of the points you raise. However, there are other points, which you stated, with which I cannot agree. In fact, some of those statements are gross distortions. It is the gross distortions, exaggerations and blatant misrepresentations to which I object.

And while I deplore the fact that many of our personal freedoms have been eroded or abolished, no matter what the excuse, this is still the greatest country on the planet. What I do not appreciate, concerning your comments, is the fact that you have absolutely nothing to say about this country that is good. Yet, you live here and have the right to express your opinions in this forum. And, I take it, are flourishing over the years.

If there is a better place to live, why do you not go there? If this is the most favorable place to live, why do you have nothing good to say about it? That is, along with your criticisms.

You appear to be against all wars. Sounds noble. However, that is why you are unrealistic. You gave the time span of 1917 onward. What would you have had us do when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor? After Pearl Harbor, the Germans declared war upon us before we could do likewise. There were provocations. However, they were on both sides, not exclusively on the part of the U.S. Do you think there is ever a justification for war? Interesting how you think it fine to employ violence in defense of your home and/or family, however, it is never justifiable, in your mind, for the U.S. to go to war on it's own behalf.

Frankly, I did not think the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq. However, once that decision had been made, I want our troops fully supported. The time for debate is before hostilities, not after they commence.

You quote the Founders. Well, George Washington led Americans in a military venture against the British. Or don't you count that war? I notice, your chronology starts with W.W. I. I guess you choose to ignore everything that took place before that date. It would appear that your outrage against war is highly selective. Just as you opposition to violence may be. No violence during wartime. However, violence against intruders in your home, fine.

Richard Sherwin
April 27, 2003

Back to TOC.


 

Strakon replies to Mr. Sherwin

Since he does not address them — at all — it appears that among the many points I make with which Mr. Sherwin agrees are the two main points in my first reply: namely, that there is a vast and crucial difference between opposing criminal, imperialistic war and being a pacifist; and that it is Mr. Bush & Co., not Mr. Hussein & Co., who have committed crimes against me and deserve to be called my enemy.

But now that he is straightened out on anti-imperialism versus pacifism, Mr. Sherwin immediately expresses another fundamental, and disastrous, confusion, as revealed by: What I do not appreciate ... is the fact that you have absolutely nothing to say about this country that is good.

We see here revealed one of the premises that have led us in this country to our present predicament; it is one that I seek to unseat at every opportunity. The belief that the country of America is equivalent to the polity of the United State is utterly totalitarian. On that point let me cite a true authority, a man who is totalitarian down to every last nucleotide of his DNA: Bill Clinton. In a speech at Michigan State University on May 5, 1995, Clinton said "there is nothing patriotic about ... pretending that you can love your country but despise your government."

American history is full of ironies. One might think that an American, of all people, would be the least likely to confuse country and state, given the concern about tyranny evinced by the Founders — some of it apparently sincere — and given all the traditional hooraw about the Bill of Rights, and about government's being a necessary evil, and so forth. But in an irony of perhaps unparalleled tragic significance for the history of our civilization, all that business about "limited, constitutional, representative government" has proved to be nothing less than a broad, ultra-smooth expressway leading straight to Polite Totalitarianism. For two hundred years the message was: We can neglect our own unsleeping vigilance and instead rely on the Constitution to protect us from tyranny! And even worse was the related message: We are the government — how could we oppress us? The myth of "democracy" blinds those who would be sentinels of freedom, with the result that Americans such as Mr. Sherwin can no longer see their country past the statist monster that is enveloping, raping, corrupting, and consuming her. Even worse, they mistake it for her.

If he is interested in exploring this question further, I refer our correspondent to my column of September 28, 2001, "Are you 'anti-American,' too?"

On a Website with links always available, there is probably little point to this kind of repetition, but I cannot resist quoting the last portion of that column:

I must close with a personal word about the new blood libel being crafted by our adversaries, because — if I may reverse Michael Corleone's formulation — it's rapidly becoming "personal, not business." I worship America the Beautiful, and every day I mourn her long, tortured passing. So here's a warning to anyone who may be inclined to call me anti-American to my face. My ancestors first came to this lovely land no less than 200 years ago, but before arriving on these shores the Scotch-Irish among them, like the outlaw Josey Wales, "lived by the feud." Nota bene.

Or if they prefer that in American English: Don't tread on me.

Ronn Neff, TLD's senior editor, has done superb work on the question of the failure and intrinsic defects of constitutionalism. It is so superb that none of the System's universities will ever be able to include it in their teachings: it must be blacked out entirely. Anyone interested in advancing his education in the field might first consult Mr. Neff's "'Gun-control' libertarians," and then proceed to his magisterial series, "Fifty Ron Pauls and the government with Only One Law," as well as the resulting "Five questions to Ronald N. Neff by Jacob G. Hornberger with Mr. Neff's reply."

Before moving on, I must say that this assumption of Mr. Sherwin's just about had me on the floor: And, I take it, [you] are flourishing over the years. Has Mr. Sherwin confused me with William Kristol, David Brooks, Jonah Goldberg, or one of the other cosmopolitan scribblers whose personal fortunes are automatically arranged by the War Establishment? For his information, every month I must struggle desperately to keep my electricity and phone from being turned off, in order to keep The Last Ditch on the air for another few weeks. For heaven's sake, man, this is a dissident site.

***

While Mr. Sherwin seems to be clear now on the difference between anti-imperialism and pacifism, he does ask me whether I oppose all wars. Actually there are two American wars that I do not condemn — rather, each had an important aspect that I do not condemn. I hold that the two American Wars of Independence, one beginning in 1775 and the other in 1861, were moral endeavors in their aspect of people's wars against tyranny. In their aspect of state wars against other states, I condemn them. I am an anarchist; I consider all polities illegitimate by nature; and I condemn all their wars. As I have noted before, it was the conventional statist nature of the Confederates' War of Independence that kept Southern statehouses and courthouses and sheriff's offices functioning in Confederate territory right up until the end. Had the entire war been an unconventional people's war, fought only, and massively, by private guerrillas, the institution of chattel slavery would have collapsed forthwith in the South. Meanwhile, the Southrons could have done to the Union Army what the Viet Cong did to it a hundred years later, despite all the B-52s it had collected in the meantime.

Now, I do reserve the right to celebrate the heroism and honor of some of those in the official Patriot and Confederate forces. Visitors to my bunker will find portraits of Lee, Jackson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest on the wall of my living room. On another wall they will find the Gadsden Flag ("Don't Tread on Me") and the Confederate Battle Flag, which I keep insisting was a people's flag, and never the flag of a polity, though it was of course carried by various C.S. military formations. Perhaps someone, someday, will succeed in driving me from the field on this point; but it won't be Mr. Sherwin.

The wars fought by Robert E. Lee and by George Washington before him were immoral insofar as they were state wars, but those men were fighting real enemies, and the right enemies, and they were doing so on the soil of their own country. In the sharpest possible contrast, the imperial invasion and conquest of Iraq, including the conquest not only of the Iraqi state apparatus but also of the country and people of Iraq, may be termed "meta-immoral," that is, morally indefensible even within the canons of constitutionalism, traditional Anglo-American restrictions on government, and international law that almost all the non-anarchists out there claim to respect.

***

Mr. Sherwin notes that I gave the time span of 1917 onward, and, later in his letter, that my chronology starts with W.W. I. I guess you choose to ignore everything that took place before that date. Ye gods. In the absence of a context, perhaps a youngster would not have understood the significance of the time period 1917-1970 that I cited; but I did provide a clear context: "Draft resisters know that the same gibberish was grunted routinely by the stink-smeared gorillas of the conscription system during each of the United State's great explosions of mass murder, 1917-1970." (Though the references to conscription are clear enough, I got the latter date wrong, despite the fact that I lived through the entire Vietnam Era: the draft actually ended in 1973.) It is embarrassing to have to spell out something so elementary, but I was referring to the period of time in this country when the Selective "Service" System was busily enslaving young men. There was no military conscription between 1865 and 1917, and there has been none since 1973 (though teenage boys are still ordered to register). In the unlikely event that anyone reads me as condoning the conscription carried out by the United State and the Confederate States in the 1860s, let me explicitly condemn that, too.

By the way, one of the gorillas' specific grunts was, "Would you stand by and let someone rape your sister?" According to the official policy of the United State and its slavery boards (staffed by volunteer "community leaders" in every town), wishing not to be enslaved to fight in the regime's criminal foreign adventures was the same as standing by and letting a thug rape one's sister. I cannot find the words to properly express my disgust, but I will observe that decades of that kind of anti-thinking may go far toward explaining why so many Americans stand by and let official thugs rape their freedom.

Mr. Sherwin asks, What would you have had us do when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor? By "us," I take it he means our rulers in Washington and New York. I would have had them mind their own damn business before Pearl Harbor. I also would have had them refrain from engaging in an illegal naval war against the Kriesgmarine in the Atlantic. Moreover I would have had them refrain from plotting with British Intelligence to blackmail American politicians, disseminate fraudulent polling data, subvert elections, manufacture evidence, and otherwise manipulate America into war. (To "read more about it," see "The conquest of the United States by Britain," Stephen J. Sniegoski's review-essay on Thomas E. Mahl's Desperate Deception.) And I would have had them keep their sticky thieving fingers off Americans' tax money and not use it to subsidize British Imperialism and Russian Stalinism. It is really nonsensical to ask a question like that, stripped of historical context, and I won't play the game.

Mr. Sherwin does allow as how there were provocations on both sides, but, as formulated, that's the contextual equivalent of a string monokini. I've been trying to think of provocations from the other side. I recall that in the '30s the Japanese shot up some U.S. gunboat in Chinese waters; but then it had no business being there in the first place, did it? That incident doesn't seem to measure up all that impressively against Roosevelt's oil embargo and his other acts of economic warfare.

Speaking of provocations reminds me of something that Steve Sniegoski pointed out. If the U.S. pre-emptive strike against Iraq was proper, in terms of the provocations Iraq is said to have offered the United State, by what possible standard can the Japanese pre-emptive strike at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines be deemed improper? In fact the United State offered Japan much more grievous provocations for war than Iraq ever offered the United State.

While we're on the subject, I'll go ahead and point out that the United State offered Iraq much more grievous provocations than Iraq ever offered the United State — including 12 years of intermittent bombing, the seizure of half of Iraq's air space, and the starving and poisoning, by means of a criminal blockade, of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

I strongly recommend two of Dr. Sniegoski's articles to Mr. Sherwin, one of them here at TLD and the other at The Occidental Quarterly. They are, respectively, "Pearl Harbor: facing facts" and "The Case for Pearl Harbor Revisionism."

***

I see the barn looming on the horizon, so I shall try to pull the wagon faster.

Mr. Sherwin points out that it is never justifiable, in your mind, for the U.S. to go to war on it's [sic] own behalf. Right, except let's make that "in its own behalf," i.e., for its own benefit. The United State only ever goes to war in its own behalf, never in our behalf. And it could not go to war on our behalf even if it wanted to, for it is not our agent.

He writes, once that decision [to go to war] had been made, I want our troops fully supported. He is free to support his troops as fully as he is able. However, I have no troops. But on this whole question, I refer him to my recent column, "'Support Our Troops.'"

Our correspondent alleges also that the time for debate is before hostilities, not after they commence. Says who? Why? Here I must pass along another priceless observation from Dr. Sniegoski, who wonders whether Mr. Sherwin would have applied the same rule to the Germans after the Wehrmacht invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. I suppose the pamphleteers of the White Rose would not have bothered, had they listened to Mr. Sherwin.

And once again I must quote myself. This time it's from a note in "'Support Our Troops'":

I find especially revolting the bellowed declarations of many "patriotic" Americans — most of them Constitution-ravers — to the effect that we war resisters have to shut up now that the shooting has started. But since it did not declare war under the Constitution, the regime is under no presumed obligation ever to declare peace. And as a practical matter George W. Bush's Crusade against World Evil would result in the closest thing to an eternal state of warfare as could readily be imagined.

What the "patriotic" war fans are really telling us, then, is to shut up forever. What ugly children they are. And what good little United Statians, toddling their way all by themselves so far down the road to serfdom.

To forestall one objection, I'll stipulate that Mr. Sherwin has given us some reason to believe that he is not one of those constitutionalists: While what the Founders had to say ... may have been relevant in their time[, it] most certainly is not relevant in our time. On the other hand, it is possible that once again I have misunderstood Mr. Sherwin.

***

There's only one oddity left to answer. Mr. Sherwin writes, You quote the Founders. In our present discussion? Where, please? I am careful about quoting the men who, in their constitutional coup d'etat, founded the central government of the United States and began the dissolution of those states into the United State.

April 30, 2003

Back to TOC.

TLD's home page and main TOC.

 

All comments by TLD writers © 2003 WTM Enterprises


If you found this exchange to be interesting, please donate to our cause. You should make your check or m.o. payable in U.S. dollars to WTM Enterprises and send it to:

WTM Enterprises
P.O. Box 224
Roanoke, IN 46783

Thanks for helping to assure a future for TLD!


Notice to visitors who came straight to this document from off site: You are deep in The Last Ditch. You should check out our home page and table of contents.