"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
US Media Angrily Marvels at the Lack of Muslim Gratitude
"One prominent strain shaping American reaction to the protests in the Muslim world is bafflement, and even anger, that those Muslims are not more grateful to the US. After all, goes this thinking, the US bestowed them with the gifts of freedom and democracy – the very rights they are now exercising – so how could they possibly be anything other than thankful? Under this worldview, it is especially confounding that the US, their savior and freedom-provider, would be the target of their rage."
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For centuries the Middle Eastern people have lived under third world economics. Clans formed into units, those with the wealth of more camels suppressed those whom have a few camels. They live under poor conditions and all they can hope for are 62 virgins. Their conditions are not much unlike our own; suppression of the masses, degradation, rules, laws, regulations, no hope and prosperity only for the wealthy, a chance at personal freedom is taken away and a chance at creating wealth of their own is also taken away. Then there are the mullahs and other religious leaders whom, by some form of coercion, manage to a degree, to influence the leaders; probably through the fear of the power the mullahs have over the population in relationship to Allah! Ergo, why shouldn't they have a passion to strap on a bomb and blow up innocent people . Sixty-two virgins is better than nothing. This image is planted, as a seed, into their minds until they can fully imagine this as a truth and they proceed on the course that makes the best sense to them. This is my thought regarding the issue. Maybe I am wrong and maybe not. It would be nice to hear another perspective to what I have presented.
USA Today:
"...How can people the USA helped free from murderous dictators treat it in such a way?..."
The pomposity of that statement sez it all. "...Get the hell off my property..." is the message. "..We refuse to argue with stupid.." The history of US psychopaths in the Middle East toward Arabic people is egregious at best, criminally bestial on down the scale.
Pat Buchanan wrote a column on the Lew Rockwell page this morning that highlights Yankee boorishness:
Osama bin Laden in his declaration of war against (the US) gave three reasons as his casus belli.
His first reason for war was the presence of U.S. troops on the soil of Saudi Arabia, sacred home to Mecca and Medina.
His second was the U.S. sanctions on Iraq then said to be causing the premature deaths of as many as 500,000 Iraqi children.
Third was U.S. support for Israel, seen in the Arab world as a colonial implant to humiliate them and deny to the Palestinian people their right to a nation of their own.
Megalomania, I think, is the illness that defines those who dispatch and maintain US "troops" on the ground in those parts of the world.
Sam
I concur with Sam,
Someone says that the State solution to such and such problem isn’t working, we are in real trouble, what are we going to do about it. The essay “Freedom Has No ‘System” very nicely answers with the equivalent of “What do you mean ‘WE’, Statist?”
Such an approach puts the burden of freeing oneself (or some "Noble" cause or "Burning Issue") onto the Statist. It UNDERSCORES the fact that the Statist has NOT bothered to think of solutions that do NOT involve **enslaving other people**.
**As pointed out in the article: “…[watch] my fellow humans squirm when asked to think like a free people…”.**
Freedom Has No "System"--Challenge the premise. THERE IS NO "WE"! http://zerogov.com/?p=2334
There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.
PT Penn Teller http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/119929.html
The following link addresses how and why it IS customary law that ACTUALLY keeps order and NOT Govt; It also shatters the myth that government must define and enforce "the rules of the game".
I recommend: "Enterprise of Customary Law" Mises Daily: Friday, June 29, 2007 by Bruce L. Benson http://archive.mises.org/6795/the-enterprise-of-customary-law/
I got this response:
"Those who refer to [customary law keep] failing to notice that [they're] referring to businesses in a dispute who otherwise want to do business so they look for a quick resolution".
"A better analogy is be victim to pirates on international waters: either you have enough firepower to repel themselves or you're at their mercy. Since there's no international law then they have nothing to fear from killing you and even if they steal everything and let you live there's no one to complain to rather you just suck it up and move on". ~ Gil at http://mises.org/preview/6177/The-Economic-Irrationality-of-the-State#ID...
[Summed up: There is no alternative (TINA) to being a victim to pirates on International Waters AND to Statism] (SARC Intended).
My response:
Nope. In the Straits of Malacca, South China Sea and Indonesian waters, insurance rates have increased drastically, routes altered, and some freight companies have hired onboard security guards. A 2004 study explains
"These guards … are being deployed discreetly, because the legal status of armed guards on board commercial vessels is not clear under international law. …If the guards use deadly force, they and their employers may be criminally liable. Yet the policy is pursued because it is working; numerous, potentially deadly piracy attacks are being thwarted on a daily basis by the mere presence of armed guards, who, working in groups of four to eight per ship, often do not have to fire even a single shot in order to keep the pirates at bay. Ship owners also favor hiring armed private security guards because the practice may help them negotiate better insurance premiums.
It goes on: "The deterrence effect can also be achieved when pirates know or expect that the ships' crews themselves carry firearms. Pirates deliberately avoid Russian- and U.S.-flagged ships, for example, because they believe that many of them carry small arsenals for protection." Incidentally, the crew of the US-flagged Alabama was not armed — and yet was still able to get the better of the four Kalashnikov-armed hijackers. This heroism is individual and team based, autonomous.
A business-oriented, personal responsibility-friendly, insurance rate-enhancing approach will never be recommended, suggested, or condoned by statists types
Whether the drug war, the poverty war, the war on terror, or the war on piracy — for our government, it's always first things first. Establish the moral high ground of the state, centralize decision-making, bureaucratize and internationalize the legitimate policy discussion, drum fear and uncertainty into the hearts of markets and populations, demonize the "enemy" and smear as co-conspirators any individual actors offering non-state solutions, and make the erstwhile victims as helpless as possible.
Solutions for the Pirate Problem
by Karen Kwiatkowski
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski229.html
The Art of NOT Being Governed, by James C. Scott.
(Anarchy: The Unknown Ideal)
Bionic Mosquito
http://lewrockwell.com/rep3/anarchy-the-unknown-ideal.html