Subject:
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Re: A question of remembrance...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 7 May 2001 13:12:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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1092 times
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Daniel Jassim wrote:
> The only way there will be peace in the Middle East is if the greedy
> Zionists PACK UP AND GO HOME, back to Poland, back to Russia, back to
> Germany, back to New York, and so on. Give the Arabs back their land and
> leave them in peace.
Oh, now thats a solution. By that generalization, I belive almost NO ONE
in the world has any right to live where they live. I doubt ANY
population in the world can be documented to be living on land they
didn't take from someone else (and in fact, as an evolutionist, I would
say that in fact humans are where they are because they took from
someone else).
I think the only way the world will ever come to peace is when every
person is able to lay down their claim to property because of who their
ancestors were. That is not to say that it is wrong for your parents to
invest in your future. That is not to say it is wrong to celebrate your
ancestry.
One reason I believe the US is relatively peaceful compared to the world
as a whole is that some 90% or more of americans have no ancestral claim
to the land they live on. On the flip side of this, I see a huge
tradgedy that the reason this is possible is that we essentially
eliminated the native population.
One thing which will make it extremely difficult for the world to
transition to peace is that unfortunately, our world culture of war is
so ingrained, and also is a driving force in our economies. I was
reading an article yesterday which was pointing out that the Kosovo
Albanian resistance leaders are continuing the culture of violence. They
won a measure of independance from Serbia, and now the only way to keep
their positions of power (the way they see it) is continued violence.
This morning I was reflecting on his, and realizing that even the US
can't claim the high ground in this moral debate. We have just been
fortunate that the economic opportunities of our country allowed us to
take the war mongering beyond our borders. For the first hundred and
twenty five years or so of our nation, this was claiming the rest of the
nation from the natives (with a couple little side jaunts here and
there, and a little issue about just what "United States" really meant).
Then Europe started to settle itself out, and we happily exported our
war mongering there. It continues to this day, and as the threat of true
war diminishes, we have invented a new bogeyman, drugs (of course we try
and wash ourselves of some of the dirty parts of this war, but we are
just as guilty of shooting down that missionary plane as the Peruvian
military, though I do feel that the crew of our observation plane really
did try and call the dogs off, but then crews of planes like that aren't
at all the power mongers who benefit from the "war", they are just peons
like most of the rest of us, who found their way into that particular
job [but I also can not fully respect them, if they had any real
conviction they would all have immediately resigned from their job]).
It's interesting to note that even a country which is very successeful
in avoiding war mongering has not even eliminated it. Does Switzerland
REALLY need a military at this point? In theory no. Of course there is
the little dirty reality that if they eliminated their military, they
would at some point in the future be at risk, but the main drive to have
a military is an element of power.
We actually tried to minimize the centralization of military power in
the US. Unfortunately, it hasn't been all that sucessefull. If the 2nd
amendment had done what I think it was really intended to, we wouldn't
need a centralized military in this country because every citizen would
have the capability to join with his or her neighbors to defend
themselves as necessary. Unfortunately, those who gain power by being in
control of a centralized military have convinced most of the US to
accept that a "professional" military (and police) is necessary, and
that common citizens can't be trusted with weapons.
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: A question of remembrance...
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| (...) I know many people who shouldn't be trusted with weapons, and most of them aren't police. However, you've hit on an important point, regarding both the necessity of a professional military and the difficulty of reducing it. No one with a stake (...) (23 years ago, 7-May-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: A question of remembrance...
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| (...) Why make my statement sound so far fetched? Is it any more or less valid than the British finally pulling out of India? With regard to Israel, I wouldn't call my statement a generalization. The specific fact remains that the European Jews ran (...) (23 years ago, 7-May-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: A question of remembrance...
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| Hi Shiri, Alsalaam aleikum! Shalom! I genuinely appreciate the olive branch. :) I try not to generalize, but I'm guilty of trying a few shortcuts in my last post. It seems I unwittingly made a point about generalizations because most, dare I say (...) (23 years ago, 7-May-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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