Government, Freedom, Peace.

[Ninjutsu86]

Governments wage war to gain peace, correct?
Peace can't be obtained through war, nor can freedom.
Our criminal justice system is full of laws that enslave man here in america. if you do a certain thing (it can be anything nowadays) you get punished for it, yet this is still the land of the free.
But if you noticed, there must always be some form of government. after all, wherever you have more than one person, some form of order will spring up.
So why is war made? Power. we don't want peace, we want power. Power is the motive behind almost everything, unless you are completely selfless in this dog eat dog world (which is rare).
The puritans left England because they were being persecuted for their beliefs, taxed too high, mistreated, and they realized the church was unstable. they were tired of being on the wrong end of things, they didn't want to be the oppressed anymore.
So, 120 or so Puritans loaded themselves on a rickety, leaky old boat we proudly call the Mayflower. They arrive here, creating a charter of rules that is the Ten Commandments. Simple enough. But soon, the Puritan faith is corrupted. after all, the Puritan work ethic had a flaw; do good for your fellow man and work hard.
Puritans thought that having money or anything was vanity. material possessions were said to get in the way of prayer; But..of course, if you work hard and do good things, you're going to get rich.
After a while, the Puritans fell due to the leaks in their system (sorry about the history lesson). From this point on, rules were instated, even if they weren't written, they were put there. These Rules were telling us what NOT to do. soon, the rich Puritans and their families were making the rules, oppressing their own people and the Native Americans.
The point im trying to make is; The search for peace shouldn't be about getting to the top of things. personally, i think Karl Marx, creator of Communism, had a good idea (unfortunately it doesnt work well with the corruption that we have in the world nowadays).
So how do we find peace in the world? how do we obtain freedom? Well, we obviously can't go to war and destroy a government. then we're just expanding our own power and control.
There will always be another government around to control the people- our forefathers of America had the right ideas with the Articles of Confederation, it was weak, and im sure if ratified a bit, it would work well.
Government replaces government, the winners create the rules, and it'll always be that way.

I have no idea why i posted this, maybe cause i was bored, but if anyone else has other views, i won't mind listening to them.

[Shitoryu Dude]

Goverments wage war for lots and lots of reasons - peace not being among them. Valid reasons include territory, resources, religion, idealogical differences, and pre-emptive attack against would be aggressors.

:beer:

[Ninjutsu86]

But why? i say punish the guys that are doing the bad stuff and leave everyone else alone. like an eye for an eye type of deal.

[Peter H.]

My college government teacher taught that government is the exercise of power, and power had four rules:

1) Power always tries to expand
2) Rights are always sacrificed to power
4) Unused power is not power
3) Power hates the light of day

There were some minor rules and collalaries in there, but I've found that looking at any government action in light of those four rules (including war) tends to make things a little more understandable.

[Gene Williams]

Peter, What are collalaries?:D

[Peter H.]

That would be my bad spelling and failure to proof read, which the same teacher also down graded me. I will have you know that Mr. Noleke's class was the hardest earned C I have ever had.

It should read corollaries.

(and I still misspelled it and had to edit anyway. I'm a comp tech and net monkey, as long as people can surf, no one cares if I can spell)

[Iain]

For a rejoinder against Hobbes, read Rousseaus account of the state of nature. Hobbesian anarchy is a byproduct of a collapsing authoritarian system, one where absolutism has bred a certain set of codified norms into a society, and when the absolutist reigime collapses, the only source of social cohesion -rule of force- disintegrates, people inevitably descend into violent anarchy. If you have a system based not on rule of force, but rule of law and the power of offices rather than people, a collapse is likely to be less precipitous. Hobbesian anarchy assumes the non-existance of informal social norms and established patterns of behaviour. Ultimately, aquiesence at the point of a gun only lasts as long as the gun is pointed at the subject. Aquiesence based on normative social behaviour can enforce itself in the absence of coercive power. I don't steal because I believe stealing is wrong. Several years employed as a loss-prevention officer have honed my shoplifting skills to a fine point. I can almost guarantee you I could walk out of a department store with hundreds of dollars of goods and 99% of the time get away scot free. I know how dye tags work, how anti-theft devices can be disabled. I know how to run a bait and switch with another person, and the ever trusty two-for-one deal. I used to steal right stuff right out from under the noses of other employees of the company as part of a testing procedure for newbies. I used to do it in stores that had contracts with other companies to convince them to switch. No amount of reasonable coercive force could dissuade me from robbing you blind. I don't do it because I believe it is wrong to steal. All of Hobbes rational contract theory only works if people believe in the sanctity of contracts, and the right of the most powerful to rule, and more importantly, believe in the highly specific ends-means rationalism he espouses.

The selfishness and inherent agressivness we identify as fundamental human traits are there, but in a system powered by coercive force, they are inevitably accentuated. A dog that is trained through starvation and beatings may prove to be reasonably loyal as long as the threat of suffering is nearby. However, dogs trained in such a manner are not only dangerously aggressive, but have a tendency to turn on their masters. Take the same dog and use humane training methods and not only are you going to have a more loyal pet, but a much less aggressive dog, one capable of following and understanding commands without the threat of a beating or three days without food. This analogy doesn't speak to the nature of the relationship between individuals and government, but it does provide a nice backdrop for understanding the nature of different forms of authority.

Violent anarchy and Totalitarian government are more closely linked than most people believe. By in large, most democracies function on some form of non-violent anarchic principal without actually acknowleging the fact. 'People don't commit crime because they will go to jail' as a statement is full of holes. By in large, people can steal and get away with it. Corporations can cheat their investors, kids can steal candy bars from the 7-eleven. Believe me, a vast amount of petty theft goes unnoticed and unreported. What truly prevents people from stealing is the belief that people who steal deserve punishment, not that said punishment will be equally and infallibly applied. When you catch a kid pinching a candy bar, the way you figure out whether or not you should call the police is by the way they react. Shame is good. If they are ashamed of what they have done, you can guarantee they won't be back. Fear is the next best thing. Neither of the above; call the cops. A complete lack of remorse and fear can almost always be remedied in people under the age of 18 with a good yelling at from a police officer. The primary tool at work here is the shame and embarrasment first, and the fear is a secondary tool. The final and tertiary tool is the threat of violence. Fear of wrongdoing and a dislike of having violence visited upon you are not synonymous. A sociopath has no fear of wrongdoing, only a dislike of being hurt.

The threat of violence cannot, nor will it ever be a legitimate source of social cohesion, nor will a fear of wrongdoing. The only legitimate source of social cohesion is a belief that certain practices are morally unnacceptable. This is not to say coercion and 'the irrational fear of getting caught' do not play an important role in reinforcing and normal behaviour, but independant of value sets, they're doomed to failure.