The War on Terror, and the Terror in Response to War
Brian Doherty | November 9, 2007, 9:23am
Been following Ron Paul around a bit lately, and noting his eminently sensible reliance on basic golden rule thinking when applied to foreign policy: how might we feel if the rest of the world treated us as we treat them?
Well, we know how we feel, as subtly revealed in this Associated Press piece up at military.com, a mostly unremarkable roundup of some of the possibilities and plans for a war with Iran (though I am relieved to hear we're back to only one aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf right now). But note this interesting language in the last sentence after a long discussion about the hows and whats and maybes of us beginning a military assault on Iran, something that is often referred to, I believe, as "war":
The possibility of U.S. military action raises many tough questions, beginning perhaps with the practical issue of whether the United States knows enough about Iran's network of nuclear sites - declared sites as well as possible clandestine ones - to sufficiently set back or destroy their program.
Among other unknowns: Iran's capacity to retaliate by unleashing terrorist strikes against U.S. targets.
You say war, we say terror. You say war, we say terror. Any chance of calling the whole thing off? We'll see.
james | November 9, 2007, 2:21pm | #
Lincoln was an asshole.
Lysander Spooner understood that the Slaves had a right to revolution if necessary to obtain their freedom.
TO THE NON-SLAVEHOLDERS OF THE SOUTH.
We present to you herewith “A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery,” and solicit your aid to carry it into execution.
Your numbers, combined with those of the Slaves, will give you all power. You have but to use it, and the work is done.
The following self-evident principles of justice and humanity will serve a. guides to the measures proper to be adopted. These principles are -
1. That the Slaves have a natural right to their liberty.
2. That they have a natural right to compensation (so far as the property of the Slaveholders and their abettors can compensate them) for the wrongs they have suffered.
3. That so long as the governments, under which they live, refuse to give them liberty or compensation, they have the right to take it by stratagem or force.
4. That it is the duty of all, who can, to assist them in such an enterprise.
In rendering this assistance, you will naturally adopt these measures.
1. To ignore and spurn the authority of all the corrupt and tyrannical political institutions, which the Slaveholders have established for the security of their crimes.
2. Soon as may be, to take the political Power of your States into your own hands, and establish governments that shall punish slaveholding as a crime, and also give to the Slaves civil actions for damages for the wrongs that have already been committed against them.
3. Until such new governments shall be instituted, to recognize the Slaves as free men, and as being the rightful owners of the property, which is now held by their masters, but which would pass to them, if justice were done; to justify and assist them in every effort to acquire their liberty, and obtain possession, of such property, by stratagem or force; to hire them as laborers, pay them their wages, and defend them meanwhile against their tyrants; to sell them fire-arms and teach them the use of them; to trade with them, buying the property they may have taken from their oppressors, and paying them for it; to encourage and assist them to take possession of the lands they cultivate, and the crops they produce, and appropriate them to their own use; and in every way possible to recognize them as being now the rightful owners of the property, which justice, if administered, would give them, in compensation for the injuries they have received.
4. To form Vigilance Committees, or Leagues of Freedom, in every neighborhood or township, whose duty it shall be to stand in the stead of the government, and do that justice for the slaves, which government refuses to do; and especially to arrest, try, and chastise (with their own whips) all Slaveholders who shall beat their slaves, or restrain them of their liberty; and compel them to give deeds of emancipation, and conveyances of their property, to their slaves
5. To treat, and teach the negroes to treat, all active abettors of the Slaveholders, as you and they treat the Slaveholders themselves, both in person and property.
Perhaps some may say that this taking of property, by the Slaves, would be stealing, and should not be encouraged. The answer is, that it would not be stealing; it would be simply taking justice into their own hands, and redressing their own wrongs. The state of Slavery is a state of war. In this case it is a just war, on the part of the negroes - a war for liberty, and the recompense of injuries; and necessity justifies them in carrying it on by the only means their oppressors have left to them. In war, the plunder of enemies is as legitimate as the killing of them; and stratagem Is as legitimate as open force. The right of the Slaves, therefore, in this war, to take property, is as clear as their right to take life; and their right to do it secretly, is as clear as their right to do it openly. And as this will probably be their most effective mode of operation for the present, they ought to be taught, encouraged, and assisted to do it to the utmost, so long as they are unable to meet their enemies in the open field. And to call this taking of property stealing, Is as false and unjust as it would be to call the taking of life, in just war, murder.
It is only those who have a false and superstitious reverence for the authority of governments, and have contracted the habit of thinking that the most tyrannical and iniquitous laws have the power to make that right which is naturally wrong, or that wrong which is naturally right, who will have any doubt as to the right of the Slaves (and those who would assist them) to make war, to all possible extent, upon the property of the Slaveholders and their abettors.
