From: Ross A. Finlayson (raf@tiki-lounge.com)
Date: Tue Oct 03 2000 - 07:36:42 MDT
J. R. Molloy wrote:
> Ross A. Finlayson reminds us,
>
> > Don't forget that the Communist Chinese are in that lot.
> >
> > The relatively democratic and capitalistic allied powers, on the other hand,
> won
> > World War II.
>
> Don't forget that Fundies assign credit for winning the war to some asinine god
> or other. The scariest thing about wars is not who actually wins, but what kind
> of moron can be persuaded to fight them. Warriors have to believe that they'll
> get some supernatural reward for sacrificing their lives so that others can live
> safely and soundly.
>
> --J. R.
>
> "I've never seen a UFO, 'cause I don't drink before I fly."
> Brigadier General Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager
I think that many who fought for democratic nations did so because they were drafted
and thus legally obligated to go fight. Those who had moral or ethical motivations
to do so were probably of the following camps: 1: those who sought to preserve and
extend democracy, 2: those fighting against atrocities against civilians, and 3:
those figting or working to promote democracy as well as bring about the downfall of
blatant tyranny. Each one was an individual.
World War II showed the United States encountering its highest ever levels of
"socialization" or perhaps more aptly "statist centralization" than existed before.
Resources were earmarked by the government and metered to the people, and people
were encouraged through state-censored media to invest their monies and other
resources in the government.
My previous comment was perhaps short-sighted. Since before recorded history,
groups of men have attacked others to take their resources or for other
motivations. In World War II itself, there were almost certainly more attacks
against ethnic Chinese by Japanese occupying forces than internal Chinese dissident
crushes, yet I do not know any of these numbers for sure, and the government of
China itself has killed its citizens and otherwise violated their civil rights and
continues to do so, as it is the largest non-democratic state, for the time being.
Of course, no state is completely capitalistic, or not, or democratic, or not. They
simply do not exist, or are a philosopher's construction.
Someone in an unrelated post noted that humans fight each other because there is no
one else to fight. It's the species' immune system, in a metaphorical sense.
-- Ross Andrew Finlayson Finlayson Consulting Ross at Tiki-Lounge: http://www.tiki-lounge.com/~raf/
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