[JDHill]

....by our collective lack of critical thinking, we essentially co-create it.

I find the notion of 'co-' interesting. It's easy to think that the government is something separate from ourselves...they're the government and we're just the citizens. This is an illusion - every day, we allow them to do whatever it is they do...either by our action, or by our inaction. If what they do is the wrong thing, it's nice to know that it was them, and not us, who did it. But I say...it's never 'them' - it's always really us - by way of failing to own what we own. And I mean this in reference to any government in any country - what type it does not matter - they cannot stand for three days against the real wishes of the people...revolutions are quick, and the reason is simple.

But they are also rare, because it's so much easier to be a coward and play the 'I'm just a civilian trying to live my life' part - so much easier to shuffle the responsibility off onto someone else than to admit we have the power (the responsibility, really) to turn things around any time we care to. When your government represents something you think is evil, it's time to take a look at the people around you, and in the mirror...because there is no such thing as a 'civilian'...whether by action or by complacency, the government we have is the government we have earned.

[ivox3]

Well said ....
______________

How can any red blooded American see this and not know the truth .... ?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 3861886448

His mentioning that during the Soviet / US cold war with 40,000+ nuclear missiles at hand, ..that it was handled diplomatically, ..that we traversed it, ....yet presently, in terms of 3rd world countries without armies, navies or airforce we fret, breed a continual stream of fear and continually invade and dominate to bring peace with an iron fist.

I'm just calling for politicians/citzens to bring serious examination of the present agenda.

If enemy-factions are known to hide in a caves, plain sight, 3rd world counties etc. etc.. ...ever lurking, then they will always remain nameless and faceless with their numbers --- undeterminable. When can victory ever be declared ??? It can't. How very ingenious.

[JDHill]

How can any red blooded American see this and not know the truth .... ?

Because we have an enormous Federal purse with which to promise unquestioning voters things that they will never receive. It's as simple as that, and the reason why de-centralization is job #1. And also the biggest reason why it is so difficult to acheive. Liberty is surely the best state, and instinctively rooted in every individual from birth (i.e. try taking a child's toy from him - he knows what is his) ...but for societies, it is definetely not the natural state - given sufficient time, they have historically tended toward serfdom.

I would suggest that we today have absolutely no concept of how the US Federal government was generally regarded pre-Depression. To make an analogy, consider the UN of today: how much real power do you perceive it as having? Very little, I'd suspect. And, possibly, you haven't considered there will likely come a time when it will directly tax you. And I may even be safe to guess that you haven't considered there may come a time when taxes paid to the UN will be more than five times greater than those you pay to your own government - but this is entirely possible, and even likely - given time. Under what authority would they tax you? Well, under what authority are we taxed by any government? Authority creeps - as far upward as the people allow it to. Furthermore, it is entirely likely that some time after such a thing has happened, average people will not be able to imagine how they could live without the services it would provide. Damn the liberties they would naively sacrifice to get there, and ignore the lack of an objective standard by which to judge the quality and necessity of those services - history shows us that a majority of average people would easily fall into this trap.

And they will live second-rate lives under it until the eventual abuses are too much to bear...at which time they will rise up and tear it down...and the cycle will begin again.

Regarding pre-emptive war - this is (and has been) quite possibly the defining question of our times. I always remember a quote from Clemenza in the Godfather, 'You know you got to stop them at the beginning, like they should have stopped Hitler at Munich, They should never've let him get away with that. They were just asking for big trouble.' Estimates indicate around seventy-million people lost their lives in WWII. This is a truly staggering number...should there have been a pre-emptive policy in place at that time? Saddam Hussein was not exactly unlike Hitler, albeit at a smaller scope...how will we know if we have prevented the deaths of thousands or millions, now that he is gone? And even it could be shown that we have...would that actually make the action justifiable?

Really, I think the correct conclusion is that you should not do things pre-emptively - based on the reasoning that you simply do not have the right to do so. To some great degree, as I have been saying about citizens being ultimately responsible for the actions of their governments - it is exactly those citizens who hold the first line in curtailing the mad dictators they have allowed to rise to power. From the point of view of an outside nation then, there is a strong case to be made for the maintenance of an extremely powerful military - this can entirely eliminate the perceived need for pre-emptive war. If you have a proper military, you can wait for actual aggression, at which time you may promptly remove the threat with no great difficulty, and with clearly justifiable action.