victory is a desire only of victims (thoughts on war)

[Jonathan Barlow Gee]

if the outcomes of conflicts can be statistically predicted, there should be no reason for anyone to attempt to test these to the extent of bloodshed.

guns don't solve differences in philosophical opinions.

if you defend your own right to bear arms as a means of defending your person and property against tyranny, you will ultimately apply the same philosophy to international relations; the result of this is coercion and the threat of violence by a nation with WMDs against another nation that has none. Because a "gun free zone" and lack of WMDs "creates unarmed victims," the arms race ensues and the "biggest gun" insures that "might makes right" and "protects our rights" best. I simply disagree with this premise; I can think of countless events throughout history to justify my doubt that this is a wise course of action; I can think of far fewer to justify it.

violence, the threat of violence and violent weapons are all useless in a truly free and open society; they only become useful when economic inequalities exist, and they are only useful in such a situation to reverse this imbalance; no economic equality can be achieved by war or weapons.

if you engage in free exchange openly and honestly, you greatly reduce your likelihood of ever being robbed or revenged upon, injured without recourse to justice, etc. In short, if you deal fairly with others, you are much less likely to need a weapon for self-defense than if you do not.

the only people who prevent us from living in an "ideal world" are people who consider "ideals" to be "beyond our reach" in reality.

if you think a standing army is necessary to protect and defend your right to be free, it's because you have your own right to freedom confused with imposing your beliefs on other people.

the greatest lie the devil ever told was not that he doesn't exist. The greatest lie the devil ever told was that "freedom is not free." Without an army to obey their dictates, the idea of a tyrant that another person does not deserve their right to freedom would only be their own opinion, and not a matter of historical record.

the only person that believes "chain of command" and "following orders" are valuable tasks in human life is someone who panics whenever they have no one telling them what to do.

freedom is a natural law. It does not require armies to defend it anymore than does the rain, or the force of gravity. It is a natural law that we are "free" if "freedom" is defined as "able to accomplish whatever we imagine, given our available resources." If a law requires armies or police to enforce it, it is impossible for it to be a (or to coexist with any) natural law. Drugs are natural. Outlawing them will fail; human laws do not trump nature or natural laws. Murder is natural. Outlawing murder has failed to prevent it. The "war on terrorism" is "terrorism" itself. Politicians invent absurd laws to justify the existence of their job, and require soldiers and police to enforce these atrocious absurdities as "laws" to demonstrate their arbitrary authority. The "Patriot" act and its attempted renewal as the "Freedom" act are bold-faced double-talk, comparable to passing a law against attempting suicide making such punishable by death. Such laws are not supposed to be fair, or even make sense to someone who believes in justice or moral culpability. To a traditional thinker, a paleo-conservative for example, the "New World Order" is alien and bizarre. "Neo-conservatives" use the phrase "support the troops" to mean "rob the troops of their funding for training, payment and equipment during war and rob them of their veteran's compensation afterwards." Really "support the troops" means "support corporate warfare." The Iraq war was not fought to "protect freedom" OR "spread democracy." It was a corporate war of resource scarcity-motivated invasion, and the profiteers from it never cared one iota for the "troops" they sent to die for a staged historical footnote. Politicians do not care about soldiers. If they did, they would not start wars, nor condone them.

a society that does not start wars does not need an army, even to defend itself.

as long as politicians believe in "borders" between "nations," they will require armies to enforce this belief. Whenever a populous advocates itself as "neutral" in international affairs, or attempts to legislate itself as philosophically "non-violent," the politicians who prosper most from wars refuse to allow it without a treaty or international agreement allowing them to do so. It makes everyone else look bad for a nation such as, say, Switzerland, to prosper more without an army than for another nation such as, say, England, to prosper with one.

Peace is the most preferable option. Therefore, the best message to spread is Peace. The best way to spread this message is through Freedom. Therefore, freedom is the best method, and peace the best message.

Peace.