Truth Out Loud

June 16, 2005

2. WAR CAN BE A TOOL FOR PEACE

In the second of my series on undeniable but commonly denied truths we will address how war can be a tool for peace. As luck would have it I ran across this excellent essay by Victor Davis Hanson entitled "The Utility of war" which coincides exactly with my thinking on this subject. I will discuss and show some excerpts here but a full reading of this essay is highly recommended.

We constantly hear how war never solved anything or that democracy cannot flow from the barrel of a gun. We also hear the praises of negotiated peace and unilateral disarmament. Is this sage advice based on historical lessons learned or is it more a product of pacifism, fear or subversion?

In an age when evil is being rejected more and more why does war break out?

Recently, we are told, the causes are twofold: ignorance and misunderstanding.

We are asked to understand root causes and temper our responses in understanding for past hurts real or imagined. While this may be useful on an individual basis it becomes problematic when trying to communicate in a personal way with an entire region where obstacles of language, culture, politics and logistics present formidable obstacles. Even here in America we are often unable to manage this kind of education. Besides, there are innumerable adjacent cultures that suffer chronic episodes of misunderstanding and yet do not go to war.

There are two more elements that must be considered, will and opportunity. There must be a perceived benefit and also a reasonable assurance of victory or at least an expectation of no retaliation.

So what does this have to do with war being a tool for peace? As long as two sides are hostile and unable to resolve conflicts the groundwork for war is always in place. Even a negotiated peace that does not also resolve the underlying conflicts will at best lead to a temporary peace or uneasy truce. This can be seen today in Korea, India/Pakistan, Bosnia/Serbia and to some degree in Israel/Palestine. To varying degrees all of these are uneasy negotiated truces which constantly break out in open conflict or rising tensions.

War on the other hand can be instrumental in washing away the old divisions much like melting several pieces of metal into a new whole. But for it to do this the victory must be total.

... clear victory can settle long-existing problems immediately in a way negotiated armistices cannot, as wounds are closed rather than allowed to fester for decades. Had George McClellan won the 1864 presidential election, a negotiated peace might have temporarily prevented another Antietam. But such a bellum interruptum certainly would have meant another generation of slavery and soon another round of fighting with weapons far more deadly than what finally appeared in 1865. In this regard, we should recall that the exhausted German army of 1918, perhaps qualitatively the most deadly infantry force the world had yet seen, surrendered in France, not Germany, later claiming it had never been defeated in the field but rather was "stabbed in the back" by "Jews, Communists, and traitors" in Germany. General John Pershing's idea of a victory march into and occupation of Germany was overruled by President Wilson. Such utopianism was not repeated by the Allies in World War 11, when the Third Reich and Japan were not merely defeated, but humiliated, their homelands occupied, and their machinery of government radically transformed.

Criticism is often voiced of stern demands for "unconditional surrender," firmness that purportedly causes needless casualties like at Hiroshima and prolongs the misery of war, as defeated powers dig in rather than have their homelands occupied or destroyed. Yet in the long run an insistence on abject surrender saves lives when truly evil regimes capitulate rather than bargain their way out of humiliation. Japanese citizens vote today because of the beating their grandfathers took on Okinawa and on the homeland from the U.S. Army Air Forces. Yet, had we brokered a deal after Iwo Jima, the wounded imperial government might well have recovered and been as provocative today as is North Korea-a regime that in fact never surrendered to the United States.

Today we have little to worry from either Germany, Italy or Japan. Not only are they no longer a threat, they are solid democracies.

We should appreciate the frequent utility of war, or at least the use of military force to stop aggression, dismantle malevolent states, and kill leadership intent on harming tens of thousands of innocents. The great ills of the last three centuries were largely ameliorated by war, not mediation. Our own freedom from monarchy and tyranny was achieved at Yorktown, not through shuttle diplomacy with London. Without war, the United States, for good or ill, would today probably more resemble Canada, which nearly a century after 1776 was gradually and peacefully evolving toward independence, rather than our own unique and more vibrant culture of radical egalitarianism, individualism, and economic dynamism that was born from musket fire.

A series of compromises for most of the first half of the nineteenth century did not end chattel slavery in America, but rather only prolonged and perhaps in some sense exacerbated the divide between South and North. Instead, Lincoln, with his brilliant military captains, Grant and Sherman, at a cost of some six hundred thousand American dead and billions of dollars in property and capital losses, nevertheless subdued in less than four years the rebellious South-a region as large as Western Europe-and ensured an end to slavery and a united nation for good.

The four great plagues of the twentieth century-German nazism, Italian fascism, Japanese imperialism, and Soviet communism-were all ended either through outright fighting or the threat of war, the butcher's bill made worse by the delays in using force to thwart such murderous regimes in their infancies.

Perhaps ancient Greek philosophers were right, after all: War per se is not evil, but rather its morality hinges on the reasons for, and the manner under which, individual wars are fought. Appeasing Hitler in the 1930s ensured the Holocaust; standing up to him in 1936 might have saved millions of soldiers and civilians alike. Simply invading North Vietnam and destroying the Communist dictators in Hanoi would have been a more moral act than either carpetbombing South Vietnam or allowing a Communist victory and the subsequent murder and exile of millions.

Complete essay here.

Posted by Sid at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | Truths

May 14, 2005

1. God exists.

This will be my first in my series on undeniable but commonly denied truths. I have started my list here and intend to revise and add to it over time. Also note I will not necessarily be dealing with them in order. I will likely just address them as inspiration leads.

Yes, God exists.

I am not going to delve into which faith is the true faith here. That is another discussion entirely worthy of its own thread. This is about the existence of God in the generic sense (hope that is not a blasphemy).

As I see it there are 3 basic reasons people have trouble accepting the existence of God.

1) He cannot be proven to exist by current accepted scientific practices.
2) He sounds too much like believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny and people do not want to look foolish.
3) People would have to accept the idea that there is a higher truth beyond their own desires.

Oddly, only one of these is rooted in logic. The others and many like them are rooted in ego. As such, I will only deal with the first as any other reason is not logic based; seeing as how this is to be a dispassionate logical discussion on the existence of god. I can give two major arguments for the existence of God. One is the “life is pointless otherwise” argument, the other is the “man-made” argument.

Many people will tell you that the existence of God cannot be proven and that he can only be believed thru faith. This is partly true but not entirely. The existence of God can be demonstrated thru logic. I see the problem as “not being able to see the forest because of the trees”. Man is an odd creature because we can label infinite concepts (love, hope & hate), live our lives by them and then deny they exist. What do I mean by this?

Well let’s examine love. Next time you are talking to your wife, son, daughter or other family member say “Did you know that chemical and electrical impulses in my mind have created a physical channel in my brain tied to my glands in a way that causes a positive physical reinforcement cycle in my body as I maintain proximity with you?” I am sure the chemical and electrical process in their brain will reciprocate. I realize this seems absurd but if we are to believe God does not exist then this is exactly what is going on.

If we are to believe that God does not exist. We must then accept that love, hate, compassion, hope, good and evil are meaningless linguistic constructs for unimportant chemical and electrical processes. Existence viewed this way makes everything we hold dear as real as Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.

Well, I have given a good reason we hope God exists, but what about an argument that he does exist? This one is actually quite easy. Step outside one day and look around you. Look at various objects trees, birds, houses, cars, etc… these are easily identifiable as either natural or man made. How do know? For instance, I obviously don’t know that my house was built by a man because I saw him and I saw him build it. My house was built before I even lived here. I know because I recognize the construction and its order as man made.

Well Gods existence is just as easy to spot but acceptance is usually blocked by ego. The universe around us is bursting with order. Trees have a top and bottom. Fish have a front and back. We have laws describing the properties of things and how they interact. This order goes from the galactic to planetary to molecular to atomic level. God’s hand is as easily seen in a newborn child as a man’s hand is seen in the construction of the crib.

But sadly many cannot see the forest because of the trees.

That all said; existence without God would not be much of an existence.

Posted by Sid at 11:05 AM | Comments (1) | Truths

May 04, 2005

Undeniable but commonly denied truths.

For those of you that may desire to comment on these truths, I will be be addressing each individually over time (probably one a month) which will then be linked to the entry here. Trying to discuss all at once in one comment thread would be nuts. So as you see, we have much to discuss.

1. God exists.
2. War can be a tool for peace.
3. Bad behavior always has consequences though someone else may suffer for them.
4. Marriage between a man and a woman is best.
5. Marriage is not about sex acts.
6. Parents making decisions for their own children is best.
7. Parents caring for their own children is best.
8. Everything is either right or wrong, there is no grey. The path we choose only demonstrates if we are strong or weak.
9. Abortion always terminates a life.
10. Good people will select what they think is the lesser of two wrongs when right is not an option.
11. Good people will select what they think is the lesser of two wrongs when the right option is more effort then they are willing to make.
12. The United States is a force for good in the world.
13. The democratic party is the new home for communist, socialist and various other US haters.
14. The republican party is the new home for the spineless.
15. There is no such thing as an objective person.
16. If you think you are mainstream you aren’t.
17. If you think your open-minded you either don’t know what you believe or you don’t believe in anything.
18. Everyone is a hypocrite (including me).
19. Truth, right and wrong are not determined by consensus or vote.
20. Facts are many times lies.
21. It can require extensive formal education to become truly ignorant.
22. Being vulgar IS being abusive.
23. Being vulgar is used to give false weight to meritless arguements.
24. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
25. You will never win a million dollars in the lottery, someone else will.
26. Racism exists and everyone has it.
27. Everyone judges everyone every day.
28. Discrimination exists and everyone does it.
29. Nuclear power is the only viable option to fossil fuels.
30. The earth has been much warmer and much colder then it is today.
31. The United Nations is not a democratic institution.
32. Non-believers will suffer the consequences of their choices.
33. Compromise and negotiation are often tools of oppression.

More to come . . .

Posted by Sid at 05:46 AM | Comments (0) | Truths