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Interesting article: Do peace movements bring peace, or do they bring war?

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Originally posted by: sandorski
Originally posted by: Rainsford
From the article...
One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
Click to expand...

Yes, like the author of this silly piece of pro-war idiocy and the people who think he has a good point. There is really no need to analyze his entire "argument", those not blinded by their ideology should be able to see the flaws. But for the sake of argument, let's stick with his basic assumption that WWII and earlier is a good example of why peace movements don't work. During WWII and before was the golden time for pro-war folks. There were no peace movements, no peaceniks trying to get all sides to stop fighting, we were free to devastate the civilian populations of whoever we liked and the only "rights" any civilian population had on the world stage were those their government was strong enough to get for them. But tragically this ideal time period was shattered by long-haired hippies and their crazy ideas about trying to find solutions to conflicts that didn't involve nuking your enemies or firebombing their cities.

And boy does the author have a good point...up through WWII, the pre-peace movement world was a very safe and peaceful place, filled with nothing but brotherly love and cooperation among nations. Contrast that with the time period since the dawn of the peace movement...the conflicts in the Middle East, where a few dozen deaths are breaking news for weeks, are MUCH worse than the millions of people killed during WWII alone. While the capstone of the pre-peace movement period was the fantastic killing of 250,000 Japanese civilians with atomic weapons, that doesn't hold a candle to the major outcome of the peace movements and the culture of non-violence, 3,000 odd Americans dead from an attack by a few dozen lunatics. Clearly the peace movements have made world conflict much worse...I for one long for the day when the last peaceniks are lined up against a wall and shot. Then we can return to the safe and peaceful days of the past several thousand years.

What are you people, idiots?
Click to expand...

You raise a good point without stating it: Has the Peace Movement increased the Value of Life by creating a catastrophe when Historically miniscule amounts of people are killed in Conflict?

If nothing else, the Peace Movement has given a voice to Civilians which never existed before. Instead of accepting every War that a Government deems necessary, Citizens now actively question those decisions by their Government. This is good.
Click to expand...

Indeed...and I'd certainly agree that that is true, recent years have certainly seen an increase in how we as a society value life...something many pro-war folks seem oddly unhappy about. And more broadly, you're point about questioning the government is certainly valid...and it's something I'd argue that we really needed to have any hope of a truly free society. Pro-war folks seem to dislike the fact that people are no longer just taking the government's word about wars...but they seem to forget that the times when this didn't happen were the times when the worst conflicts erupted. Imagine what might have happened had Germany in the 1930's been a bastion of a peace movement instead of a place where everyone was a bloodthirsty, pro-war, "patriotic" German.
 
Originally posted by: Rainsford
From the article...
One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
Click to expand...

Yes, like the author of this silly piece of pro-war idiocy and the people who think he has a good point. There is really no need to analyze his entire "argument", those not blinded by their ideology should be able to see the flaws. But for the sake of argument, let's stick with his basic assumption that WWII and earlier is a good example of why peace movements don't work. During WWII and before was the golden time for pro-war folks. There were no peace movements, no peaceniks trying to get all sides to stop fighting, we were free to devastate the civilian populations of whoever we liked and the only "rights" any civilian population had on the world stage were those their government was strong enough to get for them. But tragically this ideal time period was shattered by long-haired hippies and their crazy ideas about trying to find solutions to conflicts that didn't involve nuking your enemies or firebombing their cities.

And boy does the author have a good point...up through WWII, the pre-peace movement world was a very safe and peaceful place, filled with nothing but brotherly love and cooperation among nations. Contrast that with the time period since the dawn of the peace movement...the conflicts in the Middle East, where a few dozen deaths are breaking news for weeks, are MUCH worse than the millions of people killed during WWII alone. While the capstone of the pre-peace movement period was the fantastic killing of 250,000 Japanese civilians with atomic weapons, that doesn't hold a candle to the major outcome of the peace movements and the culture of non-violence, 3,000 odd Americans dead from an attack by a few dozen lunatics. Clearly the peace movements have made world conflict much worse...I for one long for the day when the last peaceniks are lined up against a wall and shot. Then we can return to the safe and peaceful days of the past several thousand years.

What are you people, idiots?
Click to expand...


Careful careful, Sowell's article is short and lacking in support for his premises, but if you are implying that "peace protestors" have played a major role in preventing the types of wars similar to those that existed pre-1946...

If anything, culturally in the west there has been a shift that has made some governments realize they will have a difficult time sustaining public support for any war that has high domestic casualty rates, but I tend to think there are factors involved far more impactful than a bunch of people most regard as borderline dipshits out with signs. Such as the media and different nature of information, for instance.

 
Originally posted by: Frackal
Originally posted by: Rainsford
From the article...
One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
Click to expand...

Yes, like the author of this silly piece of pro-war idiocy and the people who think he has a good point. There is really no need to analyze his entire "argument", those not blinded by their ideology should be able to see the flaws. But for the sake of argument, let's stick with his basic assumption that WWII and earlier is a good example of why peace movements don't work. During WWII and before was the golden time for pro-war folks. There were no peace movements, no peaceniks trying to get all sides to stop fighting, we were free to devastate the civilian populations of whoever we liked and the only "rights" any civilian population had on the world stage were those their government was strong enough to get for them. But tragically this ideal time period was shattered by long-haired hippies and their crazy ideas about trying to find solutions to conflicts that didn't involve nuking your enemies or firebombing their cities.

And boy does the author have a good point...up through WWII, the pre-peace movement world was a very safe and peaceful place, filled with nothing but brotherly love and cooperation among nations. Contrast that with the time period since the dawn of the peace movement...the conflicts in the Middle East, where a few dozen deaths are breaking news for weeks, are MUCH worse than the millions of people killed during WWII alone. While the capstone of the pre-peace movement period was the fantastic killing of 250,000 Japanese civilians with atomic weapons, that doesn't hold a candle to the major outcome of the peace movements and the culture of non-violence, 3,000 odd Americans dead from an attack by a few dozen lunatics. Clearly the peace movements have made world conflict much worse...I for one long for the day when the last peaceniks are lined up against a wall and shot. Then we can return to the safe and peaceful days of the past several thousand years.

What are you people, idiots?
Click to expand...


Careful careful, Sowell's article is short and lacking in support for his premises, but if you are implying that "peace protestors" have played a major role in preventing the types of wars similar to those that existed pre-1946...

If anything, culturally in the west there has been a shift that has made some governments realize they will have a difficult time sustaining public support for any war that has high domestic casualty rates, but I tend to think there are factors involved far more impactful than a bunch of people most regard as borderline dipshits out with signs. Such as the media and different nature of information, for instance.
Click to expand...

I'm not implying anything of the sort. The author's premise was that peace movements bring war, not peace...and a number of people seemed to agree. I was just pointing out that this is somewhat silly, as the time since the rise of the peace movement has been far more peaceful. Surely if they cause conflict, we'd see more of it, not less, yes?

Like you said, the shift is far more complex than guys and girls waving signs with overly simple slogans on them. I think the peace movement is actually a result of a much broader shift in the population as a whole, not the cause of it. But be that as it may, the thread was about the premise that peace movements bring more war, something that it pretty unsupportable.
 
basis for this please? Other than your own misconceptions of history?
Click to expand...

Basis? Gibbon and about two dozen other books. Julius Caesar's Conquest of Gaul is a good place to start, and Herodotus and Tactitus are great sources. You have a specific complaint or reason to show that Rome was more barbaric than, say, the Celts, or the various Goths and Huns? What is your definition of barbaric?
 
"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities.
Click to expand...

It is not those who promote peace, but those who promote war "who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities."

The current war in Iraq is a prime example of that.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.
Click to expand...

It's not hard to see past his rhetoric here, and see reality. 😀

It is those who wish to continue the violence that continue the violence. I don't think those who promote peace are the ones continuing the violence.

The truth is there are more cease-fires occuring in the region, because it is the most violent. Certainly not the other way around.

This paragraph is just a retarded one surrounded by others less intelligent.
 
Originally posted by: Markbnj
basis for this please? Other than your own misconceptions of history?
Click to expand...

Basis? Gibbon and about two dozen other books. Julius Caesar's Conquest of Gaul is a good place to start, and Herodotus and Tactitus are great sources. You have a specific complaint or reason to show that Rome was more barbaric than, say, the Celts, or the various Goths and Huns? What is your definition of barbaric?
Click to expand...

first of all, gibbons history isn't given much credence anymore, and Caeser, Herodotus and Tactitus are certainly unbiased sources :roll: Your barbarians certainly had all the marks of civilization that the romans had, and the greeks carthegans and others were no less advanced, probably moreso.
 
first of all, gibbons history isn't given much credence anymore, and Caeser, Herodotus and Tactitus are certainly unbiased sources Your barbarians certainly had all the marks of civilization that the romans had, and the greeks carthegans and others were no less advanced, probably moreso.
Click to expand...

Still, those are the sources there are, and regardless of how biased Gibbons, and the ancient writers, may have been, I don't think anyone has seriously suggested that bias extended to exagerated or incorrect descriptions of the state of civilization in the northern reaches of the empire. The Greeks are hardly a factor, and the Carthaginian wars were very obviously more a clash of equal civilizations. I was perhaps not clear in my original message that I was referring to the fight against the celtic and germanic tribes on the Rhine frontier.
 
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9)

"Blessed are the warmakers for peace, for they will be called neocons" (hmm doesn't really work does it)
 
Thomas Sowell is spot on. All peace movements do is delay the war until it really does become genocidal. Perfect example is WWII, where we should have taken out Hitler in 1935 with minimal loss of life. Instead the world waited and waited costing 40 million.

An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.
Click to expand...

Exactly and why the world will eventually cause a second holocaust after the still existing Hamas or Hezbolla sets off a suitcase nuke in Tel Aviv.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
Thomas Sowell is spot on. All peace movements do is delay the war until it really does become genocidal. Perfect example is WWII, where we should have taken out Hitler in 1935 with minimal loss of life. Instead the world waited and waited costing 40 million.
Click to expand...
And on the other hand the Peace Movement got us the fsck out of Viet Nam. Too bad it didn't keep us out of that sh!thole.

 
Originally posted by: Rainsford
From the article...
One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
Click to expand...

Yes, like the author of this silly piece of pro-war idiocy and the people who think he has a good point. There is really no need to analyze his entire "argument", those not blinded by their ideology should be able to see the flaws. But for the sake of argument, let's stick with his basic assumption that WWII and earlier is a good example of why peace movements don't work. During WWII and before was the golden time for pro-war folks. There were no peace movements, no peaceniks trying to get all sides to stop fighting, we were free to devastate the civilian populations of whoever we liked and the only "rights" any civilian population had on the world stage were those their government was strong enough to get for them. But tragically this ideal time period was shattered by long-haired hippies and their crazy ideas about trying to find solutions to conflicts that didn't involve nuking your enemies or firebombing their cities.

And boy does the author have a good point...up through WWII, the pre-peace movement world was a very safe and peaceful place, filled with nothing but brotherly love and cooperation among nations. Contrast that with the time period since the dawn of the peace movement...the conflicts in the Middle East, where a few dozen deaths are breaking news for weeks, are MUCH worse than the millions of people killed during WWII alone. While the capstone of the pre-peace movement period was the fantastic killing of 250,000 Japanese civilians with atomic weapons, that doesn't hold a candle to the major outcome of the peace movements and the culture of non-violence, 3,000 odd Americans dead from an attack by a few dozen lunatics. Clearly the peace movements have made world conflict much worse...I for one long for the day when the last peaceniks are lined up against a wall and shot. Then we can return to the safe and peaceful days of the past several thousand years.

What are you people, idiots?
Click to expand...

After this therefore because of this... DONOT make the assumption that because the peace movement emerged after WWII that it is the reason for the reduction in the scale of war. The reason the scale of war has diminished is actually because of the overall increase in the weapons of war. A war on scale with WWII now would be so devastating that humanity itself might not survive... THIS is the motivation for low grade conflicts... not some peaceniks holding signs and dancing around naked in front of the white house.

We are in a different and more dangerous era now... We are fighting people who have no fear of the devastation that has scared both our enemies and ourselves into relative complacency until now. Do you really think believing in peace and loving each other is going to help when there are millions of jihadists who believe their, and their families purpose is to die wiping out you from the planet? These people have no qualms about nuclear war...

Everyone loves to dismiss the PNAC concepts as "crazy" but in my mind... they're actually spot on... the only way to resolve the crisis at hand is to change the nature of the middle east... to give the people there something to lose.

-Max
 
Originally posted by: Doboji
Everyone loves to dismiss the PNAC concepts as "crazy" but in my mind... they're actually spot on... the only way to resolve the crisis at hand is to change the nature of the middle east... to give the people there something to lose.

-Max
Click to expand...
The best way to change the nature of the Middle East is to find an alternative fuel source thus making that region irrevelent. Armed intervention is only going to fuel the fire there.
 
Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Originally posted by: Doboji
Everyone loves to dismiss the PNAC concepts as "crazy" but in my mind... they're actually spot on... the only way to resolve the crisis at hand is to change the nature of the middle east... to give the people there something to lose.

-Max
Click to expand...
The best way to change the nature of the Middle East is to find an alternative fuel source thus making that region irrevelent. Armed intervention is only going to fuel the fire there.
Click to expand...

I agree we definitly need an alt fuel source... but I also don't think the problem will magically go away once we get one...
 
Originally posted by: Rainsford
Originally posted by: sandorski
Originally posted by: Rainsford
From the article...
One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
Click to expand...

Yes, like the author of this silly piece of pro-war idiocy and the people who think he has a good point. There is really no need to analyze his entire "argument", those not blinded by their ideology should be able to see the flaws. But for the sake of argument, let's stick with his basic assumption that WWII and earlier is a good example of why peace movements don't work. During WWII and before was the golden time for pro-war folks. There were no peace movements, no peaceniks trying to get all sides to stop fighting, we were free to devastate the civilian populations of whoever we liked and the only "rights" any civilian population had on the world stage were those their government was strong enough to get for them. But tragically this ideal time period was shattered by long-haired hippies and their crazy ideas about trying to find solutions to conflicts that didn't involve nuking your enemies or firebombing their cities.

And boy does the author have a good point...up through WWII, the pre-peace movement world was a very safe and peaceful place, filled with nothing but brotherly love and cooperation among nations. Contrast that with the time period since the dawn of the peace movement...the conflicts in the Middle East, where a few dozen deaths are breaking news for weeks, are MUCH worse than the millions of people killed during WWII alone. While the capstone of the pre-peace movement period was the fantastic killing of 250,000 Japanese civilians with atomic weapons, that doesn't hold a candle to the major outcome of the peace movements and the culture of non-violence, 3,000 odd Americans dead from an attack by a few dozen lunatics. Clearly the peace movements have made world conflict much worse...I for one long for the day when the last peaceniks are lined up against a wall and shot. Then we can return to the safe and peaceful days of the past several thousand years.

What are you people, idiots?
Click to expand...

You raise a good point without stating it: Has the Peace Movement increased the Value of Life by creating a catastrophe when Historically miniscule amounts of people are killed in Conflict?

If nothing else, the Peace Movement has given a voice to Civilians which never existed before. Instead of accepting every War that a Government deems necessary, Citizens now actively question those decisions by their Government. This is good.
Click to expand...

Indeed...and I'd certainly agree that that is true, recent years have certainly seen an increase in how we as a society value life...something many pro-war folks seem oddly unhappy about. And more broadly, you're point about questioning the government is certainly valid...and it's something I'd argue that we really needed to have any hope of a truly free society. Pro-war folks seem to dislike the fact that people are no longer just taking the government's word about wars...but they seem to forget that the times when this didn't happen were the times when the worst conflicts erupted. Imagine what might have happened had Germany in the 1930's been a bastion of a peace movement instead of a place where everyone was a bloodthirsty, pro-war, "patriotic" German.
Click to expand...

Difference in being Germany in the 1930s was an authoritarian state. Peace protestors would have ended up in camps or on the front lines when war did happen.

The peace protestors of the 1930s were in the West like Chamberlain. People who didnt want to fight no matter the cost. In the end by not confronting Hitlers regime in 36, we ended up with millions of dead. That is the point of asking if 'peace' protestors understand if their wishes will have unintended consequences. The peace protestors from the vietnam era ended up with a million or more dead S Vietnamese once the communists got done with them.

Edit: Another example of this was our lack of will to fight the communists at the end of WWII to free the people of Eastern Europe. We spent several years and hundreds of thousands of lives to free Europe from the grips of one authoritarian ideology only to let half of Europe become victim to another. Hundreds of thousands of not millions died in Eastern Europe at the hands of the communists after the war becuase we didnt force Stalin to allow for free unfettered elections in post war Europe.


 
Originally posted by: Rainsford
From the article...
One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
Click to expand...

Yes, like the author of this silly piece of pro-war idiocy and the people who think he has a good point. There is really no need to analyze his entire "argument", those not blinded by their ideology should be able to see the flaws. But for the sake of argument, let's stick with his basic assumption that WWII and earlier is a good example of why peace movements don't work. During WWII and before was the golden time for pro-war folks. There were no peace movements, no peaceniks trying to get all sides to stop fighting, we were free to devastate the civilian populations of whoever we liked and the only "rights" any civilian population had on the world stage were those their government was strong enough to get for them. But tragically this ideal time period was shattered by long-haired hippies and their crazy ideas about trying to find solutions to conflicts that didn't involve nuking your enemies or firebombing their cities.

And boy does the author have a good point...up through WWII, the pre-peace movement world was a very safe and peaceful place, filled with nothing but brotherly love and cooperation among nations. Contrast that with the time period since the dawn of the peace movement...the conflicts in the Middle East, where a few dozen deaths are breaking news for weeks, are MUCH worse than the millions of people killed during WWII alone. While the capstone of the pre-peace movement period was the fantastic killing of 250,000 Japanese civilians with atomic weapons, that doesn't hold a candle to the major outcome of the peace movements and the culture of non-violence, 3,000 odd Americans dead from an attack by a few dozen lunatics. Clearly the peace movements have made world conflict much worse...I for one long for the day when the last peaceniks are lined up against a wall and shot. Then we can return to the safe and peaceful days of the past several thousand years.

What are you people, idiots?
Click to expand...

You must have forgot about the United States in the 1930s? There was a large peace movement in this country which hamstringed FDR's ability to help the only allie we had left in Europe not under the banner of the Nazi's.

The reason for "major" wars like a WWII not happening again has been more attributed to the development of Nuclear weapons than any peace movements. Ultimate force has swayed the powers to remain peaceful more than any peace movement.


 
Originally posted by: Zebo
Thomas Sowell is spot on. All peace movements do is delay the war until it really does become genocidal. Perfect example is WWII, where we should have taken out Hitler in 1935 with minimal loss of life. Instead the world waited and waited costing 40 million.

An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.
Click to expand...

Exactly and why the world will eventually cause a second holocaust after the still existing Hamas or Hezbolla sets off a suitcase nuke in Tel Aviv.
Click to expand...

Your post doesn't make any sense. There's a HUGE difference between peace movements and isolationism. My reading of our history isn't that America or its allies were peaceloving radicals with great concern for the well-being of all human beings. My reading is the typical American, many politicians, and even some allies in the Old World didn't consider it THEIR war. As long as the killing was happening somewhere else and the collateral impact was minor . . . we didn't really care.

Contrary to AIPAC PR campaign, loss of life in Israel is not the pre-eminent concern for the world. Deaths of the innocent should be a concern regardless of the where, who, why, and how many of the situation. There's nothing special about Israel aside from its ability to strike back against its antagonists. But that capacity occupies two sides of a coin. On the one hand it provides a modicum of security, but depending on how it is wielded it can easily precipitate more attacks. Accordingly, warmaking brings more war.
 

WWI begat WWII which begat WWIII (or the Cold War) and the neocons are now clamouring for WWIV (against the Muslim world) and they are already planning for WWV (the Chinese; Washington wants Japan to rearm so it can be part of a military force against China in the future) .........

Yay for peace.

 
I've visisted West Point a few times, and almost everytime there have been peace protestors there.

Their peace protest consisted of heavy drug use or arguing, then they ended up fighting with law enforcement who were trying to get them from blocking traffic. I think one eventually ran out infront of a car and caused an accident.

Unless humans are equipped with chips in their brain, drugged, or a world government is formed and dictated severely by people in such a shape, the tendency to violence will always exist.

The most effective arbiter of peace IMO is that of mutual assured destruction, in which two parties won't attack each other because they know they will both lose through nuclear fallout.

Of course this isn't a popular opinion though. And I'm glad that few (if none) will accept it...begin flaming...now.
 
I agree with your opinion because I live in Czech Repuplic (communists ruled here from 48 to 89) and believe me that NUKE wouldn´t have done so much damage and casualties as they did.
 
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