Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the notion that any nation is the enemy of another, is a mere mental contrivance to facilitate the abuse of power. The people of any nation are never at odds with another, it is always and everywhere, governments, that are at enmity with each other. Contrary to public opinion, government is not a means to ordering society, helping people help themselves, providing non excludable goods, enacting a planned economy or creating standards, it is about power. Power of the few over the many. Thrasymachus‘ point is well taken, most people want to live in peace to, till, sow, weed and reap, but there are “great men” who are not satisfied, they have a drive to rule others, psychopaths. Government is how they can rule, with assumed authority and usurped power, to satisfy their egos.
War is the ultimate in psychopathic manipulation. One of the qualities of a psychopath is the need for excitement. Their inner lives are so empty, lacking a conscience, empathy or basic humanity, they need diversion, and what is more exciting and diverting than a war? Psychopaths love to manipulate other people, both to prove their own superiority, (since they know they are in fact inferior to the common run of man) and to prove other people’s stupidity. What better way than to start a war, and get thousands of people, perhaps millions, to die for you? What an ego boost for a psychopath. I guarantee, if a knowledgeable study were done as to what percentage of conquerors, despots and founders of empires… were psychopaths, it would show psychopathy is the common thread.
Like Mo Ti said, why fight for cultivated land when there is so much that is uncultivated and free to the taking? Even densely populated nations have much uncultivated land, and many are almost all uncultivated land. Yet the first impulse of people, especially those in power, is to take from another what he has built… rather than build it oneself. As Mo Ti also said, why is it easier to buckle on armor and go die, probably horribly, to take from another? When for less effort and danger they could simply build it… in other words, bring uncultivated land under cultivation. How did Lebensraum help all the German boys who died for it? Wouldn’t they have been better off, to have moved to the Alps, cleared some land, built a home… and raised a family there?
Amid the atrocities of World War One on Christmas Eve, some British and Germans crawled onto no man’s land and celebrated the birth of our Lord together, in violation of the “rules of war,” but in concurrence with the laws of humanity. The psychopaths were livid that soldiers had recognized the humanity of their “enemies,” and severely punished the men for it. It has been said, war is someone killing someone else, who in other circumstances, would be their best friend. One strategy tyrants have used throughout the ages, to distract people from their own suffering, misery the government’s own ineptitude, corruption or rapine has inflicted… to some straw man, one that requires violence to quell. In “1984” George Orwell pointed out… perpetual war means perpetual war powers for the elite.
We must recognize that, no matter how much we may want peace, others may not. There is never a time when some despot somewhere isn’t plotting. The only way to stop such crimes against humanity, is to be strong enough to make attacking pure folly, yet not becoming the very thing you are against. Peace take two… but war only takes one. Poland didn’t want war with Germany, but the psychopathic, cult of personality, Fuhrer of Germany at the time… did. Anyone who tells you that we, or anyone, needs perpetual war to keep the peace, is telling you, war is peace and up is down. So, while keeping vigilant for the psychopath running some misbegotten foreign country, we should be extra wary of the psychopath in our midst, because he or she is the far bigger threat… they manipulate us.
John Pepin
