Objective review of the US 2012 Presidential and Congressional general campaign

[Ataraxia]

Dictators and absolute monarchs are more colorful.

And inbred.

[eyeresist]

Party politics and democratic elections in the last 50 years have fucked up more countries and ruined more lives than all the absolute kings and emperors of the last 500 years put together. 

So the recent embarassments of US politics are somehow worse than the efforts of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc?

The great democratic nations of US and UK alone are responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead people (Hiroshima, Nagasaki & Dresden). And if you will say that it is the government and not the people that are responsible for that I will retort that it is democratically elected, i.e. people-backed, governments that did that and there is not one single people mass-movement protesting those horrible massacres. I'm really sorry to see such an informed and educated man like you succumb to the democratic propaganda.... 

It was a war. You end wars by killing people - or surrendering, I suppose. Perhaps you think the citizens of the USA would have been better off in Japanese labour camps?

[Todd]

Perhaps you think the citizens of the USA would have been better off in Japanese labour camps?

Hell no, they would have replaced us with robots by now.

[ibanezmonster]

It was a war. You end wars by killing people - or surrendering, I suppose. Perhaps you think the citizens of the USA would have been better off in Japanese labour camps?

All your base are belong to us.



And what if we surrendered to Hitler? Sure, he'd stop killing people, right? All the world needs is to spread love and joy! Let him in to Art School! 

[Florestan]

Indeed. As a group, they are the most boring of human beings, at least in democratic countries (right Florestan?).

Oh, absolutely! Boring and shallow mediocrities who by the sole virtue of their belonging to a party feel entitled to rule according to their own will over people who do not wake up from their sleep except every 4 years when they go to the polls to choose their masters then fall in torpor again. To name this democracy i(i.e, power of the people) is either wishful thinking or a deliberate lie. 

[Florestan]

So the recent embarassments of US politics are somehow worse than the efforts of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc?

Last time I checked these gentlemen were neither kings nor emperors. On the contrary, they boasted of being men of the people and displayed a fanatical hatred for everything royal and aristocratic.

It was a war. You end wars by killing people - or surrendering, I suppose. Perhaps you think the citizens of the USA would have been better off in Japanese labour camps?

The nuking of Hiroshima might have had a certain military reason but the bombing of Dresden had none whatsoever. Ditto Nagasaki. They were war crimes that went unpunished. But hey, they were committed by the victors, weren't they? Besides, they were committed by direct and explicit order of democratically-elected leaders. Now, may I kindly ask you to show me a war massacre of the same scale (even taking in account corrections for population and technological underdevelopment) committed by direct and explicit order of a king or emperor?

[eyeresist]

Last time I checked these gentlemen were neither kings nor emperors. On the contrary, they boasted of being men of the people and displayed a fanatical hatred for everything royal and aristocratic.

Whatever they called themselves, they were effectively emperors of a vassal state. Kim Jong-un is a contemporary equivalent.

The nuking of Hiroshima might have had a certain military reason but the bombing of Dresden had none whatsoever. Ditto Nagasaki. They were war crimes that went unpunished. But hey, they were committed by the victors, weren't they?

You seem to be applying a bit of a doublestandard here. Why are you overlooking the atrocities of Germany and Japan?

Now, may I kindly ask you to show me a war massacre of the same scale (even taking in account corrections for population and technological underdevelopment) committed by direct and explicit order of a king or emperor?

So you've never read the Old Testament?

[Florestan]

You seem to be applying a bit of a doublestandard here. Why are you overlooking the atrocities of Germany and Japan?

I'm not overlooking anything. German and Japanese leaders paid the price for their atrocities and to this day the German nation shares a feeling of guilt. On the contrary, the double standard belongs to those who refuse to see and acknowledge that war crimes have been committed by both the vanquished and the victors. (Actually, to see the Nazi gang trialed and sentenced by a court where the Soviet Union was represented is highly amusing.)

OTOH I hope you're not implying that Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a rightful revenge for the German and Japanese atrocities.

So you've never read the Old Testament?

Oh how sweet. When the talk is about religion, the OT is just a collection of fairy tales. But when war crimes are involved, it suddenly becomes a trustworthy, accurate historical record... 

Seriously now, I was talking specifically about monarchs in modern times, last 500 years. In this respect you might find the following article interesting.

https://mises.org/journals/jls/15_1/15_1_1.pdf

[eyeresist]

Seriously now, I was talking specifically about monarchs in modern times, last 500 years.

Suspiciously specific...

[Wendell_E]

I'm with Florestan.  We don't give Philip II of Spain nearly enough credit for the restraint he used in not fire-bombing England using his vast fleet of airplanes, of for not dropping his atom bomb on London.   

[Florestan]

I'm with Florestan.  We don't give Philip II of Spain nearly enough credit for the restraint he used in not fire-bombing England using his vast fleet of airplanes, of for not dropping his atom bomb on London.   

Jokes aside, Phillip II of Spain is one of the most wrongfully maligned European monarchs and an early example of what successful propaganda (the Black Legend) can achieve: character assassination. He certainly was not worse than any other monarch of his time and in some respects he was arguably better.

[Todd]

Last time I checked these gentlemen were neither kings nor emperors.

King = Emperor = Ceaser = Khan = Tsar = Secretary General of the Communist Party = Monarch.

[Florestan]

King = Emperor = Ceaser = Khan = Tsar = Secretary General of the Communist Party = Monarch.

Well, this is the result of decades of democratic and republican propaganda and indoctrination and debasing education to the lowest common denominator: complete and irremediable historical ignorance...

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, this is the result of decades of democratic and republican propaganda and indoctrination and debasing education to the lowest common denominator: complete and irremediable historical ignorance...

I thought we were an anarchosyndicalist commune. 

[Todd]

Well, this is the result of decades of democratic and republican propaganda and indoctrination and debasing education to the lowest common denominator: complete and irremediable historical ignorance...

Yes, of course.  I'm certain, for instance, that the peasants of Ukraine debated the relative moral and ideological differences between the Tsars and the Bolsheviks while they were starving. 

[Karl Henning]

The Monarch is a butterfly, and the Caesar a salad. Butterfly = salad in only the least reputable cafés.

[Sammy]

OTOH I hope you're not implying that Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a rightful revenge for the German and Japanese atrocities.

It was a full-force war where each country delivered its maximum damage - case closed.  Was any of it based on revenge?  If so, I'm okay with that.  Are you some kind of pacifist?

[eyeresist]

Florestan, if you are saying that democracies (or so-called democracies) can perpetrate terrible acts, I'll agree with that.

If you say that an atrocity carried out under the imprimature of an elected government casts a deeper moral stain upon the populace than an action ultimately attributable to one person, I'll say it's a valid argument.

However, if you say (as you seem to be implying) that we should therefore ditch current arrangements in favour of a monarchical or feudal situation, well, expect me knocking at your gate with torch and pitchfork.

[ibanezmonster]

I couldn't say whether bombing Nagasaki was a correct move to make (probably was, in the long run), but Hiroshima sure was. Sure, tons of people died, and it was bad (ever read the book?), but in the long run, it likely saved more lives by putting an end to the war.   

[Florestan]

Yes, of course.  I'm certain, for instance, that the peasants of Ukraine debated the relative moral and ideological differences between the Tsars and the Bolsheviks while they were starving.

With apologies for my previous post which was unnnecessarily ill-tempered, you seem to forgot one big difference: famines during Tsars were the result of bad crops, archaic agriculture and idiotic governmental interference in the free circulation of goods and persons; they were not the result of a deliberate and calculated state policy designed by the highest authorities and specifically aimed at starving into death entire ethnic groups, as they were during the Bolshevik rule.