be just

by Robert Higgs War kills the innocent, strengthens the state, supports dictatorships, and stirs up hatred. How can anyone be considered a winner? Of course, it invariably justified these assaults on liberty by characterizing them as necessary, merely temporary means of preserving the people's liberties in the longer run — in General George C. Marshall's words, "sacrifices today in order that we may enjoy security and peace tomorrow."26That claim was either a mistake or a lie, because the U.S. government did not need to go to war, not even in the world wars, in order to preserve its people's essential liberties and way of life: neither Kaiser Wilhelm's forces nor Hitler's — and certainly not Japan's — had the capacity to deprive Americans of their liberties, "take over the country," "destroy our way of life," or do anything of the sort. This country has always contained persecuted minorities, and it still does; but since 1789, the o...

Thursday January 25th 2007, 9:20 am Jimmy Carter, who caused himself a world of hurt by writing truthfully about the “Israeli-Palestinian issue,” that is to say more than a half century of Israeli brutality against Palestinians, was almost dis-invited from a speaking engagement at Brandeis University. You’d think his status as a former president would trump the political correctness of the ADL and the “American Jewish community,” many of them frankly sayanim. Carter made it by the skin of his teeth. “Despite two months of a highly publicized campus debate over whether Carter would or would not be invited to campus, sparks did not fly at Tuesday’s event,” reports the Jewish Telegraph Agency . Carter used the event to backtrack one of his main claims. “In response to a question criticizing a section of his book that appears to justify the use of terrorism, Carter admitted it was a mistake…. Calling the wording ’stupid,’ Carter said, ‘I apologize to you personally and to everyone here.’ H...

January 27, 2007. March for peace. Stop the madness.