RE: Honor the Troops? Maybe We Should Hold Them Accountable Instead.
Thanks for sharing. Much appreciated.
I see why you would want your military to follow orders without question and quickly.
Sure, if we were still in the 19th or 20th century. But what if we can actually move beyond war? Many will dismiss this out of hand and say, "Humans will always make war" but I'm not convinced. I'm not sure if you'd agree with that argument, but to me, the invention of the novel, the Internet, and the like has connected us emotionally as a species to have compassion and empathy, and we're changing for the better because of it.
They are often swayed by emotionally convincing events that catalyze the signing up.
Which, right away, should bring the entire thing under criticism. These are the same tactics cults use to recruit people. Let's move beyond this irrational thinking.
Thanks, as always, for your detailed response.
I don't disagree with you by the way. I agree with you. I was more playing Devil's Advocate as I was predicting some arguments people might come up with.
The sad thing about WAR is it usually isn't really the PEOPLE wanting to fight and kill each other. It is the GOVERNMENTS which are controlled by a few people in each one, and are dragging the rest of the population into the wars.
They are unnecessary and have been for quite some time.
The propaganda engines are used to incite the people and garner support for such actions. In the U.S. that is our Mainstream Media.
Exactly. This, and learning about the concept of democide, is why I'm aligned with anarchist "no rulers" thinking.
I am aligned that way myself. I do not think the world is ready for us to flip a switch and become "anarchist" in the classical sense overnight. I believe we need to fix some things (Especially education) before it would really work. I believe people like you and I who do not believe others should carry the burden of responsibility for us could do okay. Yet, this does not describe most of society at the moment. I would like to see critical thinking taught continuously beginning at an early age just like math, reading, history, science, etc.
If most of the population was skilled at critical thinking I believe we together could overcome most problems, would be less susceptible to emotional manipulation by common fallacies such as appeal to authority, appeal to tradition, red herrings, false dichotomies, etc. I believe then we would be in a position to actually make anarchism work.
It is definitely a challenging task, and those in power are very much against such a movement.
If you're interested in education, I highly recommend Free to Learn by Peter Gray. The solution to education problems may be to remove educational systems all together and let kids be free to learn through play. That, of course, would require a different economic model as we couldn't have both mom and dad working full time jobs if kids were home all day instead of being sent off to the government re-education prison camps we call schools. This may require a UBI of some kind to provide for financial needs to make this possible. Or more people should take jobs/create businesses which allow them to homeschool/unschool like we're doing. :)
I've also looked into how Finland does it and right now they seem to be giving some of the best educations in the world.