At the outset, let me say I am NOT a warmonger. I hate war, and as a soldier have seen it up close and personal more than once. It is a nasty proposition, driven by the other side. Face it, whether we want peace of not, we don’t get to pick the time or place. Unless we’re willing to give up everything, to include our liberty and our friends, we will have to be prepared to fight sooner or later. This is why I look at the world from the perspective that peace is a load of bull excrement. There is no such thing, and unfortunately, there never will be such a thing. It is a faux concept and construct arising from our desire to avoid conflict and to ignore reality. It assumes that everyone likes us, but life should teach us this is never going to be the case. The side effect is that the word “peace” often just fools us into a false sense of security, where there can be no real security.
Just as a social experiment, let us take a look at the school yard. When I was a kid the school yard was a simple place, where if a dispute arose, which was quite often, we would meet behind the cafeteria after school, duke it out, and then be done with it. Many times, the person we fought today would be our best friend for years afterwards. Now, the social experiment of the last few decades comes into play. Today we have zero tolerance on that school yard. We don’t let kids simply “duke it out,” opting instead for more ethereal conflict resolution methods. We are now convinced that school is a place of peace among the students, where linking arms and singing “Kum Ba Yah” after settling our disputes from a mediation, that we hope solves all the problems. This sounds good, but we also now have kids losing it, plotting, and then going to that school yard, only to shoot each other and any innocent bystanders. I can recall that almost universally we carried a pocket knife, but not once did we ever consider using it on each other. Now we have to worry about them stabbing each other with a pencil, or worse.
Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but this has nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism, instead it is all about human nature. Humans fight, we have road rage, we bristle at every affront, both real and perceived, and yet we expect nations to be any different. By gutting the military, we’re taking the pocket knife away and adopting “zero tolerance.” Just like the school yard, that will only work if the other guy will not be aggressive and also subscribes to the “Kum Ba Yah” theory of diplomacy. While we’re at it, I’ve got some ocean front property in Kansas and a Bridge in Brooklyn I’d love to sell you. Better yet, ask someone in Ukraine how this works, since I’m pretty sure they weren’t “asking for it.” ~ Michael S. Pauley
Just as a social experiment, let us take a look at the school yard. When I was a kid the school yard was a simple place, where if a dispute arose, which was quite often, we would meet behind the cafeteria after school, duke it out, and then be done with it. Many times, the person we fought today would be our best friend for years afterwards. Now, the social experiment of the last few decades comes into play. Today we have zero tolerance on that school yard. We don’t let kids simply “duke it out,” opting instead for more ethereal conflict resolution methods. We are now convinced that school is a place of peace among the students, where linking arms and singing “Kum Ba Yah” after settling our disputes from a mediation, that we hope solves all the problems. This sounds good, but we also now have kids losing it, plotting, and then going to that school yard, only to shoot each other and any innocent bystanders. I can recall that almost universally we carried a pocket knife, but not once did we ever consider using it on each other. Now we have to worry about them stabbing each other with a pencil, or worse.
Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but this has nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism, instead it is all about human nature. Humans fight, we have road rage, we bristle at every affront, both real and perceived, and yet we expect nations to be any different. By gutting the military, we’re taking the pocket knife away and adopting “zero tolerance.” Just like the school yard, that will only work if the other guy will not be aggressive and also subscribes to the “Kum Ba Yah” theory of diplomacy. While we’re at it, I’ve got some ocean front property in Kansas and a Bridge in Brooklyn I’d love to sell you. Better yet, ask someone in Ukraine how this works, since I’m pretty sure they weren’t “asking for it.” ~ Michael S. Pauley
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