On Federal Taxation in the United States

Aug 23, 2014 0:42:31 GMT pjohns1873 said:

I suppose I am taking the above points out of order; but I simply cannot imagine that you might suppose that the Karzai government is "representative of the former Northern Alliance." Where did you ever get that?

If "those in the Republican Party today" are all just alike, it would probably be news to Speaker Boehner, whose job of achieving reconciliation within the GOP ranks has been a bit like the proverbial job of herding cats--esprcially as it concerns Tea Party members and so-called "establishment Republicans."   

In my opinion, moral arguments may be advanced both for and against the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The argument against it should be self-evident--the maiming and killing of innocents (en masse) is typically very hard to justify--but the competing argument is that, absent this, the war would have dragged on much longer, leading to a far greater total of deaths, even among the general population (due to house-to-house fighting).  I remain a bit ambivalent on this issue.

However, as a general principle, I do believe that carpet bombing serves a useful purpose that outweighs its moral improprieties. 

Oh, you noted, yourself (quite correctly), that the Internet typically links to news stories from major news outlets, such as CNN and Fox; so it is really not an entirely separate source of information. 

Knowing a little history of Karzai is, of course, important so I will cite a quick summary from Wikipedia for you:

When the Taliban emerged in the mid-1990s, Karzai initially recognized them as a legitimate government because he thought that they would stop the violence and corruption in his country.[13] He was offered by the Taliban to serve as their ambassador but he refused, telling friends that he felt Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was wrongly using them.[1] He lived in the city of Quetta among the Afghan refugees, where he worked to reinstate former Afghan King Zahir Shah. In July 1999, Karzai's father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was gunned down early in the morning while coming home from a mosque in the city of Quetta. Reports suggest that the Taliban carried out the assassination.[1] Following this incident, Karzai decided to work closely with the Northern Alliance, which was led by Ahmad Shah Massoud.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Karzai

So starting in 1999 Karzai was associated with the Northern Alliance as I've stated.

Yes, I used a very broad brush in painting Republicans but unfortunately the extremists have controlled Republican Party activities of late. One of the problems that has been pointed out with the Republican Party is the over-influence of the "religious-right" during presidential primaries, for example, because they are the most likely to vote in primaries exerting influence disproportionate to their numbers. If you control the primary you control who the presidential candidate will be. This isn't absolute control but it is disproportionate control. As you correctly noted the Tea Party Republicans have also had disproportionate power as well in Congress.  

Of note on the atomic bombing of Japan the argument that the war would have continued as a false argument. In July of 1945 Japan had, through Russia, offered to surrender with basically the single condition that Emperor Hirohito be allowed to remain as the Emperor of Japan. Russia was neutral at the time and so this diplomatic avenue was appropriate in seeking terms of surrender. The US was well aware of this offer to surrender but was demanding unconditional surrender which is ironic because the US eventually attained that surrender and also allowed Emperor Hirohito to retain his position which had been symbolic before and after WW II. The war would not have continued in any case so the argument that the bombing reduced the number of deaths was really a false argument based upon what we learned after the war (i.e. the surrender offer wasn't disclosed for many years).

Yes, there are arguments for carpet bombing and other acts of war just like there are arguments for terrorist attacks but the fact is that the purpose of both war and terrorist attacks is the same. To instill terror in the minds of the enemy to achieve a political goal. Remember that the real purpose of war is not to kill the enemy so much as it is to get the enemy to surrender and that is accomplished by terrorizing them into surrendering.

Once agian my point is that the real purpose of war is to terrorizing the enemy into surrendering to achieve a political goal. That is fundamentally no different than what the simple terrorist is basically attempting to do.  I'm sure you've heard the expression, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."  

Aug 23, 2014 18:28:25 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Yes, I have indeed "heard" the (rather simplistic) aphorism you mention. But to equate terrorists with freedom fighters strikes me as an exercise in nihilism.

Whatever happened in mid-1999, I cannot imagine that anyone might suppose that Hamid Karzai, more than 15 years later, has any connections to the former Northern Alliance; at least, not beyond the allegiance of his vice-president, Mohammed Fahim, who was once affiliated with it. (I really wish that it were otherwise, as I much prefer the old Northern Alliance to the Taliban--as noted previously.)

I like the Tea Party (in just about any of its legitimate incarnations) much more than you do.  (Your labeling of them as "extremists" just about says it all.)  However, if their influence--which you term "disproportionate"--results in the GOP's fielding a presidential candidate that lacks widespread public appeal, those on the left should actually be happy, since this would necessarily enhance their own candidate's prospects.

As one peerson recently answered the question of what the result would have been if the US had not nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

Then the U.S. would have eventually invaded the Japanese mainland. As the Japanese were not going to surrender, there would have been millions of Japanese killed. U.S. deaths would also have been in the thousands, maybe as high as a million. Japan would have been defeated but at a very high cost in human life and more than likely the total destruction of all major Japanese cities.

Here is the link:  www.answers.com/Q/What_would_have_happened_if_the_atomic_bombs_had_not_been_used_in_World_War_2

And your characterization of war as a desire to "instill terror" in order to "achieve a political goal" is highly misleading.  It seems to imply that the warring sides are equally amoral; that each has only some "political" agenda--entirely self-interested--to attempt to advance.  But nothing could possibly be further from the truth.  Very often, war is the direct result of one side's blatant violation of some important moral principle; and the other side's vigorous defense of it. 

There were only two political factions in Afghanistan prior to the US invasion. There was the majority Taliban supported by the tribal chiefs and the Northern Alliance that had very few supporters relatively speaking. Karzai was initially a supporter of the Taliban (although he advocated the hereditary monarchy) and then, with the murder of his father in 1999, switched to becoming a supporter of the Northern Alliance. With the US/Nato invasion the Taliban was ousted from power and only those that had supported the Northern Alliance were allowed to be a part of the new government. Former members of the Taliban were not allowed to hold any office of government.

As for WW II and the dropping of the atomic bombs I can provide some insight. I've found the following source doing a search but have also read this elsewhere. Some of the following is unsupported by actual citiations but I have seen references to official records elsewhere on what I'm actually quoting if not cited here and much of what I'm quoting includes references to the source:

•11 July 1945 - Japan offered to surrender unconditionally, with one exception - they wished to retain their monarchy. They didn't insist on retaining Emperor Hirohito. They were willing to replace him with his small son, for example.

•Here are a few of the Japanese attempts to end the war in July:
July 11: "make clear to Russia... We have no intention of annexing or taking possession of the areas which we have been occupying as a result of the war; we hope to terminate the war".
July 12: "it is His Majesty's heart's desire to see the swift termination of the war".
July 13: "I sent Ando, Director of the Bureau of Political Affairs to communicate to the [Soviet] Ambassador that His Majesty desired to dispatch Prince Konoye as special envoy, carrying with him the personal letter of His Majesty stating the Imperial wish to end the war" (for above items, see: U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 1, pg. 873-879).
July 18: "Negotiations... necessary... for soliciting Russia's good offices in concluding the war and also in improving the basis for negotiations with England and America." (Magic-Diplomatic Summary, 7/18/45, Records of the National Security Agency, Magic Files, RG 457, Box 18, National Archives).
July 22: "Special Envoy Konoye's mission will be in obedience to the Imperial Will. He will request assistance in bringing about an end to the war through the good offices of the Soviet Government." The July 21st communication from Togo also noted that a conference between the Emperor's emissary, Prince Konoye, and the Soviet Union, was sought, in preparation for contacting the U.S. and Great Britain (Magic-Diplomatic Summary, 7/22/45, Records of the National Security Agency, Magic Files, RG 457, Box 18, National Archives).
July 26: Japan's Ambassador to Moscow, Sato, to the Soviet Acting Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Lozovsky: "The aim of the Japanese Government with regard to Prince Konoye's mission is to enlist the good offices of the Soviet Government in order to end the war." (Magic-Diplomatic Summary, 7/26/45, Records of the National Security Agency, Magic Files, RG 457, Box 18, National Archives).

The belief that the surrender of Japan would have required an invasion is false as Japan was attempting to surrender well in advance of the actual atomic bombs being dropped. As noted the only precondition was the retention of the monachy and, I will note, that this is the first source where I've read that the Japanese would have allowed an heir of Emperor Hirohito as opposed to Hirohito himself to become the emperor. As that statement does not have a citation to support it I would put a question mark next to it. The rest of the statements do provide references to official documents on file.

whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/truman.html

As I would do I would suggest that you take that which is or is possibly opinion and separate it from facts where a reference to official documents is provided. I've included one undocumented statement but the rest do have references (and I've read this elsewhere often with additionaly excerpts from the official records.

I would not claim that both side in war are "equally amoral" but instead that both sides are "unequally amoral" instead. Both sides rationalize a moral foundation for the war while the war itself is immoral. The rationalization of an immoral act does not change the fact that the act itself is immoral.

Aug 25, 2014 0:50:18 GMT pjohns1873 said:

I should probably note, first, that your timeline as concerning the final months of WWII is suggestive--albeit not compelling. I do have a problem with a source that seems to revel in scandal (it links to scandals involving both JFK and FDR), and tends to moralize (as it does with Harry Truman.)  And I have never been much of a fan of theories that are predicated upon esoteric knowledge. Still, I cannot easily dismiss it. It may suggest further study.  (One thing that remains unclear to me, however, is this:  If the information provided is true, why would FDR have rejected Japan's proposed surrender?) 

And, whereas it is certainly true that those in charge of prosecuting a war may, indeed, engage in rationalizations--Lincoln, for instance, clearly needed to mobilize support in the North for the war effort midway through the Civil War; so he transmuted it from a war to preserve the Union to a moral cause with the Emancipation Proclamation, thereby undercutting the so-called "Copperhead" movement in the North--that cannot vitiate the fact that very often, one side is morally right, and the other side is morally wrong. 

I'm also critical of conspiracy theories and the source I provided may border on that but the facts I quoted from it all have citations to the official records of the United States. We can ignore the "conspiracy theory" and simply focus on the fact that Japan was actively attempting to surrender to end the war before the atomic bombs were dropped and the only "condition" related to retaining the monarchy. An invasion of Japan was unnecessary and those that state it would have been necessary, thereby rationalizing the use of nuclear weapons against Japan, are misinformed.

There is a saying "The winners of war write the history" and it's fairly accurate. While we tend to look at things as black and white, right and wrong, the truth is the actually history as far more complex. The subjective opinion of "morally right" and "morally wrong" becomes quite murky in almost all cases when it comes to the wars between nations. We seek to rationalize our actions as nations that engage in war while all the time knowing that war itself on the personal level is immoral.

Aug 25, 2014 17:49:17 GMT pjohns1873 said:

As regarding the first instance, above, I am really not intransigent as concerning the matter of Japan's (supposed) proposed surrender. But I still cannot understand why, if this is all true, FDR would have simply rejected that proposal. That makes no sense to me at all.

And I agree with your observation that the winners write history--that is an old (and mostly correct) aphorism--so it may, indeed, be a bit slanted.  But this should not be used to attempt to nullify the fact that sometimes one side is entirely wrong (as, for instance, when the Nazis were gassing millions of innocents during WWII.) 

It was actually President Truman that authorized the atomic bomb attacks and not FDR but I also don't know why he authorized them knowing what we know today. It is a puzzlement.

If you recall history the allies didn't know about the holocaust until the end of the war and it certainly had nothing to do with the US entry into the war. Germany's declaration of war against the United States was why the US went to war against Germany. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the plight of the Jews (or other "undesirables") under the Nazis. The US was almost as anti-Sematic as the Germans in the 1930's.

Aug 27, 2014 1:10:45 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Aug 26, 2014 1:23:33 GMT ShivaTD said:

It was actually President Truman that authorized the atomic bomb attacks and not FDR but I also don't know why he authorized them knowing what we know today. It is a puzzlement.

If you recall history the allies didn't know about the holocaust until the end of the war and it certainly had nothing to do with the US entry into the war. Germany's declaration of war against the United States was why the US went to war against Germany. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the plight of the Jews (or other "undesirables") under the Nazis. The US was almost as anti-Sematic as the Germans in the 1930's.

Well, I certainly cannot disagree with your observation that many in the US were quite anti-Semitic at the time (as well as being racist and sexist).  In fact, the armed forces were not even integrated until after WWII had ended (courtesy of then-President Truman). 

And you are also correct as to why the US went to war against Germany.

Sometimes, however, one side may indeed be on the morally right side and the other side morally wrong, even if that fact is merely used by politicians to justify a war that is really being carried out for another reason.  I previously mentioned the Civil War.  Very few people are so enormously innocent as to imagine that then-President Lincoln--who made some horribly racist comments!--was truly concerned about the plight of black people when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and changed the raison d'etre for the war effort from the preservation of the union to the abolition of slavery; at least, in those states "in rebellion" against the US government.  Yet the abolition of slavery was truly a moral cause--even if it was only an afterthought for the president at the time.     

Wars can, sometimes, result in the redress of a "moral" issue but that is generally a rationalization by the winning side after the war. As you accurately note the Civil War was not about freeing the slaves but that was later an arugment for continuing it when support lagged in the Union. It was an after-thought. The war against Nazi Germany was never about ending the Holocaust or the tyranny of the Nazis although it resulted in ending both.

Rarely if ever do we see the "noble cause" for war based upon a morally right argument. Was removing the tyranny of Saddam over the Kuwaiti People during the Gulf War to simply return them to the tyrannical rule of the House of Sabah really a noble cause? I don't personally see the replacement of one tyrant with another tyrant to be a very noble cause nor do I find it morally acceptable. We invaded Afghanistan based upon a criminal act that could and should have been addressed under international laws and customs. I can't find a moral or noble cause for that war. We invaded Iraq over WMD's that didn't exist when Iraq represented no threat to any other nation at the time. I fail to find anything noble or morally right about that.

It is hard to find any moral or noble cause for war and, even if you can point out an example, few wars are ever based upon a morally "right" position by any of the nations involved. Even when we claim that a war of self-defence is a morally right cause often these turn into a case where a nation initially defending itself soon becomes the nation of aggression and, when that happens, it has lost it's morally "right" foundation for war.  

I would simply put forward the proposition that the "winners" of war tend to rationalize them based upon half-truths related to the war being "morally right" while ignoring and often covering up what was morally wrong.

We can cite the American Revolution for example. It was arguably "morally right" based upon the Declaration of Independence but it also allowed the continuation of slavery in the United States that was morally wrong and violated the ideals established by the Declaration of Independence.  

Aug 28, 2014 0:43:16 GMT pjohns1873 said:

I am really not sure just what examples you have in mind as regarding wars in which "a nation is initially defending itself," only to become--"soon"--the aggressor.

I think our freeing Kuwait from Saddam's heavy hand was a very good thing; although it is difficult for me to imagine that it might have been an act of sheer altruism. Nations do not ordinarily act in such a manner toward other nations, with no expectation of any quid pro quo.

And I agree entirely that slavery was "morally wrong"--very much so!--but not everyone in the latter part of the eighteenth century (or even the early nineteenth century) agreed. Thomas Jefferson, in fact, owned slaves; and even fathered a child by one of those slaves (Sally Hemmings). Had this "original sin" (which it has often been called) been fully addressed at the time, it is very unlikely that all the colonies could have reached an agreement.

I would agree that on a balance beam of moral v immoral that the Gulf War tended to be more moral than not but we can't say it was based upon a morally pure cause. We need only remember that the reason cited for Iraq's invasion was slant drilling by Kuwait to steal Iraqi oil. In any case it was ultimately a regional dispute between tyrants (Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia) that, based upon our national ideology that opposes tyranny, we logically should have stayed out of.

While Jefferson inherited slaves (historians believe he might have fathered six children with Sally Hemmings) and retained them throughout his lifetime he knew slavery was morally wrong. His anti-slavery writings reveal that. BTW did you know that Sally Hemmings (that was only partially black) was the 1/2 sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Skelton? I didn't know that until looking up Sally Hemmings this morning. Very interesting historical footnote.  

Aug 28, 2014 23:15:37 GMT pjohns1873 said:

I will have to admit that I did not know that Sally Hemmings was the half-sister of Thomas Jefferson's wife.

And I agree thoroughly with your (apparent) implication that a person who is only "partially black" should not automatically be categorized as black.  The categorization of people of mixed racial ancestory as "black" is due to a social construct, rather than being due to objective fact.  (For that very reason, I prefer to refer to Barack Obama as America's first mixed-race president, rather than as America's first black president.)

By the way, the human mind is usually capable of rationalizing almost anything. Throughout much of the nineteenth century, many (white) Americans proclaimed that slavery was really in the best interests of black people, as the latter (supposedly) could simply not function adequately as free people.

If there is a real case to be made that America should have stayed out of the dispute between Kuwait and Iraq more than two decades ago, it is simply this: The American government should focus upon doing what is in the national interests of the American people; and not necessarily attempt to correct all moral wrongs throughout the rest of the world. But I do not see it as having been merely "a regional dispute between tyrants," as though the immorality of each effectively negated the immorality of the other. Iraq--which is to say, Saddam Hussein--was clearly in the wrong, on this matter.  

Genetically (scientifically) there is only one race and it's the human race. Different racial categories were invented by the racist based upon appearance of the person to establish a means of rationalizing self-superiority. In short if you have the dominate "orange" people they will rationalize that the "purple" people are inferior to them and will treat them as an inferior person.

We should remember that during the 2012 GOP presidential primaries all of the candidates (except Ron Paul) signed the National Organization for Marriage (a Mormon PAC disguised as a 501.C.4 organization) Pledge that contained a statement implying that black childern were better off being raised as slaves. After this was revealed publically in the news the pledge was changed but that didn't change the fact the candidates had signed it before it was changed. Perhaps we haven't come all that far from the rationalizations for slavery that existed in the 19th Century.

"Clearly in the wrong" seems to condone the theft of Iraqi natural resources by Kuwait that was accused of slant drilling into the Iraqi oil reserves. Do you support the theft of natural resources of one nation by another nation?

We should realize that the government leaders of both Iraq and Kuwait were stealing the natural resources of the nation from the people of the nation for their own personal (financial) benefit so the people were screwed in both cases. These leaders did, of course, have "statutory ownership" of the oil that they took away from the people of the nation so it was the "legalized" theft of the natural resources of the nation by the leaders of the government in Iraq and Kuwait (and that continues today). This takes us back to the difference between "Statutory Ownership v Right of Property" problem I've identified.