To declare war means to state one’s intentions to attack another until the death or surrender of one or both participants. Some wars, like World War I, are the result of foreign entanglements that spin out of control. On the eve of the bloodshed, every side stands and watches thirstily for someone else to make the first move so that they’ll have an excuse to punch the other side in the mouth. In this incarnation of war, each tribe has their own side that waits anxiously to sink their bombs into each other’s civilian populations. We would all agree that seeking out trouble and violence is unjustified, but what about self-defense?
Simply put, self-defense is not war. Self-defense is simply what it says it is: the removal of unwanted force imposed by another on ones’ own person or property. Even for the defensive response to be justified, it must be proportional to the crime. For instance, if I spy someone sneaking a piece of candy out of my shop and I catch them and re-secure the candy (my own property), it would not then be self-defense to bludgeon the would-be thief to death since the crisis situation has already been averted.
The difference between war and self-defense is quite simple, actually. Anytime one country declares war upon another, it is not self-defense. Self-defense is never declared as such, it is simply acted out during moments of aggression (or war, they’re really the same thing on differing scales). As Memorial Day arrives, we are supposed to honor the fallen who have defended the country, supposedly fighting for our freedoms in self-defense from would-be aggressors around the world. These aggressors are always lurking around every corner, and they somehow hate us because we have the Fourth Amendment that “protects” us against unreasonable searches and seizures. Alas, Memorial Day is devoted to the pawns that are used in a game of bloody interventionist chess who died instead enforcing the aggressive will of the political elite. In every major “war” we are taught that the good ole US of A had fought for the side of good. History tells us, however, that this is not the case.
The first unjust fight in the United States’ history was the Whiskey Rebellion. In fact, those fighting for your or my freedom were the ones who fought against President Washington and that weasel, Alexander Hamilton. The United States government had passed an excise tax on whiskey and sent in troops to western Pennsylvania to enforce the mob dues. What the layperson may not know about the Whiskey Tax is that many of the individual states weren’t collecting the taxes at all. According to Rothbard (https://mises.org/library/whisky-rebellion-model-our-time), colonial Americans had a deep mistrust of excise taxation when the British levied them. Unfortunately, elites like Hamilton only have a deep mistrust of big government if there’s an ocean separating the tax collector and his peasants. What makes this defense of liberty against the United States Federal Government so remarkable was actually how non-violent it actually was. It was a peaceful defense of our freedoms against the holy troops, which actually won out as the Jeffersonian Revolution eventually repealed the excise tax. Unfortunately, the excise tax resurfaced again during another unjust war in 1812.
The war of 1812 can be said to be America’s first attempt to provoke another nation, only to whine about getting hit back later (another, of course, being World War II). At the time, “Mr. Madison’s war” was used to conceal the intent to annex Canada, and eventually all of North America, for the new United States. The Canadians and the Native Americans living there repulsed American invasions into Canada ten times, and it’s no surprise then, that the British half-heartedly came to the aid of the colonies still under their control. Why should they try harder? They were focusing on Napoleon in Europe at the time, and the fledgling Imperialist States of America was too big for its britches to really be a threat on its own. This war, to the middle-school history textbooks, will be remembered as the war when Francis Scott key composed the national anthem by plagiarizing the tune of a popular British song. (Well, if we couldn’t invade and conquer Canada, at least we’ll take a song from those red coats!) However, when you hear the Star – Spangled Banner this holiday, it will be hard to think of it as anything other than American nationalist bravado, overstating the importance of the War of 1812 as a second quest for independence, and understating the trigger of the nation’s own attempt to invade what did not belong to it.
If only the American Civil War was fought over slavery, and slavery alone. There needn’t have even been a war to end slavery in the first place, as the success of the Underground Railroad at helping escaped slaves coupled with the fact that it was the northern states who were nullifying the fugitive slave laws to the detriment of southern slave-owners. The simple act of assisting slaves run away and stay safe isn’t an act of war, as it encroaches on neither person nor property, as people cannot be property. However, the context of Lincoln’s invasion of the south was not geared towards slavery, but keeping the Southern States under the thumb of the American Federal Government. Nor was the war about Lincoln using peaceful means and basic economics to end slavery in the south. Had that been the case, the 16th tyrant of the United States would have simply waived goodbye as the southern states exercised their constitutional right to secede. Without the Federal Government protecting southern agriculture with tariffs and other protections, southern slavery would have peacefully evaporated as it did in Brazil. Instead, Lincoln shredded the Constitution. Either he, one, used federal forces to enter the states in a crisis situation where the local state government never requested them, or two, he invaded a foreign country without a declaration of war. This tremendous unconstitutional over-step by Lincoln would have tremendous ramifications throughout our history- namely in the last fifty years, allowing sitting presidents to prance around the world without declaring war, and then using the political capital created by blowback to justify a declaration. The Civil War was a war of aggression on the part of the United States Federal Government, and not a war defending the freedom of the slaves. In all honesty, Harriet Tubman should be on the penny and the five (at least Jackson killed the bank during his terrible reign), as what she did to actually fight against slavery and oppression far outshines Lincoln’s historical mythos.
The world wars might as well be thought of as two halves of one Super Bowl of aggression, imperialism, blood-shed, and destruction separated by a miserable half-time show. The war aforementioned in the article was brought about by tensions strung up by world leaders choosing sides in small territorial disputes that eventually spilled over. It’s also important to note the role that central banking played in enabling this conflict. The removal of a complete gold standard allowed nations to inflate their currency and direct resources towards a war effort, essentially conjuring their armies out of thin air without resorting to unpopular taxation. Without the United States’ own Federal Reserve, and using the Lusitania, a ship full of war munitions headed for Europe and loaded with civilian travelers, as bait, Wilson would never have had his war. Unfortunately for world history, the American war machine proved to be far too much for the opposing evildoers, and the Treaty of Versailles was forced down the throats of the Germans, compelling them to pay the war debts of all participating drunken bar fighters. A war exploded into existence through foreign meddling and war-mongering by all parties was to be paid for by one scapegoat.
The reason we can look at both World Wars as two parts of the same whole is the fact that without the allies’ lopsided victory over Germany, the Treaty of Versailles would never have taken effect. Without that treaty, Germany never feels the insane pressure to pay off their debt. Instead, the war debt was monetized, leading to a crack-up boom and runaway inflation in Germany, which precipitated the rise of a political outsider and anti-establishment candidate Adolf Hitler. Back in the late 30’s and 40’s, the American public didn’t care about Hitler’s escapades in Europe as his armies were no threat to the States. Unfortunately, like Wilson before him, Franklin Roosevelt wanted war, and he contrived his way to propagandize the American public into fighting for aggression, and against their own freedom. Through a series of economic embargoes on Japan, military exercises that hit too close to the rising sun for comfort, and supplying the Chinese with planes to fight the Japanese with (this strategy should be familiar to the reader today, just do a quick google of these words: Saudi, Hillary, Planes, Yemen), the architect of socialism in America got his blowback. Pearl Harbor is often times referred to as an unprovoked attack out of the blue, but it should be noted that FDR did everything he could to get the Japanese to punch him somewhere, and then spin public perception as if it was unprovoked. The similarities to 1812 are striking, and we might as well call the Second World War, “Mr. Roosevelt’s War.” Moreover, the need for self-defense in this conflict had long since expired when the Americans dropped atomic weapons on the Japanese. The predictable response is that it would have saved American lives had the US invaded Japan, but that begs the question: if the war was really self-defense, why invade anybody? It seems backward that this war is looked at as a fight against bullies that just wanted to take over the world, when in reality, the United States abandoned fighting for its own citizen’s freedoms to instead attempt to over the world. The Japanese were getting too good at being imperialist in the Pacific (or, as neo-cons would say “America’s West Lake”), and the American warmongers wanted in. The rising sun set long before the murderous act in Hiroshima, but now the sun never sets on the global American empire with deployments in over one-hundred fifty countries.
After assuming control of what was left of the British and French colonies in the middle-east, the United States decided to try its hand at being a world superpower after World War II. Through the backing of certain dictators, playing proxy with Russia during the cold war, copy-pasting Israel onto the map, and writing off civilian casualties as “collateral damage,” it’s no wonder why there is so much hatred for the United States in the most recent escapade of perpetual war. Ron Paul put it bluntly and brilliantly on the debate stage, “they hate us because we’re over there.” I’d say if your family burned to death in a hospital which may or may not have been helping wounded “terrorists” (noun; violent criminals the United States Government doesn’t “intentionally” give weapons to), you might be slightly cranky at the United States as well. Those rebelling against the American Empire in the Middle-east are simply doing the same thing the American Revolutionaries did to the British, except our own revolutionaries put up with far less than robots in the skies decimating entire neighborhoods of innocents.
Every single “war” in American history has been about aggression because that simply is what war is. War is always evil, and always unnecessary. It goes against the wishes of the masses and of the market, as the political class must always find some way to spin blowback as the first punch, when in reality, economic sanctions, embargoes, and foreign aid to dictatorships are the initial aggressions against foreign peoples. This memorial day, when you see the propaganda and hear the pawns of mass murder being praised, just remember the last time an American soldier actually gave his life for the cause of liberty- 1783. When you hear someone thanking some vet for their service of protecting us from those that would take our freedoms, just remind them that it’s the other way around. Where were these troops when the Patriot Act was passed? Where were they when the Federal Reserve was chartered to steal the wealth of our grandchildren to pay for the aggressive war in the present? Where are these defenders of freedom when the state and its agents roll down local streets, throwing its own citizens in cages for owning a prohibited plant? They’re fighting the politician’s wars for the politician’s gain, in aggressions that only further endanger the civilians they swear to protect. It’s time we see Memorial Day for what it really is, a sham and a blatant lie in the face of three-hundred million Americans, whose freedoms had already begun to be eroded a long time ago by the very entity the false heroes pledge to protect.
