The USA needs to take another look at its dark history. From Robert Higgs:
Lost in the fog of war-related thought is the concrete, unique, individual person. Hardly anyone seems capable of talking about war except by linguistically marshalling such collectivistic globs as "we," "us," and "our," in opposition to "they," "them," and "their"...Like so many others on this blog, the above link is courtesy of antiwar.com.
A widespread inclination to think in terms of the group, rather than the distinct individuals who compose it, plays directly into the hands of violent, power-hungry leaders... Nothing promotes the sacrifice of the individual to the alleged "greater good of the whole" more than war does...
If Ambrose Bierce could observe a century ago that "war is God's way of teaching Americans geography," one shudders to imagine what he might say today...
A half century ago, looking back on 15 years of warfare and its aftermath, William Henry Chamberlin wrote, "It was absurd to believe that barbarous means would lead to civilized ends." It is no less absurd today...
As William Graham Sumner wisely wrote, "It is not possible to experiment with a society and just drop the experiment whenever we choose. The experiment enters into the life of the society and never can be got out again." Thus, although the wars eventually ended, society never reverted fully to the relatively freer status quo antebellum.
Every year, on Veterans Day, orators declare that our leaders have gone to war to preserve our freedoms and that they have done so with glorious success, but the truth is just the opposite. In ways big and small, crude and subtle, direct and indirect, war — the quintessential government activity — has been the mother's milk for the nourishment of a growing tyranny in this country. It remains so today.
