John Lindal’s Blog

Politics

August 23, 2006 on 2:20 pm | In Deep Thoughts | No Comments

I remember many years ago, a friend of mine opined that Israel really did belong to the Jews now, by right of conquest. One of my current co-workers believes that the United States should invade the Middle East and just take the oil. Oh, and to be fair, pay the folks who live there what the United States thinks is a reasonable price, and heck, even donate part of the proceeds to charity.

If these opinions make you sick to your stomach, but you’re not sure why, or if you think they sound reasonable, allow me to explain…

Both of these opinions are based on the principle that Might Makes Right. The Jews were given Israel by the Powers of the time — the winners of World War II. Invading the Middle East to get oil is fine because the United States military is stronger than the militaries in the Middle East.

The problem with this principle is that it leads first to Anarchy, and then to Totalitarian Military regimes. If you’re lucky, the period of anarchy won’t last very long, like what happened in the French and Russian revolutions. Of course, Robespierre probably killed more people than the preceding anarchy, and Stalin definitely killed more Russians than Hitler managed to. But it’s still usually easier to survive under a government, no matter how bad, than in total chaos, like what is currently going on in several African nations, where no single group has enough firepower to take over, so Anarchy reigns supreme.

Of course, some people will claim that, as long as one is top dog, there is nothing to worry about, because you’re giving the beating, not receiving it. Unfortunately, they fail to realize that nobody wins during a period of anarchy. Just remember the World Trade Center…

But why not at least fight back using the same tactics as the terrorists? Currently, only the fringe terrorist groups are using these tactics. Everybody else agrees that they are Evil. On the whole, the United States is still barely able to claim the moral high ground. However, if the United States were to adopt all-out terrorist tactics, this would provide justification for everybody else to do so, too, and the resulting free-for-all would be truly devastating.