Might is Right

[AngloTeutonic]

I disagree. Success is best. Take whatever route leads to success. Sometimes this involves avoiding conflict. For example I suppose some of the heroic blood still pulses in my veins because as a child I never ran from conflict. I never felt any fear either. When people threatened me and expected me to back down I stood up to them. This led to me getting beat down by people twice my age, twice as big as me and in large groups against just 1. I think my bravery would work if I were part of a tribe or nation of people like me. But I've always been unlike most others around me and usually alone. Our culture does not reward bravery. If I was alive in Viking times all the women would want me, the men would respect me and I would gain great riches for my actions. Yet in modern times all you will get is in trouble with the law and broken bones. People today (mostly non-Aryans) do not fight honorably. Is jumping someone 3 on 1 for no real reason accomplishing anything? I learned thus to avoid fighting people because nothing is ever gained from it. Even if I win a fight I have nothing exept the satisfaction. I haven't gained any wealth or respect. Life can't really be boiled down to such a simple equation as you put it in or ragnar does.

Sometimes you fight with your fists sometimes with your mind. It doesn't always pay to be aggressive. So I agree to the extent- yeah have a backbone, yes stand up for yourself, yes don't be afraid of conflict, but at the same time learn restraint when there is nothing to gain from conflict. Or even be aggressive in other ways. Channel that energy into a college degree or making yourself more powerful/wealthy in this world. That thug on the street can threaten you with his fists, but you can control his job or have power over him in a much more sophisticated and intelligent way. Many of these little weakling unathletic Jews are the most aggressive people on the planet but they don't do it through physical confrontation but through being sneaky and business and all that.

Nowadays, because of modern society, laws, rules, and even nuclear bombs, war has been halted (to an extent!) and we live in times when might is not always right. It's not about always going and smashing someone's face in, but at the end of the day, ultimately, might is definately right. The Jews may not be super strong, but the have the super strong European American and Nato's militaries to back them up. Nowadays it's become a lot more about seductive language then about might, but without might, you are nothing.

[Nachtengel]

It has never been the survival of the strongest, but always the survival of the fittest. If might was right the Earth would still be populated by dinosaurs today and cockroaches would have long disappeared.

[Ashera]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/13327...olar_says_yes/

Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason?
Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes

By Naomi Wolf, AlterNet. Posted March 25, 2009.

Legal expert Michael Ratner calls the legal arguments made in the infamous Yoo memos, "Fuhrer's law.

In early March, more shocking details emerged about George W. Bush legal counsel John Yoo's memos outlining the destruction of the republic. The memos lay the legal groundwork for the president to send the military to wage war against U.S. citizens; take them from their homes to Navy brigs without trial and keep them forever; close down the First Amendment; and invade whatever country he chooses without regard to any treaty or objection by Congress.

It was as if Milton's Satan had a law degree and was establishing within the borders of the United States the architecture of hell.

I thought this was -- and is -- certainly one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, making the petty burglary of Watergate -- which scandalized the nation -- seem like playground antics. It is newsworthy too with the groundswell of support for prosecutions of Bush/Cheney crimes and recent actions such as Canadian attorneys mobilizing to arrest Bush if he visits their country.

The memos are a confession. The memos could not be clearer: This was the legal groundwork of an attempted coup. I expected massive front page headlines from the revelation that these memos exited. Almost nothing. I was shocked.

As a non-lawyer, was I completely off base in my reading of what this meant, I wondered? Was I hallucinating?

Astonished, I sought a reality check -- and a formal legal read -- from one of the nation's top constitutional scholars (and most steadfast patriots), Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been at the forefront of defending the detainees and our own liberties.

Here is our conversation:

Naomi Wolf: Michael, can you explain to a layperson what the Yoo memos actually mean?'

Michael Ratner: What they mean is that your book looks moderate in respect to those issues now. This -- what is in the memos -- is law by fiat.

I call it "Fuhrer's law." What those memos lay out means the end of the system of checks and balances in this country. It means the end of the system in which the courts, legislature and executive each had a function and they could check each other.

What the memos set out is a system in which the president's word is law, and Yoo is very clear about that: the president's word is not only law according to these memos, but no law or constitutional right or treaty can restrict the president's authority.

What Yoo says is that the president's authority as commander in chief in the so-called war on terror is not bound by any law passed by Congress, any treaty, or the protections of free speech, due process and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The First, Fourth and Fifth amendments -- gone.

What this actually means is that the president can order the military to operate in the U.S. and to operate without constitutional restrictions. They -- the military -- can pick you or me up in the U.S. for any reason and without any legal process. They would not have any restrictions on entering your house to search it, or to seize you. They can put you into a brig without any due process or going to court. (That's the Fourth and Fifth amendments.)

The military can disregard the Posse Comitatus law, which restricts the military from acting as police in the the United States. And the president can, in the name of wartime restrictions, limit free speech. There it is in black and white: we are looking at one-person rule without any checks and balances -- a lawless state. Law by fiat.

Who has suspended the law this way in the past? It is like a Caesar's law in Rome; a Mussolini's law in Italy; a Fuhrer's law in Germany; a Stalin's law in the Soviet Union. It is right down the line. It is enforcing the will of the dictator through the military.

NW: The mainstream media have virtually ignored these revelations, though it seems to me this is the biggest news since Pearl Harbor.

MR: I think that's right. We had a glimmering of the blueprint for some of this -- when they picked up Jose Padilla, the military went to a prison and snatched an American citizen as if they had a perfect right to do so.

Now we can see that these memos laid the legal groundwork for such actions. We knew the military could do this to an individual. We did not know the plan was to eliminate First Amendment constitutional rights for the entire population.

NW: If Bush only wanted these powers in order to prosecute a war on terror, why does he need to suspend the First Amendment? Isn't that the smoking gun of a larger intention toward the general population?

MR: Part of this plan was actually implemented: for instance, they tried to keep people like Padilla from getting to a magistrate. They engaged in the wiretapping, because according to these memos there was no Fourth Amendment.

They had to be planning some kind of a takeover of the United States to be saying they could simply abolish the First Amendment if the president believed it was necessary in the name of national security. It lays the groundwork for what could have been a massive military takeover of the United States.

Here they crept right up and actually implemented part of the plan, with Padilla, with the warrantless wiretapping. Yet they are saying in the White House and in Congress that it is looking backward to investigate the authors of these memos and those who instructed Yoo and others to write them.

But investigation and prosecutions are really looking forward -- to say we need the deterrence of prosecution so this does not happen again.

NW: What about the deployment of three brigades in the U.S.? How should we read that?'

MR: With terrorism as less of a concern to many, but now with the economy in tatters there is a lot more militant activism in U.S. -- the New School and NYU student takeovers, protests around the country and strikes are just the beginning. I think governments are now concerned over people's activism, and people's anger at their economic situation. I don't think those brigades can be detached from the idea that there might well be a huge amount of direct-action protest in the U.S.

There could have also been a closer election that could have been stolen easily and then a huge protest. Those troops would have been used to enforce the will of the cabal stealing the election.

NW: As a layperson, I don't fully understand what powers the memos actually manifest. Are they theoretical or not just theoretical? What power did the memos actually give Bush?

MR: They were probably, in fact almost for sure, written in cahoots with the administration -- [Karl] Rove, [Dick] Cheney -- to give them legal backing for what they planned or wanted to carry out.

What I assume happened here is people like Cheney or his aides go to the Office of Legal Counsel and say, "We are going to need legal backing, to give a face of legality to what we are doing and what we are planning." When the president then signs a piece of paper that says, "OK, military, go get Jose Padilla," these memos give that order a veneer of legality.

If you are familiar with the history of dictators, coups and fascism (as I know you are), they (the planners) prefer a veneer of legality. Hitler killed 6 million Jews with a veneer of legality -- getting his dictatorial powers through the Reichstag and the courts.

These memos gave the Bush administration's [lawless] practices the veneer of legality.

NW: So are you saying that these memos actually created a police state that we did not know about?

MR: If you look at police state as various strands of lawlessness, we knew about some of this lawlessness even before this latest set of memos.

But the memos revealed how massive the takeover of our democracy was to be -- that this wasn't just going to be a few individuals here or there who suffered the arrows of a police state.

These memos lay the groundwork for a massive military takeover of the United States in cahoots with the president. And if that's not a coup d'etat then, nothing is.

NW: Can I ask something? I keep thinking about the notion of treason. In America now, people tend to read the definition of treason in the Constitution as if they are thinking of a Tokyo Rose or an American citizen acting as an agent for an enemy state -- very much a World War II experience of the traitor to one's country.

But I've been reading a lot of 16th and 17th century history, and it seems to me that the founders were thinking more along the lines of English treason of that era -- small groups of Englishmen, usually nobility, who formed cabals and conspired with one another to buy or recruit militias to overthrow the crown or Parliament.

The notion that a group might conspire in secret to overthrow the government is not a wild, marginal concept, it is a substantial part of European, and especially British, Renaissance and Reformation-era history and would have been very much alive in the minds of the Enlightenment-era founders. (I just visited the Tower of London where this was so frequent a charge against groups of English subjects that there is a designated Traitor's Gate.)

So clearly you don't have to act on behalf of another state to commit treason. The Constitution defines it as levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. It says nothing about the enemy having to be another state.

When the Constitution was drafted, the phrase "United States" barely referred to a singular country; it referred to a new federation of many united states. They imagined militias rising up against various states; it was not necessarily nation against nation.

Surely, when we have evidence Bush prepared the way to allow the military to imprison or shoot civilians in the various states and created law to put his own troops over the authority of the governors and the national guard of the various states, and when the military were sent to terrorize protesters in St. Paul, [Minn.], Bush was levying war in this sense against the united states?

Hasn't Bush actually levied war against Minnesota? And if our leaders and military are sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, and there is clear evidence now that Bush and his cabal intended to do away with it, are they not our enemies and giving aid and comfort to our enemies? Again, "enemy" does not seem to me to be defined in the Constitution as another sovereign state.

MR: You are right. Treason need not involve another state. Aaron Burr was tried for treason. I do think that a plan to control the military, use it in the United States contrary to law and the Constitution and employ it to levy a war or takeover that eliminates the democratic institutions of the country constitutes treason, even if done under the president of the United States.

The authority given by these memos that could be used to raid every congressional office, raid and search every home, detain tens of thousands, would certainly fit a definition of treason.

This would be the president making war against the institutions of the United States.

Naomi Wolf is the author of Give Me Liberty (Simon and Schuster, 2008), the sequel to the New York Times best-seller The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green, 2007).

[rainman]

It has never been the survival of the strongest, but always the survival of the fittest. If might was right the Earth would still be populated by dinosaurs today and cockroaches would have long disappeared.

Common misconception. It is actually survival of the fit. Enemies of Eugenics say "fittest" to make it sound like the goal was to kill everybody exept one or to antagonize anybody that is not perfect. That is not true. One can be fit to survive but not the strongest.

[Neophyte]

"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue—and thoroughly immoral—doctrine that "violence never solves anything" I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms."

Wise words, from Starship Troopers.

And, please, do not confuse logically correctness with rights from a moral perspective.

[rainman]

You guys are missing my point. I'm not saying never to be violent. I'm not saying violence solves everything. All options should be on the table and the most effective used. Yet think first and do what is logical. There are many cases where might and violence does not work.

I think people need a simple one sided explanation of life rather than seeing the complexities and balance involved. Don't always love without condition, don't always hate without condition. Love those you have reason to love, hate those you have reason to hate etc.

[Vindefense]

Fighting is quick and right to the point. It requires a physical sacrifice, and since pain is involved, it forces people to pick the arguments they truly care about. It also solves a situation quickly and definitely. Sonny Barger

People who talk about how advanced society is, are clearly disillusioned. Modern society is made up of a bunch of weak, heartless snakes. They have no back bone, no spine. They will walk all over you if they think they can get away with it. And if you retaliate, they sue. Litigation has been the ruin of a once free people.

I am reminded of the standard portrayal of the Western frontier by such films like 'Deadwood' and Silverado. We are supposed to believe that since men could indiscriminately arm themselves (there were not legions of boys in blue to 'protect' them at that point) that violence and crime was rampant. Since hollowwood has spawned this image, most believe it to be true. Scholars, such as Terry Anderson and P.J. Hill disagree and wrote a book in 2004 published by Stanford University press: http://books.google.com/books?id=A77...result#PPP1,M1 Historical revisionism at it's finest.

I have been to University parties, where no one is armed and every one is discourteous and rude. On the other side of the spectrum, I have been in the opposite situation, and every one is nice and courteous. I prefer the latter any day. Might is the great equalizer and the ability to wield it separates the freeman from the thrall.

[rainman]

Actually law enforcement and authority do their best to keep people docile. They tend to go after the law abiders more than the criminals. I know one some guy fell and hurt himself when he was inside somebody's house robbing it and he sued the home owner and won!!

I'll give some stories of my own: in gradeschool on the play ground we always had these bullies that would hit people in the back of the head with a ball when they weren't looking. Then when the child cried or complained they would say its an accident. This same accident directed directly at someone's head occurred about every ten minutes of every single recess. I complained to the teachers repeatedly as did others. Nothing was done. Eventually I was hit, I saw that it was on purpose, I reported this- nothing was done. Couple weeks go by I watch people being abused I get hit again- nothing is done. I get hit again. I grab the ball and threw it as hard as I could onto the face of the person who hit me with it. It bounced off him. I grabbed it threw it as hard as I could on him again. And again. He fell on the ground and I continued to pounce him with the ball. He started crying, I continued to pounce him with the ball. I got two weeks of time out in a little box and no recess. This guy and two of his friends hit girls- everyone. For months. Never was once punished. I even saw him specifically take aim and could tell he purposely did it and told the teachers that as did others- nothing.

I've had people steal from me, steal from my roomate, break into my roomates car steal his credit cards and try to use them, threaten me, vandalize my property etc. each time the police have done nothing. In one case the guy was on probation for breaking into cars and stealing out of them and had not complied with several terms of probation. My roomate insisted that he stay with us because he was homeless and we had both been homeless at some point. But I tried telling him to throw this guy out cuz the guy wouldn't try to get a job, kept lying to us etc. Anyway the guy is on probation for breaking into cars and stealing, and he breaks into my roomates car and steals out of it. Obviously he hasn't learned his lesson and getting arrested the first time did nothing. His probation officer feels sorry for him because if they actually prosecuted him he would be spending most of his life in prison and he's only like 18 or something. But they did nothing. Well I found out he stole from me and I was going to kill him so I didn't see him around again. But I heard shortly after that he stole from someone else and got the shit beat out of him. Frankly I'm at the point I would never go to the cops for anything. I would rather risk getting sued or arrested and just on the spot I would beat the shit out of someone. They (the cops) even threaten me if I insist that they enforce the law. They also try to lie to you and be sneaky like no laws are broken. then I look up the law online and show it to them. You can't trust anybody in society today it seems. Yet I am led to believe that if I defend myself I will be arrested?? Then again many a cop have told me to take matters into my own hands. I don't know if they are trying to set me up or what. In my experience you are punished for being stronger or smarter. Not for right or wrong. If a retard punches me in the face- he's allowed because he's retarded. If someone attacks me and I beat the shit out of them- I get in trouble because I was stronger and won. If someone is stupid and steals from me and I knock his face into the wall- well its my fault because he can't help himself. That's the problem with society. We reward everything that is bad and undesirable. At least most people in authority do.

Yet if you are strong generally I don't think people will f*ck with you.

Another example I have worked at minimal wage jobs where every single employee was having money stolen out of their check by the employer. Not one would do anything about it. I alone threatened them and called the better business beaureau which sent me in circles as did the department of labor. Another similar incident with another job they fired the whole crew and replaced them with illegals and I called immigration and had them raided and they got a $5,000 fine. I noticed that typically people will not stand up for themselves or fight back. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that almost everyone is medicated both in school and in society and the female hormones and poisons put in food and water to make us docile. If you don't stand up for yourself you will be walked all over, but also you become weak when you keep weak company.

I agree society is mostly full of dumb, spineless cowards who generally are also immoral, dishonest etc.

[Neophyte]

You guys are missing my point. I'm not saying never to be violent. I'm not saying violence solves everything. All options should be on the table and the most effective used. Yet think first and do what is logical. There are many cases where might and violence does not work.

I think people need a simple one sided explanation of life rather than seeing the complexities and balance involved. Don't always love without condition, don't always hate without condition. Love those you have reason to love, hate those you have reason to hate etc.

I hear you, loud and clear. My point is that might is not only about physical violence, but to get others to act according to your will. Negotiation will accomplish that every now and then too.

Fighting is quick and right to the point. It requires a physical sacrifice, and since pain is involved, it forces people to pick the arguments they truly care about. It also solves a situation quickly and definitely. Sonny Barger

People who talk about how advanced society is, are clearly disillusioned. Modern society is made up of a bunch of weak, heartless snakes. They have no back bone, no spine. They will walk all over you if they think they can get away with it. And if you retaliate, they sue. Litigation has been the ruin of a once free people.

Indeed. I think that one of the greatest injustices done to humanity was the criminalization of duelling. If two free and honourable men want to fight each other that should be their business alone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL9BW...eature=related

[rainman]

I agree about the duel. That's another thing I pointed out in my book. It has a lot to do with the culture and religion. The Olympics was originally a religious event. Competition was central to our old ways. It effects the character of the individual but also the health of the genes and in turn the community as a whole. Warfare was a similar affair. A civilized competition between two sides involving rules. The old culture seperated war into two types: civilized war and uncivilized. There were two different words for it. Similar with knowledge there was the gnostic knowledge "I burned my hand on the stove so I know what hot is" and intellectual knowledge "someone explained to me what hot is so now I know" still found in the German language.

Though in duels might didn't always make right. People who abused their skill would be killed. It's in the Icelandic Sagas. What I mean if you go about challenging everyone just to gain wealth and have no regards for others.

Being civilized is might. Working together, being polite, retrained etc. An ant colony can take down a horse if it wants to. Brute strength is not the highest might, but civility.