War allows government to inflict more tragedies on people
Other tragedies inevitably trail in the wake of war. Politicians lie even more than usual. Secrecy and cover-ups become the rule rather than the exception. The press become even less reliable. War is genocide, torture, cruelty, propaganda, dishonesty,
and slavery. War is the worst obscenity government can inflict upon its subjects. It makes every other political crime - corruption, bribery, favoritism, vote-buying, graft, dishonesty - seem petty.
Source: Excerpts from Why Govt Doesn’t Work: “What is War?”
Jul 2, 1995
To keep US out of war, make war harder for politicians
To make America safer and to assure that we stay at peace, we don’t need to put more weapons in the hands of government employees, or to reform military purchasing methods, or to make more treaties with other governments, or to increase the military
budget. In fact, we need just the opposite of these things. We need to make it as hard as possible for politicians to involve us in war. And we need to create a defense system that relies as little as possible on the normal workings of government.
Source: Excerpts from Why Govt Doesn’t Work: “What is War?”
Jul 2, 1995
War destroys without resolving issues
It’s easy to ignore [past government] failures all about us as we imagine that the next scheme will operate efficiently and fairly. This blindness afflicts people still hoping to make the world safe for democracy. WWI didn’t convince them otherwise.
Nor did WWII. One can support the newest foreign military adventure only by ignoring the wreckage left by all previous military adventures. After the 1991 war against Iraq ended, many people continued to feel the US had been right to
become involved. Some of them said, in effect, “Going to war was the right thing to do, but it didn’t settle anything because the US didn’t go all the way and remove Saddam Hussein from power.” So, despite killing thousands of people and
spending billions of dollars, the war failed to settle matters. Why? because the government mishandled the project. But when has the government handled anything correctly? Was is just one more government program.
Source: Why Government Doesn’t Work, by H. Browne, p. 26-27
Jul 2, 1995
Click here for 14 main quotations from Harry Browne on Defense.
Click here for definitions & background information on Defense.
