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No they cant.
Republic=power is in the hands of elected officials,
democracy=power is in the hands of the people

http://www.lexrex.com/enlighte...

Basically in a republic, the officials once elected can legitimately do what they like, even act in opposition to the peoples wishes, and also go against any promises of intent they made when they were elected.
That can't happen in a Democracy, at least legitimately.

Republic=power is in the hands of elected officials,
democracy=power is in the hands of the people

http://www.lexrex.com/enlighte...

Basically in a republic, the officials once elected can legitimately do what they like, even act in opposition to the peoples wishes, and also go against any statements of intent they made in order to get elected.
That can't happen in a Democracy, at least legitimately.

Republic=power is in the hands of elected officials,
democracy=power is in the hands of the people

http://www.lexrex.com/enlighte...

Basically in a republic, the officials once elected can legitimately do what they like, even act in opposition to the peoples wishes, and also go against any promises of intent they made when they were elected.
That can't happen in a Democracy, at least legitimately.

http://www.johntreed.com/sittingducks.html
"Are U.S. Navy surface ships sitting ducks to enemies with modern weapons?"

And I might as well add my usual "it's all ironic", which is my comment on the main article:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
-----
Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism

Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?

Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?

Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?

These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. Here is some dark humor I wrote on the topic: A post-scarcity "Downfall" parody remix of the bunker scene. See also a little ironic story I wrote on trying to talk the USA out of collective suicide because it feels "Burdened by Bags of Sand". Or this YouTube video I put together: The Richest Man in the World: A parable about structural unemployment and a basic income.

Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html

There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all.

So, while in the past, we had "nothing to fear but fear itself", the thing to fear these days is ironcially ... irony. :-)

So, how can we transcend militarism?

Simple persuasive rhetoric was tried, and failed, when Albert Einstein said, with the creation of atomic weapons everything had changed except our way of thinking.

The economic argument against war was tried, and failed; see "War is a Racket" by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler:
http://www.lexrex.com/enli

creating artificial scarcity with the tools of abundance http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

So, yes, with the trillions spent on the Iraq war, we could have made the US energy independent with solar panels, created household gardening robots, developed both hot fusion and cold fusion devices, and ended most cancer and heart disease in the US by encouraging better nutrition and exercise, and on top of all that built a space habitat. Instead hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, tens of thousands of US soldiers were crippled, sections of Iraq are radioactive wastes from Depleted Uranium, there are many children (both Iraqi and US) born with birth defect from the radiation and other hazards, there are now huge numbers of people in Iraq who hate the USA who did not before now that they have lost a family member and so are more likely to become terrorists, and so on.

Of course, a few people are richer or more politically powerful for all that suffering. As Major General Smedley Butler said "War is Racket":
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

So, yes, AC, as you say: "War on Earth seems to be holding us here." Or more generally, competition. See Alfie Kohn for alternatives.

Um No?
A Democracy is 51% or more can change everything.
A Republic has a core of laws that are not changeable by simple majority vote.
I realize that people are using the two interchangeably (out of ignorance or perhaps trying to move the Overton window) but they are NOT the same. True Democracy is a very short lived and violent form of government. In history Republics tend to be stable forms of government.
At the moment the US is a representive republic I am aware some people ignorant of what they are asking for have been clamoring for a true democracy. I very much hope they never get their way.
More details can be found here.
http://lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html

But as is suggested here:
"Gift Economy: Refuting the Market Logic "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy4hFVcl6Vo
we had a gift economy (and generally communal property ownership of hunting and gathering grounds) long before people started doing exchange-based economics. So, that is a missing part of most discussions about the emergence of money.

With that said, I do tend to agree that war can happen for a lot of non-material reasons (issue of pride, honor, internal politics, cultural clashes, and so on). Still, in general, "War is a Racket" driven by greed according to Major General Smedley D. Butler USMC:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

There may be always reasons why people are in conflict. But turning that conflict into large bureaucracies spending vast amounts or resources on the conflict generally means money is involved somehow someway. History is full of examples where people with different belief systems got along -- Ancient China, the North American natives, and even the past 200 years of life in New York City. :-)

This is not to disagree totally with your point on conflict. If you want to take that analysis up a notch, you could look into "memetics" and the evolutionary forces on "memes".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics

Along with the possible co-evolution of religious behavior with humanity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_origin_of_religions

You are using the wrong definition for democracy. This is confusing because it has a double meaning. You are using it in its broad definition of 'popular government', meaning elections. However, when people distinguish between 'Republic and Democracy', they mean the 'type of popular government', which is actually a more narrow definition.

So in a sense you are correct, but you are not referring to the same word that those you are trying to 'correct' are using.

http://lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html

One problem is that the latest "war of the da"y is always profitable to somebody:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

War is just not usually beneficial to most people who have to pay the costs (which includes the US taxpayer, as well as all the victims abroad or at home who were in the way...)

And so a society consumes itself, burning itself to the ground because every incremental step makes sense to the fire... Where are the "political" firefighters when we need them?

The truth may be more, why worry so much about nukes when biological weapons have been called "the poor man's WMD" and any large state could make them and hide them?

We need to move to a new model of intrinisic security and mutual security, as I suggest here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
    Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
    Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere? ...
    There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. "

There are few weapons in a conventional sense (drones, nukes, plagues, guns, etc.) that can not under fairly easily imaginable circumstances be turned against the wielder, either by taking it over in some way or by copying it.

But things like health, intelligence, creativity, integrity, and community -- these are some of the foundations of true security and they are very difficult to turn against the possessor.

Sadly, one other truth we must face is, as Marine Major General Smedley Butler said:
"War is a Racket"
http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

To move beyond that, we need to turn to "A Newer Way Of Thinking" like Albert Einstein called for:
http://anwot.org/

The only problem with your analogy is that there are literally thousands of private banks to choose from. If you don't like the service at BoA than go elsewhere, I used to be a BoA customer until they lost a few deposits, now I use another bank. As far as the DMV goes, I think 20 minutes is great, for the government, for private sector, that's an F+. The people who work for the DMV know you can't go anywhere else so there is no incentive to please you, they serve you at their leisure, and it shows. If a private business treated its customers like the DMV does it either has the monopoly on some product, like the DMV, or is hemorrhaging customers and won't stay in business long.

All commerce is created to please the needs of the customer, when the needs of the customer are ignored than the business will loose its customers to competing businesses and eventually change or fold. Everyone makes up their own mind, the bank that offers the best services at the lowest cost (i.e.: the most efficient) will gain the most new customers. BoA has a lot of old customers and is loosing more than it is gaining. Other banks and credit unions are gaining more than they are loosing. BoA sees this trend and they will either change their tune or go out of business like so many other businesses before them. Can you say the same for the DMV?

Read this short essay,I, Pencil: My Family Tree on economics. And of course read The Law by Frederick Bastiat for a real lesson if you haven't done so already.

First, to anyone who lost loved ones in the disaster, you have my condolences, as grief can still be fresh even a decade later, especially if it was a parent's adult child who died. My main point in writing this is to prevent more such disasters.

My wife flew home on 9/10/2001 from Washington, D.C. I can't think what might have happened had it been one day later. She attended a Genoa I workshop to talk on narrative methods and conflict resolution where someone said, "Maybe we should apply some of these ideas to thinking about that Osama bin Laden guy?" But it was too late to prevent what happened.

I agree with other comments here that in some ways 9/11 was Slashdot's finest hour as it kept working when other sites crashed under the load, and it was where I too turned for news updates. We lived near NYC at the time (we could smell the towers burning) and we lost reception on some TV stations with the loss of the towers. When the first tower fell, besides thinking about the sad loss of people, I recalled all the discussions on Slashdot previously on the attempts at encroachment on civil liberties, and thought, with the fall of the tower, so would fall our civil liberties, as those efforts would get the upperhand finally. I'm glad things have been not quite as bad as they could have been domestically, even if the amount of suffering caused abroad (like in Iraq) by the USA as it lashed out in a blind rage has been enormous (and to what end?).

It has been very sad also to see the USA develop some kind of immune disorder as it attacks itself in various ways (same as with asthma or arthritis) like with a war on the "unexpected".
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html

In the same way that the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D, can help moderate the human immune system, I can think that some sunshine on global issues will ultimately help heal them. But, as Stephen Zunes, a middle east academic scholar said after he tried to make people aware of what was going on with the Middle East and the USA but was accused of all sorts of things:
http://www.truth-out.org/legacy-911-and-war-intellectuals/1315608304
"Raising such questions was not popular, however. Detectives investigating a crime trying to establish a motive are generally not accused of defending the criminals. Fire inspectors inspecting the ruins of a building for the cause of the blaze are not accused of defending its destruction. Yet I found myself, along with scores of other Middle Eastern scholars, being attacked for supposedly defending terrorism."

Ironically, while many people still believe "they hate us because we are free" and that terrorists abhor our democratic values, the truth is more that "they hate us because we fund their oppressors" and if we had stuck to our democratic values in crafting our foreign policy, we might not have seen so much blowback. Sadly, the invasion of Iraq based on false information and broad misconceptions has likely spawned a whole generation of terrorists. As Smedley Butler, a Major General in the US Marine Corps, said, "War is a racket". So, some have said, Iraq and even Afghanistan were supposed to be quagmires.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

9/11 has brought the issue of security into the public consciousness in the USA. A big problem is that our mainstream view of collective security is not very advanced. In the same way Stephen Zunes says we need to think more deeply about the Middle East and our foreign policy, I'd suggest we in the USA need to think more deeply about what our notion of participatory democracy and how it could relate to collective security, including, for slashdotters' contemplation, how to prevent a cyber-9/11.

Towards that goal of moving such a dialog forward, here are some l

A war between the US and China would pretty much negate the US having to pay back all that debt, right? It would be a quick way to balance the books.

Read this.

It's a book by Smedley Butler, two time recipient of the Medal of Honor. This is an excerpt from a speech he delivered:

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

He also predicted Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. He's a man worth listening to. Personally the situation with China terrifies me.

"The problem is that government spends more than it takes it."

Due to borrow and spend conservatives launching war rackets of choice?
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Instead of tax and spend liberals who at least pay more as they go?

"Smaller government is not a bad thing."

Unless government is too small to account for externalities through taxes, subsidies, and regulation?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

And so we pay in our health bills and tax bills (and even inability to eat wild-caught mercurly laden fish) on the back-end the costs we should be paying up-front at the gas pumps and electrical outlets and supermarkets, in which case renewables would have been cheaper than fossil fuels since the 1970s and we would not be having such a health care crisis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

Or getting scammed by heart surgeons?
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx

And scammed by dermatologists who are causing by some estimates 30 cancers for every melanoma they prevent?
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer/

Due in part to lack of adequate investment in public health research?

Do US Republican generally wanting to privatize gains and socialize costs make them the worst sort of socialists?

"Also, Obama has no plan, he just criticizes other."

I agree that Obama has been a terrible president so far. He blew his chance to make big changes in the first few days by trying to negotiate with idealogues who would rather destroy the USA than lose an election. He could have just declared medicare covers anyone of any age his first day in office (as in, not enforcing age limits), and then moved on from there to ensuring everyone had a basic income (social security for all, withotu age limits) even if there are no more jobs, and moved on from there to bringing our troops home and shifting the US defense budget to the space program. :-)

Related:
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/mar/14/00017/
"This is no surprise, as [propertarian] libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then [propertarian] libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. ... The most fundamental problem with [propertarian] libertarianism is very simple: freedom, though a good thing, is simply not the only good thing in life. Simple physical security, which even a prisoner can possess, is not freedom, but one cannot live without it. Prosperity is connected to freedom, in that it makes us free to consume, but it is not the same thing, in that one can be rich but as unfree as a Victorian tycoon's wife. A family is in fact one of the least free things imaginable, as the emotional satisfactions of it derive from relations that we are either born into without choice or, once they are chosen, entail obligations that we cannot walk away from with ease or justice. But security, prosperity, and family are in fact the bulk of happiness for most real people and the principal issues that concern governments. [Along with health and community.]"

And:
"The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation"

See also: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm http://warisaracket.org/
"Written by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, Retired
        War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. ..."

Not a very funny joke though, at least not when your country is hollowing itself out over it and ignoring intrinisic security and mutual security or when your country is on the receiving end of a war launched for profit in the USA.

"They hated us for our way of life"

Well, technically, even though people tend to say:
      "They hated us because we were free",
the truth seems to be closer to:
      "They hated us because we supported their oppressors",
so, ironically, just the reverse of what many people try suggest about what has been going on.

If by "way of life" you meant "democracy at home, imperialism abroad", then, yes, I guess there would be a lot of truth to that.

According to a long ago New Yorker article, almost all the hijackers were Saudi males who were disenchanted with the Saudi regime the USA helps keep in power (to keep oil profits flowing to the right people).

Related:
    "Bush Admits 'Majority' of 9/11 Hijackers Were Saudis"
    http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/01/16/bush-admits-majority-of-911-hijackers-were-saudis/
"The breakdown was 15 Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese and two from the Union of Arab Emirates (UAE).
None were from Iraq. Despite this fact -- and the fact that Saddam Hussein was a secular despot who was despised by Osama bin Laden, a right-wing religious fanatic -- a poll two years after the attacks, and six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 70 percent of Americans believed Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks."

See also:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Center_for_Democracy_and_Human_Rights_in_Saudi_Arabia
"The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) is a (501)(c)3 non-profit organization established to promote timely and irreversible transformation of the existing Saudi autocratic institutions to a system whereby all Saudi citizens are empowered to chart a peaceful, prosperous, tolerant and safe future for themselves and for their religiously and economically influential country. CDHR was founded by Dr. Ali Alyami, executive director, in May 2004.[1] [2]"

I'm not saying the hijackers were for democracy; I'm just saying they were unhappy about their prospects in that society. You can ask how people like that get radicalized, and an oppressive environment (one the USA helped sustain) contributes to that.

See also:
    "Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire"
    http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Second-Consequences-American-Empire/dp/0805075593

And:
    "War is a Racket" by by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient, Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, Retired
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

I agree what is going on in airports is degrading security theater. Here is how we can create real security:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety") and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working"). "

"WWII was the best thing to happen to the US in its economic history."

Citation needed...

Counter argument:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/05/was-world-war-ii-good-for-the-american-economy.html
" Had trends persisted in the absence of war, employment, TFP, and labor productivity would all likely have been higher in 1942â¦housing construction was robust and growing in 1939, 1940, and 1941, and when the postwar housing boom emerged with full force in 1946, it took off from where it had been arrested in 1941. Since the failure of residential construction to revive fully was one of the major contributors to the persistence of low private investment spending during the Depression, its signs of revival in the years immediately preceding the war suggest that had peace continued, investment, output, and employment growth would have continued as the economy reapproached capacity.
        â¦There continues to be a popular perception that war is beneficial to an economy, particularly if it does not lead to much physical damaged to the country prosecuting it. The U.S. experience during the Second World War is the typical poster child for this point of view. Detailed research into the effects of armed conflict, however, has usually produced more nuanced interpretationsâ¦In that spirit, the research reported in this chapter represents a revisionist approach to the analysis of the Second World War, although one that is not entirely unanticipated."

However, it is true that the fact that the USA was the only major industrial economy left mostly unscathed by WWII did set the stage for major export-led growth in the USA in the next couple of decades.

But ultimately, the same could have been achieved with different social policies without the war and related death and destruction -- if we were more enlightened.

Sections of Iraq have been turned into a radioactive wasteland by US depleted uranium munitions, leading to high rates of birth defects. I guess its true that some people benefit from that (doctors? health care supplier?). But what a way to "build democracy".
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/falluja-cancer-children-birth-defects

War is a racket:
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

But it is also true, as I say at the link below, that "transactions of decline" can prop up a scarcity-based socioeconomic model that does not make sense anymore by creating artificial scarcity even when abundance is possible:
    http://knol.google.com/k/beyond-a-jobless-recovery

Maybe you would prefer to read this, by John Taylor Gatto, about the socioeconomic system the US drones are defending?
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit? In a great fanfare of moral fervor some years back, the Ford Motor Company opened the world's most productive auto engine plant in Chihuahua, Mexico. It insisted on hiring employees with 50 percent more school training than the Mexican norm of six years, but as time passed Ford removed its requirements and began to hire school dropouts, training them quite well in four to twelve weeks. The hype that education is essential to robot-like work was quietly abandoned. Our economy has no adequate outlet of expression for its artists, dancers, poets, painters, farmers, filmmakers, wildcat business people, handcraft workers, whiskey makers, intellectuals, or a thousand other useful human enterprise -- no outlet except corporate work or fringe slots on the periphery of things. Unless you do "creative" work the company way, you run afoul of a host of laws and regulations put on the books to control the dangerous products of imagination which can never be safely tolerated by a centralized command system."

Why not just get the robot drones to do the work instead of using them against opponents of a rapacious short-term-empire-minded social system based around the USA? And maybe get more people to accept that the answer to "Why do they hate us?" is not so much "Because we are free" but rather more of "Because we support their oppressors"?

See also, for something written by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC:
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been.
    It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
    A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. ..."

"We need to get out of these countries. It costs too much!"

I agree, but the problem is, in general, the people paying the costs are not the same people getting the benefits from the wars...
    http://warisaracket.org/
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

We won't move beyond war until we acknowledge modern warfare (like with drones) is mostly ironic.
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

Sure, you picked out some problematical quotes. Thanks for checking out the page.

And it's true that when a house is on fire, you may do different things than you do to prevent fires. But, the reality is that life and property losses are way down in the USA not because we have better firefighting techniques (although we do) but mainly because we design buildings and their contents differently and we have smoke detectors, fire prevention awareness training, and things like that.

There is always a huge risk going down the path of using fire to fight fire. Look what is happening in Israel/Palestine which has become an armed state full of many militaristic people who think "never again" is about being the toughest person on the block (fighting fire with fire) and not about preventing bullying and oppression where ever you find it (fighting fire with water and fire prevention). Where does it end? What has such a place become? And how safe is such a place really in the end? And I say that as someone who had relatives die in the camps in WWII. We, as a global society, need to learn other ways of dealing with conflict than violence. One resource:
"The handbook of conflict resolution: theory and practice" by Morton Deutsch, Peter T. Coleman, Eric Colton Marcus"
http://books.google.com/books?id=rw61VDID7U4C
"The Handbook of Conflict Resolution, Second Edition, is written for both the seasoned professional and the student who wants to deepen their understanding of the processes involved in conflicts and their knowledge of how to manage them constructively. It provides the theoretical underpinnings that throw light on the fundamental social psychological processes involved in understanding and managing conflicts at all levels--interpersonal, intergroup, organizational, and international. The Handbook covers a broad range of topics including information on cooperation and competition, justice, trust development and repair, resolving intractable conflict, and working with culture and conflict. Comprehensive in scope, this new edition includes chapters that deal with language, emotion, gender, and personal implicit theories as they relate to conflict. ..."

Consider the profit-making aspects that drive so much war:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Or the pyramid scheme aspects and political election winning aspects:
"How Germans Fell for the 'Feel-Good' Fuehrer"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,347726,00.html
"Financing such home front "happiness" was not simple and Hitler essentially achieved it by robbing and murdering others, Aly claims. Jews. Slave laborers. Conquered lands. All offered tremendous opportunities for plunder, and the Nazis exploited it fully, he says. Once the robberies had begun, a sort of "snowball effect" ensued and in order to stay afloat, he says Germany had to conquer and pilfer from more territory and victims. "That's why Hitler couldn't stop and glory comfortably in his role as victor after France's 1940 surrender." Peace would have meant the end of his predatory practices and would have spelled "certain bankruptcy for the Reich." "

Also, when looking back at history, sure one can pick the most pr

This reminds me of general issues with operant conditioning; you can't get a being to do something it won't normally do, but you can change the probabilities of different behaviors.

However, people are more complex than most other animals; it's hard to say how interventions can change the social dynamics. Just losing a war may have led to social change in Japan and German through introspection, regardless of what the USA did as an occupying force? How could one tell which was the bigger psychological issue, losing or being occupied?

I agree with the general idea in this thread that taking a strong state like in Germany or Japan and shifting its direction somewhat after a major military loss (towards making it less belligerent militarily) is different from forming a stronger cohesive system in the first place like in Afghanistan. Or, in the case of Iraq, there you had a long term civil conflict suppressed by an aparently strong state, and when destroying the state (as the USA did, although often things can be more hollow then they appear), then the civil conflict broke out (a religious minority dominating a majority leading to reprisals etc.).

On finding good situation-specific balances between meshworks and hierarchies:
http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
"Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation."

By the way, this says Rikyu was seventy at the time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sen_no_Riky%C5%AB

If you look at the UK, that was the world's previous (before the USA) big undisputed empire, and look at what the people are like now. That is maybe the future of the USA?
http://web.archive.org/web/20080119001830/http://www.adbusters.org/the_magazine/71/Generation_Fcked_How_Britain_is_Eating_Its_Young.html
""The reason our children's lives are the worst among economically advanced countries is because we [in the UK] are a poor version of the USA," he said. "So the USA comes second from bottom and we follow behind. The age of neo-liberalism, even with the human face that New Labour has given it, cannot stem the tide of the social recession capitalism creates.""

And part of why:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Thus the war on kids (through schools, originating in Prussia for military reasons) to turn them into soldiers and workers for a military-industrial complex, which is its own form of secular religion:
http://www.thewaronkids.com/
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html

Wars are almost never fought in the interest of the common man, they are a game of kings and cronies. Only the wealthy, politically connected elite profit from war.

In other words, war is a racket.

You wrote:

"Gates spends the money on the root of the problem, population control, then you won't have so many babies to die from disease, seriously there are 7 billion people on the planet and we aren't addressing population control but rather keeping more of them alive. We are in need of a 4 or 5 billion deaths from a super virus."

One can make arguments for an "occupancy limit" for the Earth based on aesthetics or some other issues, but the carrying capacity of the solar system is easily in the quadrillions of humans living in space habitats, and we have the general technology to do that (see Gerry O'Neill's work, for a start).
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill#Space_colonization

See also this Wikipedia page to see how the sun shines more power on the Earth each day also than all those reserves.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)

PV power is expected to reach widespread grid parity real soon now, even with all the negative externalities of fossil fuels (pollution, war, sickenss) being ignored.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity

(A recent earthquake in Indonesia released more power than all the planet's known fossil fuel and uranium reserves combined also, but we don't know how to harness that power yet. :-)

The empowered human imagination is the ultimate resource.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Resource

Would you be around, using a computer, and posting on slashdot if people a couple of centuries ago has said that we should keep the Earth's population at a hundred million to make sure we did not run out of wood for cooking fires and to avoid the problems posed by Peak Whale Oil? Or if ten thousand years before that, people had said we should keep the Earth's population at around a million indefinitely to avoid using up the readily available flint supplies too soon?

I'm not saying limits do not exist at any given time based on our knowledge and infrastructure. But, we are no where near those limits as fare as the solar system. I just did a calculation that the recend SN 2011b supernova released enough energy in a month to power a trillion trillion human intellects for 10 billion years. There are 100 billion such stars in a typical galaxy, and a 100 billion or more such galaxies in the visible universe. That's a lot of energy, even if we can harness only a tiny fraction of it someday.

We could easily support tens of billions of humans on Earth, with plenty of room for wildlife, if we used solar power and ate a healthier diet with a lot less animal products.
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Ask yourself, who might be making money off of selling you despair leading to your advocating for supergerms and a massive die-off of humanity?
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

People's feelings about this change sometimes change in different points in their lives...

This is not to deny there is some truth in what you say, echoed by Chris Hedge's point in his book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Force_That_Gives_Us_Meaning
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/War_Peace/War_Gives_Meaning.html

Still, war is only one thing that can help people find meaning in life. How about the issue of worrying about a big solar flare or a supervolcano? If you really want a challenge, why not help solve those sorts of issues? Or help design better space habitats? Or improve cold fusion reactor designs to power space craft? Or figure out how to get everyone on the planet fresh vegetables and fruits so they can afford to eat like Dr. Fuhrman suggests? Limiting the scope of your ambitions to fighting ironic wars with superweapons seems, well, not very ambitious. :-)

War is also a racket, by the way, just to be sure you know, acording to a very decorated military man:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"Written by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler USMC, Retired
WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. .."

So, you want to go to war to line some rich guys pockets?

Apparently, compulsory schools were mainly created to indoctrinate people to be part of the war racket, and to ensure they were trained to not see how they were being used. See either of:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm
"The particular utopia American believers chose to bring to the schoolhouse was Prussian. The seed that became American schooling, twentieth-century style, was planted in 1806 when Napoleon’s amateur soldiers bested the professional soldiers of Prussia at the battle of Jena. When your business is renting soldiers and employing diplomatic extortion under threat of your soldiery, losing a battle like that is pretty serious. Something had to be done.
The most important immediate reaction to Jena was an immortal speech, the "Address to the German Nation" by the philosopher Fichte—one of the influential documents of modern history leading directly to the first workable compulsion schools in the West. Other times, other lands talked about schooling, but all failed to deliver. Simple forced training for brief intervals and for narrow purposes was the best that had ever been managed. This time would be different.
In no uncertain terms Fichte told Prussia the party was over. Children would have to be disciplined through a new form of universal conditioning. They could no longer be trusted to their parents. Look what Napoleon had done by banishing sentiment in the interests of nationalism. Through forced schooling, everyone would learn that "work makes free," and working for the State, even laying down one’s life to its commands, was the greatest freedom of all. Here in the genius of semantic redefinition1

Yes, sadly, that is all true, it is usually easier to destroy rather than create.

But, it does not change the main point about the moral and practical choices we make every day as human beings and how they can be ironic and counterproductive if we use the technologies of abundance from an assumption of scarcity.

Also, I might argue that for some people, destruction being easier than creation makes it less of a challenge and so less fun. :-)

Or to put it another way, it is in a sense "easier" as far as total time involved for people to kill themselves than to spend a lifetime involved in life -- but generally most people decide that making the effort to be engaged in life is worth it because they have things about life they value (family, friends, hobbies, children, spirituality, sensuality, community, humor, honor, singing, dancing, eating, reading, writing, whatever). In fact, for most people, there is not even a choice -- our body just keeps going and keeps us engaged (barring depression, which can often be treated in various ways ranging from vitamin D, to omega-3s, to eating more healthy food and less junk food, to a positive spiral of social-talk and self-talk, and so on).
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1692444&cid=32644166

Our society needs to decide whether it wants to continue of the current (statistically likely) suicidal path of self-destruction or if it wants to reform. Why use the nukes, warbots, plagues and nanotech and whatever else to fight over what? Oil and slaves and racism and stuff, when we could just use the tech to make what we wanted? It remains ironic, even if it is indeed "easier" to just let the society destroy itself. Nobody ever said life was going to be easy. It is a choice.
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#Four_long(2D)term_heterodox_alternatives

Still, a deeper philosophical issue is that we apparently can't create without destroying something else (even just a different future possibility). So, reality is always throwing us curves in simple analyses. But, be that as it may, it seems stupid for everyone to kill each other off for a "racket".
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Also, on a practical basis, it is not normal for humans to kill each other without some specific heated emotional interpersonal quarrel. Soldiers in earlier wars like WWI rarely fired their weapons, and when they did, aimed to miss -- only a few soldiers way back when did most of the killing. It is only in the last 50 years or so that the US military and other militaries have refined their indoctrination techniques to be able to turn most human beings into killers of people they have no personal quarrel with. Though the military may not have given much thought about what to do with the killers after the wars are over (if the wars ever are over -- how many wars is the USA fighting now and when will they ever be over?) Now push-button drones make that even easier as soldiers in air-conditioned offices near where they live with their families are not apparently killing people -- they are just pressing a few buttons that affect fuzzy blips on a video game screen. Is that "progress"?

As Godfrey H. Hardy said in disgust:
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Quotations/Hardy.html
"A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life."

Freeman Dyson talks about that here:
http://books.googl

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"Written by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, Retired
CHAPTER ONE: WAR IS A RACKET

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. ..."

=====

Great poem.

Is a racket why the people "on the other side" "need killing"?

Part of how things got this bad:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm

See also, on the irony of it all:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

probably number in the tens of millions between health care, advertising, and agriculture.
Consider how easily deaths are preventable by good diet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw
And then look at what is subsidized:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/debunking-diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

Sector by sector one could go through the US economy and look at the suffering and deaths caused by corporate-friendly profit-oriented social policies (mercury poisoning anyone?). It may well add up to fifty million US Americans killed at least twenty to thirty years early. It's just someone dying in a car accident from lack of sensible land use policies, or someone dying from cancer from industrial toxins, or someone dying from heart disease from eating too much subsidized meat and processed wheat is not normally seen in the USA as a victim of government policy shaped by corporate interests. But they are just as dead as if someone had shot them. And it is not a good rebuttal to say other countries do as bad in other ways when the USA could have done a lot better with all its advantages...

What about the millions of people in the US prison system? What about the tens of millions who seek out illegal drugs to escape for a time from the USA?

And the risk still remains that we will all perish in a nuclear war or bioengineered plague, driven by a competitive war racket.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

Actually, funny fact. Protecting the right of the individual is the function of a republic and not of a democracy. Didn't even realize that until I read this a few minutes ago.

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html

But I take the meaning of your point and agree.

The irony of the total cost of nuclear weapons by the USA is that it is about enough money (by one estimate I read) to tear down and rebuild every building in the USA twice...

California has money problems right now -- a shortfall of, what, US$20 billion? According to here:
    http://www.statemaster.com/graph/mil_cos_of_nuc_wea-military-cost-of-nuclear-weapons
a total of US$2,139,150,000.00 has been spent on just California's behalf on nuclear weapons in the past.

What are we really defending here?
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

That sure would come in handy for CA right now, to have an extra two trillion dollars in their budget reserve (not to mention interest).

As Albert Einstein said, with the advent of understanding the power of the atom, everything has changed but our way of thinking. Thus my sig below about the irony of such advanced ultra-powerful tools of abundance in the hands of those obsessed with fighting over perceived scarcity.
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

I could believe it...

Of course, to understand part of why that was not done, it is important to note that Iraq was *supposed* to be a quagmire, because, according to, Smedly Butler, a USMC Major General "War is a Racket":
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. ..."

At least everyone in Cuba have access to medical care.
    http://www.hr676.org/

On your points:

"Go to work,"
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

"send your kids to school."
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.holtgws.com/

"Follow fashion,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-consumerism
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

"act normal."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

"Walk on the pavements,"
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about (shows how unusual that is)

"watch T.V."
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/
http://www.tvturnoff.org/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

"Save for your old age,"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html

"obey the law."
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

"Repeat after me: I am free."
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Any more? :-)

We get paid the same, war, or no war. We even get the GI Bill, without a war. Somewhere there is a lower class family who's son or daughter volunteered to defend this country, and hopes to someday get an education in return, and maybe a better life than their folks had. But, whatever, they are probably just greedy bloodthirsty goons bent on making a profit.

This thread was originally about profiteering, and now you're trying to claim that soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines make a profit from war?

Read this, douche.
  http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

I somehow doubt that the person complaining about people profiteering will give his entire combat pay to charity.

You need to be punched in the fucking head for that. I have a better idea, how about you and war profiteers go earn his pay? By earn, I mean do his work, and get his paycheck. I'll bet he would trade you for a few weeks.

The winner always profits from war.

Not necessarily. If I spend, say, $10 billion and win control over Sealand or another relatively worthless chunk of territory, I'm probably not going to win out in the end.

Winners can profit, but neutral parties who trade with both sides can often profit more. For instance, the Dutch made a significant profit as a major supplier of weapons for the Continental Army.in the American Revolution, without experiencing the violence and devastation that go with fighting a war. Most major corporations are effectively neutral traders in wars, which is part of why IBM could make a bunch of cash selling punch card systems to the Third Reich.

Or, you know, let Maj General Smedley Butler explain it back in the 1930's:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

If you're asking for a bt link for "War is a Racket", it's not needed. It's available in its entirety here.

Yeah, they are. I'm not sure about other countries, but in the US treaties are even higher than the constitution. Which I don't quite get, seeing as the power to participate in treaties comes from the constitution, at least for us.

No they aren't. This is the lie they want you to keep repeating until it becomes the truth.

The Constitution is supreme over laws and treaties; it expressly states (Article VI, Section 2) that: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land . . ." This means that any such Law (Act of Congress) which violates the Constitution is automatically made null and void to start with--nullified by the Constitution itself--and therefore cannot be a part of the "supreme Law of the Land." This is also true as to treaties.

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/limited_gov_treaty.htm

http://www.uhuh.com/control/contrump.htm

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=354&page=1

Fossil fuel costs for defense and pollution easily rack up into hundreds of billions of dollars per year. As suggested in the book Brittle Power in 1982, renewable energy has been cheaper for decades than fossil fuels (or nuclear) when you include *all* the externalities.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

We just pay for fossil fuel use through our taxes and national debt for the military, and through health costs from mercury pollution and other forms of pollution that lead to health problems (even wonder why much fish is now unsafe to eat from mercury?), systemic risk like of economic disruption or global war over oil, and so on.
        http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461

By the way, it takes more electricity and natural gas to refine a gallon of gasoline from oil than an electric car would need to go the same distance, so all that oil is completely wasted -- except it is profitable for some to fleece the public treasury.
    http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

GE had a cost-competetive production ready electric vehicle built from off-the-shelf parts built in the late 1970s -- you can see it in the Schenectady, NY science museum.

That our elected officials have allowed this public fleecing using fossil fuels, including the destruction of the health of our rivers, oceans, and humanity through smog and mercury, to go on since the Reagan years is an unspeakable tragedy of widespread corruption and ignorance which wider access to pubic records might help some with.

For the cost of less than one half-year of US defense spending the USA could shift to all renewables, eliminating the need for much of the defense budget.
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
    http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

As Jimmy Carter said in 1979:
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html
"""
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
    All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.
"""

It's not the energy reserves of Afghanistan that are significant in that war. It's the proposed oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea region that the oil companies, and Unocal in particular were after. They tried to make a deal with the Taliban, but the Taliban wouldn't play dice. So they overthrew the government using US troops, replaced the Taliban with Hamid Karzai, who had just so happened to have done some work for Unocal. Shortly afterwords, Karzai gave his approval for the deal.

Maj Gen Smedley Butler in particular is very enlightening about the real purposes and causes of war.

Thanks for the reply.

How is there a natural scarcity of materials when the Earth is so big, and the solar system is even bigger?
"Advanced Automation for Space Missions"
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/

How is there a scarcity of energy when the Earth receives 10,000 times what the human race uses from sunlight (and there are also vast geothermal energy reserves)? Nuclear missiles to fight over oil fields and land are so ironic, because the same technologies would let us build habitats in space or build solar panels (or nuclear power systems). For half of one year's US defense budget, the USA could move to entirely renewable energy sources with energy efficiency, and be way more intrinsically secure than depending on long supply lines that need to be guarded by soldiers.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

So, I'd suggest that when people fight over land and raw materials, it is mainly either through ignorance, lack of imagination,
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
or through some sort of racket.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

I'll agree with you that power over other people is a motivator for some people, but maybe we have to stop worshiping such people and start labelling that as mental illness? Another vision of an abundant society where that does not happen is James P. Hogan's "Voyage From Yesteryear":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear

Whether "people" are on top of the food chain is a matter of opinion. Bacteria and fungi eat humans in the end. And humans are roughly 90% bacterial cells by numbers and 10% by weight (mostly in the colon).

Maybe rather than create mind reprogramming technology, what we need to do is stop using the kind we invented already, which is present in compulsory schools, which were designed to create obedient soldiers and robot-like workers who would do whatever they were told, no matter how vile or boring:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm
"""
The particular utopia American believers chose to bring to the schoolhouse was Prussian. The seed that became American schooling, twentieth-century style, was planted in 1806 when Napoleon's amateur soldiers bested the professional soldiers of Prussia at the battle of Jena. When your business is renting soldiers and employing diplomatic extortion under threat of your soldiery, losing a battle like that is pretty serious. Something had to be done.
The most important immediate reaction to Jena was an immortal speech, the "Address to the German Nation" by the philosopher Fichte--one of the influential documents of modern history leading dire

Sorry, Wovel is still correct. It's more precise to say we live in a "democratic republic" than that we live in a democracy, and it's also correct to say we live in "Republic rather than a Democracy". Europeans will use the term "representative democracy", but internationally the US is still accepted as a republic. More accurately, as a Federal Republic.

My first piece of evidence, the pledge of allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands...

My second piece of evidence:
lexrex Democracy vs. Republic.

What dictionary did you pull your definitions from? You should know better. If you want proper explanations of a medical condition you won't consult M-W, you'll look it up in the PDR. If you want to know the difference in poli sci terms, you need a good poli sci encyclopedia (or dictionary if you can't find an encyclopedia).

Since I'm too lazy to re-type explanations from my own books, here are the entries from iAmericanSpirit.com:

democracy - government by the people; the rule of the majority. There is no precise definition of democracy on which all could agree. Even communist countries tend to call themselves democratic, and the mere fact that a government is elected by a majority of the popular vote does not of itself guarantee a democracy. A broad definition might include the following points (based on Thomas R. Dye and L. Harmon Ziegler's book The Irony of Democracy): Participation by the mass of people in the decisions that shape their lives; government by majority rule, with recognition of the rights of minorities; freedom of speech, press, and assembly; freedom to form opposition political parties and to run for office; commitment to individual dignity and to equal opportunities for people to develop their full potential.

republic - the form of government in which ultimate power resides in the people, who elect representatives to participate in decision-making on their behalf. The head of state in a republic is usually an elected president-never a hereditary monarch. A republic is founded on the idea that every citizen has a right to participate, directly or indirectly, in affairs of state, and the general will of the people should be sovereign. The U.S. is a republic.

(emphasis mine)

"Hey, why not disband the countries army then? Violence is not the answer, you know."

Military expenditure as percentage of GDP, Venezuela: 1.06% of GDP
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=venezuela+military+spending

Military expenditure as percentage of GDP, United States: 4.28% of GDP
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=usa+military+spending

With its larger economy, and if you included interest payments and all related expenses (including incurred future obligations like for disabled soldiers), the USA spends about a trillion dollars a year on the military, so the more accurate figure may be closer to 8% of the US GDP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

There is nothing wrong with spending some on security if the focus is mainly about mutual security (so, everyone feels secure and part of a mutual security community, as in "We're all secure together."):
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430
and intrinsic security (sustainable resilient infrastructure as civil defense, as in "We're secure in our core infrastructure regardless of typhoon, earthquake, electromagnetic storm, crop failure, plague, or bombs."):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

But the USA has pursued mostly a doctrine of unilateral security ("We're secure because you're insecure") and extrinsic security ("We're secure because we have soldiers everywhere guarding insecure installations.") This approach persists because it is extremely profitable for a narrow part of society, as two-time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler (USMC) said:
"War is a Racket"
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

For all the money spent, the USA is one of the most insecure countries on the planet (with long energy supply lines, long food supply lines, long goods supply lines, an unhardened and unecrypted civilian communications infrastructure, no comprehensive national health care system scaled for disasters, and in many other ways). This can't be fixed by spending more money the same way on more soldiers and more weapons -- the USA passed the law of diminishing returns on that decades ago. These fundamental insecurities can only be fixed by spending the money differently.

For example, for one half of one year's military spending, the USA could go all solar with improved energy efficiency and no longer have to defend oil supply lines:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
(while also improving human health and environmental health and creating many jobs). As part of that, free luxury electric cars to everyone in the USA would greatly reduce our taxes for defense and care of the sick:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

Likewise, for a fraction of one year's defense budget, the USA could put in place local flexible manufacturing facilities that remove the need to defend shipping lines to China, as I suggest here:
"21,000 Flexible Public Fabrication Facilities a

Well, I guess people agree with you that citing two experts in the field on child development and violent media and games is "trolling" in the context of a discussion on banning violent video games (people who outline a nuanced view if anyone bothered to look at the book). The link again:
"The War Play Dilemma: What Every Parent And Teacher Needs to Know"
http://www.amazon.com/War-Play-Dilemma-Childhood-Education/dp/080774638X

The "dilemma" in the title is the conflict between helping kids work through developmental issues about violence vs. sending a message about violence being undesirable. I wrote a review of that book here with the key points:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/the-war-play-dilemma.html
"""
From the table of contents, here is the list of topics in their "Guidelines for Resolving the War Play Dilemma" (each topic has a few pages of explanation and suggestions):
* Guideline 1: Limit Children's Exposure to Violence
* Guideline 2: Help Children Engage in Creative and Meaningful Dramatic Play
* Guideline 3: Learn as Much as You Can [about the media scenes kids view]
* Guideline 4: In Children's War Play, Address the Issues
* Guideline 5: Work to Counteract the Lessons About Violence and Stereotyping
* Guideline 6: Make Keeping the Play Safe You Highest Priority
* Guideline 7: Limit the Use of Highly Structured Violent Toys
* Guideline 8: Work to Counteract Highly Stereotyped and Limiting Gender Roles
* Guideline 9: Create an Ongoing Dialog Between Educators and Parents
In my own life, I grew up being taught in public school that I lived in a modern day Athens. As I've grow older, and paid more attention to politics and where taxes go, it feels more to me more like I live in a modern day Sparta. :-( Here is a long list of where many of our tax dollars have gone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_history_events
I was surprised to learn how long that list is, regardless of how one feels about the value of any specific event.
I've come to agree with the late Major General Smedley D. Butler (USMC Retired), based on his decades of combat experience, that "War is a Racket":
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"""

Whatever you think of the rest of what I wrote, please look into the issue of vitamin D deficiency I mentioned, both for yourself and to help your family or friends or neighbors:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/

Most slashdotters probably suffer from vitamin D deficiency, and it might help explain some of the increasing hostility and problematical posts here with people spending so much time indoors using computers, whether they are playing violent games or not:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/depression.shtml
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/mentalIllness.shtml
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/

But it is not just mental things; vitamin D deficiency can also contribute to joint pain, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, tooth decay,

Mutual security is a better answer than unilateral security (and even deterrence):
    http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430

Intrinsic security (sustainable, resilient infrastructure) is a better answer than extrinsic security (soldier-defended infrastructure).
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

The problem is that unilateral extrinsic security theater that actually is insecure and spawns more enemies (like in Iraq) is very profitable, according to a US Major General:
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

So, we may need to move to a society that is moving beyond the profit motive to have true security. To do that, we need a basic income, an expanding gift economy, improved local subsistence with 3D printing and organic gardening, more resource-based planning, a push to turn work into play, and other similar things, if we are to be reasonably secure. As long as war is profitable and profits are worshiped, we will have endless war.

Censoring the games won't fix that. People tend to turn to addictive behavior when they are under stress.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
We need to improve society so there is less bad stress. One part of that is improving general human health now that we all spend so much time indoors:
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
Another part is making sure everyone feels secure in the basics.
    http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms
And then more things flow from there.

It's been said by Major General Smedly Butler that War is a Racket:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Well, another racket is the unhealthy alliance between toymakers and media makers, a racket that started with deregulation of children's media under the "family values" Reagan Administration. That racket has destroyed big chunks of healthy childhood for many young boys:
"The War Play Dilemma: What Every Parent And Teacher Needs to Know"
http://www.amazon.com/War-Play-Dilemma-Childhood-Education/dp/080774638X

One of the authors of that book suggests a similar unhealthy alliance has make a lot of money harming young girls as a racket, too:
"So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids"
http://www.amazon.com/So-Sexy-Soon-Sexualized-Childhood/dp/0345505077

Also, an indirectly related book from the time just before the first September 11th (in Chile in 1973):
"How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic"
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Donald-Duck-Imperialist/dp/0884770230

With that said, I don't think banning is the answer. Money poured into alternatives and discussion is probably a better solution. Alfie Kohn's work is a good start for such discussion (beyond the above books):
"No Contest: The Case Against Competition"
http://www.share-international.org/archives/cooperation/co_nocontest.htm
http://www.amazon.com/No-Contest-Case-Against-Competition/dp/0395631254
"Contending that competition in all areas -- school, family, sports and business -- is destructive, and that success so achieved is at the expense of another's failure, Kohn, a correspondent for USA Today, advocates a restructuring of our institutions to replace competition with cooperation. He persuasively demonstrates how the ingrained American myth that competition is the only normal and desirable way of life -- from Little Leagues to the presidency -- is counterproductive, personally and for the national economy, and how psychologically it poisons relationships, fosters anxiety and takes the fun out of work and play. He charges that competition is a learned phenomenon and denies that it builds character and self-esteem. Kohn's measures to encourage cooperation in lieu of competition include promoting noncompetitive games, eliminating scholastic grades and substitution of mutual security for national security."

Another related book to understand how it all went so wrong:
"Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose"
http://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X

Also, curing vitamin D deficiency that people get from staying indoors too much playing games or even just reading is probably more important:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

Also, kids need to learn the irony that in a world full of fancy computers and advanced manufacturing (like depicted in many such violent games), fighting over land or oil is just ironically stupid, instead of using that technology to make the world work for everyone. The unrecognized irony is more deadly than those games.

An Important Distinction: Democracy versus Republic

Do YOU know the pledge of Allegiance?

interesting history that you may like - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance
but in all versions we are (supposed to be) a republic

WHY?

It is important to keep in mind the difference between a Democracy and a Republic, as dissimilar forms of government. Understanding the difference is essential to comprehension of the fundamentals involved. It should be noted, in passing, that use of the word Democracy as meaning merely the popular type of government--that is, featuring genuinely free elections by the people periodically--is not helpful in discussing, as here, the difference between alternative and dissimilar forms of a popular government: a Democracy versus a Republic. This double meaning of Democracy--a popular-type government in general, as well as a specific form of popular government--needs to be made clear in any discussion, or writing, regarding this subject, for the sake of sound understanding.

These two forms of government: Democracy and Republic, are not only dissimilar but antithetical, reflecting the sharp contrast between (a) The Majority Unlimited, in a Democracy, lacking any legal safeguard of the rights of The Individual and The Minority, and (b) The Majority Limited, in a Republic under a written Constitution safeguarding the rights of The Individual and The Minority; as we shall now see.

A Democracy

The chief characteristic and distinguishing feature of a Democracy is: Rule by Omnipotent Majority. In a Democracy, The Individual, and any group of Individuals composing any Minority, have no protection against the unlimited power of The Majority. It is a case of Majority-over-Man.

A Republic

A Republic, on the other hand, has a very different purpose and an entirely different form, or system, of government. Its purpose is to control The Majority strictly, as well as all others among the people, primarily to protect The Individual's God-given, unalienable rights and therefore for the protection of the rights of The Minority, of all minorities, and the liberties of people in general. The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution--adopted by the people and changeable (from its original meaning) by them only by its amendment--with its powers divided between three separate Branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Here the term "the people" means, of course, the electorate.

Read the full article at: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html

much more GOOD reading to understand the 'founding fathers' intent can be gained by investigating further: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/index.html

and a quote from another that seems to be appropriate to show what forgetting 'REPUBLIC' has gotten us

You never were taught early democratic history have you? The Greeks were the first ones to identify the weaknesses inherent in democracy.

And the biggest weakness is, indeed, it all starts falling apart when the regular folk realize that they can vote themselves raises and are swayed by skillful politicians who promise to fulfill those desires.

The other major weakness, is of course, a fully democratic nation is easily directed by mass hysteria.. that is a country will typically go huge, rather temporary, swings in political opinion that has more to do with emotion then reason. For example: 9/11 or the stock market crash. Then again, skillful politicians can leverage this temporary lack of reason to rush through laws and garner more power in a short time.

That's why the USA (with the longest lasting democracy so far) was originally designed with a very weak and ineffect

An Important Distinction: Democracy versus Republic

Do YOU know the pledge of Allegiance?

interesting history that you may like - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance
but in all versions we are (supposed to be) a republic

WHY?

It is important to keep in mind the difference between a Democracy and a Republic, as dissimilar forms of government. Understanding the difference is essential to comprehension of the fundamentals involved. It should be noted, in passing, that use of the word Democracy as meaning merely the popular type of government--that is, featuring genuinely free elections by the people periodically--is not helpful in discussing, as here, the difference between alternative and dissimilar forms of a popular government: a Democracy versus a Republic. This double meaning of Democracy--a popular-type government in general, as well as a specific form of popular government--needs to be made clear in any discussion, or writing, regarding this subject, for the sake of sound understanding.

These two forms of government: Democracy and Republic, are not only dissimilar but antithetical, reflecting the sharp contrast between (a) The Majority Unlimited, in a Democracy, lacking any legal safeguard of the rights of The Individual and The Minority, and (b) The Majority Limited, in a Republic under a written Constitution safeguarding the rights of The Individual and The Minority; as we shall now see.

A Democracy

The chief characteristic and distinguishing feature of a Democracy is: Rule by Omnipotent Majority. In a Democracy, The Individual, and any group of Individuals composing any Minority, have no protection against the unlimited power of The Majority. It is a case of Majority-over-Man.

A Republic

A Republic, on the other hand, has a very different purpose and an entirely different form, or system, of government. Its purpose is to control The Majority strictly, as well as all others among the people, primarily to protect The Individual's God-given, unalienable rights and therefore for the protection of the rights of The Minority, of all minorities, and the liberties of people in general. The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution--adopted by the people and changeable (from its original meaning) by them only by its amendment--with its powers divided between three separate Branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Here the term "the people" means, of course, the electorate.

Read the full article at: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html

much more GOOD reading to understand the 'founding fathers' intent can be gained by investigating further: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/index.html

and a quote from another that seems to be appropriate to show what forgetting 'REPUBLIC' has gotten us

You never were taught early democratic history have you? The Greeks were the first ones to identify the weaknesses inherent in democracy.

And the biggest weakness is, indeed, it all starts falling apart when the regular folk realize that they can vote themselves raises and are swayed by skillful politicians who promise to fulfill those desires.

The other major weakness, is of course, a fully democratic nation is easily directed by mass hysteria.. that is a country will typically go huge, rather temporary, swings in political opinion that has more to do with emotion then reason. For example: 9/11 or the stock market crash. Then again, skillful politicians can leverage this temporary lack of reason to rush through laws and garner more power in a short time.

That's why the USA (with the longest lasting democracy so far) was originally designed with a very weak and ineffect

Thanks. I've enjoyed our dialogue.

On your point, while I like the metaphor, we are not talking about real tapeworms. We are talking about human beings with a certain culture and a certain ideology that make them act like tapeworms. And we are talking about others who help them to be parasites through ignorance or not thinking they have options. How many kids join the military due to the "economic draft"?
http://www.workers.org/us/2005/economic-draft-0303/
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/War_Peace/Economic_Draft.html

And sure, many parasites got these wars going precisely so they could get a bit of the action, one dollar in their pocket for ever thousand dollars of tax payer money wasted. A key idea here:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

A good sci-fi book on this broader theme of abundance and war is James P. Hogan's 1982 novel "Voyage from Yesteryear".
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear

As he points out there, the tapeworms as you mention will not get much support if everyone else has abundance. Besides, in a word of abundance, if some "lunatic" wants to build self-replicating space habitats on the Moon, why worry about it? There would be plenty of energy and stuff to go around, and it might provide some amusement.

So, ask yourself, why do people want to be tapeworms? And why do others go along with their plans?

I think key issues are "ignorance" and "want":
"A Christmas Carol: Ignorance and Want"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6MFN8yiVc0

But it is precisely abundance from the internet and robotics that may end ignorance and want.

So then, we are left mainly with the issue of mental illness to have people causing wars. Adequate vitamin D from supplements or sunshine can help relieve a lot of that too:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/mentalIllness.shtml

More resources for families could help relieve some of it too:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene
"Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind's phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail--but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society's most creative, successful, and happy people."

Hitler wanted to be a painter for example:
"Adolf Hitler painting may have hung in Sigmund Freud's surgery"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7221058/Adolf-Hitler-painting-may-have-hung-in-Sigmund-Freuds-surgery.html
Would he have turned to politics if he had not had to worry about selling his paintings?

Will the world always have a problem with bullies and the mentally ill who hoard w

Drones are already being used in the USA for border patrol (including in my own state):
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=1727873
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/us/08drone.html

So, these killer robots are already being used within the USA. It is claimed they are unarmed for now (ignoring that the military could fly them into things just like Joe Stack did).

These incremental small things are just more steps to Skynet or worse. Why object to a few unarmed test drone flights in US border states? Such a big fuss about nothing, and the borders need to be inspected to prevent terrorists from coming in and taking our freedoms and lives and property. And, then, well, if we're guarding the borders, it would be foolish to not have the things armed, in case the next Joe Stack tries to fly in from Canada or Mexico, or if they found other real trouble and there was no one else around. And because they are so useful and give us such a sense of security, of course we need more of them... And with so many in the air, if they were more automated, they would be more reliable and one soldier could run more at once, more like an air traffic controller than a pilot... And since people make mistakes, well, why not automate the traffic control part as the next logical step to securing our airspace? Every step makes sense. Every step has no alternative.

And, most importantly, every step makes profits for somebody somewhere.
"War is a Racket: by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler"
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. ... A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war."

Major General Butler has some suggestions, but they did not work apparently. So, we may need to make other changes to our overall economic system to remove the profit motive from national security work before it destroys us all. We can move towards a basic income so people don't feel they have to turn to the military just for a basic living (and so anyone who does go into it will be interested in true national security, not a paycheck). Or we can move towards a gift economy, better local subsistence production by 3D printing, or better resource-based planning, or other possibilities. All of these would take the same sorts of technology that goes into Predator drones (like networked communications, advanced materials, computers, image processing, robotics, teamwork, nanotech, and more) and use them for more human ends as well as real mutual intrinsic security, not "security theater".

As Albert Einstein said of nuclear weapons, and is as true or more of smart killer robots:
http://www.heartquotes.net/Einstein.html
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watc

This is all very ironic, as I mention here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005991.html

So, the US military, once again, in a tremendous burst of irony, is developing ways to create artificial scarcity on the network of abundance. And they are justifying this to have new ways to further harm the people upset about being harmed by the illegal and immoral US invasion of Iraq.
"Illegal, Immoral Invasion of Iraq to Carve up the Middle East"
http://www.mediamonitors.net/abdullahvawda16.html

So, one illegal and immoral act begets another. One artificial scarcity begets another. One arms race, fueled by war profits, begets another.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

How do we resolve this seemingly intractable problem?

Mutual security?
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430

Intrinsic security?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Humor? :-)
http://www.humorproject.com/doses/default.php?number=1

Jacque Fresco comments on some of this, as far as the problems of way being profitable, as I note here:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/3b7889054e4b4317

So, after the US military gets all these shiny new cyberweapons, who are they going to use them against next? Who will be the next people labeled "insurgents"? Or goaded into it by suffering from other military-enforced artificial scarcities?

Anyway, people ask me why I don't just post to a blog, and prefer to use email, and that's part of it. All web archives and other websites may be taken out once that "arms race" really gets going and military doctrinal TINA rules: "There is no alternative (but to destroy everything)".

Generally, a core theme of what I write is the irony of post-scarcity technology like computers and robots or nuclear power in the hands of people still thinking in terms of scarcity, like fighting over products or oil instead of producing products with robots and producing energy with nuclear power or solar power made using advanced materials. Example:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005929.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005498.html

As I mention in that last one, for an example of post-scarcity thinking, I think our taxes would go *down* if as I proposed here, everyone in the USA who wanted one was given a "free" safer luxury electric car:
"Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en
Basically, defense costs, pollution mediation costs, and medical costs would all go down enormously, thus lowering taxes.

More ironically, it turns out, it takes more electricity to make a gallon of gas than for an electric car to go the same distance, according to this:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that g

Maj Gen Smedley Butler (yes, that's his real name) put it best:
War is a Racket

General Butler has another notable footnote in history, bringing to the attention of Congress and the military the alleged Business Plot to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt.

You are engaging in an ad hominem (personal) attack and creating strawmen arguments, and saying there is no point to dialog, which all suggests your points are weak.

The term "financial obesity" comes from the author James P. Hogan, who is one of the most optimistic people around, believing strongly in the value of learning and effort and advanced technology. Example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear

But even market capitalism cannot function if wealth is too centralized. You'd be right that physical wealth is not a zero sum game -- but financial wealth can be a zero sum game especially when you make it so by using financial wealth techniques to create artificial scarcity -- like monopolistic techniques that have been found by multiple courts to be illegal even under legal systems designed to support artificial scarcity.

The central irony of today's society is how often post-scarcity technologies like automation, robotics, the internet, biotech, nuclear energy, and even bureaucracy are used to create artificial scarcities for someone's private gain instead of abundance for all.

War is part of that, whether military war or economic war:
"WAR IS A RACKET" by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler - USMC Retired
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

I did not use the word "guilt"; you did. Maybe Bill Gates sees problems in a world still threatened by nuclear war, by bioengineered plagues (perhaps weaponized Lyme like President Bush got?), by killer robots like the drones that allegedly killed children in Pakistan by an order given within three days of Obama taking office, where billions of people still live in poverty and diseases despite enough global abundance for all, and in the middle of an enormous global financial collapse?

Bill Gates knows something is wrong, just like Alan Greenspan admitted something was wrong, but he just does not understand it, because, as Einstein said, problems usually can not be solved by the same type of thinking that created them (your reply being an example? :-).
"I Was Wrong! Alan Greenspan"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55-A1-D3MR0

For many years, Forth was a better OS, language, and editor than MS-DOS and BASIC. Bill Gates only got a chance to build on IBM's monopoly because of internal fighting within IBM and also his mother's social connections. Then, after that, QNX was a better OS. Smalltalk was better too as a language and IDE, and Bill Gates even admitted that somewhere. But monopolistic practices let Bill Gates succeed while technically better solutions failed in the market.

Our society often socializes external costs and systemic risks, while privatizing gains (like the recent banking bailout instead of just giving money to the people to spend). And above are links to three people, a successful author, a decorated military general, and the previous director of the Federal Reserve, all essentially saying that. But, when someone tries to point out stuff like that, you say they have a "poisoned soul", without knowing anything about them, and without in the slightest trying to evaluate the historical truths they point to.