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Stupidity At War

Me: I can't think of anything to say that doesn't make me sound like a 70s anti-war hippie... i wish this was something we could solve digitally or financially or something...

1: Yeah, I don’t like war either, I just don’t understand how someone can be so stupid.

Me: That's a strongly subjective statement. (also extremely vague. Am I the person who is "so stupid"? Not likely, but if so, why???)

1: Well, yeah, it’s subjective of course. And obviously, [National Leader P].

2: Power makes anyone stupid.

Me: I doubt it's stupidity. You don't acquire power by being stupid, our recent president's bearing notwithstanding - it could have been one hell of an act. You acquire power by being selfish, and every war or invasion I've ever researched has had a significant profit margin for someone very close to the people in charge. That's not a stupid reason to go to war - although it's intensely selfish.

I don't agree with the morals and values of the people who choose to hurt others. But there's no reason to for me to act as if I'm somehow different in quality from them - I am just as selfish in how i choose to support my own values.

And it's an assumption of mine that a war or invasion is "always" driven my profit. Someone always profits, but for instance in the case of 9/11, most supporters of the war in our country absolved themselves of the killing of 100,000 civilians of another country by claiming it to be "self-defense". Again, not something i agree with - especially because each parent killed created an enemy out of their children.

It's important to mention also, same as the US political climate preceding WWII, a not-insignifcant political faction in our country implicitly (or perhaps explicitly) supports [the instigative nation] now. That's part of why it's such a tricky conversation to have without devolving into insults and rhetorical quibbles.

I don't feel like it's too much of a stretch to say that the politics of the US drives the stability of the world. Before we start calling other national leaders stupid, we need to get our country put back together at every level - the duct tape and baling wire solutions of 'more patriotism' and 'there are no problems here' and 'common external enemy' and 'if I'm not aware of it, it's not happening' can only go so far against the national rising inequality and local corporate monopolies....

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