[GJM] #852, Steve Consilvio On The just war theory

[Steve Consilvio]

There is nothing particularly Catholic about "just war theory," it is  
simply an expression of fear.  In fact, all legal agreements are  
based on fear.  If you go back and look at the treaties between the  
colonies in Massachusetts and Rhode Island that were made by the  
Puritans, for example, they are based on the fear of the Native  
Americans.  They were too self-righteous to live together, but they  
found common ground in their fears of the "savages."  Implied by the  
treaty is that it is "just" to defend yourself and kill your  
attacker.  This, of course, is the exact opposite of Jesus' teaching  
of "turn the other cheek."  These treaties were well reasoned, and  
not made under duress.  While it is understandable that somebody may  
react to violence with violence in the heat of the moment, these  
"learned" expressions (treaties generally) are the best examples of  
the propaganda of hypocrisy.  The unwise and powerful are always  
documenting their fears.

A better way to understand this is that the fears of the individuals  
become the laws of public policy.  People want the government to  
"protect them," so they can avoid doing the dirty work themselves.   
Of course, this doesn't end the dirty work, it just attempts to  
sucker somebody else into doing it  (the young males.)  Every society  
always has the same group as their warriors.  Parents lie to their  
kids by teaching them their own fears as truth.  The same would have  
occurred in the society of "barbarians."  Every society is the same.   
The colonists attacked the natives, the natives attacked the  
colonists.  New neighbors or old, fear and mistrust always finds the  
same expression.  Those who fear the same thing form a group to  
protect themselves against the other group.

In other word, Just War Theory is an expression of groupthink, but it  
is based on the fears that individuals have.  Because they fear  
losing their life and property, they are willing to risk their life  
and property to defend it.  This is the dividing point between the  
spiritually dead and the spiritually alive.  You cannot tell the  
difference by looking at a person, but the struggle can be exposed in  
what they say.  Every society has this fault line, and even every  
family.  (The story of Pocahontas, for example, and her father the  
chief who simply wanted to kill John Smith.)  There are many stories  
of those who seek to kill and those who seek peace in every society.   
The dividing point is fear.  Those who love their enemy have no  
enemies, whereas those who fear their enemies never run out of  
enemies to fear.  The contrast could not be more greater, and this  
contrast seeps into everything.

The Declaration of Independence, and Osama's lettter to America, are  
both expressions of just war theory.  They all come down to "it is  
better for you to die and for me to live."  Just war was also the  
intellectual bedrock of Hitler's Final Solution.

Every war is the same; it is two fascist's fighting one another.   
Both believe in just war.  They are actually battling their mirror,  
not their opposite.  It is important to realize that it is not  
countries, groups, parties, races or religions that go to war, it is  
simply individuals who are afraid acting in unison.

Fear forms all public policy, which is why Libertarians seem so crazy  
to the status quo of Democrats and Republicans.  Liberals and  
Conservatives have codified all their fears into laws, whereas  
Libertarians fear the laws themselves.  (A funny story: I once  
attended the state party convention for the Libertarian Party.  They  
confiscated my hand-outs and spent most of their time talking about  
by-laws and taking pledges.  I never appreciated Orwell so much as on  
that day.  Doublethink, groupthink and paranoia are the occupational  
hazards of all public endeavors, even of this group.  It is very hard  
to create a community of free-thinkers, who lack fear, and who have a  
consensus.  Even Jesus couldn't do it with the Apostles.  They locked  
themselves into a room after He was crucified.

All the locks and security in the world cannot keep out fear.  People  
carry fear within themselves, and there is no escape except letting  
it go.  Compounding the problem is pride.  People are proud of  
defeating their fears, which reinforces that what they fear should be  
feared.  Americans, for example, are proud of defeating the English,  
slave-holders, the Germans and the Japanese, but look at what it took  
to do so.  Now everybody is a slave of the federal government, we are  
the colonizing imperialists, and we were more ruthless than the  
Germans and the Japanese.  They only way to defeat somebody  
militarily is to be more ruthless than them.  Hitler was an  
inefficient killer, that is why he lost.  We are experts at it; we  
drop a nuke and do in seconds what he needed years to accomplish.   
The victor should be aghast at what he was capable of doing, but  
instead he is proud of what he did.  Men like the Swift Boat Morons  
are petrified of their mirror, and so are afraid of any criticism of  
the Vietnam War.  They don't want to see themselves as they really  
are (invaders,) they want to keep the fiction alive that they are  
heroes, just like their mommies and daddies told them before they  
left.  We need to love our parents, but not the lies they taught us.   
They make mistakes just like we do.

The only good thing about war is that the ones who survive are given  
a second chance.  Every war ends because the ability to wage war is  
eventually destroyed.  Only the rich wage war, because they have both  
the means and the motive to do so.  The tighter they try to hold onto  
their fears, the more they eventually lose.  A closed fist is like a  
closed heart.  It is important to recognize that the wealth people  
accumulate was first also a reflection of their fear.  (The rich fear  
to be poor, the poor fear to stay poor.)  The king lives well while  
the peasants struggle.  Every war is a civil war, and it spreads as  
other nations get involved.  The disparity in wealth is an economic  
phenomenon, but its roots are in fear and legal contracts.  The Earth  
belongs to God or to all men, yet men write deeds that claim they  
have authority over men and land.  They use force to make the claim,  
and they use force to defend the claim.  How insane is it to use  
force to defend a peace treaty?  Yet that is how the world works.   
There is nobody to "enforce" a peace treaty.  The UN is an attempt to  
have a government that watches over all governments, but then who  
will watch the UN?  The paper trail just keeps growing to new heights  
of absurdity.

Without virtuous men, there can be no virtuous society.  The wise do  
not need to be governed, and the unwise cannot be governed.   
Religions, governments and businesses are all based on the same chain  
of authority, and the authority is based directly or indirectly on  
fear and pride.  Just War theory is not just Catholic, or just  
applied to war.  It finds its way into politics as democratic theory  
(the majority rules) and in economic theory (right to property and  
profit.)  All are similarly based on "what is good for me is best."

It is, afterall, a pretty crazy idea to turn the other cheek in  
business or politics or war.  "What will stop the fear, pride and  
greed of men if I don't use my strength to overpower them?"  The 10  
Commandments are rules of personal behavior.  Men will either follow  
them or not, but we need to be most concerned with if we follow  
them.  The public laws of men are all written as exemptions from the  
commandments, just as just war theory is a philosophical exemption.   
It is legal to kill men, kill babies, print money, make profit,  
charge interest, evict families, imprison people, pollute, and  
confiscate (tax,) under every legal system.   All of these things  
have their root in trade and in the concepts of money and value.  The  
rules of war are the same as the rules of trade: Kill first and  
protect yourself.  While some Catholics may be enslaved by this  
thinking, there is nothing uniquely Catholic about it.  Ideas rule  
the world, and the same ideas (good and bad) are on many tongues,  
regardless of age, position, culture, possessions, etc.  We are all  
imperfect men living in an immoral world.  Bad ideas always arrive as  
good ideas, by virtue of their being new (to us,) but eventually they  
fail.

The commandments really do represent all the wisdom man has ever  
known, or needed.  It is impossible to improve on perfection, but it  
is easy to deny anything.  Just War Theory denies the commandments.   
In fact, it denies the very purpose of religion, which is for men to  
live in peace and plenty.  To love your enemy is the test for  
salvation, but it is also good policy.  God doesn't want to spend  
eternity with a bunch of frightened self-righteous hypocrites.  He  
didn't tell His Son to be a warrior, and to kill other sons.  And  
when God took the eldest from every family in Egypt, he was just  
trying to make a point.  The Jews were probably hated, and respected,  
as a result.  (Their God was real, not just a rock.)  Jews don't  
follow the commandments any better than the Christians or the  
Muslims, deists or atheists.  Everybody has a just war theory, and  
none of them are true.

We all reap what we sow.  So I try to sow love and forgiveness and  
mercy, because I want it for myself, too, and for everyone.

FYI: I am not saying anything new.
"If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land;
but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword."
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. - Isaiah 1:19-20

Utopia awaits our acceptance.  We are in the Garden of Eden, but many  
cannot see it.  We continuously re-enact Cain slaying Abel instead.   
The more righteous a man is, the more jealous others are.  It was no  
accident that Jesus and Socrates were condemned by a government.   
Governments (ie, the people that control them) are as afraid of  
virtue as they are afraid of hypocrites like themselves.  Between the  
two, there is always an apostate or heretic or barbarian or demon to  
"justly" kill, with a government celebration sure to follow.  The  
last war always provides a justification for the next war.

peace,
Steve Consilvio
www.behappyandfree.com

On TuesdayJan 8, 2008, at 6:46 AM, discussion- 
request at globaljusticemovement.net wrote:

>> Thanks again Steve.  Please send your comments
>> also on the role of Catholic Social Theory in forming US public  
>> policy.

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