Oh, as one does, I just stumbled across the Seville Satement on Violence, something a bunch of brain experts came up with refuting the thesis that war is natural or part of human nature:

http://www.jalt.org/global/newsletter/26stereo.htm

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Shawn

Once again, that’s why we need Ron Paul as US President. He’s the only presidential candidate vehemently opposed to the invasion of Iraq and a consistent non-interventionist foreign policy platform.

No… there were several vehemently opposed people running in the hopeless parties. The US rejected them. They rejected them in 2000 and 2004 as well. I had some VERY stupid neighbours but not one of them was going to waste a vote on a minor party.

There’s no point at all to a NZ ACT supporter who doesn’t have a vote in the USA, worrying about whether a minor party candidate there can stage a miraculous revolution and change the course of history retrospectively.

BJ

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Shawn Tan said: Actually, Rodney has sinced recognised that invading Iraq was wrong and a mistake.

Fine in hindsight Shawn, but it does say something about his judgment on foreign policy issues that he supported it at the time.

If there had been a National-ACT Government at the time the US cobbled together the Coalition of the Killing we would still be mired there and the body bags would still be coming home.

Oh, and the Greens would be polling 15% plus.

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“Well Sam, you have the first prerequisite for war, a self righteous belief that you are some how more enlightened than those that have gone before you.”

Nope – 98 percent of my predecessors didn’t instigate wars either. Some of them got dragged along kicking and screaming, many slipped off home first chance they got. Most of the rest kept their heads down and did as little as possible in the way of fighting and yearned for it all to be over. Hardly a sign of war being inherent in human nature.

“To date, human history has never been free from warfare, and a naive belief that we are above that sort of thing in our luxuriant western life style is exactly the requirement for history to repeat it self.”

Twaddle. Miost of human history has been free of warfare, otherwise we would never have got anywhere. For most societies at most times, war has been brief and relatively low key.

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Actually, Rodney has sinced recognised that invading Iraq was wrong and a mistake.

Once again, that’s why we need Ron Paul as US President. He’s the only presidential candidate vehemently opposed to the invasion of Iraq and a consistent non-interventionist foreign policy platform.

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Thanks Sapient I will have a look at that.
You better not break any copyright laws, you never know who’s watching

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Frog wrote:
“Certainly our troops are in there doing their bit to clean up the mess, rather than making more mess”

I have taken the trouble to listen to your troops, and they have spoken to me with considerable candour. Despite your regime’s attempts to obscure the reality, the truth of the matter is that all your efforts to subjugate Afghanistan – efforts that go back to the nineteenth century – are doomed to fail. While your regime’s rather unoriginal propaganda line is that “Our soldiers are welcomed by the people of Afghanistan” your own soldiers’ admit that “The kids throw stones at us and their parents give us the evil eye”. You are hardly winning hearts and minds out there.

Unless you make the decision to cut and run from Afghanistan, as you did from Iraq, your soldiers will die ingloriously, just as they did in Vietnam. I would not be unhappy to see your regime suffering yet another military defeat, but it would give me no pleasure to see your soldiers maimed and killed in a vain attempt to realize the imperial ambitions of foreign powers. So do the sensible thing, frog, and get your troops out of Afghanistan while there is still time.

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shunda,
im not sure how you access books on google books but this book is writen by robert sternburg, he is one of the leading psychologists on hate and to a lesser extent on love and inteligence. though he does have a certain obsesion with triangles having come up with several “triarchic theories”, lol;
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=fkWiHgAACAAJ&dq=the+psychology+of+hate+sternberg

I will download some pdf’s just incase you give me somewhere to upload them to, though i suspect that may break several copryright laws, lol.

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“you need a subscription or to be a student at a university with a subscription to read them.”

Sometimes I wish I had gone to uni.
bugga.

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“The republicans mearly become something that draws my fire because almost everything that they support and the reasons for which they support that are amost exactly contradictory to what I beleive the world needs inorder to progress most efficently.”

I would probably almost agree with you there, certainly the republicans have got some rebuilding to do.
While I have my reservations about Obama, one thing I can see is that he could represent a clean break from the past and the beginning of a new era for the USA. Whether or not his leadership will have the wisdom to get very far down this new track remains to be seen, but the fact that he was elected could be enough to ensure a permanent shift in the US.
You get the feeling that we are living in a time of (or soon to be) rapid transition, I think the world will be a very different place in 5 years time.

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Shunda,
I have plenty of references, unfortunatly most are from academic journals and you need a subscription or to be a student at a university with a subscription to read them.
I will have a look at google books, though i could conceivibly download the pdf’s from the journals and then upload them if you give me somewhere to do so.

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“you would do well to study some of the massive body of research condicted by psychologists and historians into the basis of conflicts”

Sapient, do you have any references (internet or books) that you could recommend to me?
I am serious, it is something I am interested in studying further.

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shunda,
Dont get me wrong, i know all republicans are not like that, just as all supporters of labour are not unionists or the standard ignorant masses. By no means do i object to, or have any moral objection to, warfare; infact i quite like it as it is one of the foremost sources of technological development due to the immense funding it gains.
The republicans mearly become something that draws my fire because almost everything that they support and the reasons for which they support that are amost exactly contradictory to what I beleive the world needs inorder to progress most efficently.

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Greenfly,
No mearly venting some of the steam that builds up whenever i see an interview with a american republican.
Though, admitedly, unlike sam i do have the desire to war and to do so on amassive scale, but that is overcome by my recognition of both my inability to win such a war and how counter productive it would be.

shunda,
though you seem to have a basic grasp of the formation of conflict, you would do well to study some of the massive body of research condicted by psychologists and historians into the basis of conflicts; something that i make reference to quite often here as in-group/out-group dynamics.

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“I just think that republicans perfictly embody all that is wrong with the world, the democrats are not much better, but atleast they ask questions, sometimes, lol. It was mostly a dig at the right-wing bible types that i so despise.

I think you are being a little hard on the Republicans Sapient, their history is not all bad.
As for the right wing bible types, yes there are some nutters in America but the really crazy ones are far fewer than the media would have us believe.
My personal take is that there is a culture among some families in the US that may need to catch up with the times, it may have been appropriate in the past but is becoming outdated as the world changes.
That is not to say serving in the armed forces is wrong, just that as the doctrine of warfare changes, peoples attitudes need to change with it.

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sapient – you starting a war?

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“That’s funny – I’ve never felt the slightest urge to raise an armoured division and invade Poland, nor has anybody felt it necessary to raise an armoured division to deal to me. Logically, therefore, I am not human, nor are my neighbours.”

Well Sam, you have the first prerequisite for war, a self righteous belief that you are some how more enlightened than those that have gone before you.
There is nothing new under the sun my friend, including your attitude. To date, human history has never been free from warfare, and a naive belief that we are above that sort of thing in our luxuriant western life style is exactly the requirement for history to repeat it self.

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shunda, lol.
Thats not my point.
I just think that republicans perfictly embody all that is wrong with the world, the democrats are not much better, but atleast they ask questions, sometimes, lol. It was mostly a dig at the right-wing bible types that i so despise.
America has all the worst tenents of the free market with all the worst tenents of socialism yet none of the good parts of eaither, lol.

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“the problem is that the world, like the republicans of america, close their eyes, put in ear plugs, and chant verses from the old testiment.”

Perhaps you could look into the history of the Democrats and see if they were involved in any wars.

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Ummmm… BB, he never, ever, not once, said that he would withdraw troops from Iraq immediately.

respectfully
BJ

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