Posts in "Vietnam War"

By Tim Bertram at 11:06AM

Oct 21, 2011

Bob Dylan Still Has it Right

Bob Dylan was known for his protest music in the 1960s and was very vocal about civil rights, and the Vietnam war. He sang many songs about peace but his song Masters of War really sticks out as one of his best when it comes to war.

Dylan was an icon to the youth of his time, and developed a strong following in the 60's for his folk and protest music. This song came out when the war in Vietnam was heating up more and more and is probably one of Dylan's more clear songs in terms of what the message is.

A Dangerous Mistake We Shouldn't Make Again

A lot of people have justified the extrajudicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki by saying it was basically an aberration – a unique situation where we needed to wipe out a terrorist threat and the guy we targeted just happened to be an American citizen. Surely these assassinations are not going to become a new trend, and the government would never carry out such an act unless it was absolutely necessary to the national defense.

Let’s put aside for a moment that the “emergency” rationale has been used to enable countless examples of bad policy, from the Alien and Sedition Acts to the Japanese-American internment camps to the 2008 bank bailout. The real cause for concern is that even if you accept the premise that this killing, just this one time, was ok, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the next one will be. And given the government’s history of taking a few hundred miles when given an inch, there is no reason we should trust it to restrain itself here.

By any measure, al-Awlaki was not a sympathetic figure. It’s easy to say “good riddance” to this one death in the faraway and war-torn Middle East, even if we aren’t entirely comfortable with how it took place. It’s easy to assure ourselves that the government wouldn’t dare kill a “real” American citizen, one who actually lived here and wasn’t plotting acts of terror against us. If any president ever thought of doing so, the potential public outcry and pure injustice of it would surely stop him in his tracks.

Unfortunately, we once said the same thing about the president making war.

How WWI Led to the Federal Reserve

With gold prices now hitting record highs, more and more people are starting to invest in the metal as a source of stability. And why not? For thousands of years, people have put their trust in gold. In fact, until 1914, nearly every major currency in the world was backed by gold, when it was still rather cheap to own. But that begs the question: Why aren't currencies backed by gold now? What events led to the US, and much of the world, being taken off the gold standard? Here is a video that details how valuable, and stable, gold was, and why governments decided to print their own currency instead of having it backed by a finite item like gold (hint: it involves guns and explosives). H/T Lew Rockwell

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By Bonnie Kristian at 2:13PM

Mar 1, 2010

Serving the Nation ≠ Serving the State

While discussing my summer plans recently, the subject of a large rally of Vietnam veterans which is scheduled to occur in DC over the Memorial Day weekend rather oddly came up. I noted that I thought it was a silly event to have, because although many of the individual veterans are undoubtedly people worthy of honor, having fought in this aggressive foreign intervention was hardly worth celebration. One of the participants in the conversation strongly objected, arguing that whatever my opinion of the war, I should still understand a desire to commemorate these veterans' brave service to their country.

Brave though some of our soldiers may have been, what they engaged in was not service to our country; it was service to the state...and I see no reason to commemorate that. The state is not the same as the country, and the two's interests rarely converge.

What exactly does this mean?