The history of the welfare state is the history of the state's savage war of aggrandizement and seizure of authority against civil society. Whether in Germany, in the United Kingdom, in Australia, in Canada, in Scandinavia, or in the United States, the coercive state systematically destroyed the "voluntary sector" of civil society and those intermediary institutions that protected the individual from the direct contact and control by the state [much as the Church did for nearly all of the previous two millennia]. Within the short space of two or three decades the protective sphere covered by workingmen's social and other fraternal duties had been stripped to nothing more than drinking associations, with all other matters taken over by the state apparatus. Henceforth, the workingman and much of the middle class reported directly to the bureaucracy of the state's intrusive regime. Everything they did was in some way or another regulated, regimented and overseen by the state. The dire effects of this calculated collectivism was
malevolence not benevolence,
aggression not altruism,
genocide not generosity.
-- Charles Burris
On this most sacred day of the Christian faith, a US president who claims to be a Christian issues a threat to a nation of 94 million people, including over 500,000, Christians—threatening to commit war crimes (pursuant to Geneva Convention) against their civilian infrastructure.
"Behold the puerile, B-movie gangster style of his prose and his use of the word “F..kin’”—now the most overused word in the English language and the clearest expression of our degenerate culture.
"Upon seeing this post, I immediately thought of Madison’s reflections on the evil of war.
"The same malignant aspect . . . may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both.
"On this Easter Sunday, I pray that the innocent civilians of Iran will be spared from the sadistic and demented wrath of “President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Here's the post
@realDonaldTrump
...
This week, the US President gave an apparently delusional update of the Iran conflict. Iran's military is decimated, and it's President is asking for a cease fire, he reported.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman immediately rejected that. State broadcaster IRIB quoted Esmail Baghaei as saying Trump's statements were false and unfounded.
Trump attributed the request for a ceasefire to Iran's "New Regime President."
On the same day, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian criticized the US war against his country in an open letter to the people of the United States on Wednesday, calling it an absurd operation that is costly for their nation.
Within hours of Mr. Trump's analysis of a destroyed Iranian military, Iran fired more missiles at Israel and Gulf Arab states, demonstrating Tehran’s continued ability to attack even as US President Donald Trump claimed the threat from the country was nearly eliminated and predicted the war would end soon.
In Mr. Trump's speech to the nation, Paul...
Today's assymetrical warfare: Iran's cheap munitions are taking out American's most expensive aircraft.
One internet observer:
"Iran, still using their pawns, while Israel and the US out there, with only their King n Queen left. Who will fall first?
"5 pawns and a king versus a king and queen in a chess end game, the side with the 8 pawns always wins. 5 pawns is enough. That’s standard.
"In a way, you could call it asymmetrical warfare."