A Quote by John Boyd Orr
Some wars have been due to the lust of rulers for power and glory, or to revenge to wipe out the humiliation of a former defeat.
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For most of human history, the main goal of states has been to conquer land and to achieve glory for their rulers, usually at others' expense. Then in recent decades it was all about GDP. It's only in very recent history that rulers have been willing to commit themselves to helping their citizens live happier lives.
There have been poverty, pestilence, and famine, which were due to man's inadequate mastery of nature. There have been wars, oppressions and tortures which have been due to men's hostility to their fellow men.
Power is better than revenge. Power is a live thing, by which you reach out to grasp the future. Revenge is a dead thing, reaching out from the past to grasp you.
And I specialize in fixing things up and restoring them to their former glory.” She wondered if that talent extended to humans, maybe even humans who never really had a former glory.
Almost all wars, perhaps all, are trade wars connected with some material interest. They are always disguised as sacred wars, made in the name of God, or civilization or progress. But all of them, or almost all of the wars, have been trade wars.
Perhaps as good a classification as any of the main types is that of the three lusts distinguished by traditional Christianity - the lust of knowledge, the lust of sensation, and the lust of power.
If you look at history you'll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.
Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.
The Revelations is an amazing, rich material that is full of stories about angels and angels being sent down to Earth to wipe out a third of the population. There are angels that come down and wipe out a third of the population and then another angel will come down and wipe out a third of all the animals living in the sea and another angel will come down and wipe out all the vegetation on the land. They are some vengeful individules, in Revelations, the angels. There is a lot of destructive capacity in an angel's being.
Personal humiliation was painful. Humiliation of one's family was much worse. Humiliation of one's social status was agony to bear. But humiliation of one's nation was the most excruciating of human miseries.
The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpation of power by rulers. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally ... enable the people to resist and triumph over them.
Lucasfilm called me out of the blue, and I almost hung up because I thought it was a practical joke. This was right before 'Revenge Of The Sith' came out. Here you are, a big 'Star Wars' fan, talking about 'Star Wars' all the time, and you have your master replica lightsaber, and then you get a call from Lucasfilm for a job?
Even modern wars are fought like revenge tales from some petty grievance.
If you are in Christ, you've been chosen to transcend the borders of your own glory, to reach out toward a greater glory, the glory of God.
Early withdrawal from Iraq would result in unarguably, defeat and humiliation for the United States. There's no question. We would be defeated by definition. We would be humiliated in that defeat.
Over my career, I've reinvented myself numerous times. I covered the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA. I wrote about labor wars, trade wars and real wars. I chronicled a nuclear plant meltdown and the defeat of Communism. I co-founded a couple of media businesses.
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