Stacy, as I said, I am not defending England - just because I live here, it doesn't mean I enjoy their practices or any other abhorrent rubbish they committed. Is that your way of justifying genocide - killing the indigenous population of part of Americas?

tjt2300, my philosophical and political views do lean towards Anarchism. However, I am not trying to attempt to say that it would be easy to implement - or perhaps it is simply to utopian? I don't know, and it's not something I can just figure out in a few minutes, either.

It depends on your view of human nature really - and whether it existed. But now we are getting into the realms of political philosophy, which gets immensely complicated; and I do not feel I am adequately equipped to dela with such a conversation. If you adopt the attitude, that generally, humans are naturally compassionate and kind - maybe through egoistical motives - then anarchism could easily work. However, it could also be argued that Capitalism has already corrupted man ad infinitum, or even the Hobbesian view that the state of nature was a "war of all against all". And humans are naturally "selfish" and primarily concerned with "self-preservation".

We wouldn't have needed an America if England didn't kill those that didn't do what they said or allowed people FREDDOM OF RELIGION.

Got any more?

Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. -Ani DiFranco'

Research on protest and repression has shown that state coercion may, in some cases, result in increased mobilization whereas in others it effectively deters further challenges. Contextual factors, such as the regime's consistency in the employment of specific counterrevolutionary tactics, its perceived strength, and the cohesion and size of the rebel movement, appear to be crucial determinants of individual decisions to either lash back against government repression or withdraw participation in collective dissent. On August 8, 1988, Burma was swept by a massive wave of antigovernment strikes, marches, and demonstrations, as hundreds of thousands festively demanded the end of 26 years of oppressive military dictatorship. The military regime reacted with fury. The tatmadaw (army) indiscriminately massacred thousands of dissidents in the streets, but protests incredibly continued undeterred. However, slightly over a month later, on September 18, when the regime redeployed its troops to the streets of Rangoon and other major towns, similar levels of coercion yielded notably dissimilar results. The uprising was crushed. Why did the Burmese democratic movement lash back against the brutality of the army in August, then cower into submission when con- fronted with comparable levels of violence only a few weeks later? This study attempts to provide an answer to this question. The question is relevant because it deals with the relationship between coercion and protest, and its answer addresses contextual transformations that may alter the effects of state repression. Although it may be rational to respond to harsh government coercion in the presence of certain conditions, it may not be rational to do so when such conditions change. The primary proposition advanced here is as follows: the strategic adaptation of the regime's tactics, by forcing citizens to shift their loyalty back to the military regime, brought about dramatic transformations in the conditions that had previously allowed the population to challenge the state. Specifically, through the withdrawal of the army, the liberation of thousands of common criminals, and the encouragement of wide- spread looting, the military leadership effectively shattered the rebels' support base. The regime presented its population with Hobbes's dilemma, a situation in which the Burmese people were forced either to live in anarchy at the mercy of pillaging "roving bandits" or submit to a "stationary bandit" (Olson 1993). Though at the high price of economic stagnation and obtrusive social control, the vast majority accepted to suffer further repression and dictatorship because the government was at least capable of enforcing a minimum of order and security. This study is structured as a problem-driven, rationalist, and methodologically indi- vidualistic (Lichbach 1997b, 245-46) "analytic narrative" (see Bates et al. 1998; Levi 1997). Rationality here simply means that individuals, rebels and members of the regime alike, think. Dissidents and state agents estimate the costs and risks associated with their actions; they formulate and adapt strategies to satisfy, protect, and advance their interests. This analytic narrative combines detailed descriptions of the tragic events of the Burmese uprising with analytical tools providing an enhanced under- standing of the dynamics of strategic interactions between the military junta and the rebels. Data on Burmese protest are then evaluated with the purpose of assessing the consequences of state adaptation on levels of dissident mobilization....

Lichbach (1987) has shown that repression encourages rebels to adapt their tactics. It reduces the utilization of activities targeted by coercion while, at the same time, it stimulates the increased employment of strategies not subjected to repression. Para- doxically, if repression concentrates on the most effective tactic at the dissidents' dis- posal, the total level of conflict increases. Rebels will, in fact, resort to other strategies to maintain the pressure exerted on the regime at a constant level, in amounts that more than offset the decrease in the utilization of activities repressed by the state. Francisco (1995, 1996), in empirical tests that focused on both democratic and repressive societ- ies, found evidence for the backlash hypothesis, which predicts that harsh coercion will accelerate protest. When reacting to harsh repression with more protest, however, dissidents will frequently attempt to reduce risks and avoid coercion by adapting their tactics (Francisco 2001, 14). Through adaptation, dissidents switch to different protest activities in their repertoire or formulate innovative strategies that are designed to sur- prise the regime and thus improve the productivity of their tactics (see Lichbach 1995, 50-61).

Hobbes did say life was "nasty, brutish and short" but he was referring to this in the context of the state of nature which was: "the war of all against all".

So, it seems that I wasn't incorrect, If you read any of the Leviathan, you will realise this, that humans are primarily concerned with self-preservation and dominion over others - to protect their self interest - according to Hobbes.

I am confused to what you meant by the last statement? That I knew nothing because of Hobbes' "bellum contra....." or that you meant it genuinely because of I admitted I may not be adequate to deal with the argument? If it is the latter, I apologise.

Oh dear. What a tangled web of---stuff.

Firstly, no it was less an ad hominem than yet another straw man. Those seem to be the order of the day. The accusation of "genocide" appears to be a veiled Hitler reference.

Secondly, I'd say this is all to garner a bunch of emotion, and it's certainly succeeded.

Are all soldiers above reproach, cg0000? Of course not. Are there possibly some evil people who simply like the thought of killing. and, therefore, signed up? More than likely, since such a group represents a segment of our population, I'm sure it'll be present in every micro-culture.

BUT, I believe that the vast majority of those who signed up did it because they thought they were defending something worth defending rather than because of some unrequited blood lust.

The Hobbes Dilemma would place the blame at the top, don't you think? It would not place it on the soldiers who rely on the strategists to plan the wars they are fighting. And I'm one of the main group of Liberals here who's as opposed to the Iraq war as anyone's ever been. I have been since day one. I do not, however, lay the blame at the feet of those with the least power to correct the thing. We went into this without reason nor rhyme nor anything that resembled a real plan. Put the blame for this at the TOP--Put it on those who endangered the soldiers by failing to THINK.

Certainly, Hobbes would insist that there BE a plan, as the Hobbes Delemma proclaims that given a choice between dictatorship and anarchy, the population will drop democratic principle and return to the oppressive regime against whom they'd protested. It means that we can't go in and create all sorts of havoc, kill civilians and leave the place in a mess.

The soldiers do NOT make those decisions.

From:
Why Regimes Create Disorder: Hobbes's Dilemma during a Rangoon Summer
Author(s): Federico Ferrara
Source: The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Jun., 2003), pp. 302-325
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.



There are 23 more pages if anyone's interested in reading them.

Don't worry.. Brisbain will be along soon enough to explain it and I mean that
in a flattering way. Her immense knowledge is remarkable and I look forward
to learning from her wisdom and experience.
Hopefully she will respond to your thread.

Violent and cruel people can only be stopped by violence.

Hobbes did say life was "nasty, brutish and short" but he was referring to this in the context of the state of nature which was: "the war of all against all".

The authors seem to me to make many errors, of several types, and as a result to fail to carry out an adequate test even of their own version of Hobbes - as well as seriously misunderstanding the nature of Hobbes' theory to the extent that what they try to test bears little resemblance to the original. I shall list these errors and comment on them briefly, in no particular order. I think the authors make at least the following six mistakes. (I) There is no good reason to think that Hobbes would claim that the Leviathan was more efficacious than other forms of state, as his contrast was not with other forms of state but with the state of nature. He simply dismissed the possibility of other stable political organizations and, while he is clearly in error here, this error actually makes it logically impossible to test his theory as the authors do. The point can be made best by means of elementary logic. Let G = there is a government, L = the government is Leviathan, C = life is commodious. What Hobbes is committed to is this:

(-(G & -L) & - (G & C) --> (-L --> -C)

That is, there cannot be a non-Leviathan government, and there cannot be commodious life without government, and these together imply that there cannot be commodious life without the Leviathan. However, what is tested by showing the existence of commodious life in non-Leviathan governments is not any link between Leviathanness and commodious life but the prior statement -(G & -L). But this statement is untrue, and thus the left-hand side of the expression above, i.e. everything before the implication sign, is also untrue. It is the most basic law of logic that in such a case the implication itself is true, or is at least not untrue. The only condition in which an implication is false is where, given P -> Q, you have (P & - Q).

This may seem an unduly obvious point to labour, but it is vital because the only way to extract useful theses from Hobbes would be to derive a deeper theory which would actually compare Leviathan with other states rather than with the state of nature. It is unfair, and theoretically misleading, to test a straw man.

Well Bris when you read this, you will know that your "treasonist" remark that had offended me has now been beat out.

Now I support Ethnic Cleansing according to some.

Do you think soldiers have a moral responsibility such as any normal citizen?

I didn't suggest that I see a way around having an army, and multiple times I have concurred, saying that we DO need one. So long as the world is divided, and everyone else has one.

I am not suggesting that it can be ALL their fault, as clearly, they are the bottom of the hierarchy. However, I strongly believe that each individual should take responsibility for his actions; whether commanded or not.

Clearly it is the fault of the politicians.

So in essence, are you saying they are ignorant of other choices? We don't get taught Philosophy in the UK (unless we OPT to in University etc) yet, when I was 14, I had the appropriate intelligence and reason to be able to distinguish between what is morally good and what is not, and to not blindly follow authority (which seemed to my disadvantage at school).

I'm not even going to satisfy this ignorant idiot with a reply.