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Benjamin T Brixey "A Libertarian perspective"

A Little History: Bring the Troops Home

3/18/2016

A Little History All Americans Should Know!

In order to better understand the Middle East we need to better understand our own history. History has been one of my passions, and it is where I am most educated. I have spent a great deal of my life using it to understand the problems we face in the Middle East.

It would be too exhausting to learn about the centuries of religious history. Instead, we need to understand the more recent, and very specific historical events that have formed the contemporary Middle East.

Our adventure begins with the discussion of the Ottoman Empire, which was the empire that ruled the Middle East for over 600 years, from 1299-1923. Second, we will see what happened to the Middle East after World War I through the British Mandate System. This system created countries where there were no organic countries to be made. Finally, we will dive deeper into America's involvement in the Middle East, and the handing off of the British problem.

A Brief Ottoman History

The Ottoman Empire is considered a Turkish, and Islamic empire; that at one point was very close to sweeping across Europe. The Ottoman Empire started out as a small group of warriors, and quickly expanded to supremacy. Ruling over a huge chunk of the world, without interruption, for longer than 600 years. The borders were vast including modern day Iraq, Syria, Israel, Egypt, parts of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and northern Africa. The capital city was Istanbul, and this capital was formerly known as Constantinople.

The Ottoman armies were very advanced, and expressed themselves in Eastern Europe. Knocking on the doors of the Austrian Empire in Vienna during the siege of Vienna,1683. The Ottomans pushed their borders further east, and held the line against the Persian Empire; what we now know as contemporary Iran.

The nature of this empire relative to others was, in fact, more liberal than almost any empire in the world. All while Christians were attacking each other, and purging religions out of the their own borders. All while China kept professing the male dominated Confucianism. The Ottomans kept order within their cosmopolitan empire using minimal interference While other civilizations were purging, this one simply forced people who were not Muslim to pay an extra tax, called Jizya.

The various religions were able to practice their own religion relatively peacefully; and even use their own religious courts, along side the Islamic courts. Being able to use their own religious courts, definitely should not be undervalued. Jews, Christians, Muslims and Zoroastrians lived in relative peace for over 600 years.

Why are they all of a sudden at odds?

The reason for this freedom has to do with the low number of true Ottoman's there were. As well as the nature of controlling large, diverse territories. The Ottoman Empire was run by only a few guys. In order, to keep the status as sultan the empire would have to stick together. The way to keep the Empire from falling apart was to actually let people live their own lives, and tax their wealth.

The Ottoman Empire

Source: http://asianhistory.about.com/od/turkeyhistoryculture/ss/OttomanEmpireMapFacts.htm

So what happened?

The British Mandate System After World War I.

The Ottoman Empire lasted until World War I and we often hear nothing about this impressive stability. However, what were the goals of the people who took over the Middle East after World War I? For this we need to understand the nature of Colonialism and Mercantilism.

Let's quickly brush over the nature of British and French Colonialism. These were the two nations that received the spoils of World War I. One clear way the British would keep their colonial possessions under control was letting them constantly be at odds with each other. If they could side with one group and keep the other group at odds with the first group; then the two groups would never join forces and kick out the British colonialists. Since the British are outsiders and know very little about the region. The nations they created were from scratch, truly created from scratch. Often just drawling lines on a map connecting economic resources with economic centers, cities.

For example, Iraq during the Ottoman Empire consisted of three separate provinces with their own cultures. The British slammed all three nations into one nation. Creating the very problem we have today in the Middle East. Several Nations slammed into one nation is no nation at all. I hope by now it is becoming clear to the reader that these people didn't bring this mandate system onto themselves voluntarily. I am attempting to illustrate in a few paragraphs what is written in a few thousand of pages. A history most Americans know nothing about, yet many Americans continue to call for bombing people on the other side of the world.

Yet these people in the Middle East do not have what we call Self Determination. Their governments are puppet governments and the cultures are not homogeneous enough to restore their Self Determination.

It's now Americas problem!

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/dmcdowell/middle-east-since-wwi

The Solution is to Leave the Middle East

Why is the British problem now our Problem? After World War II the Empirical systems of the world were ended. However, the role of policing the world, monitoring the world, diplomatic intervention around the world and military intervention around the world did not end. Empires did not end and the empire was simply passed down to us. We still claim all these international powers as our rightful place in the world. I say no! This is not our American tradition and it is not our place to be the policeman of the world.

The British Mandate system is not hard to understand and it is a valuable gem lost in history. All Americans should know where their history comes from and much of it has been passed down from Britain. They should know about this process because their honor, blood and treasure is paying for its continuation. We sometimes overtly intervene in the Middle East and this is seen in our botched invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. However, we haven't heard how much of our honor, blood and treasure has been lost through covert military action. .

What would our founding fathers think?

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." James Madison.

"Commerce with all nations, alliances with none, should be our motto." Thomas Jefferson

"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be." Thomas Jefferson

"We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence. wether sought or unsought, by the military-undustrial complex." Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The essence of so-called war prosperty; it enriches some by what it takes from others. It is not rising wealth but a shifting of wealth and income." Ludwig von Mises

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other." James Madison

"No nation could perserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." James Madison

"Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government." Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio

"When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will." Fredric Bastiat

"The Constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of imprortance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure." George Washington

Source: All quotes have been taken from Ron Paul's A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce and Honest Friendship.

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No! The FBI doesn't Need a Master Key and Apple is Worth Defending.

3/5/2016

Apple has been under fire as of late from various factions in society. Please, as a disclaimer, do not fear the people who often are seeking to protect you. They are usually not the people who are actively looking for persons who believe in freedom. They are often searching for far more important individuals such as terrorists and these protectors deserve our respect. However, given this reality we have every freedom under our laws to actively discredit and show the truth behind the ideas of gaining access to everyone's data. Instead, of attacking people who are simply trying to protect you we need to come up with a better defense. Three points of defense come to mind when defending our freedom to encrypt our personal data.

Clearly privacy is the first concern. Second, our security from foreign governments will be compromised and finally safety from our own unpredictable government will be lost. We don't even have to consider our beloved Constitution, it's majestic history and the reasons our nation rose so quickly; as our founders prophetically stated.

First, we must address the concerns associated with privacy. Our opponents will say that you have nothing to hide, right? Who cares if the government has your data? In fact, I care due to having government documents which show excessive spending in the Greene County Sheriff's office. They were passed down to me as a responsibility long ago. Documents long lost as I was 21 years old, however sometimes secrets are dwelling with candidates. If those secrets don't remain secret their safety, my safety, is in danger. For anyone who doesn't want the government to own and look at your personal photos, opposing this back door should be a no brainier. Our women are already stuck with the degrading TSA. Must we give our naked bodies for safety. I say NO and so should you.

Second, as we see in this video from our Presidential nominee, Mr. McAfee, the fear of having a back door to the iPhone is actually a national security threat. Once this back door is created the information won't just be available to the FBI. As we have seen throughout my short lifetime the data one government contains won't only be available to the enemy, they will put this data on servers quite accessible to anyone. HIllary Clinton is the prime example of just how careless top secret data is handled in our contemporary administration.

Finally, if your personal privacy doesn't matter to you and the ability for foreign enemies to steal your data, later to use it against you, doesn't remove you from the opposition. Then let's appeal to the ultimate fear and the historically repeated offenses perpetrated by governments throughout history on their own citizens.

John McAfee Takes on the FBI and proves the FBI is just dodging questions, thus the FBI is dodging reality.

Source: http://www.thedailyliberator.com/john-mcafee-fbi-finally-face-off-cnn/

Let's simply keep our history lesson in the 20th century, or the 1900s. Everyone knows about the Nazi's and their efficient forms of spying on their own citizens. Along with the results of this spying. That's fine, let's move our discussion to the history of China. A beautiful place full of beautiful people, which has gone through some very stressful events since the Communist Revolution.

However, during Mao's regime they didn't need the ease of technology. They had spying in the form of youthful volunteers. These youthful volunteers dwelling in the cities would go to teach the rural peasants how to live more efficiently. Along the way they would extract information from the peasants of China.

First they would hold meetings teaching the Red Book, Mao's book, and those more accepting became spy's. Eventually telling on anybody who opposed the ideas of Communism including their own family. They would then stage humiliation events where the peasants would force confessions from the person accused. Sometimes forcing confessions out of people who benefited from historical family lines, Thier goals were to break the current system of land ownership. They succeeded at their goal and eventually "The Great Leap Forward" would kill millions of peasants in China.

To conclude, what happens if our current officials are as saintly as we assume them to be. We give them all they ask and they dive forever deeper into our lives?

What happens when these trusted people are gone and a regime we don't agree with comes into being. We will have no way to dissent and no way to end a ruthless regime in control of our beloved nation. We will have no freedom left.