[Peace-discuss] binary criterion of war/not war

[John W.]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 8:26 PM, Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com> wrote:

> wake me up when one of you figures out a better system of government, in
> > terms of your ONE stupid binary criterion of war/not war.
>
> This does bring up an interesting question. I don't think that the
> type of government has much to do with whether a country will go to
> war.


You're correct; type of government has nothing at all to do with it.



> What does make a difference?
>
> I suppose smaller, less powerful countries tend not to declare war on
> their big, powerful neighbors [there are notable exceptions to this
> rule]. But in order to have small countries, large powerful countries
> would also need to exist and the big powerful countries would be
> tempted to create empires.


That's right.  But I was not speaking only of one country against another,
as we traditionally define countries.  In many countries, perhaps especially
the smaller ones, two or more groups of people fight and kill one another
over power.  In our own nation, gangs fight and kill one another over
"territory", etc.



> I suppose that a country made up entirely of Quakers and Mennonites
> would not start a war. But I don't think religion is a good way to
> separate people into countries. [Though I have noticed that Mormon
> children consistently share their toys the most readily of all the
> children I have observed.]
>
> I suppose that if all the countries were on equal footing with regards
> to resources and access to the basic needs, then there would be less
> temptation to go to war.


Less, perhaps, but far from zero.  Remember, most of the wars are started by
the leaders of the wealthier, more powerful countries who want to be even
MORE wealthy and powerful.  Greed has no limit, and it is inherent in human
nature.  Perhaps less so in the Quakers and Mennonites.  ;-)  And of course
in AWARE members.  ;-)



> I think that every 7 years, everything needs to be re-distributed equally.


It would be lovely, but it would do very little to end war.  And who is
going to supervise the redistribution?



> -karen medina
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