Sunday, May 24, 2009

The State Is Still the Main Evil

Christopher Preble is right. Terrorism is bad, but it can't come close to the destruction that governments have wrought. "Cures" CAN be worse than the diseases they address.

The casualties caused by international terrorist incidents since September 11, 2001, and the prospects for future casualties, pale in comparison to the death and destruction that took place between August 1914 and November 1918, and again between September 1939 and August 1945.

The violence and bloodshed that can be deployed by non-state actors is an order of magnitude smaller than what could be caused by even a medium-size modern industrial state.

Can it even be compared with the Cold War, which claimed far fewer lives but lasted nearly five times longer than the two world wars combined? Again, no.

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1 comment:

  1. It is not just war. Think of the millions murdered by their own governments during that '39 to'45 period.

    "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." - Voltaire

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