News of the massacre by an American soldier of 16 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, made me reflect on the 14 wars and colonial conflicts I’ve covered. Horrible but not surprising.

It illustrates what I call the Iron Laws of Colonial Warfare:

• Pick a good pretext to invade a country that you covet. France invaded Algeria in 1830 after its ruler supposedly flicked the French ambassador with a fly whisk. During the 19th century colonial era, Britain and France provoked incidents, then claimed their invasions were to bring the light of Christianity and western civilization to Africa and Asia. There was the notorious Gulf of Tonkin incident that sparked the Vietnam War. During the Bush era, spreading democracy was the claim. 
  
  Today’s pretext du jour is humanitarian rescue missions. Oil-rich Libya was a prime example. Britain, the US and France stirred up a revolt in Benghazi, then intervened militarily.

• Divide et Imperia (divide and conquer) as the Romans said. Pick a disgruntled or rebellious minority, favor them against the majority, making them your allies in colonial rule. Good examples: Tajiks and Uzbeks in Afghanistan who first backed the Soviets, then Americans, against majority Pashtun. Tamils in Sri Lanka, favored by the British Empire; or Christian Ambonese in Indonesia used by the Dutch to enforce their brutal rule.

• Build a native mercenary army. Imperial Britain used Gurkhas and sepoys in India; the French used Senagalese troops in North Africa; the US employed tens of thousands of mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan. Britain’s Indian Raj was made possible by scores of cooperative princes. The Soviets ruled Eastern Europe through local communists and their security forces.

• Denounce all those opposing foreign rule as: religious fanatics; terrorists; savages; bandits (favorite Soviet term). Western media dutifully denounced independence leaders as “mad mullahs;” “arch-terrorists;”, “Hitler on the Nile (Nasser)” or today’s favorite, “Hitler in Tehran.”

• The longer your occupation army remains, the more it will first despise, then hate the local population, regarding them as savage and sub-humans.

Read the full article here.

(Source: fareastlibertarianmovement)

  4:53 pm  |   March 24 2012   |  31 notes  

whakahekeheke:

I gave each actual libertarian a matching straw counterpart. It’s pretty sweet.

Slowed-down version here.

  4:49 pm  |   March 24 2012   |  282 notes  

(Source: explorecreatewonder)

  4:46 pm  |   March 23 2012   |  51 notes  

No, it won’t be as exciting as you’re picturing.  

Actually, my main goal for the evening is consuming drinks made with egg whites thanks to the insanely good sloe gin fizz I had last weekend.

Anyway, catch you kids later.

  4:45 pm  |   March 23 2012   |  14 notes  

guineapiggies:

Malva and Lakitu <3

Submitted by gricelodeon

This is the best kind of animal.

  12:24 pm  |   March 23 2012   |  45 notes  

Remember those Pinellas County, Florida, sheriff’s deputies with the suspiciously keen olfactory senses? They identified possible marijuana growers by using a surveillance camera to track the customers of Simply Hydroponics (right), a store in Largo. But since hydroponic equipment has various legal uses, the fact that people patronized the store did not give police probable cause to search their homes. Investigators needed something more, which they often supplied by claiming to have smelled marijuana while standing on public property outside of people’s homes (including the home of at least one person who was not actually growing marijuana). Now the Tampa Bay Times, which first called attention to the deputies’ amazing noses, reports that the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office “is dismissing charges against an accused St. Petersburg marijuana grower and will reconsider dozens of similar cases” due to “allegations that narcotics deputies trespassed and lied to gather evidence.”

Obviously the real way to settle this is through a lot of elaborate smelling tests for these officers.  They would be rapidly exposed as frauds, and it would be hilarious. This should ideally be filmed for YouTube.

(Source: laliberty)

  12:21 pm  |   March 23 2012   |  33 notes  

murphisthinking:

Believe it or not it is possible to have civil conversations with people in which you disagree. Here are a couple things I try to remember when engaging in potentially hostile conversations…

First, I am not the arbiter of truth. This may seem obvious, but at times we act as if we are. I think we can all admit that we aren’t perfect and therefore we cannot perfectly know what the truth is. Of course we want to believe we have the truth and there is nothing wrong with that. But we should always remain humble and open to the fact that we may be wrong.

Second, realize we aren’t there to win, we are there to understand. People can often “win” from charisma or brute force alone, but that doesn’t mean what they are advocating is true, but rather they are good at getting others to fold. If we are humble then we will be open to hearing what other people have to say. This doesn’t mean that we have to be easily persuaded, many times we will not be. But it does mean we will be genuinely interested in what other people think. 

Reading this should probably be part of the process of getting a tumblr account.

  12:14 pm  |   March 23 2012   |  49 notes  

beautyinblackness:

Gorgeous! & I love the earrings!

Everything in that second picture with the green pencil skirt is literally perfect.

(via fuckyeahethnicwomen)

  12:12 pm  |   March 23 2012   |  480 notes  

chrisray asked: I once got called partly responsible for the deaths of millions for liking Ludwig Von Mises. How you had to put up with this, or something similar to being blamed for all the worlds problems like it's libertarianism's fault?

In short:  Confidence that such charges aren’t accurate.  

I mean, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t reevaluate what you think in light of new evidence — it’s no good to be mindlessly dogmatic, and it’s always important to keep in mind the possibility that you’ve got something wrong…heck, that Mises has something wrong.

But there also comes a point where you’ve just got to let things roll off your back.  If it makes you feel better, report them to tumblr for harassment (I mainly do this for the odd death wish and/or honest to goodness white nationalist — yes, both of those things have happened) and then just move on with your day.  It’s not worth your worrying about.

  12:06 pm  |   March 23 2012   |  3 notes  

warrenjt asked: This isn't so much a question as a comment. I just want to let you know how much I appreciate your blog. I'll admit, I tend to skim some things (or even skip entirely) if it's not something that's catching my fancy at that particular moment, but so much of what you say has helped me realize what my political views are (liberty, in short), how to label myself if it's really necessary (minarchist), and good ways to properly defend my views. Thank you, Bonnie, for doing what you do.

Thank you!  I always appreciate the encouragement my (awesome) readers (often) send.

  10:41 am  |   March 23 2012   |  7 notes