Svenskan rapporterar, så här på årsdagen av 9/11, Pinochets CIA-stödda statskupp i Chile och det första skotska självständighetskriget, att USA fortsätter med business as usual: ockupationen av Irak fortsätter.

USA-generalen och kommendanten för den multinationella styrkan Irak, David Petraeus, säger att målsättningarna i princip har uppfyllts, och att en brigad (ca 4000 man enligt Svenskan) kan kallas hem i december, men samtidigt säger han att förstärkningar behövs.

Detta har givetvis fått fart på anti-krigsrörelsen i USA, och organisationen moveon.org publicerade denna annons i New York Times:

På anti-war.com skriver Norman Solomon hur USA:s regim använder 9/11 “a license to kill”: “What happened on Sept. 11, 2001, was extraordinary and horrible by any measure. And certainly a crime against humanity. At the same time, it was a grisly addition to a history of human experience that has often included many thousands killed, en masse, by inhuman human choice. It is simply and complexly a factual matter that the U.S. government has participated in outright mass murders directly – in, for example, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq – and less directly, through aid to armies terrorizing civilians in Nicaragua, Angola, East Timor, and many other countries.”

Vad jag tycker? Kalla hem trupperna idag!

Dagens Nyheter rapporterar att Centerpartiet “hotar” att stoppa den nya fildelningslag, som regeringens enmansutredare nyligen föreslog.

DN citerar Centerpartiets rättspolitiske talesman Johan Linander: “Det kan inte vara deras roll att vara poliser. Det känns inte rättssäkert. Det är ett stort intrång i människors liv att stänga av deras internetabonnemang”. Även Folkpartiets Cecilia Wigström är kritisk: “Det är viktigt att slå vakt om upphovsrätten, men att blanda in en tredje part är att gå för långt. Om man jämför med att föreslå att Posten skulle stoppas att leverera piratkopierade böcker så ser man hur absurt det är”.

Korrekt uppfattat (även om jag inte heller stödjer upphovsrätten, som sådan, och hänvisar till detta argument) - att tvinga en leverantör att spionera på sina kunder är fullständigt barockt.

För övrigt skriver Svenska Dagbladet om att George Orwell var övervakad av brittiska myndigheter. Är inte det ironiskt?

Uppdatering: ProjO sågar utredningens förslag här: Sovjet, here we come.

Från historiens kuriosakabinett: Norton I, Kejsare av Förenta Staterna och Mexikos försvarare.

Mark Thornton presenterar den geniale franske 1800-talsekonomen Frédèric Bastiat på mises.org. Läs mer här.

Jag må vara lekman när det gäller ekonomi, men Bastiat är nog den mest underhållande ekonom jag läst, och en av de mest övertygande. Det är från Bastiat jag har tagit min inte alltför ovanliga invändning, “Det handlar om det man ser och det man inte ser“. Det är för övrigt också titeln på den samling av Bastiat-artiklar som Timbro gav ut för några år sedan.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr. publicerade idag en artikel på mises.org där han gör upp med en del myter om bilden av indianer som “ädla vildar” (Disneyfieringen av dem, om man så vill), och berättar den verkliga historien. På många sätt levde indianerna i harmoni med naturen, men inte på det sättet som de flesta amerikaner (och västerlänningar) tror. Läs mer här.

Om bilden: Ninigret.

Svorsken skriver på sin blogg Ja vi elsker om en tid då Norge var för frihandel (till skillnad från det protektionistiska Sverige), och hur frihandelsfrågan bidrog till unionsupplösningen 1905. Läs mer här.

Governments control people through fear. This seems to be a basic truth about ruling people. It is easy to control scared people. Just offer them security, and they will accept any measures taken, in its name.

Let’s start with a look at the Israeli-Palestinianconflict. I am strongly against the Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. I strongly agree with those who call the Israeli policies “state terrorism”. I do not, however, unlike many critics of Israel, hold this against Israeli Jews, or Jews in general.

There is no fundamental difference between Jews and other human beings. Jews respond in the same way as other people do. The problem in Israel is neither the Jews nor the Arabs. The problems are fear, terror,surveillance and control. Most Israeli Jews are afraid of Palestinians, and of Palestinian terror. This fear is large created, and supported, by the Israeli government and its so-called anti-terrorism measures.

Anti-terrorism measures actually work against their(supposed) goals. Common anti-terrorism measures are surveillance (tapping of telephones, reading E-Mails,text messages, etc) and limitation of the freedoms of movement, press, association and speech. These measures are per se government terrorizing the population.

Israeli anti-terrorism measures cause reactions fromboth Jews and Arabs. The Arabs, or Palestinians, are discriminated against by the Israeli government. They are not allowed to move freely. They are denied their freedom of association. Their houses are bulldozed down by the Israeli army. They are tortured and thrown in jail. The Palestinians learn to fear and hate the state of Israel, and since Israel is a self-declared”Jewish state”, they learn to fear and hate Jews, too, just like Israeli Jews learn to fear and hate Palestinians.

What I stated about Jews above is true about Arabs, too. There is no fundamental difference between Arabs and other human beings.

If we leave Israel, and look elsewhere, we can look at Iran. Iran is practically a theocracy, where the government decides what can and cannot be printed, said or expressed. The Iranian people is constantly threatened to be bombed by the U.S. and Israeli governments, and the president of Iran is using the fear to achieve his own goals, and to make the people obedient. The Iranian president is pointing at Israel and America, and through the common Iranian’s fear of these countries, they are controlled. It would not be hard to argue that the external threat from the U.S.and Israeli governments keeps the Iranian president in power. When people feel threatened, they often side with the leader. This happened when Clinton bombed Serbia. The support for Milosevic skyrocketed, because the Serbs felt threatened.

Now, let’s look at America, the so-called land of thefree. 9/11 was the best thing that could happen for the U.S. government. I do not think that the U.S.government were behind it, but it was the best thing that could happen for a controlling and power-hungry government. When Twin Towers fell apart, President Bush got, and seized, the opportunity he needed. He could, and did, use this to spread fear in America,and gain support to attack and conquer Afghanistan andIraq.

Not only has president Bush used the fear of terror asan excuse for his imperialist agenda abroad, but also to increase government control of the American people. He started with Patriot Act, and continued by abolishing Habeas Corpus. The U.S. government has pressed charges against reporters, allegedly for exposing war secrets, and has thus de facto abolished the freedom of press.

I’d like to end this article with a look at what is known as one of the world’s most peaceful regions, Scandinavia. In my native country Sweden, which hasn’t been involved in any wars since the Swedish army forced Norway to join Sweden in a union in 1814, the government has now decided to start to use tapping of telephones, “to fight crime”. Once again, the government is using fear (in this case, fear of criminals) to control the people, and in my present home country, Norway, strong forces want to establisha DNA index of convicted criminals. Again, governmentis using fear to gain control. The proposed DNA index is supposed to contain DNA from every convicted criminal, no matter if the conviction is murder, rape or a speeding ticket. I fear how this could be used.

Although Norway, unlike Sweden, is a NATO country, and has troops in Afghanistan, I do not fear Islamic terror. I do not feel threatened by al-Qaeda or their likes. I feel threatened by government, which is theworst terrorist organization there is.

It has now been a year since I decided to leave Karlstad and move to Oslo. I’ve said that I followed an impulse, which is not too far from the truth.

But it’s not the whole truth, of course. Years ago, I learned about the “push and pull”-theory, when it comes to migration. Thinking about this theory today, I realized that it could be used to explain my migration from Sweden to Norway.

When millions of Europeans left Europe for America in the late 19th and early 20th century, some of the push factors were: poverty, religious oppression and lack of opportunities. Some pull factors were: free land for newcomers, religious freedom, and opportunities. The immigrants came in search of the American dream: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

When thousands of Finns (among them my paternal grandparents) left Finland for Sweden in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s they had their reasons. The reasons my grandparents have mentioned are: a currency without value and lack of decent housing in Helsinki, when they left in 1956. These were their push factors. In Sweden at that time, there were plenty of jobs and supposedly, better housing (which was not entirely true: my grandparents had to live in barracks for years). Also, my grandmother’s parents already lived in Stockholm.

So, what about me? By October, 2005 (one year ago) I had been working for one and a half year as a telephone interviewer at a company called Norstat. I was working part-time (at best, 24 hours/week at that time), and I had been looking for other jobs, but I didn’t find any. I was getting tired by the whole situation. This was my push factor.

I knew that a lot of Swedes were (are) working in Oslo, and by October, last year, I decided that I should leave. I decided, that I would leave Sweden before 1 March 2006, and so, I left 6 February 2006. The reasons for me to move were simple: more jobs and better pay. This was my “pull”.

Of course, human action cannot only be explained by theories, since human beings got a free will, but in my case, the push and pull-theory seems to have some points.

Government is the worst murderer in history (and it still is). Red China killed millions of its own citizens. So did the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, to mention a few. Previous US governments killed hundreds of thousands of native Americans. Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds. The Turkish republic slaughtered a million Armenians, and thousands of Kurds. The Mugabe regime of Zimbabwe has so far killed thousands of people. The Chilean government of Pinochet, and the Spanish government of Franco killed thousands of people.

It’s not only history. The US government, and its allies, is killing Iraqis and Afghans today. Israel is killing Palestinians. The list of governments killing (not to mention other wrongdoings by different regimes) can go on and on, almost forever.

When I discussed this with a former colleague, he said something like “The state isn’t killing people. Persons who belong to the state kill people”. This is a common counter-argument against anarchism’s claim that government kills. I’ve heard it many times, and I’m going to hear it many times.

I propose that you change the sentence above. Exclude the word “state” and insert the word “mafia” in its place. If you claim that the mafia isn’t killing people, nobody takes you seriously. But somehow, you’ll get taken seriously when you claim that states aren’t killing.