Page Title

Essays on Liberty and Human Rights.III...

Essays on Liberty and Human Rights

By Karl Hausner

Human Rights Essays III

PART TWO

Patriotism, Nationalism, Militarism, Fanaticism,
Totalitarianism and Barbarianism:
          A Chain of Events

            By Karl Hausner

At the close of the Twentieth Century there was, as Nietsche predicted, a lot of
bloodshed, more bloodshed than in all of the previous eras of recorded history. He
said, one hundred years ago: "During the Nineteenth Century God died, because we
killed Him and thus the Twentieth Century will be the bloodiest in the history of man".

The United States, we are told, is a peace-loving nation. During the Twentieth
Century, our leaders claimed to use our wealth and manpower to bring about peace
and freedom in the war-ridden world. Was it true, or was it propaganda? Or is this
what Jesus Christ experienced when he was preaching love and peace among those
in the temple whom he had to call Pharisees and hypocrites? I personally believe
there is a mixture between both. There is great idealism. Underlying is financial
interest by various groups, such as the industrial, military and educational complexes.
Big money can be made by conflicts and wars, by producing war material and sending
troops into battle, all in the name of peace.

May I ask this question: What would have happened and what would be different
today if our Founding Fathers had not declared independence and we had remained
part of the British Empire, like Canada or Australia, for example?

In spite of the bloodshed and sacrifices of 1776 and thereafter, American youngsters
were sent, on behalf of Great Britain, into World War I and into World War II, and since
that time we have acqujired an arrogant, imperialistic attitude. We claim to be the
nation of the free, the only country of the free, but is it really true?

Let us compare it with Switzerland. They have had seven hundred years of freedom,
independence, neutrality, and nobody outside of Switzerland even knows the name of
their President. Why is that? Because, in Switzerland the President, and the Federal
Government have very, very little power.

It is well known, the Bible teaches it, that power can and will corrupt man. Just think if
it would practice what our Founding Fathers planned.

Now let us look back to Canada and Australia. They got their independence without a
revolutionary war. They had to help England, as we did, in both large conflicts,
whereby neither Canada, Australia nor the United States had any interest except that
we needed the economic boost, which wars bring to certain industries.

Public education is an ideal tool to brainwash young people, especially if the idea is to
send them into war. The public school was invented by King Frederick II, some call
him the Great. His empire was relatively poor and he fell in love with the Province of
Silesia, which was part of the Habsburg Monarchy. Most people in Prussia and Silesia
were German. In order to capture the land, he had to train his young men to know why
they had to fight to conquer the prosperous land, the Province of Silesia. This
success was quickly understood by many other monarchs, especially Britain, France
and eventually worldwide.

The United States, in contrast, did not have a public school system. It was not
intended to be that way and yet, we now have what we call public schools which, in
effect, are nothing but state operated schools. There we indoctrinate our youngsters.
We tell them when and how to fight. We tell them whether or not there is a God. Of
course, we decided there is no such thing as God. That is why Christianity was
banned from the American public schools and all this in the name of freedom, in the
name of the Bill of Rights, in the name of the Constitution.

Paul Harvey, in an essay about the brutalities performed by the Union troops in
Missouri stated: "History is written by the mighty". Thus, the government can mold
our knowledge of history and events. They decide whether it is necessary to send
troops to far-reaching parts of the world. The majority of young people are
conditioned to do so. These youngsters grwo up in that spirit. Now in 1998, after
President Clinton was exposed as unethical and immoral, we have a nation in which
seventy percent of the people accept him and believe he is doing and has done a fine
job. Once you replace the Almighty God with the almighty dollar, anything goes, as
long as it is profitable. And profitable it is to go to war and claim we have to do it in
the name of liberty.   This is patriotism.

Let us look back to the Civil War. At the time the American Constitution was
established, the new government accepted slavery. As a matter of fact, as late as
1850, the Federal Government enacted a law which was known as the "Fugitive Return
Act", whereby the Federal Government would subsidize the capture and return of the
slaves to their original owners. This was only a few years before the Civil War and it
was just about the time when ten thousand Revolutionaries came from Germany after
the ill-fated revolution for freedom there. They could not believe that for what they
had fought, abolishment of slavery was legal in the United States and was even
protected and subsidized by the government. The United States Supreme Court had
ruled that Native Americans and Negroes were subhumans and not entitled to the
definition outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

So, let us assume there would have been no Civil War, and let us assume the states
would have separated, the South from the North, as Canada is separated from us.
Who would have suffered? Slavery would have been given up, because it was
outdated and not even profitable anymore. In an era of technology, slavery is totally
useless.

To return to patriotism, let us look at a case history: Two immigrant brothers came to
Missouri and bought farms. One had a farm, let us call him John, which came under
Union jurisdiction and Frank had the farm, which was in the area of the Confederacy.
Neither one wanted to go to war, but were forced to do so. Both were wounded.
After the war, John received a lavish pension from the newly created Veteran's
Administraton, while Frank received nothing. John was considered a patriot and
Frank was considered a traitor or guilty of treason. Were they?

This is what brings me to the question of patriotism. What is a patrot? What is a
terriorist? What is a traitor or someone guilty of treason? That depends strictly on
who decides.

When these thousands of Braunschweigers and Hessians were sent by the British to
fight the Revolutionary troops, they were legal soldiers in the eyes of the British.
Since many of them deserted and joined the Revolutionary forces, they were, in the
eyes of the British, traitors and deserters. In the eyes of Washington they were
freedom fighters and were compensated, because the war was won by the revolution.
However, if the British would have won the war, these Hessians would have been
executed as deserters and traitors.

During and after World War I, and even more so after World War II, the German
soldiers who had to fight were called criminals. It took General Eisenhower a few
years after World War II, when Germany was supposed to rearm again against the
Soviet Union, to return to the German soldiers the honor of having been soldiers.
Now, who took the honor away and who gave it back?

Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was an outstanding military man in World War I and even
more so in World War II. Since he knew about the assassination attempt on Hitler, he
was forced to commit suicide, otherwise the Nazis would have executed him, as well
as his entire family, associates, friends, etc. (The Nazis did execute 5,000 family
members, friends, associates, of those Generals and Officers that were involved in
the failed plot.) Was Rommel a patriot or was he a traitor? You see, it is not that easy
if you eliminate the brainwashing under the auspices of patriotism.

It is even more frustrating ehen prominent Christian leaders such as Dr. Dobson, Gary
Bauer, Chuck Colson and many others who have influence on millions of Christians
and many others, are so brainwashed that they are blinded from World War I, World
War II and even post-world war politics by our government. Yet, the New Testament,
for which they seem to stand, speaks of forgiveness and even loving your enemy.
This is one of the reasons why Christian Churches have lost the confidence and the
impact on the Western World. Too many, especially young people have turned away
from Christianity, because they see whom Jesus Christ called Pharisees and
hypocrites. Maybe these leaders are not even hypocrites or Pharisees. They may just
be blinded by the propaganda of patriotism.

Let us look at World War I. A Serbian radical, supported by the country of Serbia,
assassinated the Crown Prince and his wife in Sarejevo, Bosnia. This triggered the
war between Habsburg and Serbia. Britain and France quickly declared war on
Austria, and Germany got involved due to a treaty. Now, after World War I, Serbia was
compensated by the Alles, Britain, France and the United States, with the creation of
Yugoslavia. All the other independent countries or provinces such as Croatia, Bosnia,
Slovenia, Montenegro and so on, were given to Serbia to dominate. Again, these
nations compensated criminal acts of terrorism and what do we have now? In the
early 1990's, we had bloodshed in Croatia and Bosnia and in 1998 in Kosovo. There is
no solution in sight.

Let us look at another case. Bohemia and Moravia were part of the Austrian
Monarchy.   The terrorists Mazaryk and Benes fled the country, came to France, later
to the United States and with their support, were romised an independent country.
Independent from whom? However they had to influence the Czech troops to desert
to Russia and fight the Austrians. After that, the Allies gave Mazaryk and Benes the
Czechoslovak Republic. All minorities,Sudeten Germans, Hungarians, Poles, even the
Slovaks and Ukranians, had to accept the dictates of the Prague government. What
was the result of this type of activity? It brought about the 1938 Munich Accord, the
partitioning of the Sudetenland and World War II. After the war, the expulsion and
confiscation of German property and that of the Hungarians, Communism and fifty
years later, the collapse and separation between the Czech Republic and Slovakia for
the second time.

A similar situation was created during and after World War I with Poland. For the
disloyalty of some Poles, they received part of the Ukraine and part of Germany. This
triggered World War II and after the war, the expulsion of millions of East German
people.

In 1998, both Poland and the Czech Republic want to join the European Union, which
actually existed pretty much so in 1914 and hundreds of years before. So, when
President Clinton claims that we have to fight terrorism, we should look in the mirror
and see that we have cultivated terrorism more than any other nation. Even today, the
CIA is training terrorist groups which have to go into their homeland to overthrow
governments who do not agree with us here in the United States.

Switzerland has never trained rebels. They have been known for good banking, safe
banking and neutrality.

Look at the patriotic situation which France created for themselves. During World War
II, Franceand the Allies trained and subsidized guerilla forces in Algeria to fight the
German and Italian troops. After the war, these very same guerillas delivered
bloodshed to the French until France had to give up the region.

Will we learn a lesson? Not until education is objective and does not cultivate
patriotism, nationalism, militarism which always leads to fanaticism, aned of course,
totalitarianism and barbarianism.

Let us look at Russia and the Soviet Union. Marxism had not been successful in
Central Europe and thus, moved to Russia. At the time World War I broke out, the Czar
had hoped to divert the pressure of Marxism by entering the war. If it was not the
Czar, it was the leadership of Russia which decided. Actually the opposite happened.
World War I gave Lenin, Trotsky and all te other Bolsheviks the green light to start the
Bolshevik Revolution. The Czar was murdered on Lenin's order, as were hundreds of
thousands of officers, officials and the clergy.

It is interesting that, after the Bolshevik Revolution and the fall of the Russian Empire,
most Western countries did not recognize the Lenin and Stalin Government. As soon
as Franklin D. Roosevelt became President, he recognized the Soviet Union as a legal
government, which continued to slaughter millions of innocent people. At the time
when Roosevelt was elecdted, Stalin had starved six million Ukrainian peasants to
death. Yet, Roosevelt admired the biggest terrorist in this century. Yet, we are told
by our Media and by President Clinton and others, that we always stood fosr freedom
in the world. Who will believe us? Especially when a President of the United States
lies under oath and keeps on lying.

(Continued in Part Two - Human Rights Essays IV - A Chain of Events)