tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7756920.post4999780040811954724..comments2024-01-08T06:21:35.864-08:00Comments on Notes in Samsara: Impermanence and Travel Reading: Japan's invasion of China as seen in 1937Mumon Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01116967568502451788noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7756920.post-70365388624610070392011-01-25T07:58:18.390-08:002011-01-25T07:58:18.390-08:00Petteri:
It is tragic. Then again they're in ...Petteri:<br /><br />It is tragic. Then again they're in the neighborhood of the folks who invented war and such; they've been invaded for thousands of years. And to them I might ask the same question I'd ask my ancestors from Poland, or, for that matter, the ancestors of the Aleuts: Why did you stay there that long? Did you think this was a s good as it gets?Mumon Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01116967568502451788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7756920.post-81498948050867820182011-01-25T07:32:10.874-08:002011-01-25T07:32:10.874-08:00...and corrupt billionaires, warlords, refugees, d......and corrupt billionaires, warlords, refugees, drug dealers, and fundamentalists of every shape and color. If you're there more than five years, though, you get used to it.<br /><br />"On the seventh day, God made Lebanon and saw that it was too good, so then He made the Lebanese." <br /><br />That's a joke the Lebanese tell of themselves. It's weird how they succeed brilliantly whenever they emigrate, regardless of sect, but they can't run their own country literally to save their lives.Brikoleurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01318706625291447339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7756920.post-50422045310892875152011-01-25T06:37:43.373-08:002011-01-25T06:37:43.373-08:00Petteri:
I've often thought that anarcho-capi...Petteri:<br /><br /><i>I've often thought that anarcho-capitalists should be forced to live for five years in Lebanon. </i><br /><br />I know someone with family in Lebanon; it is horrendous, I think to live between Hezbollah & the IDF.<br /><br />Me, I wish the "small government" types would move to Somalia, though. They'd be right at home with that piracy thing.Mumon Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01116967568502451788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7756920.post-54656785666872677432011-01-25T05:21:45.308-08:002011-01-25T05:21:45.308-08:00Yeah. The thing that scares me the most about Amer...Yeah. The thing that scares me the most about American political discourse is the across-the-board disdain for government. Government is tough. Representative government in an open society is IMO one of the greatest achievements of humanity, and every bit as complex and difficult a thing as, say, the Internet and all that it implies. As such governments go, yours was among the best of the bunch; only some parts of Western Europe had anything comparable. <br /><br />And for the last thirty years, you've been cheerfully selling it off for the scrap metal. Mind-boggling. Perhaps you've had it so long that you no longer realize what it actually means. <br /><br />I've often thought that anarcho-capitalists should be forced to live for five years in Lebanon. That'll show them what a non-functioning government really means.<br /><br />Thanks for digging that up. It was interesting.Brikoleurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01318706625291447339noreply@blogger.com