Well, Heck

[inibo]

Another one bites the dust...Political leaders use virtuous abstractions to “sell” the imposition of violent power over citizens. As long as individuals continue to be distracted by the shiny emptiness of ethical bloviating, and ignore the gun that is steadily rising towards them, we will continue to remain as enslaved to words as we are to

Comments

[geezer_also]

And the more things change.........

I always love reading things like that. It';s amazing, some of the things "heroes" of both the right and the left did and said.

[reality_hammer]

The pirates operated out of north Africa.

The events reveal why America decided that having a strong navy (and marine corps) was a better option than having the means to "buy off" bullies.

[inibo]

I don't know if you read the whole article or not, but it was not America (a collectivist abstraction) deciding "that having a strong navy (and marine corps) was a better option than having the means to 'buy off' bullies" it was the traders deciding they wanted to increase their profit margins by using the power of the state to extract the cost of protecting them through taxation rather than bearing those costs themselves. Not unlike Wall Street using their flunkies in DC--both Republican and Democrat--to bail them out of their stupid decisions with taxpayer money (taxpayer debt, actually) rather than going bankrupt as they would have in a truly free market. It's the same old story: the people who own the state keeping the benefits for themselves (and their political stooges) while socializing the costs. All you have to do is wave a flag and fan the fear; the people fall for it every time.

[reality_hammer]

At the time the US government relied solely on things like tariffs for their revenue. I'm sure it was more than a few Boston and Philadelphia importers who decided that a navy would be a good thing to have.

And unlike the policy of subsidizing failure that the current administration and Congress seem to be fixated on, those merchants still had to use their own means to obtain goods and bring them to the United States.

[inibo]

a navy would be a good thing to have.

To defend the coasts? Sure. For projecting power? There is a name for that: imperialism.

those merchants still had to use their own means to obtain goods and bring them to the United States.

Their own means and a navy that someone else was paying for. If you are going to do business in a rough neighborhood be prepared to bear the costs, whether for defense or bribes. If the costs are too high you need to rethink your business model, not depend on someone else to cover them for you. You want the profit? Be prepared to take the loss. That's how capitalism is supposed to work. Getting the state to do your dirty work for you is not capitalism.