My thoughts on how a war SHOULD be.

Hello everyone, I'd like to say I haven't seen a post like this in the search, and using the right forum section was a bit difficult to do also. So hopefully it is in the right place.


We live in a world with many countries, and of course, some of these countries will eventually start having political issues, and may become hostile towards one another. And when tensions get high between two countries, a war usually results.

I have an idea on how to make wars much less devastating, and can save many lives, especially innocent lives. Instead of having an army of everyday citizens, that usually don't even know what it is their fighting for, this is what you should do:

Find the top ranking political officials from each country (especially the war-mongers, and pro-war folks) and throw them into a arena, and have them fight to the death. I guess you could use the colosseum in Rome, and spruce it up a bit, for convenience sake of course. And to make things a little more interesting, you could setup some obstacles inside the arena/colosseum, maybe put various weapon all around the floor. But everything needs to be fair. You can't make it one-sided.

You could maybe even turn it into an event. you could call it the "War Olympics." Every few years countries who have been fueding with each other can take the time to prepare. You could also maybe even sell admission to go and watch it, but that would probably be taking it a bit far.

I'm sure some of you are thinking "That seems pretty brutal and barbaric, that shouldn't be done." Well, it's not like dropping bombs on crowded enemy cities, killing dozens of innocent people, including women and children is any better. Not nearly as many lives would be lost due to wars. Plus it's the political officials who cause the problems with each other in the first place. So if they have a problem with another country, they should take responsibility and go out and fight for it themselves.

i guarantee you if this were to be in effect, wars would drop quite significantly. You think rich, greedy politicians who have it made are going to want to go out and fight for the things they caused? I highly doubt it. And this may even attract loyal politicians into office (Yes, I said loyal, shocking right?)This is a pretty crude idea, I haven't sat around drawing up plans or anything like that. I simply believe people in our government who are itching for a fight, should go out and do it for themselves.

Thoughts?

Almost all wars have their roots in capitalist expansion, not countries having political disagreements.

My thoughts are war SHOULD not be.

Fight war, not wars.

reply to post by Lingweenie


You do realize that if we could do what you are saying, we'd already have world peace. But with your idea, we'd also introduce barbaric games for your pleasure.
What is worse, wars or your thoughts on games?

reply to post by ANOK


I believe there shouldn't be war either. It's not worth all of the destruction we bring to each other, and our planet also. This idea wouldn't really be considered a "war" though.

Yes, basically all wars today are nothing more than conquest(fighting for territory), and fights for natural resources. Pretty much always been that way. I wouldn't say capitalism is to blame for it though. Capitalism is harmless, along with any other political system. But some people use political systems in the wrong ways.

Barbaric games wouldn't help solve anything. The country who won, would still want to create a diabolical bomb because they couldn't deal with losing. Or, they would come up with some other way to deal with the winner, because they are in fact, sore losers.

I say that we forget the wars and forget the barbaric games. We forget anything violent, have a huge meeting and reconcile our differences. After all, underneath our clothing, we are still only human.

Unfortunately, in this world, reconciling our differences is completely impossible due to the lust for money and power, but it's a nice thought.

reply to post by Nevertheless


This wouldn't be a game. It would be quite serious if political officials actually decided to go into battle with their political rivals. War today basically already is a game, a game of conquest. You could maybe even call it entertainment, since the media constantly talks about it. After all, chaos brings a hell of a lot of ratings. So people must like looking at it. It may not be pretty, but that's the way it is.

reply to post by Quyll


I'm not saying this is a full proof plan to stop all wars. I can agree disagreements should be carried out peacefully. And nobody should die, but it appears as though were a long way from there. I reintroduced a "war game" simply to help deter any wars that may arise in the future. Politicians would think twice if it was their own life was on the line.

I simply think it would be a good deterent, not a full on fix.

reply to post by Lingweenie


Just so I am clear according to your idea on how war should be fought if say America and Russia went to war that would mean we would put Obama and Putin into a ring and fight to the death?

As much as I would love to see that it has to be one of the most ridiculous idea’s ever if your thread wasn’t written with such a serious tone I would suspect you were joking.

Just no, not a good idea it wouldn’t work and it will never happen anyway.

I've got to be honest on this, surely the only way a war should be is non-existent...

No war?

To deny the human race the avenue of war is to deny it that which put us at the top of the food chain.

The human race will not know peace. We will not be pacified with peace.

There will always be a human ready to fight for what they believe in (no matter how jaded that belief might be).

We are an animal for sure, yes we can reason and have the ability to conceptualize and even practice the idea of peace but that doesn't change the fact that we are an animal.

In the existence of the human race, in its short time on earth, tell me, has there been peace? and I am not just talking about peace lasting a couple of decades or even 100 years?

We can all talk peace and sit around and stroke each other of the idea of peace and even say that we practice it in our homes but really..............just watch the news. No peace in our time on earth. As it should be.

reply to post by Lingweenie


Here is your best alternative to war:

This has been a similar thought I have had in the past, just how strongly are our politicians willing to fight if it is their own butt on the line? But if Earth did go this way then we would end up with muscle exploding meat heads running the show and dropping dead at 26 from a heart attack from overdosing on steroids. Either that or big corporations buying up all the prize fighters so they can implement their agenda without question.

Conflict resolution is very much a challenging role, every case is different and some problems are much bigger than just one person.

Originally posted by Lingweenie

I have an idea on how to make wars much less devastating, and can save many lives, especially innocent lives. Instead of having an army of everyday citizens, that usually don't even know what it is their fighting for, this is what you should do:
.
Thoughts?

Well... I admire your attempt to find a less "painfull" solution for having conventional wars where thousends of peoples will be killed in some fasjhion or an other.

Like you said, many people fighting a war do not even really know why they are ptting their life at risk. IMO that is something the materminds behind the wars do not much care about. Wars are faught because of greed, possession and status of the people in power.

When boiled down, these people behind wars are industrials and bankers. For them is a religious disagreement between groups of people an opportunity to earn money. They will cultivate that disagreement to the point that they want to kill eachother over it.

That is why your proposal for a "limited" war will never happen......just because common people are stupid and there is no money to be earned.

Originally posted by Lingweenie

I have an idea on how to make wars much less devastating, and can save many lives, especially innocent lives. Instead of having an army of everyday citizens, that usually don't even know what it is their fighting for, this is what you should do:

Find the top ranking political officials from each country (especially the war-mongers, and pro-war folks) and throw them into a arena, and have them fight to the death.

You realize that the Axis certainly would have won World War II under your scenario, right? FDR was a cripple and Churchill was a fatbody. Uncle Joe would have gotten some licks in, but in the end the fascists and samurai would win. Your scenario favors militaristic governments, any government where the political leadership comes from or is the military. It also favors countries that have more men in positions of leadership than women. And it favors countries with younger and more violent politicians over those with older, wiser politicians. This is an awful idea in pretty much every way imaginable. You'd have a one-world dictatorship in six months, and it would be a dictatorship of the jocks.

Originally posted by OtherSideOfTheCoin
reply to post by Lingweenie

 

Just so I am clear according to your idea on how war should be fought if say America and Russia went to war that would mean we would put Obama and Putin into a ring and fight to the death?

As much as I would love to see that it has to be one of the most ridiculous idea’s ever if your thread wasn’t written with such a serious tone I would suspect you were joking.

Just no, not a good idea it wouldn’t work and it will never happen anyway.

why is it a bad idea? because Vladamir would have barry for breakfast lunch and dinner?
in less than 5 minutes?

hell, vlad could finish it with a single blow

reply to post by Lingweenie




Agreed. Tragedy breeds entertainment, not for me specifically, but it's certainly all I see on Fox or CNN. But I don't see too much media on the everyday soldiers out there, you know, the ones that are blown up or shot on a weekly basis. And it is a weekly basis. Almost as if its become common place. "All part of the plan". It's mainly the scandals that get the 96 hour, every channel, all day coverage.

So let us hypothetically pit our world leaders against one another in a series of hunger games if you will. ROUND ONE!!

Representing 'Murica is President Obama weighing in at 180lbs. standing at 6 feet and 1 inch. 51yrs old.
Special abilities include - Change, and the 5 finger death punch

Vs.

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom weighing in at 10 stones. standing at 1.63 meters. 87yrs old.
Special abilities include - The Kamehameha

These scenarios would only ensue in more violence, more death, more blood to be spilled on the arena, cause that would become crack on the television. Could that kind of power even be regulated? To be the one to choose who fights?

See the film "ROBOT JOX" it has the same premise.

reply to post by FurvusRexCaeli


I never said anything about it having to only be a dictator or president to do it. I'm sure they could, but they wouldn't be the only people. There's plenty of other high ranking politicians in governments.

Favoring a military government? Well, there wouldn't be a military in use at the time, so why would that even matter? If you look at the U.S. their one of, if not the most war active country on the planet, and their a democracy. So a military based country wouldn't make a difference much, since a military wouldn't even be used.

Favoring women? You do realize women are capable of fighting also right? It's not like their helpless. Women can fight just as well as a man if they have the proper training. So that doesn't make any sense to say, and seems a bit sexist.

Favoring younger more violent politicians? Not exactly, You can't put a bunch of uneducated brawlers into high up government positions. Unless you want your country to fall apart since they wouldn't know how to run a country. And it's not like their going to fight against each other everyday or something. It would only happen whenever two countries have come to the conclusion they feel they need to go into physical conflict with each other.

Originally posted by Lingweenie
Capitalism is harmless, along with any other political system. But some people use political systems in the wrong ways.

Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production.

It is NOT a political system, it an economic system. Based on ownership of capital.

For capitalism to survive it requires that markets constantly grow. The growth of capitalism started with imperialism and colonialism. The exploitation and theft of the resources of developing nations.

The reason the third world is so poor is because of that colonialism. All those resources were, and still are, being used to make money for the minority capitalist class.

I could write a book on the social problems capitalism causes, mostly stemming from the lack of the means to produce needed resources. Capitalism is a group of greedy people who take everything for themselves, leaving very little for everyone else. Capitalism, and the mass inequality in wealth it creates, gives the capitalist the financial power to control politicians, control the state, and indirectly control you.

If the workers owned the means of production the wealth created by industry would be more evenly spread through the community, thus not giving one class the massive wealth inequality it takes to have authoritarian control over the politics and economy of the country.

War has always been about spreading this capitalist control of land and resources. We can have a market economy without economic private owners monopolizing the means to produce.

Poverty is not a lack of money, it comes from the lack of access to the means of production, land, machinery, etc.
Land that was stolen from the natives through force.

Originally posted by ANOK
If the workers owned the means of production the wealth created by industry would be more evenly spread through the community, thus not giving one class the massive wealth inequality it takes to have authoritarian control over the politics and economy of the country.

It doesn't matter who controls the means of production. The problem is the very idea that the means of production (i.e., "natural resources") need controlling at all. All economic systems are simply different manifestations of the philosophy that human beings and the natural world are somehow different, and that the natural world exists for the control of and domination by a single "elite" species. Capitalism, communism, socialism, and everything in between have all developed from this single errant idea. They are nothing more than different methods of managing our alienation from the natural world, and as such, are all equally worthless.