Take your typical politicians. All they want to do is keep their jobs by being voted in again. And in order to keep their jobs they make promises to the voters – promises to hand out “goodies”. Trouble is, no government takes in enough money to actually provide all these goodies that ordinary people want to vote for. So they borrow the money to do it.

And there is the problem. Governments have for years being borrowing money in order to fund programmes which will win votes. And who demands these programmes? The socialists and welfare-statists of course!

They are constantly demanding that government do that, fix that, and support that, while having no idea or concern as to how everything is going to get paid for. The assumption has always been that such social welfare spending can be managed based on the government’s ability to tax – hence the desire to “tax the rich”. But the truth is, there is never enough tax money to provide all that the welfare-statists desire.

In other words, politicians have only been doing what has been expected of them – to make promises of social welfare largesse in order to win votes, and to fund such largesse using borrowed money.

And that is the root of the problem.

Until people wake up and face reality, that there is no way to create prosperity by simply borrowing money, then the financial crisis will continue.

This is a question that has vexed many people. And obviously there can be situations war is justified – as in legitimate defence of a country against an aggressor. However, in recent times we have seen wars waged where no overt aggression was present.

Just take one example – the war against Iraq. That was was preemptive. It was waged on the basis of “intelligence” that implied Saddam Hussein “could” wage a war. Of course this was all trumped up and Iraq never posed any threat to the USA.

The same justification is being used in the run-up to a possible war with Iran. The argument (including manipulated intelligence) that Iran is a potential threat, and should be “taken out” before this threat manifests itself in a literal attack on either Israeli or US soil.

The truth is, Iran has no plans to attack anyone.

To put this war philosophy into a more human context, imagine you have a neighbour. This neighbour is paranoid about what you are doing in your garage every night (you’re building some machinery perhaps). However, your neighbour is so paranoid that he believes you are plotting to kill him.

Now, if this neighbour takes the law into his own hands and preemptively attacks you, or even kills you, then it’s quite clear he will not get off scott free for such an act. No, under our laws any preemptive attack on another person (when that person has not actually done anything) would rightly be considered as the initiation of force, and result in some jail time.

Trouble is, our political leaders do not operate on the same moral or legal plane as the rest of us. They literally are above the law.

Now, when it comes to war, contrary to what most people think, there have been serious attempts to define when war is justified, and the “Just War” theory is exactly that – a set of principles by which to judge if a war should or should not be waged.

Judge Andrew Napolitano clearly explains the Just War theory in his essay: What is a Just War?

Iran and the Terrorism Game

The Next War on Washington’s Agenda

The Stolen War

That is the siren call of our “peace and freedom loving” leaders. But I challenge you to watch this documentary by Rick Steves, as he travels around Iran, and to ask yourself if you really want to bomb these people. Then ask yourself if it’s possible we are being deliberately misinformed about those our leaders want us to go to war with – in order to dehumanise them.

It’s time for freedom and peace-loving people to rise up together to put a stop to the madness of war and mayhem – before it’s too late.