Libertarianism is stupid.

[mpjh]

Months before the end of the war, Japan's leaders recognized that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them.

American officials, having long since broken Japan's secret codes, knew from intercepted messages that the country's leaders were seeking to end the war on terms as favorable as possible. Details of these efforts were known from decoded secret communications between the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and Japanese diplomats abroad.

In his 1965 study, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (pp. 107, 108), historian Gar Alperovitz writes:

Although Japanese peace feelers had been sent out as early as September 1944 (and [China's] Chiang Kai-shek had been approached regarding surrender possibilities in December 1944), the real effort to end the war began in the spring of 1945. This effort stressed the role of the Soviet Union ...

In mid-April [1945] the [US] Joint Intelligence Committee reported that Japanese leaders were looking for a way to modify the surrender terms to end the war. The State Department was convinced the Emperor was actively seeking a way to stop the fighting.

A Secret Memorandum

It was only after the war that the American public learned about Japan's efforts to bring the conflict to an end. Chicago Tribune reporter Walter Trohan, for example, was obliged by wartime censorship to withhold for seven months one of the most important stories of the war.

In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)

This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. Specifically, the terms of these peace overtures included:

* Complete surrender of all Japanese forces and arms, at home, on island possessions, and in occupied countries.
* Occupation of Japan and its possessions by Allied troops under American direction.
* Japanese relinquishment of all territory seized during the war, as well as Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan.
* Regulation of Japanese industry to halt production of any weapons and other tools of war.
* Release of all prisoners of war and internees.
* Surrender of designated war criminals.

Is this memorandum authentic? It was supposedly leaked to Trohan by Admiral William D. Leahy, presidential Chief of Staff. (See: M. Rothbard in A. Goddard, ed., Harry Elmer Barnes: Learned Crusader [1968], pp. 327f.) Historian Harry Elmer Barnes has related (in "Hiroshima: Assault on a Beaten Foe," National Review, May 10, 1958):

The authenticity of the Trohan article was never challenged by the White House or the State Department, and for very good reason. After General MacArthur returned from Korea in 1951, his neighbor in the Waldorf Towers, former President Herbert Hoover, took the Trohan article to General MacArthur and the latter confirmed its accuracy in every detail and without qualification.

[muy_thaiguy]

Link please.

and http://www.goggle.com doesn't work.

[mpjh]

Better work on your research skills or you will never get out of high school.

[Juan_Bottom]

Link please.

and http://www.goggle.com doesn't work.

Don't mock him, this is the most interesting thing that I've read on here in a very long time... especially if it's authentic...

Better work on your research skills or you will never get out of high school.

I don't have the time now; I have to work soon so I'm going to take a shower and a nap... but I am definitly google-ing the hell out of this later.

[muy_thaiguy]

Better work on your research skills or you will never get out of high school.

And you ought to learn on posting your resources once in awhile, as well as backing off of the petty insults, yes? Otherwise, like in threads before, it will be hard to take your claims even semi-seriously.

[mpjh]

Look, you can whine all you want, but I post enough for you to find it if you don't believe me. If you don't want to do the work, don't read me.

[muy_thaiguy]

Look, you can whine all you want, but I post enough for you to find it if you don't believe me. If you don't want to do the work, don't read me.

Whining. So now asking for a link that you obviously know so well and is so apparently easy for you to find and post it, yet stubbornly refusing to do your own work, now equates with whining.
Why should I have to do your work for you? If you can take the time to copy and paste such a long article from a website, then surely, it would be faster and easier for you, who already knows the website, to, you know, link it.

[mpjh]

Yep, whine, that is what it is.

[F1fth]

Damnit, you both are annoying me. It's not hard to link it, nor is it hard to look it up.

Here: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

[muy_thaiguy]

And upon further looking at IHF,
http://www.ihr.org/
which "argues against the Holocaust," has articles on the "Jewish-Zionist domination of the U.S. political system," "Hitler did not want a war with Poland. Had he wanted war, he would have demanded the return of the entire Polish Corridor taken from Germany in 1919. He wanted Danzig back and Poland as an ally in his anti-Comintern Pact."

Yeah, alternative history is pretty well bogus.

[Nobunaga]

And upon further looking at IHF,
http://www.ihr.org/
which "argues against the Holocaust," has articles on the "Jewish-Zionist domination of the U.S. political system," "Hitler did not want a war with Poland. Had he wanted war, he would have demanded the return of the entire Polish Corridor taken from Germany in 1919. He wanted Danzig back and Poland as an ally in his anti-Comintern Pact."

Yeah, alternative history is pretty well bogus.

... CC Forums, Fair & Balanced.

... Sounded rather bogus. As Japanese history was my major back in the day the statement surprised me more than a little. But in truth, the surrender of Japan was a long time coming, inexplicably long in the western view, and it seemed reasonable to listen. University profs do not know / teach everything after all.

... What's the Libertarian view? (to stay on topic).

...

[jay_a2j]

No, what's stupid is that people think there is a significant difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. There is not. What is stupid is that both major parties are in full agreement when it comes to ignoring/destroying the Constitution of the United States. And even more stupid is that the vast majority of Americans DON'T SEE IT! What's stupid is a two party system where no outside third party stands a chance because the media is in bed with the political machine in this country. Now, you can go back to debating Roe v. Wade or sell your SUV to be more green, none of it will matter when your freedom is gone.

[thegreekdog]

No, what's stupid is that people think there is a significant difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. There is not. What is stupid is that both major parties are in full agreement when it comes to ignoring/destroying the Constitution of the United States. And even more stupid is that the vast majority of Americans DON'T SEE IT! What's stupid is a two party system where no outside third party stands a chance because the media is in bed with the political machine in this country. Now, you can go back to debating Roe v. Wade or sell your SUV to be more green, none of it will matter when your freedom is gone.

Excellent! Keep voting third party, jay! Hopefully someday a Libertarian candidate will be invited to a major presidential debate.

[captain.crazy]

No, what's stupid is that people think there is a significant difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. There is not. What is stupid is that both major parties are in full agreement when it comes to ignoring/destroying the Constitution of the United States. And even more stupid is that the vast majority of Americans DON'T SEE IT! What's stupid is a two party system where no outside third party stands a chance because the media is in bed with the political machine in this country. Now, you can go back to debating Roe v. Wade or sell your SUV to be more green, none of it will matter when your freedom is gone.

Excellent! Keep voting third party, jay! Hopefully someday a Libertarian candidate will be invited to a major presidential debate.

Not until the people have taken this country back by force and slaughtered all puppet masters will there be a third party in office. The absolute power at the top is far too corrupt to even consider such a thing. Electronic voting is a sham!

[mpjh]

And now we have heard from the crazy.

[thegreekdog]

And now we have heard from the crazy.

Yeah, don't group me with the captain. His name is appropriate.

[bbqpenguin]

Libertarianism is smart.

do whatever you want to do, as long as you don't f*ck up someone else
mind your own business
take care of yourself, be independent
be responsible, live with the consequences of your actions
keep government small and taxes low to maximize individual liberty


what's stupid about that?

[mpjh]

It doesn't work.

[bbqpenguin]

it's never been tried

[mpjh]

Never will be either.

[thegreekdog]

It doesn't work.

It doesn't work? Can you elaborate?

[bbqpenguin]

Never will be either.

only because there are too many voters unwilling to provide for themselves and not have the government take care of them

[mpjh]

Bull, only because most of us know that we must help each other and government is one of the most efficient ways to do that.

Libertarianism is only an extreme form of unregulated capitalism -- and we have seen where that gets us.

[Snorri1234]

It doesn't work.

It doesn't work? Can you elaborate?

Because even the most die-hard capitalist will not refuse to help a poor old lady who is sick. Or for that matter, a little kid.

[bbqpenguin]

Bull, only because most of us know that we must help each other and government is one of the most efficient ways to do that.

Libertarianism is only an extreme form of unregulated capitalism -- and we have seen where that gets us.

we wouldn't all have to help each other if we would just take care of ourselves
sorry I'm an aggressive Randian. and government isn't efficient at doing anything. seriously, name one thing the government is good at. maybe at blowing shit up, but other than that, not much.

also, unregulated capitalism has gotten us more than 200 years pretty well. sure there were some pretty substantial setbacks along the way, but you can't find any economic system that can go a couple centuries without a major recession or two. also, you could blame the government and the public as much if not more than "capitalistic greed" or whatever you want to call it for the current state of the economy