# How much say should people have in a war? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 4, 2007, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685 "2007-01-04T14:15:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c4cdca/32.png) [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685/21 "2007-01-10T07:57:54Z")
From this non-American’s POV, you people let one guy have far too much power. Makes me thank Og every day for our much more robust system of checks and balances. You might want to consider changing your system 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685/22 "2007-01-10T09:58:39Z")
[QUOTE=glee] I think this is a hopeful version of events. Remember Watergate? And Robin Cook resigning before the Iraq war even started? [/QUOTE] They thought it was the right thing. One of the pitfalls of power is the relative ease with which some people end up thinking that they “know best”. Better than the people, better than the lawmakers… The legal thing and the right thing aren’t always the same, but “the right illegal thing” is always dangerous country to thread. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685/23 "2007-01-10T10:47:32Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] From this non-American’s POV, you people let one guy have far too much power. Makes me thank Og every day for our much more robust system of checks and balances. You might want to consider changing your system 😉 [/QUOTE] Well, we _thought_ we had robust checks and balances! Regardless of one’s Constitutional and legal system, it still takes people to make the checks and balances work, and we had a bit of a perfect storm here the past few years. A President gone nuts, a legislative majority willing to go along (and a minority frequently cowed by the whole terror thing), the decades-long effort of conservatives to remake the judiciary in their own image finally bearing fruit, and a press that treated pro-war and ‘anti-terror’ measures as ‘serious’, and antiwar and pro-Constitutional rights opinions as unserious…you get the idea. But the tide seems to be turning. A bit later than we would’ve liked, but it’s turning. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685/24 "2007-01-13T09:00:25Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] Chowder, as a U.S. President once said, doing what’s right is easy. Knowing what’s right is hard. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler et al. all thought what they were doing was right; that doesn’t make them decent men. The U.S. has committed open genocide, engaged in slavery, slaughtered civilians on purpose, supported horrible dictatorships and the massacre of even more civilians, supported terrorism, overthrown legitimate governments for the sake of business interests, arranged the assassination of foreign leaders, invaded other countries without meaningful provocation, and any number of immoral and unethical acts. I know it’s emotionally hard to accept these facts from the inside, but it’s all a matter of public record and it’s silly to deny it. Some governments are worse than others to be sure, but generally speaking any government that lasts long enough is soon proven to be inherently immoral and dangerous. [/QUOTE] Stalin, Hitler etc have no bearing on this subject, to mention them is, IMHO irrelevent. Most world powers throughout history have made monumental fuck ups and in this respect the USA is no different. To state they supported terrorism is I think wrong, they supported what they considred _at the time_ to be legitimate causes. I still stand by my earlier statement, I believe America to be basically decent and I also maintain that the US Govt. does what it feels to be right, again at the time ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685/25 "2007-01-13T13:25:22Z")
I think I follow what Chowder is saying, that Americans and even the US government, are not inherently malign. Misguided, ill informed and sometimes just plain thick (especially the government - this is not a blanket insult) - but not actually malign. It is not unreasonable for a State to put its interests ahead of the interests of others. It also helps if people have a certain amount of foresight. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685/26 "2007-01-13T13:55:06Z")
Hm. I thought this thread had been superseded by [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=403454). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685/27 "2007-01-13T22:19:43Z")
Remember that the American people were against the Vietnam War two-to-one from 1968 onward. (Discussed [here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=280484&highlight=vietnam)) But we didn’t pull our last troops out until [1974.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_war#Total_U.S._withdrawal) ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685/28 "2007-01-14T00:11:13Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Remember that the American people were against the Vietnam War two-to-one from 1968 onward. [/QUOTE] Another way of stating that was that the American people were staunchly behind the war through 1968 - or at least Tet, which is extraoridinary. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685/29 "2007-01-14T08:11:04Z")
It’s amazing how many people on thie thread agree with Hermann Goering, who famously said (paraphrasing): If the people got to decide whether or not to go to war, there would be no wars – even plowboys understand that the most they personally are likely to get out of a war is a chace to return to their farm with their arms and legs intact." [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-say-should-people-have-in-a-war/386685.md?page=1)