The U.S. Goverment

[Potjeh]

You do seem to have some rather romantic notions about it.

[burgingham]

No, you are right it wouldn't be since those two countries have cultivated a deep friendship over the past 50 years and don't need to go to war again

I guess we'll see about that when the euro collapses.

lol

[jorb]

You do seem to have some rather romantic notions about it.

I won't deny that the subject fascinates me, but I'm fascinated by many things that I do not like.

[Jester87]

You do seem to have some rather romantic notions about it.

I won't deny that the subject fascinates me, but I'm fascinated by many things that I do not like.

Thats probably because you're secretly a masochist. Have you visited your mistress lately?

[pyrale]

EDIT: And all armies may rape or plunder, but some seem to do it more than others, or are, say, the eastern and western fronts of WWII equivalent in your mind?

Thinking two seconds about it -
Are you comparing two armies, one of which was made of troops with a well planned relief system, whose country was never attacked by the troops they fought and whose nation suffered minor injuries, and on the other side an army from a country who was invaded, threatened with slavery and extermination, which had to use the scorched earth policy to survive and whose major cities were transformed into ruins by armies and bombing, who was given much less rest and whose nation suffered much higher casualties, both civilian and military ?

Note I'm not justifying war crimes either army commited, but I'm still wondering how the hell you can compare both situations.

is that not what you could call a major bias ? And since you seem to be well educated and aware enough to make this reasoning yourself, how could you miss that ?

EDIT: And this is why I am extremely skeptical of the enlightenment as an intellectual attitude. It's belief in general universialism -- of values, of government, of ideas -- and its belief in man's ability to a priori reasoning and understanding of the world is anti-empirical, unscientific and full of hubris.

At first I thought you were talking about the austrian school of economics. Weren't you the one leading the charge against anecdotal evidence and empiricism a few pages ago ?

[jorb]

I'm not sure what you are at all saying? I'm not sure the Red Army's march through East Prussia is best classified as a minor injury.

That aside, however, my point was that conditions on the eastern front -- in Germany's war with the Soviet Union -- were generally worse than conditions on the western front -- in Germany's war with France. You can debate why that was so, but that would be completely besides the point.

EDIT: And this is why I am extremely skeptical of the enlightenment as an intellectual attitude. It's belief in general universialism -- of values, of government, of ideas -- and its belief in man's ability to a priori reasoning and understanding of the world is anti-empirical, unscientific and full of hubris.

Scientific methodology obviously varies from field to field. A priori reasoning certainly has its place in mathematics, logic an praxeology. The point being that I do not believe that you can reason your way to a good understanding of human psychology, sociology or political science.

[burgingham]

Why shouldn't you be in a strictly normative sense? I am not saying that it is every applicable to reality, but that is probably not the point of moral philosophy anyway. Well, it is precisely the point, but at the same time obviously utopian.

[Kriegwolf]

Don't know, i find people acting as logical as they can. Nothing random in their actions. Boring people.

[burgingham]

I am not sure whom you are directing your statement at.

[pyrale]

I'm not sure what you are at all saying? I'm not sure the Red Army's march through East Prussia is best classified as a minor injury.

I was comparing allies' west front armies to allies' east front armies. And yes, I think we can safely say that the major part of the west ally army (US/canada) only suffered minor injuries in that war when their civilian losses amount to several thousands, compared to the millions of civilian deaths the eastern countries suffered.

This may not be the sole reason for a different behaviour, but this only should make any comparison between these two cases pointless.

Scientific methodology obviously varies from field to field. A priori reasoning certainly has its place in mathematics, logic an praxeology. The point being that I do not believe that you can reason your way to a good understanding of human psychology, sociology or political science.

You're moving the debate here. You start from stating that economics is a science of pure logics and mathematics, which in turn means it's logical to use praxeology.
However, I think there is still good basis to argue that economics is if not completely, at least for a quite large part related to psychology, sociology and politics.

But coming back to science, I can't think of any field of study gave up the theory > predictions > empirical validation process. The only field that would not do that is mathemathics, because there is no pre-existing stuff to understand and study.
Well, you could also quote some narrow fields of philosophy, but is that real science ? :p.