While listening to the peaceful news broadcast from NPR, this story caught my attention:

Department of Peace Idea Resurfaces

The story brings up some reactions that cut across a lot of political lines, such as not wanting the UN to tell the US what to do. This is also an idea that's about as old as the country.

Why should the US or why should the US not have a DoP?

Why should the US or why should the US not have a DoP?

Though history points to situations where the opposite seem true, the US Department of State is supposed to fill this role. The Department of Defense should only be needed when diplomacy fails (and of course US or allied interests are in immediate danger). That said I really don't see much point in developing an entire new department, including the expensive infrastructure to address this issue (even if a revamp of the Department of State seems to be in order).


edited to add:

One interesting side note here is the use of a municipal City Council in this matter. I don't see why a City Council would even consider such a resolution, unless of course they were contemplating the creation of their own municipal department of peace. I thought this was worthy of it's own discussion, so I started a topic on the subject here.

Why should the US or why should the US not have a DoP?

To clear up the prosal, peaceful diplomacy would still be handled by the Department of State, which administers the Peace Corps and other peace initiatives and strategies. The DoP would focus primarily on making Americans more peaceful domestically, and more accepting of world government.

The group promoting the DoP is called The Peace Alliance. Its orientation page says:

As you get deeper into the material, it talks about teaching Americans to think of themselves as World Citizens, working toward compliance with international groups, ditching the American Way in favor of multicultural relativism, etc.

The DoP philosophy is concerning because it seems to focus too much on compromise rather than consensus. Consensus is a peace strategy where a group starts with a bunch of "win-lose" ideas, then creatively refine them into "win-win" ideas, using methods like satisficing, positive attitude, nonjudgementalism, etc. Consensus-building acknowledges that I might really have a legitimate beef with the other person that needs to be addressed; whereas compromise is more about sacrificing what you know to be right in order to avoid conflict with a belligerent. The traditional examples are that Winston Churchill was a consensus-builder, while Neville Chaimberlain was a compromiser.

To me, this seems like a whole lot of globalist-pacivist indoctrination we don't need. The fact is that America really does have better values than most other countries and cultures; I don't see the harm in encouraging others to evolve beyond Old World ideas in favor of New World ideas-- but the whole New World Order stuff I'd rather avoid.

The more I read about the Department of Peace, the more it seems like the Department of Docility, a means of training people not to object to anything the government and the UN tells them. While the more violent among us might need some anger management therapy, I'm not sure it serves the greater good to brainwash all Americans to act like lobotomized sheep with Dennis Kucinich as their puppetmaster.

I wouldn't mind an Office of Peace in the Department of State to focus on creative strategies to avoid war without subverting our interests, but I'd almost rather live under Communism (and I have before) than in a society trained from birth to compromise principles to the extent of unquestioningly accepting bad ideas. That's a recipe for something scary.

*edited to change neo-socialist to globalist-pacifist... still looking for a better descriptor...

I am not convinced that there should be a cabinet-level "Department of Peace" as here proposed. As has been pointed out, the Department of State carries much of that responsibility. I would rather have, in addition to the many private organizations dedicated to seeking ways to avoid violence, local officials all over the nation dedicated to this goal. In addition to law enforcement and prisons, we should have crime prevention.

In addition to everything else, this proposal has very close to zero possibility of ever happening. The people behind this movement are wonderful folks, whom one would be proud to have as friends; but perhaps their efforts would be better spent elsewhere.

some languages don’t have time based verbs, but its all monkey business anyways. My favorite political party turned into some quasi-intellectual based science religions experience I could care less for. No real peace is possible until people understand themselves, which in itself is such a large endeavor as to be remotely impossibly, humans cant even explain fully yet the behavior of a fly or an ant, let alone a mammal.

Why this plays in peace, subjective realities will never hold, because they are B.S, that’s why.

This is true all through human history, and it will be true well into the future as we slowly destroy ourselves in the biosphere. Say what you want, nothing is changing the pace of today.

In a dainty world it could work. But I'm too reminded of Patton's famous 'shoveling *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. ***' speech. "Americans love war. All real Americans love the sting of battle". It's not that Americans are all war mongers, it's also that they are a fearful bunch who trust far too much in their government. Bad reality seems to belong to someone else. Iraq War veterans living and eating out of dumpsters? A US air strike killed 20 members of a family in
Iraq? In Afghanistan? In Vietnam?
No. There's no room for a department of peace in the US.

Why should the US or why should the US not have a DoP?

According to NPR this idiocy dates back to Benjamin Rush. Well Dr Benjamin Rush also advocated insane asylums, bloodletting, the firing of George Washington as CiC of the Continental Army, socialized medicine, and Christianity in public life.



What would NPR say about most of those?

TFI, it might be nice to consider Dr. Benjamin Rush in the context of colonial times.

Although bleeding would be absurd in the 21st Century, it was an accepted, though not universally so, medical procedure at that time. Doctors in that day were not even aware that mosquitoes carried diseases such as malaria. The word asylum is now passé. They are now called, euphemistically of course, mental hospitals. Such institutions are preferably for mentally ill persons than prisons, death row or life on the street or in a mission for the homeless. Although it was not a majority, others in the colonies wished to replace Washington. Socialized medicine is a current scare word. I doubt it was widely used in Rush's day. Part of Rush's life was lived before the revolution, a time when the Church England still filled or approved rectors in the church from London. Oddly enough, it seems conservatives are the ones today who wish to make Christianity a larger part of public life.

Benjamin Rush isn't a reason to not consider a Department of Peace.

I'm not certain whether this needs sto be an entire department, or a segment of an existing agency. In order for it to not be ignored, I would say that it would have to be mandated that the new agency's head participate in all meetings of state, defense, and NSC that they desire to. The reasons why we need this agency are quite long. For one, better dipomacy and relations with other nations would have allowed us to have a northern front in Iraq, instead of being rejected by the Turks. Our efforts at public diplomacy have also flopped ungraciously at great cost and peril to us. We have also blundered significantly in trying to remake the map of the middle east ideologically.

If there is anything to learn from the above examples, it's that it's best to genuinely attempt diplomacy first before utilizing the big stick. In bringing people to the table, you will at a minimum, stop bloodshed in a military conflict. In other instances, you will assure better relations with other nations who aren't cynical about your motives when you all of a sudden need their help.*coughs*Turkey!*coughs* Bush Sr. was an accomplished leader in this regard. Carter brought us peace between Israel and Egypt. Reagan got us nuclear weapons reductions and fruitful summits. We need to try and improve our lot in regards to diplomacy and negotiations. I believe that this has regressed during the last eight years.

I agree with you that State needs a higher-profile focus on international peace efforts. Unfortunately, the current proposal for the Department of Peace is far more of a domestic organization plus Peace Corps than a foreign policy organization. It's focus is on making American citizens more peaceful (or docile, passive), rather than developing creative strategies to avoid war. War avoidance is currently part of the Department of State's mandate, who currently also runs the Peace Corps and other efforts. An Office of Peace within State dedicated to developing creative strategies to foster international goodwill and avoid conflict would be great-- so long as it stayed out of domestic brainwashing.

From apearances, it looks as if they are looking at both domestic and foreign efforts.



I don't know if it's a bunch of touchy feely "I feel your pain" meely-mouthed self-esteem sessions, but it is a new approach. It wouldn't hurt to have new programs that did more than just return criminals. Talk to any police officer or judge and they won't hesitate to tell you-treatment or therapy is important!.

There are times (such as these) when I would very much like to go screaming into the night.

Why is it that the ONLY solution politicians agree on is the need for more and more bureaucracy? It's almost as if America's whole reason for being is to support a jobs program for lawyers and paper pushers.

It wasn't always like this. There was a time when individuals took responsibility for their own actions. Parents and grand parents raised the 'younguns' . If someone elses child caused some grief, an adult would step in (usually without fear of being sued (yet another job for lawyers).

A department of peace? Sounds like another feel good exercise in futility.

Considering the major reason we don't have peace is the fact that other lawyers, bureaucrats and military industrial companies want war.

It's absurd to believe that a department of peace will be any more successful than our war on drugs, etc.

It is a mistake for us to limit our rights as Americans to join the global village.

We should mind our own business, and jealously guard our privacy as well.

I already have problems with the government teaching our children.

"When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already.... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.” Adolph Hitler....


~~~-- Provide much-needed assistance to efforts by city, county, and state governments in coordinating existing programs; as well as develop new programs based on best practices nationally~~~~

Huh?? the government can't coordinate their way out of a paper bag.

~~~ -- Teach violence prevention and mediation to America's school children ~~~~~

We would be better served as citizens to monitor what the children are watching on TV, and the games they play.


~~~-- Support our military with complementary approaches to peace-building. ~~~~

As a United States Marine during the mid 70s, it became clear to me that thinking of a military in terms of being a 'police force' or as ' peace keepers' is the worst sort of self deception.

Our military has one purpose and one purpose only. To kill the enemy. That is not a bad thing, but we need to stop being politically correct and confuse ourselves with inaccurate terms. The military personnel are not trained as peace officers, and they shouldn't be. Now even our law enforcement personnel ( formerly known as peace officers) are training in military tactics, which they are using to great (but not positive) effect on our own populace.

~~~~-- Create and administer a U.S. Peace Academy, acting as a sister organization to the U.S. Military Academy.~~~~~

What will be taught here, finger painting and harmonizing Kumbaya? No thank you, our government is already broke, and is well on the way of taking the tax payers with it. Save us from this madness of throwing money at every perceived problem with no thought as to the full consequence.

Henry VI: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers....