As a libertarian, I always find it amusing to see statists prattle on about the glory of dying for one's country, or of killing for one's country, as if killing for or dying for one's self, one's kin, or estate, is not as noble. Frequently such statists prat on about how evil it is for an individual to take a life into his own hands without proper legal sanction, or to waste one's life on a cause that only matters to the individual, as if the life of the individual belongs to or is more properly spent, or requires the authorization of, the state to be spent with the proper decorum to be deemed "glorious" or "honorable" or "lawful".
Yet ours is a country whose power and authority is delegated to it by we the people as individuals. We each delegate some of our power and rights to the state (without surrendering them) so that it may operate in our common, mutual, interests. Without our consent, the state has no authority, yet where does the state get its authority to kill lawfully, or order killing lawfully, if it does not obtain it from us as individuals in the first place?
So where is the honor, glory, pomp and authority of our soldiers to do what they do in our name and authority if we ourselves do not retain equal degrees of gravitas to exercise such power ourselves?
I have killed in battle, I have been shot. I felt nothing special about doing so in uniform any more than I have in using force to disable a criminal in the street as a man that some would term 'vigilante'. In fact, I often felt that my, we, our interest "over there" forcing some poor schmuck to sit and take the short string and like it while some megacorp profited, was more akin to a gang banger shaking down a neighborhood.
As an advocate of the right to keep and bear arms, seeing our military disarming civillians left and right overseas offends me even when I know some of those arms would otherwise be used against our military, because that is their righteous purpose. If troops came to my door to disarm me and mine, I'd blow their brains out, no matter whose flag was worn on their uniform. I expect no different of people overseas.
This by no means is intended to aid and succor terrorist groups. I support the hunting down of those who attack innocent civilians, bringing them to justice. I do think HOW we do so is as important as THAT we do so. Behaving as a bunch of Darth Vader storm troopers around the globe is not the way. Sure it helps make boys with small penises feel bigger, but it really doesn't help promote our image. It's certainly not honorable, and it doesn't represent MY interests.
Lest We Forget
US General GS Patton said it was the duty of the other poor sumabitch to die for his country. Americans had no duty to die for their country. Their duty was to fight. And to fight in such a way that they lived and the unfortunates fighting against the American Army died.the notion that fighting and dying for your nation and beliefs was widely used by Hitler and Stallin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v71W_FFW_J0
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I'm not seeing anyone arguing that in this thread. But it is a useful point to bring up. The moral principle involved is exactly the same - a just war is simply mass self-defence (or defence of others, which is even more honourable).IntLibber wrote:As a libertarian, I always find it amusing to see statists prattle on about the glory of dying for one's country, or of killing for one's country, as if killing for or dying for one's self, one's kin, or estate, is not as noble.
One shouldn't get caught up in condemning "war" in general; war is a complex, high-level phenomenon, and as such cannot be declared fundamentally right or wrong. Each war needs to be judged individually, on its own merits and under its own circumstances. To do less is merely intellectual laziness.
And, of course, simply because a war is just doesn't mean everything the "right" side does is justified. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians was carried out by the Allies in WWII, for instance. The war crimes tribunals afterwards chose to let the Nazis off for this sort of thing rather than go after Allied war criminals... they could have just held the Nazis to account and ignored their own side, but then they would have looked like hypocrites, and we can't have that...
Yes, there are certain ideologies which naturally clash, and the clash tends to lead to war. This is not an argument against war, but an argument against ideological tolerance. If one man holds one ideology, and another holds a different ideology, and the result is that the first attacks the second because his ideology tells him he should, the cure is not to respect one another's ideologies. The cure is to convince the first man that he is wrong - but if he will not listen to argument, all the second man can do is defend himself.
I've, uh, been in a street fight... it was an attempted mugging. Now I feel like a poser.I have killed in battle, I have been shot.
I've always been more of a theoretician...
Yup, and there was a lot of resistance in congress against involving ourselves in the entanglements that merchants got themselves in. You venture beyond our shores, you accept the risks the rest of the world imposes. You can either pay to protect yourself from those risks, or pay in losses. In the 18th century, the Med was still an Ottoman pond.MSimon wrote:The Barbary Wars were fought for American shipping interests.
Pay the toll and move along. The concept of "freedom of the seas" was invented by cheapskates who didn't want to pay tolls or pay for enough cannon to protect their assets, who externalized the costs of their protection on the rest of us.
They were taught from birth that as long as things were done by the book, a thing was legal. The epitome of German statism. And they did so. By the book, everything.MSimon wrote:And until there was sufficient resistance how could they be convinced otherwise?the nazis were pretty sure they were doing the right thing...
They documented the legal process by which they legally stripped the citizenship of the jews. Same for how they were sent to camps, their property seized to pay for the jews 'responsibility' for the loss of WWI.
They documented everything they did, because they had been taught that if they did everything by the book, then it was legal. If you follow orders, then you can't commit a war crime, cause you were just following orders. That was the depravity of statism.
Even today, there are Germans whose families feel they were persecuted when they were removed from the Sudetenland after WWII, because they took the Sudetenland "by the book".
Meaning that from when Hitler took dominance through to the end of WW2, all those 10 year olds were the hardened experienced members of this state?IntLibber wrote: They were taught from birth that as long as things were done by the book, a thing was legal. The epitome of German statism. And they did so. By the book, everything.
The German people democratically voted to give up their vote for a period of time so that Hitler could get their ruined country on its feet. Before Hitler, people had to race home with their daily wages in a wheel barrow to buy a loaf of bread before the price went up again. He fixed that and made the country one of the most industrialised and advanced in the world, within just a few years. Why would anyone not believe him after that? Your view of history in hindsight unhinges you from imagining what the German people were suffering before Hitler.
Which is why the founders opposed a standing army. It would have been MUCH more difficult to do our wars in Iraq if the nation had had to call for the voluntary militia to assemble and go.IntLibber wrote: I have killed in battle, I have been shot. I felt nothing special about doing so in uniform any more than I have in using force to disable a criminal in the street as a man that some would term 'vigilante'. In fact, I often felt that my, we, our interest "over there" forcing some poor schmuck to sit and take the short string and like it while some megacorp profited, was more akin to a gang banger shaking down a neighborhood.
If anyone here if foolish enough to equate the standing state reserve army (the National Guard) with the militia, all I can say is
!!Well, actually I could say a lot more, but why waste the time on fools!!
the only reason they needed such resistance to be convinced of the contrary was because they followed the exact same things some people here drool about... "dying by you country is a noble thing" and all that nonsense.MSimon wrote:And until there was sufficient resistance how could they be convinced otherwise?the nazis were pretty sure they were doing the right thing...
I think IntLibber is just pointing out how "by the book" rationalization can allow a people to make a deal with the devil. The devil can grant you many wonderful things, but he will extract his price.chrismb wrote:Meaning that from when Hitler took dominance through to the end of WW2, all those 10 year olds were the hardened experienced members of this state?IntLibber wrote: They were taught from birth that as long as things were done by the book, a thing was legal. The epitome of German statism. And they did so. By the book, everything.
The German people democratically voted to give up their vote for a period of time so that Hitler could get their ruined country on its feet. Before Hitler, people had to race home with their daily wages in a wheel barrow to buy a loaf of bread before the price went up again. He fixed that and made the country one of the most industrialised and advanced in the world, within just a few years. Why would anyone not believe him after that? Your view of history in hindsight unhinges you from imagining what the German people were suffering before Hitler.
And no, I don't believe in an actual, literal "devil". I do believe that good intentions offer no protection from bad consequences.
Johansen's Three Laws of Socio-dynamics:ZenDraken wrote: And no, I don't believe in an actual, literal "devil". I do believe that good intentions offer no protection from bad consequences.
- Sapient beings have the right to voluntary action.
You can't do good by doing wrong.
Like most toxic substances, government programs are subject to the J-Curve.
Who?AcesHigh wrote:some people here
I think you're fighting a straw man...
Pretty much. See Principle of Double Effect, as opposed to Consequentialism. On the other hand, "God writes straight with crooked lines", but of course it's not our job to try to anticipate that; evil remains evil, even if the results do happen to turn out well.KitemanSA wrote:Good intentions do NOT "right action" make. When good intentions are implemented by wrong action, bad things occur.
Regarding my earlier preaching, I should probably add that once you're actually in battle and someone's trying to kill you, psychological considerations alone could well be sufficient to greatly mitigate just about anything you might do in response. The trick is to catch yourself before things get that far out of hand...
If a soldier realized clearly in the middle of battle that the opposing army had just cause, and immediately lost his life in a kill-or-be-killed situation because he refused to take the life of an innocent (ie: his opponent), it would probably qualify as heroic virtue, even though in an objective sense all he did was not commit murder. Mitigating factors have to be taken into account.
Oh.Betruger wrote:I was replying to Aceshigh's and meant to agree with 93143.
Okay, that makes a bit more sense then...