Commenter TJ Madison left a lengthy comment on the Veteran’s Day post, laying out a what I take as a libertarian case against honoring the veterans of American wars. I haven’t had a lot of success in starting constructive arguments with people who don’t believe that society exists at all, but because I said I would, here goes.
His quotes from my post are preceded by >>.
<<First, you have to love America.
This is an odd statement. “America” is simply a geographic area filled with 300 million people. It’s too large and too diffuse for anyone to “love” in a meaningful sense.
That’s silly. America is also an idea, or a group of ideas. As noted by Lincoln in the Lyceum speech I mentioned last year:
We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them–they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors.
Their’s was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ’tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.
The lives we lead are in fact a legacy, and like it or not we have a debt to pay forward to the generations that come after us.
I’m constantly amused that libertarians somehow believe that the social constructs that surround us and make up our society and polity are natural; it’s kind of like believing that the 405 freeway is somehow the product of nature, just laid out here so we can commute on it. Law, domestic tranquility, the advanced arts and sciences we enjoy didn’t spring fully-formed from the forehead of Zeus.
Anyone who has owned a home or a boat knows what it is to fight entropy. The reality is that everything we build wears down, wears out, and is used up. We need to constantly spend effort to keep them up.
Social constructs are no different than physical ones. Libertarians either believe that this is false, and that the social sphere will somehow self-generate with no effort on our part, or that they can get a free ride on the social goods – property among them – that are so produced.
If you don’t think property is a social good, ask yourself how much land in Mogadishu is worth. The answer: enough ammunition to keep someone else from taking it from you by force.
<<This isn’t a perfect country. I think it’s the best county.
Indeed. The govenment here is the least oppressive (for now). As a result people here can actually get some work done.
And that least oppressive government is the product of a political history that requires constant maintenance. Back to Lincoln:
But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls. They are gone.–They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-resistless hurricane has swept over them, and left only, here and there, a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage; unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs, a few more ruder storms, then to sink, and be no more.
They were the pillars of the temple of liberty; and now, that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.–Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our WASHINGTON.
His appeal to reason is an appeal against the passions of the mob, and their desire to take the law into their own hands, and so weaken it. His reason encompasses the totality of the human experience, individual as well as social.
<<I love this country, my country, my people. And those who attack her…from guerilla cells, boardrooms, or their comfy chairs in expensive restaurants…better watch out.
Again, America is not a person. Guerilla cells attack and kill PEOPLE. Why should I care more about the deaths of innocent people I don’t know in NYC as opposed to innocent people I don’t know in Sudan? The only moral answer I see involves simple logistics: strangers in NYC are easier for me to help, so spending effort on them is more efficient.
That’s immensely stupid. You live in a social, economic and political matrix which ties you more closely to people in New York than to people in the Sudan. To deny that is adolescent fantasy at best; it’s important to remember that Ayn Rand’s work is classified as “fiction”.
<<So thanks, veterans. Thanks soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen. Thanks for doing your jobs and I hope you all come home hale and whole, every one of you.
Occasionally the USG does actually defend the US population from harm. The bungled operations in Afghanistan, despite their failure to get OBL, may have slowed down the terrorists. Historically speaking, however, General Smedley Butler, USMC, CMH*2 seems to have been correct.
Yup, the pre-WWII General. If only we’d listened to him and disbanded the standing Army…wait! We did!
You seem to operate from the fallacy that all harm comes from the powerful interests of the West. A lot has; but human history – the history that, try as you may, you’re a part of – is the history of harm done and defended against.
<<And I came to realize that these men and women – who had trained for a substantial part of their life to learning do unspeakable violence – had the energy and breadth of intelligence to also focus intently on doing good. And that they wanted more than anything to do good, and in so doing keep at bay the need to do violence.
This means nothing. The Nazis were committed to “doing the right thing” by their own standards. Sincerity of purpose isn’t nearly as useful as people seem to think it is.
See, I have no trouble telling the difference between our standards, which have to date been largely good (aimed at promoting freedom, health, and life) and the standards of the SS (aimed at promoting oppression, misery, and death). We don’t always – or often – meet our own standards, but they are there for us to measure ourselves against nonetheless.
<<On the worst day in modern history for the U.S. military, a few soldiers covered themselves with honor.
The worst day? THE WORST DAY? How about Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo? 100x civilian fatalities? Or does that not count as “modern history” anymore?
Sorry, strategic war is still war. For most of human history, the enemy’s people have been a legitimate target. For a lengthier discussion of this, go over to my old discussion on the nature of terrorism at Armed Liberal.
Of course there are some ethical people in the military. The selection pressure for unquestioning obedience is very strong, but it isn’t perfect.
<<I realized that the military was not a machine, separate from me and against which I could struggle. I realized that it was a group of individuals who are an expression of our society – of our worst and our best.
It’s BOTH. Most of the people in that machine seem decent enough as individuals. But the US military is still a machine. And unquestioning obedience to authority and rational virtuous action are still incompatible.
You flatly don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know if you’re projecting old fantasies (as I did) or simply watching too much television, but what you’re saying isn’t remotely borne out by facts.
<<But they are our soldiers, and they choose to stand between us and people who would murder us in our sleep. The wrong they do is ours, and the honor their own.
I didn’t select these men, or support their actions in any way, except to the extent their paycheck is extorted from me. I bear no responsibility for their actions, good or bad.
Bzzzt. Sorry. You live behind walls they erect with their bodies. You don’t spend time standing watch over your home to make sure that no one invades and takes it away because they do.
<<And for my fellows who look at them as soulless thugs, you owe them an apology too, and all of us owe them our gratitude.
They aren’t soulless thugs, true. But I owe them no apology. They are responsible for their actions.
Yes, as you are for yours.
It’s frustrating for me to debate Randians too much, because the vocabulary doesn’t mean the same thing to me as to them. They see a far different world than I do, and that’s frustrating because I want to realign liberalism – an ’emergent’ liberalism – along some lines that I think would be appealing to libertarians. I’m just not sure how to make the connection.
Note that TJ Madison doesn’t speak for all of us. I have no problem with honoring veterans.
BTW, do you have a follow-up post to “TERRORISM VS. WARFARE”? It looks like it defends our military actions against civilians by primarily citing its role on attacking morale, but it seems to me that this could also be applied to terrorist attacks.
The libertarian ideal cannot by definition stand alone as means of social organization or government. It is only valid within another context. A libertarian will be completely free only when not associated with anthing else. Robinson Crusoe is perfect for Madison.
Just in case T.J. Madison doesn’t stop by soon….
I once asked him to label his philosophy. He replied along the lines that it could best be described as anarcho-capitalism, which can be reckoned as extreme libertarianism I guess. He also said he and some of his cronies were thinking about starting a blog. I wished him well and said that I’d be glad to read it.
I hope one of the first things he addresses, in all his presumed rationalism, is how he can cross out all the ties that bind men together as if, since he doesn’t feel them, they have no existence. Anyone that can’t feel the stares of our forefathers is not a rationalist, but a nihilist.
>>And that least oppressive government is the product of a political history that requires constant maintenance.
This is the heart of our disagreement. You percieve the efforts of the warriors, politicians, and bureaucrats in DC as having a net positive effect on the maintenance of civil society. I percieve the efforts of said groups as having a net corrosive effect on civil society, one that will eventually result in our ruin. I wish to see these groups dismantled or wildly altered before they can do more damage here and abroad.
These positions are subject to empirical analysis. This is fundamentally a difference involving logistics, not ethics. We seem to share the goal of advancing human liberty and prosperity. The dispute involves the means.
>>Social constructs are no different than physical ones. Libertarians either believe that this is false, and that the social sphere will somehow self-generate with no effort on our part, or that they can get a free ride on the social goods – property among them – that are so produced.
Civil liberties, due process, property — indeed these are important social constructs, which I enthusiastically support. What I don’t see is how the Feds have a net positive impact on these constructs.
The local police seem useful enough, and the state governments occasionally turn out something useful. But the Feds just seem like overhead. They take a bunch of money from me at gunpoint, and don’t seem to provide any useful services in return. The “security services” they claim to have provided over the decades just don’t stand up to scrutiny. That’s why I have a hard time praising the sacrifices of those who work for the USG.
Look, if the Feds provided efficient security against invasion, they wouldn’t need to tax me — I’d chip in voluntarily. And if the Marines had sensible plans for assassinating dictators and liberating oppressed people (without killing thousands of them), I’d do more than chip in, I’d JOIN, and commit the bulk of my not inconsiderable resources to their cause.
>>Bzzzt. Sorry. You live behind walls they erect with their bodies. You don’t spend time standing watch over your home to make sure that no one invades and takes it away because they do.
Again, what kind of military would be necessary to defend us from the Rampaging Mexicans, Evil Canadians, and the sharks? Surely a far different sort of organization from the one we now have. And a far cheaper one. An armed population, some interceptors, and a few subs would do. None of this inept foreign intervention stuff that everyone insists that I be grateful for has anything to do with defending my life, liberty, or property, nor the life, liberty, and property of my ancestors. And inept foreign intervention is what organizations like the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are all about.
If anyone’s interested, I’d be all too happy to unload pages and pages of rhetoric and evidence to defend this position.
>>Sorry, strategic war is still war. For most of human history, the enemy’s people have been a legitimate target.
The objective of a moral war is to neutralize the threat posed to human life and liberty posed by an enemy state. Logically, this would involve targeting the enemy leadership. In the case of WWII, this would involve assassinating the top Nazi leadership until somebody reasonable (Manstein, Rommel, Doernitz) came to the top of the heap. Murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians doesn’t help achieve this objective. It doesn’t help “break enemy morale.” It just makes a mess and jacks up the body count.
Assassination isn’t particularly difficult. The heroic Gabchik and Kubis got Heydrich on the first try. Killing Hitler (or Stalin, or Mobutu, or Hussein) would undoubtedly have be harder, but still far cheaper and less destructive. I suspect it doesn’t happen as much as a result of “professional courtesy” among rulers.
I question the use of terms like “the enemy’s people”. Populations in enemy nations are usually the evil regimes’ primary victims. They get to live under the abusive autocracy, be made into slave soldiers, and swallow immense amounts of lies and disinformation. Targeting them seems quite perverse.
>>See, I have no trouble telling the difference between our standards, which have to date been largely good (aimed at promoting freedom, health, and life) and the standards of the SS (aimed at promoting oppression, misery, and death). We don’t always – or often – meet our own standards, but they are there for us to measure ourselves against nonetheless.
Somehow the SS, and the Wehrmacht, and the Red Army, etc., etc. managed not to see that their policies were having disasterous consequences. Rommel and Manstein were brilliant men who believed that their work (which involved killing hundreds of thousands of people) was a vitally important effort of great moral significance. The rank and file of these reviled organizations possessed great bravery, courage, and discipline.
The claim is made that the rank and file of the US armed forces are more moral than those of the USG’s enemies past and present. I’m not sure this is true. For sure, the USG is considerably less destructive than, say, the Soviet system. But nearly all soldiers simply join the army of the country in which they were born, without a detailed philosophical examination of which army is the most “moral.” (Certainly there are exceptions.) If anything, USG veterans are simply lucky that the organization they belong to isn’t as abominable as the Wehrmacht.
“This Zen parable might be applicable.”:http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/~cbt/bulmayjun00.html
Search for “Even One Person”
>>You live in a social, economic and political matrix which ties you more closely to people in New York than to people in the Sudan.
Yes. That’s just what I said. We’re agreeing. It’s more efficient for me to help humans in NYC because there’s no language barrier, we have a shared culture, airfare is cheaper, etc. This doesn’t mean that humans in NYC are _more important_ than humans in Sudan. It just means that if I want to help the most other humans, I should concentrate my efforts on those which are the easiest to help first. It’s logistics, not ethics.
>>It’s frustrating for me to debate Randians too much, because the vocabulary doesn’t mean the same thing to me as to them.
I’m not a Randian, and indeed have never read any of her books. I’m far more inclined to support charity, and much less of a fan of USG intervention than most Randians. Few Randians are likely to attempt to engage people like Chomsky in civil discourse. Certainly vocabulary issues are important in rational discussion. I’m usually content to allow others to define terms however they wish provided I’m clear on what definition set is being used for a particular discussion.
>> He also said he and some of his cronies were thinking about starting a blog.
We’ve been a bit distracted by other dark projects. 🙂
Not to worry, we shall begin spewing forth vast quantities of propaganda soon enough.
>>I hope one of the first things he addresses, in all his presumed rationalism, is how he can cross out all the ties that bind men together as if, since he doesn’t feel them, they have no existence. Anyone that can’t feel the stares of our forefathers is not a rationalist, but a nihilist.
I’m afraid I’m a bit confused by this. I have few problems with most forms of voluntary social cooperation, including but not limited to most corporations, churches, clubs, charities, clans, etc.
My main beef is with forced wealth distribution and mass murder. I find many national governments, as supposed providers of defense services, to be little more than extremely crude extortion rackets, or worse.
I think you hit the nail square on the thumb when you referred to your correspondent as a “Randian.” Ayn Rand lived in a world in which she—and, insofar as they parrotted her, her disciples—were the sole authorities on… well… everything.
When you live in such an air-tight intellectual box, your ideas are bound to get a bit wacky over time. Most people I’ve met who describe themselves as Libertarians—and every swingin’ Richard in my beloved Marine Corps—would gladly pay a dollar to kick that no-load square in the nuts.
Putting you right in line with, for instance, Lysander Spooner. “The Constitution of No Authority”, etc.
How’s that working for you?
I deeply sympathize with the “leave me the hell alone” side of libertarianism. I can get along with most of those sorts. It’s the pseudo-anarcho-socialists of the Noam Chomsky variety that are more apt to give me the willies.
I am well read in both old and later libertarianism, and find much to value in the principles I’ve found there. I don’t consider Rand a libertarian per se; I usually find conversations that focus on her quickly become tiresome.
As far as establishing an anarchocapitalist entity (“state”?):
There’s an old New England joke with the punchline “Y’can’t get theyah from heyah.”
One of my fondest hopes is that anarchocapitalists will get to try out their ideals somewhere–somewhere *else*. Who knows? I might visit, I might even buy in. But show me a sizeable working locus of anarchocapitalism first. Mmmkay?
Nortius Maximus
Nortius –
Haiti and Somalia aren’t good enough examples? They strike me as pure models of anarchocapitalism.
A.L.
#7 is addressed to TJ, by the by.
Nortius Maximus
Doesn’t the desire by certain distinguished soldiers to engage in physical violence against me as a result of my dissatisfaction with the historical performance of their organization in some small measure serve to justify my mistrust of said organization?
AL, Joe, although I’m in no way intimidated by Mr. Williscroft’s threats, and indeed find them rather humorous, I’m curious how they relate to the comments policy of this particular discussion group.
>>Haiti and Somalia aren’t good enough examples? They strike me as pure models of anarchocapitalism.
Haiti is a terrible example. It’s been on the recieving end of massive amounts of US military interventions for several decades now.
Somalia is more interesting. After the US left Somalia, an interesting thing happened. The various clans had been in a death-struggle over who would control the central government (and use it to lord it over all the other clans). Eventually, the realization began to set in that no central government would, in fact, arise. Things then settled down a great deal.
Last I checked (about 18 months ago), the situation had improved considerably, with massive increases in trade, commerce, and quality of life. Defending large-scale infrastructure was still a problem, for obvious reasons. I’ve been meaning to check up on the situation there recently, but haven’t yet gotten around to it.
Maybe things have gotten much worse while I wasn’t looking.
>>Putting you right in line with, for instance, Lysander Spooner. “The Constitution of No Authority”, etc.
Exactly.
>>How’s that working for you?
Not too bad. I’ve been structuring my affairs so as to minimize the Feds’ unpleasant effects on my existence. Clearly deploying a functioning anarchy is a long way off, but steps can be taken to make people more expensive to govern.
The key issue, IMHO, is ensuring that the Feds cannot interfere with the free exchange of information. So long as humans can organize in secret against their govenment, no tyranny can ever be absolute. Hence anonymous communication (and eventually anonymous commerce) are critical areas of concern. Some progress has been made in this area, but much work remains.
#8 A.L.:
Hey, don’t look at me, _I drank both flavors of Kool-Aid and am left with no opinion to impose–just questions!_
However, I don’t see as much capitalism in either of those places as plain old strongarm blood-in-gutters feudalism. It also seems to be historical fact that the only people you can get to cut sugar cane as a life’s work are _slaves_. Where Haiti is concerned, that seems to be the historical record.
The problem with a word like “anarchy” is that it is “overloaded”. If it means “nobody ruling anybody” it seems to require perfect people, and I haven’t seen much of that around.
And Smedley Butler was _partly_ right. *Some* wars *are* rackets. I don’t feel really good about the historical adventurism of United Fruit or Dole. But the latest US-Coalition warfighting isn’t parallel (yet); and may it never be.
Further deponent saith not. 🙂
NM
AL, I fall loosely under the libertarian umbrella and I pretty much agree with you. I don’t lump you and Kos together, so please don’t tar all libertarians with the same brush as TJ.
Well, at the very least, it sounds like TJ’s blog-to-be would be a very interesting one. I do think he’s right on the money when he said, “unquestioning obedience to authority and rational virtuous action are still incompatible.”
An Athenian once asked a Spartan captured at Sphakteria whether he thought that he was less brave than those of his comrades who had died at Athenian hands. He retorted, “An arrow that could pick out a brave man would be very valuable!”
So too would a bullet that could distinguish between an innocent man and a guilty one. Alas, as anarcho-capitalist inventors have failed to come up with one, I daresay that wars will have to continue to be fought with the old-fashioned dumb ones.
A soldier who spends twenty plus years defending the right of T.J. Madison to make an ass of himself has to love his country. We are gratified to learn Madison is doing a great job.
>>But the latest US-Coalition warfighting isn’t parallel (yet); and may it never be.
The current USG & Co. situation seems mostly like a combination of dumbass and institutional logic — see the d-n-i guys for details. There’s some war profiteering and oil interests involved, but that clearly isn’t the whole story. It’s a different flavor of BS from the United Fruit situation. Maybe the Philipines might be a better analogy?
What is clear is that the USG would have to do a lot better sales job to get me to fund this business voluntarily. They haven’t, which is presumably why they insist on taking my money by force.
I’ll be watching closely for the reintroduction of the draft (slavery). The USG has already been playing around with the service contracts of soldiers in ways that aren’t exactly kosher. Gee, I wonder what will happen when retention rates drop as a result?
“I’m constantly amused that libertarians somehow believe that the social constructs that surround us and make up our society and polity are natural; it’s kind of like believing that the 405 freeway is somehow the product of nature, just laid out here so we can commute on it. Law, domestic tranquility, the advanced arts and sciences we enjoy didn’t spring fully-formed from the forehead of Zeus.”
As a libertarian I don’t recognize as my own the view that things spring fully-formed without human agency. Rather, I think that many individual people, one after the other, and many times working together (as Watson worked with Crick) gradually, piece by piece, build up the elements of civilization.
“Anyone who has owned a home or a boat knows what it is to fight entropy. The reality is that everything we build wears down, wears out, and is used up. We need to constantly spend effort to keep them up.”
And individual humans are hard at work battling entropy. And so civilization is sustained and advanced.
“Social constructs are no different than physical ones.”
I don’t understand what you are referring to.
“Libertarians either believe that this is false, and that the social sphere will somehow self-generate with no effort on our part,”
No they don’t.
“or that they can get a free ride on the social goods – property among them – that are so produced.”
No they don’t. I don’t know what you mean by calling property a “social good”. Property has throughout history been defended mainly by the owners of the property. As an institution, it is sustained mainly, I would say almost entirely, by the individuals and networks (e.g. neighbors helping each other) protecting their own and their neighbors’ property against various aggressors. Is that what you mean by calling property a “social” good? You seem to simply mean: a human good, a good produced by humans. But libertarians don’t deny that human beings produce goods.
“If you don’t think property is a social good, ask yourself how much land in Mogadishu is worth.”
Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Individuals produce property; however sometimes there are problems and entropy wins. So what? That happens with any good. People who build houses in Florida are sometimes defeated by the forces of nature. Entropy sometimes wins, in the form of a massive force that wipes out the carefully laid plans of people – be it a hurricane or an invading army. That does not mean that the houses are not produced by their builders. It does not mean that property is not produced by networks of property owners.
I guess it’s libertarian (and libertarian whoopin’) night at WoC, so I may as well jump in with both feet. Look, TJ’s a lot of things, and occasionally, exquisitely poor in timing’s one of them (on Veteran’s day? Oh, TJ….) but a Randian/Liberal?! Not even close. Attack the weaknesses of the ideas (there’s plenty to work with there, and it might even be constructive), not the messenger.
I’m usually on the other side of this argument – I’ve sent AL’s Fear posting, Wretchard’s 3 Conjectures, and DenBeste’s essays to more friends in the last 18 months or so than I can count, and though, as posed by AL, TJ’s not honoring our war dead seems troublingly non-nationalistic (via extreme individualism as opposed to transnational progressivism, but still…), I don’t actually think that’s his main beef here (let me know if I’m wrong on this, but it’s been a recurring discussion). I think TJ’d really like our army/government to be more honorable, perhaps more honorable than is institutionally and practically possible.
For those who didn’t follow T.J.’s samsara link, perhaps this quote might capture some of where he’s coming from:
“What does it matter to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought in the name of totalitarianism, or in the holy name of liberty and democracy?” – Mohandas K. Gandhi.
In wars, lots of people die who are extremely tangentially related to the conflict (this is particularly true of people in totalitarian countries who, lacking the resources or freedom, simply can’t bug out when it hits the fan, and who don’t have ANY power as individuals to effect the regime that’s oppressing them). How many violent civilian deaths have happened in Iraq? Somewhere in the 10-20,000 range with more expected? As a Humanist, their Deaths for Freedom are a perverse, horrific tragedy, and as a libertarian, the criticism of this as not just Evil, but also Stupid (in the sense of being grossly inefficient, particularly the deaths due to lack of rule of law in Iraq) is a valid one in my opinion. I think there are weaknesses and unintended consequences to TJ’s suggestion of ‘targetted assassination as an alternative to war’, but at least TJ proposes a positive alternative.
Lots of people are entirely comfortable with the idea of LOTS of random strangers getting offed in pursuit of some higher goal – cost of doing business, war is hell, things’ll be better for the survivors (hell, I’ve made that argument myself), life isn’t fair, an indifferent shrug to people outside our monkeysphere /social circle, etc. Arthur Silber’s got a pretty interesting rant on that
here
TJ is really pissed not just that this happens, but that he’s forced pay for this, at gunpoint, through federal taxes. Any pro-life activist conservative or anti-death penalty activist has likely felt a similar frustration.
Look. I think this war’ll help in the long run, like over the next 1-2 generations, to liberalize the ME, to derail support for terrorism, hell, maybe even help make Islam more compatible with modernity in the long run (there’s an entirely different thread there), etc. The rapid and amazingly effective end of Saddam’s decades of brutal oppression of the Iraqi Kurds and Shi’ites by our coalition of armed forces is something we should all be proud of and honor.
But not everyone sees this (based on the relentlessly negative media reports from the region?), and some of them have pretty good/principled arguments, and I think those of us who support this war should be honest enough to be willing to face the horrible truth of its costs (as AL has certainly written about). Our victims, the victims of the policies we support and fund, deserve no less.
Oops.
For “not honoring our war dead” I meant to say “not honoring our war vets”.
& gordo – nice Watson & Crick simile.
“Doesn’t the desire by certain distinguished soldiers to engage in physical violence against me as a result of my dissatisfaction with the historical performance of their organization in some small measure serve to justify my mistrust of said organization?”
Given that the organization you mistrust would punish those persons were they to follow through on their threats, and that it is, to the best of my knowledge, not the policy of the United States Armed Forces to kick U.S. citizens who disagree with them, I’d say that you’ll have to look elsewhere to justify your mistrust.
And speaking as a current member of the armed forces, I’d suggest you utilize something a little more expansive than Hollywood to establish your understanding of what we look for in soldiers. Mindless obedience has been out of vogue at least since I joined up in 1988, and I suspect it hasn’t been a preferred trait for considerably longer. The claimed dispute between unquestioning obedience to authority and rational pursuit of virtue may still exist, because individuals define virtue differently, but soldiers are not only expected but required not obey unlawful (i.e., unvirtuous) orders. See Abu Ghraib for an excellent example of this.
“I think there are weaknesses and unintended consequences to TJ’s suggestion of ‘targetted assassination as an alternative to war’, but at least TJ proposes a positive alternative.”
Well, then, in that same spirit, I shall offer criticism — not of the person, but of the idea.
The concept of “targetted assassination” seems to assume a liberal/libertarian position — that the people of the enemy country aren’t themselves evil, but merely helpless in the face of statist oppression. TJ states that, “In the case of WWII, this would involve assassinating the top Nazi leadership until somebody reasonable (Manstein, Rommel, Doernitz) came to the top of the heap.”.
How “reasonable” were Manstein, etc.? Only “reasonable” enough to say, “Look, we’ll stop killing Americans — not gays or untermenschen, just Americans — if you’ll withdraw your death squads”. Or only “reasonable” enough to say, “Damn, the death squads got my six predecessors, so I’ll ease off and lay low…until I think I can take out America at a blow”.
We should ask whether targetted assassination would be counter-productive. In mid-1944, the nominal successor to Hitler was Göring…but, had the July assassination plot against succeeded, when the dust settled the new Führer would have been Himmler. Compared to him, Hitler was a moderate.
The question of speed must also be factored in. We might have pursued a policy of targetted assassination against Germany in WWII, since Germany was basically unable to touch us (aside from a few U-boats and pre-placed saboteur teams). A similar policy toward Japan after Pearl Harbor would likely have been ineffective.
Finally, I must question the assumption that the citizenry of the enemy are helpless sheep, unable to resist the smothering statist oppression, but waiting for a change of rulers that may cast off their chains and emerge into the light of freedom. Remember that the attacks on 9/11/2001 were made with just such a calculation in mind; I suspect that in a frank conversation with bin Laden and Mullah Omar, they would admit they that had been mistaken. Would making Hitler an apparent martyr at the hands of OSS assassins have led the Volk to throw off the evils of Nazism, or would it have led to their determination to plow the former site of Washington with salt?
What I find interesting in these libertarian / statist debates is the elephant in the room that nobody notices. It’s the aspects of social evolution and societal competition.
Organizing a society based on libertarian principles seems theoretically possible and even desirable, but how would it fare against a determined fascist society in a life or death competition? Isn’t it obvious that societies succeed and fail in competition with others? Any kind of social structure can thrive and survive in a petri dish, but what happens when it bumps up with another?
That’s why the T.J. Madisons of our world our helpful. Some of their ideas may lead to a society that’s better able to survive and prosper in competition with the others. One of the great things about the US, is that we have the freedom to try these new ideas. Let’s strengthen federalism. This has allowed completely divergent cultures to meld as a single American culture, a unitary society. That’s a competitive advantage right there. Much of the division in the country can be traced to a weakening of federalism. Oops… got a little off track….
So, from the perspective of the individual, we would like the most personal freedom as possible. A society based on purely libertarian / universalist principles sounds great in theory, but how would it hold up in a sustained competition against a determined nationalistic/totalitarian foe? So, there’s the trade off right there. How high a concentration of univeralist-libertarian-anarchocapitalists can a society carry, before cohesion breaks down, leaving the whole thing weakened against a more unified foe?
A society that will not acknowledge that “the other” exists, has contracted a kind of autoimmune disorder that survives only in the sense that the “bubble boy” survives. That is it can’t, except in a sterile, monoculture environment. Any such society will quickly succumb to ANY other society that still retains the ability to distinguish and recognize itself from other groups. One symptom of this disease would manifest as inability of societal members to recognize any difference in the loyalty owed to their own society and to humanity as a whole.
What aspects of transnational progressivism or universalist anarcho-capitalism can contribute to these autoimmune conditions?
>>The claimed dispute between unquestioning obedience to authority and rational pursuit of virtue may still exist, because individuals define virtue differently, but soldiers are not only expected but required not obey unlawful (i.e., unvirtuous) orders. See Abu Ghraib for an excellent example of this.
I don’t have much confidence in the “unwillingness to obey unlawful orders” of the US military, past and present.
First, let’s look at the constitutionality of the current war(s); they aren’t. [insert TJ’s standard rant about this here] How many troops have challenged the legality of their deployment orders? Last I checked, one. This tells me that 99.999% of the soldiers either have little understanding of their service oath, or have conveniently reinterpreted their service oath and the constitution so as justify not having to stand up to authority.
Second, let’s look at the folks who are assigned to operate USG nuclear weaponry. I’m betting that >99% would push the button when ordered to regardless. I’m sure that launch drills have weeded out those who wouldn’t. Go ahead and try and justify nuclear retaliation against cities within a humanist (or Christian) framework. Mass murder of civilians with nukes probably violates some treaties the USG has signed.
>>Look. I think this war’ll help in the long run, like over the next 1-2 generations, to liberalize the ME, to derail support for terrorism, hell, maybe even help make Islam more compatible with modernity in the long run (there’s an entirely different thread there), etc. The rapid and amazingly effective end of Saddam’s decades of brutal oppression of the Iraqi Kurds and Shi’ites by our coalition of armed forces is something we should all be proud of and honor.
The “rapid” defeat of Mr. Hussein needs to be judged against the ability of local resistance to remove him in the absence of the crushing (and stupid) sanctions regime, as well as the premature uprising at the urging of Bush I.
The Shi’ites and Kurds may indeed succeed in stabilizing their territories. I wish them the best of luck. If the USG is nice to the Kurds, maybe it will eventually make up for the 30K killed by the Turks in the 90s (with US funding, backing, and weaponry). The USG is very fortunate that somebody sane like Sistani is around to discourage the Shi’ites from doing stupid and crazy things.
Somebody give me a call when the pipelines are secure.
>>How “reasonable” were Manstein, etc.?
They weren’t the nicest guys in the world. But I’ll take professional soldiers over Hitler most days.
>>But, had the July assassination plot against succeeded, when the dust settled the new Führer would have been Himmler. Compared to him, Hitler was a moderate.
Ok, now were up to two bullets instead of one.
>>The question of speed must also be factored in. We might have pursued a policy of targetted assassination against Germany in WWII, since Germany was basically unable to touch us (aside from a few U-boats and pre-placed saboteur teams). A similar policy toward Japan after Pearl Harbor would likely have been ineffective.
Much of the Pacific War made sense, and was likely justified. Depriving the Japanese of their fleet and air force so as to prevent further attacks on US territory seemed a rational and worthy cause.
What wasn’t rational, moral, or necessary was the firebombing and nuking of Japanese cities. The Japanese threat could have been completely neutralized without such measures. But it was ok because Jap deaths don’t count, right? They’re not human, they’re the enemy!
>>Finally, I must question the assumption that the citizenry of the enemy are helpless sheep, unable to resist the smothering statist oppression, but waiting for a change of rulers that may cast off their chains and emerge into the light of freedom.
Go check Milgram’s Obedience to Authority again. Perhaps the population wouldn’t have immediately embraced American notions of liberty and justice, but an interruption of the spew of statist propaganda would certainly have helped.
>>Remember that the attacks on 9/11/2001 were made with just such a calculation in mind; I suspect that in a frank conversation with bin Laden and Mullah Omar, they would admit they that had been mistaken.
9/11 was not a decapitation attack. Had the terrorists hit the State of the Union address rather than the WTC, public outrage would have been quite different.
>>Would making Hitler an apparent martyr at the hands of OSS assassins have led the Volk to throw off the evils of Nazism, or would it have led to their determination to plow the former site of Washington with salt?
Well, it sure would have pissed off the Volk a hell of a lot less than _burning their cities to the ground_ did.
>>A society based on purely libertarian / universalist principles sounds great in theory, but how would it hold up in a sustained competition against a determined nationalistic/totalitarian foe?
Freer nations have tremendous competitive advantages over those which are less free, and I suspect this advantage continues all the way to anarchocapitalism. Freed of the immense inefficiencies of centralized government administration, an anarchocapitalist population would be difficult to outcompete economically. Militarily, a population which had become so expensive to govern that its own state had dissolved would be basically impossible to conquer. It might be possible to nuke them into dust, but what would an invader gain by this?
Trade with the anarchocapitalists would make more sense. If a hostile leader didn’t understand this, the wealthy businessmen in the leader’s nation would, and would be compelled to take appopriate action to defend their own interests. (Subversion is the great anarchocapitalist weapon.)
Yamamoto understood this problem well. He knew that Japanese conquest of the US was impossible, and that the capacity for decentralized resistance was the reason for this.
Let’s look at Iraq for a minute. The Iraqi population was kept in line by Mr. Hussein, but this was a very difficult task. Mr. Hussein had real problems keeping enough people loyal to him to maintain control.
Now that Mr. Hussein was gone, the USG — consisting largely of foreigners with little experience with the local culture — has had a far more difficult time compelling obedience than the old dictator had.
>>One symptom of this disease would manifest as inability of societal members to recognize any difference in the loyalty owed to their own society and to humanity as a whole.
The issue here is whether humanism conveys a competitive advantage over tribalism in the long run for the individuals who practice it. I think it does. We’ll see if I’m right.
>>I don’t have much confidence in the “unwillingness to obey unlawful orders” of the US military, past and present.
I suspect that’s because your opinion regarding unlawful orders is vastly out of step with the average person’s. My copy of the Constitution says that it is up to Congress to declare war, and I seem to recall Congress having functionally done so some six months prior to the Iraq war, and immediately after 9/11 for Afghanistan. Now perhaps you feel that unless Congress uses the words ‘declaration of war’ it’s unlawful. That’s your privilege, and I can even sympathize to a degree. But it’s a thin reed on which to expect people to disobey orders.
>>Now perhaps you feel that unless Congress uses the words ‘declaration of war’ it’s unlawful.
It’s much worse than that. Congress DELEGATED THE DECISION on whether or not there was to be war to the President. The President could have then chosen not to go to war, unlike with a declaration of war.
This was total gutlessness on the part of Congress. If things go well, then Congress takes the credit. If things go badly, Congress says, “We let the President make the decision, and he made the _wrong_ decision. It’s not our fault.” Ron Paul attempted to amend the Congressional Resolution to make it into a DoW, and the amendment was rejected.
The military could have forced the issue, and improved the government’s adherence to the constitution without impacting the ability of the USG to fight it’s enemies. But it didn’t.