The Virtue of Execution and War
by Kyrel Zantonavitch
The purpose of government -- its very raison d'etre -- is to defend liberty i.e. protect the individual rights of its citizens.
Government ideally erects a 'Star Trek'-like invisible force field around all individuals so that we highly sociable Homo sapiens can interact in perfect socioeconomic harmony, so to speak. The presence of government initiates and maintains a society of wholly voluntary, wholly mutually agreed upon interaction wherein no one is allowed to invade the personal private sphere of anyone without the other's permission. This legal force field insures that all collective behavior is freely chosen by all involved, and generally results in maximum, and about equal, benefits and profits to all involved.
It's the job of politicians and the law to see to it that this all-important protective barrier remains forever unviolated, unbreached, and completely untouched. In this way the truly wonderful invention of government guarantees that "all our touches are kisses, and none are punches." This is a sure recipe for societal bliss.
Now, the two external enemies of individual rights are always local criminals and foreign invaders. But, ideally, the criminals are defeated by the government police, and the invaders are defeated by the government military.
It's worth remembering, however, that the worst rights-violator and freedom-trespasser of all is government itself. This is true historically, currently, and perhaps permanently. Thus to avoid social terrorism, and violation/destruction of the invisible shield, our "protector" is to be watched and feared most of all. But for the purpose of this analysis, the point is mostly irrelevant, and so won't be considered further here.
Now, it's important to note that when the freedom-loving police respond vigorously -- heavily assisted by the civilian courts and jails -- and jail or kill someone, they are not criminal murderers themselves. In defending individual rights and enforcing local justice, they do not "lower themselves down to the bad guy's level" and become socially evil just like he is. In turn, when the freedom-loving military responds vigorously -- somewhat assisted by the military courts and jails -- and captures or slaughters someone on the battlefield, they are not invaders or mass-murderers themselves. In defending individual rights and enforcing international justice they do not "lower themselves down to the bad guys' level" and become socially evil just like they are.
These points seem obvious and apodictic. Yet may people today in the barely-civilized, none-too-clear-thinking West actually believe that the death penalty is inherently, intrinsically immoral, barbaric, and uncivilized. So too all of war. Because ours is a world of immense moral grayness, and low philosophical and legal self-confidence, many shy away from the extreme of condign punishment and vigorous societal revenge against profound physical evil.
But this blanket condemnation of capital punishment and military action tends to repudiate the very concept of self-defense. Individuals whose rights are severely violated seem to have no legitimate and proper counteraction they can take. This means no retaliation after the fact -- and maybe no prevention before the fact either.
Yet this seems absurd. These two "anti-" beliefs and theories leave the individual largely naked and helpless against major rights violators. Indeed, his vulnerability seems to invite and assure his enemy's prosperity. Without the option of execution and war at government disposal, it's only logical to conclude that this undefended society will soon be swamped in unprovoked local killings and foreign attacks. So the "idealistic" and "morally enlightened" folk who universally oppose capital punishment and war seem like some kind of vermin who would engulf society in almost limitless horrors. These "peaceniks" really are demons and destroyers to be fought.
Much of the logic of the "warriors for peace" and their various blandly, blindly "culture of life" allies is the claim that the "root cause" of the local criminals and foreign invaders is their terrible accidental poverty. Thus the evildoers aren't really at fault for their rights-violating ways and shouldn't much be held responsible. This argument has some merit to it, but where does it go? The anti-death penalty/anti-war folks go on to say that the local criminals and foreign invaders are also mostly "products of their environment" and thus "victims" of the very people whose rights they violate. This argument too has a certain disheartening logic to it, but where does it lead society?
I don't pretend to understand these two issues completely, but they certainly seem related, and worth grasping. Yet one can't help but observe that those who oppose the death penalty and military activity per se are almost entirely the dregs of the intellectual universe. This whole amoral, unprincipled, irresponsible, impracticable, outlandish, unjust dual belief system is almost always taken up by the highly religious (i.e. the illiberals of the right) and the highly welfare statist (i.e. the illiberals of the left), both of which are highly altruistic (i.e. still more illiberal).
I think the ultimate answer here is we need to think very clearly about these two false ideals and then teach those anti-self-defense radicals and fundamentalists something better. We need to explicitly show them the nature of individual rights and how sacred they really are -- however quaint, naive, and quixotic this sounds. We shouldn't "propagandize" these folks -- we should offer them true knowledge about the nature of freedom.
Because the fact is that liberty and the rights of man are genuinely holy and untouchable. Anyone who wildly transgresses them -- anyone who shatters the plane of that invisible libertarian force field -- really does need to be justly punished if society is to prosper at all. And often this individual self-defense and governmental justice demand the high killing arts of execution and war.
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