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Monday, August 18, 2008 - 9:25amSanction this postReply
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It would be harder to find things that are right in this article of John's then to point out all that is wrong with it - which proved to be a lengthy task in itself.

Contrary to what he implies, when we trade with one another we do NOT establish a contract or obligation to go to war.

And a convergence of interests between nations can NOT morally include making their citizens the subject of a sacrifice for the sake of the other nation.

"Common interests like entering into a military alliance to work towards a common goal of defeating a common enemy" has a different meaning depending upon whether you are under attack (already have not only an enemy but a self-defense issue) and when a military alliance is made that diminishes a nations sovereignty and commits it to a contractual agreement to go to war without control of the actions of the other parties or any concern for whether that future war would be moral or in our best interests.

When talking about "entangling alliances" don't forget to include George Washington who said, "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have as little political connection as possible... Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalships, interest, humor, or caprice?... It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

Note George Washington’s use of the word "permanent" when talking about alliances.

Jefferson said, "Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."

He also said, "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations--entangling alliances with none, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.".

Nor was that the end of his caution against America becoming embroiled in foreign adventures. Among many quotes counseling against such entanglements, Jefferson wrote to George Logan that, "It ought to be the very first object of our pursuits to have nothing to do with the European interests and politics. Let them be free or slaves at will, navigators or agriculturists, swallowed into one government or divided into a thousand, we have nothing to fear from them in any form."

There is a world of difference between an ad hoc, temporary alliance of any sort that falls inside the parameters of the constitution, is not in violation of our national self-interest, and, obviously, does not commit us to engaging in military attacks on nations that have not attacked us. What kind of nonsense is John saying when he says, "...it was nothing short of moral hypocrisy for Thomas Jefferson to decry the folly of alliances with other nations while having had solicited the military support of France during the American Revolution." Excuse me, but we were defending ourselves, it was a request for a temporary alliance, it did not commit us to fight for them, it was about self-defense and in our national interest and, again, it was not "entangling" since it carried no commitment. But John doesn't let these facts get in the way of damning Thomas Jefferson as a moral hypocrite.

For those who want to read Ron Paul’s words rather than those imputed to him here is a link to the speech before congress where he opposed the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe.

John goes on from there to create straw men conspiracy theories involving oil revenues and Halliburton. None of which have been used by Ron Paul or by me or in any of the recent posts to this site (well, that I know of. Maybe there have been some posters – There are some people whose posts I no longer read). It is a good thing that these are just straw men, because if any of those silly arguments had substance, John didn't do much of a job in knocking them down. But they are just straw men and deserve no more attention.

After that John begins his assiduous cherry picking of facts as if facts without the right principles can give a country proper direction. He makes his case for the invasion of Iraq as if we had reason to fear an imminent attack which is absurd. He points at the contribution of money to terrorists which is infinitesimally small when compared to the funding by Saudi Arabia and Iran and says nothing about the active role of Iran in terrorism. It is all about gather your facts as you may to suit what you want to justify and then call your opponents names (I feel much better knowing I'm on the same side as Thomas Jefferson.)

John has convinced himself that Iraq was the rationally chosen target because, "The Middle East is the breeding ground for all of Islamic fundamentalism. The only hope of changing this vile and disgusting culture is to rid some or all of the tyrants that breed this hatred. Since we are not an omnipotent power we can't rationally get rid of all of these tyrants, so a choice had to be made, and Iraq considering its history of flagrant violations of their armistice with the U.S., their support for Islamic terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah..." Well, you get the idea. John has declared Jihad and claims that Iraq supported Hezbollah and Hamas - Hey, John, Hamas if funded primarily by Saudi Arabia with significant funds from Iran, but NO other governments are or were known to support Hamas - did your evidence of Saddam's support for Hamas disappear with the WMD's? And Iran is the only government that supports Hezbollah. Pesky facts. Notice that he claims that the Middle East breeds this Islamic Fundamentalism - as if a region is the cause of a philosophy. Then he says, "...perhaps it [Iraq] was not the most prudent target for attack in this greater war against Islamo-fascism." I guess not! So much for cherry picking data to justify foreign adventures - 6 years of war, American lives lost in the thousands, and the fragile economy so overburdened that our very ability to go on without crashing into a horrendous depression is in question - yeah, I'd say it wasn't the most prudent of decisions. It is a huge, monstrous sacrifice by American for the interventionist’s crusade - which in this case is called Islamo-fascism. I would expect no less disastrous results anytime politicians feel free to unleash the hellish dogs of war without the guiding principle of self-defense (and please, before some says otherwise, it was not Saddam's people behind 9/11).

John says, "Non-interventionists, and politically opportunistic liberals do their best to try to see to it we fail in that endeavor [creating a democracy in Iraq], dooming our nation to look like weak cowards in front of our terrorist enemies who would be emboldened by an American defeat." Have you noticed that it is always about "how we will look" - a kind of political vanity concern - but the interventionist don't say how our children or their children will pay the debts incurred funding a 3 trillion dollar effort that still isn't over, and they don't say much about the dead and wounded whose numbers rise into the hundreds of thousands, many of them innocent civilians. But they do claim that blowback is nonsense (they will attack us if we look like cowards, but they will not if wage war on them?) How about no more pretending to know the future and returning the principles of Jefferson and Washington?

John talks about how things change (yeah, it may look that way when you view facts through something other than clear cut principles like self-defense). He talks about the American funding of the Mujahedeen and doesn't seem bothered that our government happily funded Islamo-fascists when they were enemies of the Soviet Union. Things change he says, and then he brings up a new enemy for us, the "oligarchy of Oil facist (sic) dictators." John seems to be an angry man and I don't expect him to ever run out of enemies. We shouldn't have to pay for his wars.

He says, "It is unfortunate we don't live in a world where we don't have to prioritize threats and just go after everyone who maliciously assaults freedom, but we must take into consideration limited resources and not fall into the fallacy we are omnipotent." See, he really would like to wage war, with other people filling the body bags and paying the bills - he just thinks its unfortunate that we don't have enough "resources" (read bodies and your money – that is what wars are fought with). That is the nature of an interventionist who is unbridled by self-defense. He is free to spin some facts and make nebulous claims about being this or that being in our interest - like the Conservatives justify this and that with claims of "national security".

He says, "And we must use alliances to serve our national interests, because without them our limited resources would not be enough to insure our safety and well being and the safety and well being of our international trading partners whom we economically depend on for our continued wealth and prosperity." Remember that national resources are the men and women in uniform and the money in your wallet. If we hadn't gone into Iraq we would have lots more resources than we do today, as would our children and their children, and you don't increase your resources by waging wars, or by overtaxing your military and to say that our continued wealth and prosperity depend upon military intervention because Iraq threatened our trading partners is absurd. But then John isn't really focused on Iraq anymore, he has new targets and "trading partners" is clearly a good spin in his mind.

"So it is rather pointless to argue against interventionists who routinely use faulty reasoning like citing complicated historical examples and cherry-picking the facts suitable to support their tacit moral premises. So too are the comparisons of events that transpired over a period of centuries without regard to then current historical cultural attitudes, pointless arguments wrought with post hoc reasoning." I agree – those are his words. No doubt he meant to use the word “isolationist” but notice how perfectly the shoe fits “interventionists.”

John says, "When interventionists such as myself cry foul when we see our enemies of freedom carry out heinous and vile acts against humanity, there is a different breed of non-interventionist that seeks to morally equivocate by pointing out past atrocities committed by the United States as proof we have no moral high ground to take action, such as pointing out American history of southern plantation slavery and the brutal wars against the indigenous tribes of America. But the atrocities carried out by western nations in the 18th and 19th century while indeed were inexcusable, they were done in a time when every nation on this planet in these centuries were engaging in similar if not even vastly more horrific practices." That is very disingenuous because it is not non-interventionists as such, but historical revisionists of many different stripes that need to blamed for those ugly falsehoods. It is no more an argument for interventionism than picking ones nose and crying out that the product discovered proves your point - what point? That people lie about history? That people on both sides of an argument might make inexcusable arguments? It may damn those who make that kind of argument, but it does NOTHING to justify going to war in the absence of self-defense. Another red herring smeared straw man.

This methodology of using tacit moral premises, context-less selective historical data, and post hoc reasoning, is nothing less than intellectually evading the basic philosophical premises that should be used to evaluate what is a just and proper foreign policy. This is why demanding that military interventions be reserved for self-defense is moral. This is why Jefferson and Washington were right about avoiding entangling alliances. If we don't heed this clear logic and return to the concept of individual rights, self-defense, and a rational self-interest we will lose our semblance to that nation envisioned by the very founding fathers that John calls moral hypocrites.


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Post 1

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 10:17amSanction this postReply
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There is no question that few really grasp the nature of the Trading Syndrome, how different it is to the Taking Syndrome, and how imbedded most everyone is to the mindset of the latter, since it has by and large been the 'sing quad none' [as Ol' Jake used to call it - sine qua non in proper ;-)] of historical civilizations - despite the two being in fact polar opposites in worldviewing...  one is promogated on the premise of a zero-sum world of tribes, where pre-emptive taking [or stealing, to be precise] is preferred if possible - and the other is the true human way of noncoersively exchanging values for values, individuals to individuals, to mutual beneifit and where the risks are to the individuals trading, not any aggregate others may call tribes [whether by any other name or not]... 

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Monday, August 18, 2008 - 11:10amSanction this postReply
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Steve wrote:

Contrary to what he implies, when we trade with one another we do NOT establish a contract or obligation to go to war.


I made no such implication. I said many times in other threads that it is not a moral obligation that we defend a trade partner that is threatened by an aggressor, but rather it is not immoral to help defend that trade partner. Just as it is moral for a officer to arrest a criminal that did not morally transgress against the police officer, you do not have a moral obligation to become a police officer or assume the role.

And a convergence of interests between nations can NOT morally include making their citizens the subject of a sacrifice for the sake of the other nation.


Note the moral analysis given by Steve, it is immoral because the United States forcibly taxes citizens to fund a foreign intervention and any foreign intervention in any context therefore must be altruistic. But that would mean all things the government does is immoral, because every time it acts, it does so with money it has expropriated from its citizens. Arresting and punishing criminals becomes an altruistic act, because the police, courts and prison systems are funded through forcible taxation, and according to Steve's analysis he must then say it is not possible to say a criminal punished was in our interests, it must be only for altruistic reasons. It then becomes an argument not about what a nation should do to protect its interests, the philosophical argument is twisted into being about the immorality of forcible taxation, a different issue. Then the counter-argument given is one of jurisdictional authority, all of a sudden Steve grants a moral sanction to what government does when arresting criminals while purging out from that moral analysis that bit about the forcible taxation, but doesn't give the same courtesy to the foreign policy position that it may be moral for a government to intervene on behalf of self-interests because forcible taxation is used and therefore there can be no possibility of self-interest motivation, only for altruistic reasons. It's dishonest and hypocritical. Government also has the jurisdiction to tax its citizens, so picking and choosing when jurisdictional authority becomes the moral trump card for any debate is also intellectually dishonest.

Steve then goes to twist my arguments to say that alliances should be permanent DESPITE any analysis of the actions of our allies. I made no such assertion since I clearly stated in the essay alliances come and go, and that we must always reassess our standing in the world and decide whether a particular pre-existing alliance should be maintained or form a new one that serves our interests (the entire theme of my essay bore this principle).

When talking about "entangling alliances" don't forget to include George Washington who said, "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have as little political connection as possible... Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalships, interest, humor, or caprice?... It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

Note George Washington’s use of the word "permanent" when talking about alliances.

Jefferson said, "Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."

He also said, "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations--entangling alliances with none, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.".


Yet the alliance between the American colonists and France was not a peaceful one based on commerce. It was without a doubt an "entangling military alliance" for "American ambition" and for its "interests" to which France entered into such an alliance to further its "ambitions" against Britain. France after experiencing her revolution even threatened war against the United States for not coming to her aid against Great Britain (when France was threatened by Great Britain) and their reason for this threat was our abandoning them in their time of need when they previously had come to our time of need. Note that doesn't mean I would have sanctioned helping France (Thomas Jefferson actually did support US military support for France's revolution which threatened war with Britain much to the disagreement of John Adams *read the John Adams biography by David McCullough)

Also note the moral analysis of when an alliance should be considered immoral, it should be considered immoral based not necessarily on the conditions of reality and whether the context suits our best self-interests, but it should be based on a condition of a length of time. The notion of a permanent alliance itself becomes a floating abstraction. What is a "permanent" alliance? Would the alliance between the United State and Canada, between the United State and Great Britain, for more than a century be considered "permanent" and therefore immoral because it's been far too long to have an alliance with them? Or is the basis for that alliance dependent upon the sharing of interests between the nations in this relationship, and recognizing necessary conditions that should dictate a severance of that alliance have not been met.

Also consider the time the founding fathers denounced alliances with other nations. In 1776 there was no concern for a terrorists half way around the world hatching a plot to take down two skyscrapers with box cutters. In 1776 there were no inter-continental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. In 1776 there were no Chinese weaponry that can blind American satellites that we depend on to maintain our defense. In 1776 there was no mass transit or a massive global economy.

John goes on from there to create straw men conspiracy theories involving oil revenues and Halliburton. None of which have been used by Ron Paul or by me or in any of the recent posts to this site


Steve you are paranoid. The world doesn't revolve around you. My essay was not just a rebuttal to your posts but to many people who hold an isolationist position for a variety of reasons. Not all of which you share.

It is all about gather your facts as you may to suit what you want to justify and then call your opponents names (I feel much better knowing I'm on the same side as Thomas Jefferson.)


Argument by authority. Of course I have a great deal of respect for Jefferson, but he wasn't perfect. I made an attempt to point out those instances where his actions did not conform to his own stated principles, which include the ownership of slaves. Do you stand with Jefferson on that issue too?

I won't bother responding to the rest of your post. To exhaustive and too stupid to even grace it with a response.








(Edited by John Armaos on 8/18, 8:16pm)


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Post 3

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 11:18amSanction this postReply
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Excellent essay John, sanctioned.

Steve Wolfer wrote:


Contrary to what he implies, when we trade with one another we do NOT establish a contract or obligation to go to war


That is not what John implies, we have no contractual obligation to go to war against a common enemy with an ally merely because we trade with them. However, alliances are often strategically valuable for both your own nations long term self interest, that of the allied nation, and of freedom, and market based economies in general.

You would have the United States, a free nation, make no distinction between trading (and thus empowering) a murderous non-free nation which has and always will pose an existential threat to any free nation, and trading with a free nation. Freedom and convergence of interests are irrelevant, all that matters is if we are directly attacked on our soil.

Let us trade bombs and guns with North Korea just as willingly as we do with Great Britain. Concurrently, if North Korea should decide to attack Great Britain, you would ask, of what concern is it of ours? They have not attacked us! Even though we have now empowered our own existential enemy and ignored the wanton assault on our ally.

Many people in the middle east despise the United States specifically BECAUSE it trades with the murderous despots who rule them. The vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, a nation we are 'friends' with, but whom brutally oppresses it's own people. It's citizens, therefore, see a friend of their oppressor as an enemy. Iran, by contrast, paints America as the Great Satan, yet it’s population, being brutally oppressed by it’s government, is much more likely to see the enemy of it’s enemy as a friend.

Trade SHOULD be connected wherever possible to allies with common interests and only where strategically absolutely necessary should it involve our enemies. Similarly, military defense is best associated with our 'harmony of interests' as John eloquently says, it is certainly not in our long term rational self interest to abandon Great Britain when it attempts to fend off a cruise missile strike from Iran.


And a convergence of interests between nations can NOT morally include making their citizens the subject of a sacrifice for the sake of the other nation.


Yet how do you justify the use of INDIVIDUALS by making them morally sacrificial for the sake of other, unconnected individuals, who have been the victim of a crime. You continually refuse to answer this question. Why should I, as a tax payer, be forced to pay for a law enforcement agency act of delayed retaliation against a perpetrator of a crime who victimized someone else? Law enforcement is a proper function of government, and extending the concept of self defense beyond the shortsighted moment of here and now means we must always do whatever is reasonably possible to remove our worst enemies.

Just as a convergence of interest between individuals within a nations justifies the use of funds in that nation in law enforcement and retaliation against crimes committed against other individuals, the convergence of interest between allied nations with similar ideals justifies the use of funds of that nation in the mitigation of existential threats and opposition to all enemies in the general goal of long term rational self interest.

You wrote in the QA thread on Rand's opinion of Libertarianism

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/2037.shtml#0


When one goes to the Libertarian Party web site, and looks under "Issues" and "Foreign Policy" what you find is just okay (from my point of view) except for what is NOT there at all.

There is no mention of a strong national defense. No discussion of projecting sufficiently massive force to handle any attack on this country or an imminent threat of attack. There is no discussion of making aggressors pay the full consequences of aggression. There is no discussion of the principles by which the military is used. ... There is no mention of how terrorism should be handled. That these things are absent makes no sense to me.

If you go to the "Crime and Violence" issue, they speak towards a strong police force and tough on criminal approach, but that isn't there for the military.


This is obviously because they hold contradictory principles on the role of self defense of an individual and self defense of a nation. The standard for national defense is not the THREAT or ASSAULT in general, but only one that actually takes place on OUR NATION on OUR SOIL.

The standard of defense for an individual is a Threat or Assault of ANY PERSON in that nation.

If you were to apply the standard of national defense in libertarianism to the standard of individual self defense this would be your result:

- you can not assist a neighbor in fighting off a rapist (this would in fact be immorral)
- you can not act in self defense unless you yourself are directly attacked.
- your contribution to law enforcement (voluntary or not) can only be used in defending YOU against criminals who attacked YOU. It can not be used for general law enforcement
- if a murderous is traveling down a line, one after the other, executing members, and you see you are next, you still are not allowed to react in defense because he has not literally attacked YOU.

etc. etc. etc.

It's obvious that the libertarian standard of National Defense is murderously stupid, it is the single biggest stumbling block for the party and the biggest reason it remains on the fringe.

If the standard of individual self defense within libertarianism were appllied to national defense, we would

- be morally justified in assisting our neighboring nation with common interests against a mutual enemy.
- can act in self defense under any reasonable expectation of assault or threat, and not just to our physical soil, but to our allies and entities with which we have an existential harmony of interests.
- Individuals contribution to self defense can be used for general self defense, i.e. the long term rational self interested defense of primarily our freedoms and principles, and secondarily those of our allies.
- If an aggressor nation is attacking one nation after another, turning them into murderous tyrannies, we are justified in acting against them without waiting for them to be literally attacking us, but only on a reasonable expectation of threat.

You can not be 'strong on crime' without the implication of strong and swift retribution to any infringement on the fundamental rights of humans. You do not only act in defense when a bullet is actually flying at your head, and then say it is only right for the person in the path of the bullet to act in self defense, and not his friend to his side.

You can not be 'strong on defense' while insisting defense means the retribution of assaults on our soil, and not assaults on our founding principles or allies with common interests.

Just as being "strong on crime" in the realm of individuals creates a free, prosperous society (where crime is assaults on persons or property) being "strong on defense" will necessarily mean interactions with allies who share a harmony of interests and be the best long term strategy toward achieving a peaceful and prosperous WORLD.


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Post 4

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 12:30pmSanction this postReply
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The arguments used in the article to justify foreign interventionism are very persuasive.  I believe Putin would agree, and it appears he has acted accordingly.

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Monday, August 18, 2008 - 12:37pmSanction this postReply
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Steven Pilotte thanks for the cynical comment.

Has Putin recognized any such harmony of interests between rational nations? In fact, has he recognized any such harmony of interests between rational individuals? He has nationalized the Russian energy industry, squashed journalistic freedom, and consolidated political power to himself. That doesn't smack of someone taking a rational approach to fulfilling any kind of rational long-term interests.



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Monday, August 18, 2008 - 12:44pmSanction this postReply
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John you don't seem to be able to keep what you are saying straight from one post to the next.

I'll help you out since you so enjoy my replies :-)

John says, "When we trade with one another, when we do business with our fellow citizens, or when we enter into a common defense by establishing a police force and an army to protect us, we are in essence entering into an alliance with each other man qua man." He is clearly discussing a view that speaks to a delegated self-defense within a jurisdiction, be it Los Angeles or the United States - the latter being his target in this context. But there are problems with this formulation right away - he will proceed to equivocate on the word alliance, which between nations means treaties which carry obligations (entanglements) but that is not what it means in this statement. And the Objectivist view of government is that it is to protect the rights of those under it's jurisdiction BY RIGHT OF SELF-DEFENSE. Leaving out that makes non-sense of the arrangement with our fellow citizens.

Then he goes on to create the equivocation: "And just as this convergence of interests between rational men exists within a nation, sometimes there exists a convergence of interests between nations, where one nation may share common interests with other nations, or other factions within a nation. Common interests like entering into a military alliance to work towards a common goal of defeating a common enemy is the kind of cooperation towards mutually beneficial goals that Thomas Jefferson during his Presidential inaugural speech called an "entangling alliance"..." Cutting through all the weaselly wording, it says that there can be shared interests between nations, like defeating a common enemy. (At that point he calls Jefferson a moral hypocrite, but I'll stick with the equivocation.) "The fact is there is nothing immoral with an alliance if it servers our rational self-interests..." We have a jurisdiction under our national, state, and local governments where legitimate force by police is determined by the principles of individual rights and the morality of the use of force by the police is determined by the principle of self-defense. That has been completely dropped. Now, only shared interests is required to form "alliances" that can result in war. Our "alliance" with one another only makes sense as being the only holders of individual rights - nations have no such thing. The "alliance" as the word is used with nations is not in the jurisdiction of our nation and not based upon individual rights.

And make no mistake that he is talking about WAR - not some sweet exchanges of shared interests. He is specific in mentioning that is what happened with France, Britain, and the colonies in his example, and that is what NATO is about. So now he has, in his mind, justified using self-interest, which is somehow defined as common commercial interests or trading with each other, or shared interest, and having the same enemies, as the moral justification of treaties that can lead to war.

I said, "Contrary to what he implies, when we trade with one another we do NOT establish a contract or obligation to go to war." and John says, "I said many times in other threads [I thought we were discussing the article he submitted] that going to war against an aggressor to protect a trade relationship meets a sufficient condition for acting morally, but that is not a necessary condition to act." I could rest my case here. A treaty IS an obligation. He calls for treaties (alliances) to be based upon trade relations, shared interests, etc. That is the entanglement - some nation, maybe a shared enemy or maybe some other nation attacks our treaty partner (or is an aggressor against a trade relationship) and we have both sufficient and necessary causes, by his definition.

His comparison of citizens of the United States being protected by their own police is NOT the same as us going to war for the citizens of some other nation as a result of an alliance/treaty that is not put together in such a way as to guarantee we act morally, i.e., don't wage war when we aren't under attack or threat of attack.

The context of a nation with a jurisdiction over which individual rights justify police force under the principle of self-defense is dropped, and common self-interests, commercial interests become justifications for war.
-------------

I said, "And a convergence of interests between nations can NOT morally include making their citizens the subject of a sacrifice for the sake of the other nation."

John replied, "Note the moral analysis given by Steve, it is immoral because the United States forcibly taxes citizens to fund a foreign intervention and any foreign intervention in any context therefore must be altruistic." Wrong! He could easily have stated my position accurately by saying that I believe foreign interventions not born of self-defense are immoral and those that are intended to help others are altruistic. But notice that he completely misstated my position.

It is immoral because we are asked to sacrifice for the nation we entered into the agreement with, or we are asked to sacrifice for the some one's commercial interests or because some politicians say we have a common interest or they say it is in our self-interest - but nowhere do they justify it using self-defense. John knows that I support all government actions that are in self-defense of individual rights - be they by the police, courts or by the military or the taxes for them.

With his insane scheme of common interests, how could one distinguish what the difference between action A taken by the local police department and Action B if you don't refer to individual rights. Do we have the local mayor make a judgment as to what is the best for us according to his idea of shared interests? I've made this point so many times that it is hard to imagine that his pique at me hasn't just led him to lie.

He says, "...picking and choosing when jurisdictional authority becomes the moral trump card for any debate is also intellectually dishonest." I can't wait to hear what jurisdiction has legal authority over me that lies outside of the United States and would supersede the United States. What the hell is he thinking? Oh, yeah, it is NATO and the UN - our partners in military adventures - sure let's try to make up reasons why they should be able to get us into wars by having jurisdiction over us. Again he is being dishonest. I've been very clear that jurisdiction is involved INSIDE the states, not outside.

John, I didn't say alliances shouldn't be permanent... Read what is written - George Washington said it. The key point that I make clear and you refuse to address is the difference between an ad hoc alliance, like WW II or our rebellion against Great Britain. They were NOT treaties that committed us to make war in the future. And they were not alliances that where we had to bear the burden of great losses without being attacked. WE WERE ATTACKED - can't you grasp that simple difference.

John spends one paragraph telling us the things that didn't exist in 1176, like sky scrapers, box cutters, and ICBMs - I say that makes it all the more important to stop evading the only principle that allows us to judge when a war is moral - self-defense.

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Post 7

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:07pmSanction this postReply
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The arguments used in the article to justify foreign interventionism are very persuasive. I believe Putin would agree, and it appears he has acted accordingly.


Very clever Steven, you might as well object to 'fighting for freedom and life' just like 'fighting to enslave and murder' since both are, after all, 'fighting' and both equally wrong.

Clearly what the US and free western nations fight for is far different than what Putin's Russia is fighting for.

Do you have any real objections?
(Edited by Michael F Dickey on 8/18, 1:07pm)


Post 8

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:21pmSanction this postReply
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Wolfer, thanks for your hard work.  I sanctioned your first reply (Post 0).  After that, while I agree with your evaluations of John's essay, I remain wary of your other premises.  Temporary alliances of expediency are always fraught with problems.  I understand the perceived need to defend one's home and homeland, and at the same time, I have to ask how one objectively evaluates the threat.  Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle takes place in a universe where the Axis won World War II.  Just speaking for myself, you know, a guy who speaks pretty good German and drives a Toyota, I have to wonder...

Malcom, as always, a red check for you.  However, good friend, how do you intend to "trade" with John Armaos?  What can you offer?  What does he have for you?  You know that I believe that violence is the last resort of the incompetent.  Yet, sometimes, there you are, stuck in an unprepared moment with an unexpected demonstration of your limitations, so you eliminate the threat, rather than making a trade.  It happens...


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Post 9

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:22pmSanction this postReply
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John, I think you're making a false dichotomy when mentioning people's dislike for the invasion of Iraq as isolationists. Are the NATO members that did approve of the invasion yet have a presence in Afghanistan or certain nations in Africa as part of UN relief missions isolationists?

I think in this regard, your definition of interventionism and isolationism are pretty weak in that they're not rigorously defined as total isolationism or total interventionism. For me, I do believe in avoiding alliances with nations of the military sort when they are unneeded, not because of fear of getting into a protracted war or because I "hate" America, but because it costs my money in taxes. And there better be a damn good reason to make a military alliance with some other nation, instead of phantasmal fears of men speaking strange sounding languages.

Plus, on the Iraq invasion itself, why didn't we just let those people depose Saddam themselves? Sure, he was a monster, no doubt, but is it our moral 'duty' to fight others battles? The last time I checked Saddam had no WMDs per the reports given, and all claims to either him having the components for WMDs or supposedly funding a terrorist organization were found to be fraudulent. In the end, any attempt to justify the Iraq invasion is hypocritical and nonsensical.

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Post 10

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:23pmSanction this postReply
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Steve:

John you don't seem to be able to keep what you are saying straight from one post to the next.


I can understand why you think that since you are too obtuse understand what I'm saying.

John says, "When we trade with one another, when we do business with our fellow citizens, or when we enter into a common defense by establishing a police force and an army to protect us, we are in essence entering into an alliance with each other man qua man." He is clearly discussing a view that speaks to a delegated self-defense within a jurisdiction, be it Los Angeles or the United States - the latter being his target in this context. But there are problems with this formulation right away - he will proceed to equivocate on the word alliance, which between nations means treaties which carry obligations (entanglements) but that is not what it means in this statement.


Bullshit, it is the same. You can just as easily say that Connecticut has entered into an entangling alliance with New York over fulfilling an agreement to come to their aid. And then you use "jurisdiction" as the moral trump card yet conveniently leave out the part "jurisdiction" is also used to TAX citizens. There is no equivocation, it is philosophically the same principle, whether it is an alliance between rational individuals for a mutually beneficial goals or alliances between nations for mutually beneficial goals. The part that you dishonestly keep dropping is the "rational" part and "mutually beneficial" goals. Those are the conditions for an alliance to which you dishonestly drop in rebutting my argument. The hallmark of someone either stupid, or lacking any intellectual integrity.



Then he goes on to create the equivocation: "And just as this convergence of interests between rational men exists within a nation, sometimes there exists a convergence of interests between nations, where one nation may share common interests with other nations, or other factions within a nation. Common interests like entering into a military alliance to work towards a common goal of defeating a common enemy is the kind of cooperation towards mutually beneficial goals that Thomas Jefferson during his Presidential inaugural speech called an "entangling alliance"..." Cutting through all the weaselly wording, it says that there can be shared interests between nations, like defeating a common enemy. (At that point he calls Jefferson a moral hypocrite, but I'll stick with the equivocation.) "The fact is there is nothing immoral with an alliance if it servers our rational self-interests..." We have a jurisdiction under our national, state, and local governments where legitimate force by police is determined by the principles of individual rights and the morality of the use of force by the police is determined by the principle of self-defense. That has been completely dropped.


No it hasn't. The United States has the authority to defend its citizens, and its jurisdiction does need to extend over an aggressor country's territorial boundaries that threatens US citizens. The United States had no jurisdictional authority over Japan in WW2, but it had the moral right to act and the legal authority to do so. If that is what you mean by jurisdictional authority (It only takes approval from Congress, but the moral hypocrisy here is when you are picking and choosing when to use this legal authority as the moral trump card when a legal-framework exists to tax American citizens)

I said, "Contrary to what he implies, when we trade with one another we do NOT establish a contract or obligation to go to war." and John says, "I said many times in other threads [I thought we were discussing the article he submitted] that going to war against an aggressor to protect a trade relationship meets a sufficient condition for acting morally, but that is not a necessary condition to act." I could rest my case here. A treaty IS an obligation.


Here, Steve obtusely confuses MORAL obligation with LEGAL obligation. Yet taxes are also a LEGAL obligation but we have a moral right to break such a LEGAL obligation because they were never based on MORAL premises, just as we would have a MORAL right to break a LEGAL obligation with another nation if it proves that treaty no longer meets our interests, i.e. if that nation is no longer rational or if helping them is no longer in our interests.

His comparison of citizens of the United States being protected by their own police is NOT the same as us going to war for the citizens of some other nation as a result of an alliance/treaty that is not put together in such a way as to guarantee we act morally, i.e., don't wage war when we aren't under attack or threat of attack.


And yet Connecticut was not under attack on 9/11, so ergo according to Steve's ridiculously stupid moral code, it shouldn't help New York in its defense. But wait, according to Steve, it has a legal obligation to help New York, so now it's moral. Only if its written on paper is it moral to come to the defense of someone else under attack, i.e. the source of morality are laws, not man's need for survival. Even still, under a legal-framework the Constitution permits military alliance treaties, so Steve MUST say it is moral to act because here we have a legal obligation to act to which jurisdiction is the moral basis for his arguments. (Note I am not saying a treaty must trump any moral analyis for how to react, that is strictly Steve's context-less intrincisist view of morality entering into the debate)

It is immoral because we are asked to sacrifice for the nation we entered into the agreement with, or we are asked to sacrifice for the some one's commercial interests or because some politicians say we have a common interest or they say it is in our self-interest - but nowhere do they justify it using self-defense.


Self defense of what Steve? You seem to think the only justification for what constitutes self-defense is if you suffer physical injury, and not if someone coercively prevents you from engaging in a peaceful economic relationship of free trade with another peaceful nation. Again, an obtuse and intrincisist philosophical definition of self-defense.

John knows that I support all government actions that are in self-defense of individual rights - be they by the police, courts or by the military or the taxes for them.


Wait a minute, you support the government forcibly taxing its citizens?

He says, "...picking and choosing when jurisdictional authority becomes the moral trump card for any debate is also intellectually dishonest." I can't wait to hear what jurisdiction has legal authority over me that lies outside of the United States and would supersede the United States. What the hell is he thinking? Oh, yeah, it is NATO and the UN - our partners in military adventures - sure let's try to make up reasons why they should be able to get us into wars by having jurisdiction over us.


What the hell are you talking about? You're too stupid to even understand my post. I said you can't pick and choose when to use "jurisdiction" as your moral basis for when someone should act when you don't agree with a lot of jurisdictional authorities our government has over us (including banning drugs, forcible taxation, outlawing prostitution, etc)

John, I didn't say alliances shouldn't be permanent... Read what is written - George Washington said it. The key point that I make clear and you refuse to address is the difference between an ad hoc alliance, like WW II or our rebellion against Great Britain.


There are degrees between ad hoc (temporary) and permanent. It isn't just a dichotomy between fleeting moments of short lived alliances and millenia long alliances with nations no matter how they behave or act. It's stupid for you to even bring it up. The basis for an alliance should always be based on what is rational and in our interests, not on the length of time.

John spends one paragraph telling us the things that didn't exist in 1176


1776 you dolt, not 1176.

I would also like to hear what you thought of Thomas Jefferson wanting to aid the French revolutionaries seeking to overthrow King Louis XVI? Why was that not an advocacy of an entangling alliance? Did you stand behind that issue?

Once again proving for all your posturing you're just an obtuse hypocrite with an intrincisist view of morality.




(Edited by John Armaos on 8/18, 1:25pm)


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Post 11

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:29pmSanction this postReply
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Apropos foreign intervention: "For the most part, when the United States has set out, on its own and absent direct provocation, to overthrow a government, and to think that, having installed a new one, it could tinker with the effects and bring about a happy outcome, disaster has been the result. To be sure, the frequently cited counterexamples of Grenada and Panama may, to varying degrees, be conceded. But, again, unilateral American intervention has done considerably more harm than good over the past decades. It is worth revisiting this sorry lineage for a moment not because it tells the whole story of American foreign policy—it does not—but because it underscores some of the profound risks of reckless intervention." (Todd Gitlin, “On Liberalism and Force,” World Affairs [Summer, 2008], p. 43)


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Post 12

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:33pmSanction this postReply
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I'm a bit of a fence straddler on this issue of US foreign policy and I do not fully agree with either of the positions being argued by John or Steve. What creates such a huge problem for me is the failure of the US government to define its international policy in any sort of comprehensible terms. This results in every action being left completely open to individual interpretation (something that I honestly believe is a well designed policy in itself!) and lets each person put their own spin on the facts. Take for example the invasion of Iraq after 9/11. John writes:

    [T]he salient fact remains Saddam Hussein funded Islamic terrorists who were responsible for killing Americans, Israelis, and Europeans. Saddam had as a matter of established international consensus a history of trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction as was agreed by the United Nations and even foreign intelligence agencies of France. The Middle East is the breeding ground for all of Islamic fundamentalism. The only hope of changing this vile and disgusting culture is to rid some or all of the tyrants that breed this hatred. Since we are not an omnipotent power we can't rationally get rid of all of these tyrants, so a choice had to be made, and Iraq considering its history of flagrant violations of their armistice with the U.S., their support for Islamic terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and their past efforts of trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction was the choice that was made.

John, this is a much clearer and concise statement of why we should intervene in Iraq than anything I have ever heard from our government. It speaks to actual facts and discusses the need for regime change. However, I do not remember any mention of the necessity and moral right for pursuing regime change was ever clearly articulated by our government and instead, we were promised documented evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction - something that turned out to be completely false. If reasonable people end up formulating what you call "conspiracy theories" for the actions of our government, there is no need to look further than the misdirection our government creates in its attempt to pursue its course. The government shows time and time again that it neither respects the intelligence of its citizenry nor the members in other branches of government. If the government made a statement like the above and followed it up with a clearly articulated plan of how it would prosecute its interests (again, not something that we were given), then people could still agree or disagree about that course, but there would be none of this subterfuge and manipulation that we actually get. What you call "conspiracy theories" are typically just attempts by people to reconcile what the government says with what it actually does. If there were a one-to-one correspondence between words and deeds, then most reasonable people would have no need to be searching between the lines for the "truth" behind our foreign policies. When Steve writes:

    Hamas i[s] funded primarily by Saudi Arabia with significant funds from Iran [...] And Iran is the only government that supports Hezbollah.

I don't think these are inconsequential observations. If the real aim for invasion in the Middle East was to end Islamic terrorism, why didn't we do something about Saudi Arabia or Iran? Was it a mater of expedience or something else? I certainly could not get behind this course if expediency was the principal determinant. It is certainly not clear to me that the war in Iraq has produced, or is leading to, the meaningful change in the region that we seek, or that it has been responsible for an increase in safety of US citizens on our own soil. So, forgetting about ideology for a moment, when Steve raises concerns about the cost-benefit results of the war, is this prima facie unreasonable? I do not think so.

While historically interesting, I do not think that the positions of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson with respect to foreign policy in the 17th century is relevant to today's world. John is correct that it requires a different strategy completely when a nuclear bomb can be smuggled into the US in a cargo container or launched from a rocket and delivered in minutes, instead of having to deal with a two-month long transit of the Atlantic ocean and the destructive might of a musket. We now live in an international age and the interests of people in various countries are becoming entwined in numerous ways. Just as businesses in a given industry tend to consolidate due to natural forces as the scope, reach and complexity of that industry expands, so too will government policies between nations continue to become interrelated and merge towards a common structure as peaceful trade expands across the globe. The ideal of isolationism is dead in the 21st century and the US needs to formulate a rational foreign policy that clearly announces to the world that we do not seek to build an empire but instead are interested in voluntary free trade with any and all people. We should announce the terms under which the US is willing to work together with others and what sort of treatment we expect from others in return. We should clearly articulate exactly how we then intend to protect our interests at home and abroad so that our position is clear to all people. And finally, we should act in a wholly consistent manner in support of our stated goals and policies. Only when this is accomplished will the US stand on firm moral ground and once again rise to a respected position on the world stage.

Regards,
--
Jeff

P.S., When I say that isolationism is dead in the 21st century, I should also point out that the alternative is not interventionism. My position is that the US should strictly be engaged in, and only in, defense of its interests. There is no room for intervention short of defending the life, liberty and property of its citizens. We should engage in actions on foreign soil only as necessary to support that defense. Having said that, I do think that threats do constitute aggression against our interests and, following a diplomatic warning to foreign powers of our concerns, we should take retaliatory actions against those that clearly pose a potential threat.


(Edited by C. Jeffery Small on 8/18, 1:42pm)


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Post 13

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:42pmSanction this postReply
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Steve Wolfer wrote:


The context of a nation with a jurisdiction over which individual rights justify police force under the principle of self-defense is dropped, and common self-interests, commercial interests become justifications for war.


This is the essential flaw which governs libertarianisms suicidal isolationism, and the philosophical corruption of liberty at it's core. Steve is explicitly stating that individual rights only exist within the jurisdiction of nations which happen to recognize them, and actions to defend those rights are justifiable only within the context of the boundaries of that nation.

This is the 'I've got mine, now screw you' mentality of modern libertarians, that the United States and it's Freedoms are great because we happen to be lucky enough to adopt individual freedoms as our founding principle, but really founding principles are arbitrary and so any nation which happens to not adopt those principles is as equally valid and does not represent a fundamental existential threat to the very concept of individual rights. Steven would do well to learn of the Gulags and the Stazi to learn what kind of threat nations which explicitly adopt principles antithetical to human liberty actually pose.

Self defense, human rights, civil liberties: these things are not pragmatic happenstantial adoptions we in the US are lucky enough to enjoy. These things ARE NOT CONTEXTUAL - bound by borders, as Steve suggests. ANY assault on human liberty is an assault on the foundation of freedom, and so is an assault on every man and woman on the planet.


It is immoral because we are asked to sacrifice for the nation we entered into the agreement with, or we are asked to sacrifice for the some one's commercial interests or because some politicians say we have a common interest or they say it is in our self-interest - but nowhere do they justify it using self-defense.


The language by which politicians justify political and military actions does not represent their motivations, nor does it undermine the fact that even though they may be doing something under one motivation, it is in fact objectively defensible under a different motivation. For instance, many endeavors of our own long term rational self interest (eliminating murderous dictatorships for instance) are also things many humanitarians would find agreeable.

The essential isolationism of Libertarianism has been most often historically justified by the nearly uncountable instance of foreign intervention in the cold war, and intervention in the cold war was governed by the over riding principle of the containment of Soviet Communism, i.e. SELF DEFENSE The first nation in the history of the world arises and declares as it's founding principle the destruction of property rights and the intent on converting every single nation onto the planet into a communist hell hole.

The Comm Intern actively subverts, sabotages, funds, and encourages revolutions around the world. The greatest threat to the Communist Hegemony is the United States. Knowing any outright conflict would be disastrous, the Soviet Union instead attempts to convert every nation to communism, either externally by force (Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Czhekeslovkia, Poland, East Germany, Ethiopia) or implicitly through espionage, assassinations, and the military funding of communist revolutionaries (Chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Argentina, Columbia, China, etc, etc)

While nearly every nation on earth (including the United States) either has internal spies and revolutionaries directly funded by the Soviet Union, or is being invaded, or has been invaded and conquered, and over 100 million people have been killed, Steve Wolfer would have us sit back and WAIT until the Soviet Union actually marched soldiers over the border before we act in opposition. The only appropriate government action is Self Defense, which applies only to the range of the moment.

Sending troops to Korea to fight the communist expansion of China and the Soviet Union was a 'sacrifice' Sending Troops to Vietnam to fight the communist expansion into the Indochinese region was 'sacrifice'. Sending military aide to Israel to fight off the combined invasion of a dozen arab nations was a 'sacrifice'. Helping west Germany, and western Europe defend itself against a soviet ground invasion was a 'sacrifice'. Even though these acts were all of helping an ally with common interests defend themselves against our common enemy, None of these, apparently were in 'self defense'.

Rational Self defense logically includes dealing the best blow at every moment we can against our worst enemy. It is not waiting to be invaded, it is actively opposing the empowerment of the existential threats we face, and actively defending allies with common interests and principles against advances by that enemy.


I can't wait to hear what jurisdiction has legal authority over me that lies outside of the United States and would supersede the United States


Again, you appear to think human rights and freedom are merely nifty things the US has chose to let it's people have. You own moral claim to your right to exist (to oppose direct threats to your existence) supersedes any legal jurisdiction the United States has within the rational framework of man qua man. It can not arbitrarily imprison you nor take away your rights, you have every moral right to fight these infringements. And so any individuals claim to the right to exist supersedes his national boundaries and at any time you are entirely morally justified in reasonable actions to assist that person in defending his individual rights, just as he is morally justified in defending your rights if the United States as the nation with jurisdiction over you chose to no longer recognize them.


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Post 14

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:43pmSanction this postReply
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Michael,

Treaties, like NATO, are obligations to go to war. And if you think that the only shared interests John has been talking about don't involve enemies and war, you better you'd better look again.

You say, "Yet how do you justify the use of INDIVIDUALS by making them morally sacrificial for the sake of other, unconnected individuals, who have been the victim of a crime." What you have written in that sentence doesn't even make sense. I don't justify sacrifice anywhere! You wrote, "Why should I, as a tax payer, be forced to pay for a law enforcement agency act of delayed retaliation against a perpetrator of a crime who victimized someone else?" Don't you understand that? Or are you being rhetorical? I'll explain it for you. Criminal commits crime. Criminal in doing so relinquishes his rights. Government having been instituted to protect individual rights arrests the criminal, tries him, imprisons him. The government has the right to use force against the criminal because he relinquished his rights by violating rights. Various functions like representative government making the laws, jurisdiction, probable cause, reasonable doubt, etc. help ensure that the citizens aren't treated like the criminal. People pay taxes to support this system because the system supports individual rights. I'll let you imagine all the ugly alternatives to a system based upon individual rights. Please note that the individual is not a sacrificial animal being chewed to protect someone else's rights.

You say, "...we must always do whatever is reasonably possible to remove our worst enemies" That is not an extension of self-defense - it is an abandonment - as policy it is devoid of principle - without self-defense it means we should nuke the nation of the day. Then having done so, go on to the next nation on the enemies list on the next day.

You said, "Just as a convergence of interest between individuals within a nations justifies the use of funds in that nation in law enforcement and retaliation against crimes committed against other individuals, the convergence of interest between allied nations with similar ideals justifies the use of funds of that nation in the mitigation of existential threats and opposition to all enemies in the general goal of long term rational self interest." That is the same fallacy that John makes - it take the fuzzy, undefined 'convergence of interests' and uses it to replace individual rights and self-defense. All of a sudden instead of 'we were actually attacked or under threat of attack,' it is "...mitigation of existential threats and opposition to all enemies..."

You spend some long involved paragraphs attacking the Libertarian Party Platform on National Defense - but only after attributing it to me. Didn't you notice that the post of mine being referred to was a criticism of the Libertarian Party - not a joining of their position?

All of that crap that you attribute to me is NOT mine - you made it up after misreading my post.

Your entire remainder of your post isn't reflective of my positions and your understanding of individual rights and self defense is shown to be inadequate in the following statements: "If the standard of individual self defense within libertarianism were appllied (sic)to national defense, we would - be morally justified in assisting our neighboring nation with common interests against a mutual enemy." There you go, unable to resist claiming the moral high ground by mentioning individual self defense and then abandoning it when you are "shifting to assisting our neighboring nation with common interests with a common enemy. Jeeze, why don't you have the balls to come right out and say "to nuke people that are our common enemies" - instead of all the double talk of "shifting to assisting our neighboring nation with common interests" - it is usually the those advocating going to war with out being attacked that are most timid about saying what they mean.

You conclude by saying, "Just as being "strong on crime" in the realm of individuals creates a free, prosperous society (where crime is assaults on persons or property) being "strong on defense" will necessarily mean interactions with allies who share a harmony of interests and be the best long term strategy toward achieving a peaceful and prosperous WORLD. Again, like every other instance, you shift from individual rights to some kind of confluence of interests as the justification for war. And you ignore that fact of jurisdiction - do you think we have a world government? Are you willing to grant some kind of sovereignty to a supra-national body to exercise our decision of when to wage war?


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Monday, August 18, 2008 - 2:07pmSanction this postReply
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John,
   I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a "rational" nation, but I ask myself the same questions as you, only about our own crop of political hooligans.  Obama appears just as willing as Putin to nationalize entire industries, and both Bush and McCain strike me as disintersted in individual rights and the constitution they've sworn to uphold.  Bush has also done quite a wicked job of consolidating political power unto himself.  Their long term interests appear neither rational to me, nor do they coincide with my own.  In fact I find our own politicians (and those responsible for electing them) far more dangerous to our collective and individual interests than anything "we" might face from perceived foreign sources.  -Steve P.
    


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Monday, August 18, 2008 - 2:21pmSanction this postReply
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John,
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a "rational" nation,


I'm sure you don't. As you seem to morally equate the United States with Russia, how could you understand what rational means?

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Post 17

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 2:42pmSanction this postReply
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Steve Wolfer, I said


...we must always do whatever is reasonably possible to remove our worst enemies... If the standard of individual self defense within libertarianism were applied to national defense, we would - be morally justified in assisting our neighboring nation with common interests against a mutual enemy."


To which you responded


Jeeze, why don't you have the balls to come right out and say "to nuke people that are our common enemies" - instead of all the double talk of "shifting to assisting our neighboring nation with common interests" - it is usually the those advocating going to war with out being attacked that are most timid about saying what they mean.


If 'reasonable' to you means dropping nuclear bombs on innocent populations held as prisoners by a murderous hostage taking government, then I can understand why we are having such a hard time communicating, you concept of 'reason' is so far removed from any concept I am familiar with that we are clearly speaking different languages.

We are talking about, fundamentally, whether it is right to act militarily outside of the confines of your nation first and foremost. Discussions of the degree of appropriate actions would be a good follow up discussion, but don't you dare insist that in any way shape or form I am advocating the use of nuclear weapons on innocent civilians. I am talking about whether any military action AT ALL is proper, you immediately draw that out to the largest most destructive kind of military action. This is much more of an indication of your state of mind than it is any rational assessment of mine. Apparently you associate ANY adovcation of the us of force in self defense with some kind of murderous blood thirsty rage. Get off your pompous disgusting high horse and try to have a civil discussion, and don't put positions, especially horrifically disgusting ones, into my mouth.

You can see my post on OL from Feb 13 clearly stating my disgust with the 'nuke them all' crowd

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=4799&view=findpost&p=46197
(Edited by Michael F Dickey on 8/18, 2:43pm)


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Post 18

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 3:07pmSanction this postReply
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Sorry. I'm only willing to attribute morality and rationality to individual humans. 

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Post 19

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 5:40pmSanction this postReply
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The Disaster That Didn't Happen

I am tired of hearing the false assertion that going to war to help another country is necessarily altruistic:

"And a convergence of interests between nations can NOT morally include making their citizens the subject of a sacrifice for the sake of the other nation."

The claim begs the question which is disputed. The interventionists are claiming that going to war to protect or liberate a small nation is sometimes in our self interest. Not that it doesn't have a cost. A sacrifice would exist only if there were no reason for us to stop an aggresor like Putin. But that claim is that some sort of action provides a benefit that is worth the cost.

The obvioius analogy would be that Hitler could have been stopped in the Rhine. There would have been a cost. France and Britain doid not want to pay it. The result was the much greater cost of WWII, which might possibly have been prevented. Likewise, some would claim that going to war in Iraq was a sacrifice. They look at the balance sheet oin lives lost and Billions spent. But what if Saddam had a nuclear bomb by now? (Please don't be so tiresome, Robert, as to point out that he might not have had a bomb by now - I know that.) What if he had stopped all oil flow out of the gulf or had pulled a Putin on Kuwait, and attacked it after goading its military to respond to a provocation? What if we had paid the price of getting Osama before September 2001?

The cost is always right there in black and white. The benefit is never surely known, because when we do act, we can't point to disasters that didn't happen, and claim the dividend. But we know that disasters do happen.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/18, 6:24pm)


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