| | Jim:
Re this: "Anarchy is not a coherent philosophy"
Have you read David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom", or Rothbard's explanations about how anarcho-capitalism could work? You don't agree with anarcho-capitalism, but that doesn't by default make it an incoherent philosophy when intelligent people have explained in detail how it could work.
Yes I am familiar with Rothbard's arguments for anarcho-capitalism. And while yes he is an intelligent person, and has made many coherent arguments, intelligent people are capable of making incoherent arguments. Do you disagree? Or are you arguing by authority and not by the merits of the argument itself?
Re this: "a monopoly on the rules for what constitutes appropriate retaliatory force is not an initiation of force. Anything to the contrary is by default a sanction for the initiation of force."
Having something other than a monopoly on retaliatory force in a defined geographic area is NOT necessarily anarcho-capitalism. It is possible, for example, for two governmental agencies to have jurisdiction in the same geographic area. For example, no one would claim that it is impossible for Canada and the U.S. to have different laws for their citizens. And the two countries have agreed, either overtly or tacitly, that at least some of their citizens, when inside the other's territorial boundaries, will be subject to a different set of rules than the actual citizens of that country. For example, diplomats must comply with some laws but can ignore other laws with impunity. And the U.S. government must, in some instances, treat its citizens differently than it treats Canadian citizens for violating the same laws.
Diplomats, the primary function of which is to facilitate relations between national governments, while under international agreements are given immunity in their host countries on a reciprocal agreement, can be expelled by the host country. Let's not act like a Canadian diplomat can do whatever the hell he wants in US territory with impunity, and let's not act like a Diplomat is any arbitrarily defined citizen, he is rather a specifically defined citizen, specifically chosen by his nation on the basis he isn't a violent criminal, for the purpose of negotiating treaties between jurisdictional authorities, and will most likely not commit any crimes in the host country lest it spark an international incident and the expulsion of those diplomats and the cutting off of diplomatic relations. The immunity idea is to make sure that a nation can have some guarantees the diplomats they send will not just arbitrarily on a whim be arrested for unjust cause. It is essentially a trade of diplomats, with the understanding if a diplomat was unfairly detained or punished, diplomatic relations would end, and in retaliation the nation making the grievance over an unfair detainment would expel diplomats from their country in response. While technically they have immunity, there is still an expectation to follow the host nation's laws. To then extend this example to mean "logically, it is not impossible for the already quite porous borders between the U.S. and Canada to dissolve completely, and instead the federal governments could agree that citizens could choose to be either Canadian or U.S. citizens" is quite a stretch. How you go from diplomatic immunity to any individual arbitrarily picking the laws he is subject to? Again, this is a variation on the slippery slope argument, to suggest this could logically happen without giving us the gradations that would have to occur between them does not make it credible. Where we start off with a narrowly defined citizen with a narrowly defined task assigned to him, to not necessarily being able to be held criminally liable in a host country but can be expelled by a host country, to any citizen picking the laws that apply to him does not logically follow.
Nor under any arguments for anarcho-capitalism am I aware of the idea a defense agency while not being able to hold someone for trial that has hired a different defense agency yet still have the authority toexpell them from....well from what? Under anarcho-capitalism there are no jurisdictional boundaries based on geography, otherwise that would be considered a monopoly government, so how could they be expelled? To where? Under anarcho-capitalism, the defense agency would have no recourse for retaliatory action, whereas with diplomats, at least the nation can either expel the diplomat, or decide to ignore the immunity, hold the diplomat for trial, and end diplomatic relations with the other nation.
Our federal or state government can't, for example, execute Canadian citizens for crimes that are capital offenses for U.S. citizens.
Says who? Yes they can.
Re this: "As for "slippery slopes", this is logical fallacy. If you've heard Objectivists give a thoughtful and cogent argument on emergencies, why do you think this cogent argument must lead to the violation of rights in any undefined context? That doesn't follow logically."
What I have heard is Objectivists arguing that their "initiations of force", for "emergencies" as they define those terms, which conveniently benefits them, are morally OK, and everyone else is, of course, wrong.
What do you mean "benefits them"? When someone makes an ethical argument, do you literally think that means they are no longer speaking conceptually but rather concretely about ethical standards that only are applicable to the arguer? The ethical standard is the individual, not just the arguer in spite of everyone else.
And so you'll pardon me if I find the supposedly objective arguments on this issue by Objectivists to appear just a tad bit subjective and terribly ... convenient, in that their definition just happens to mesh neatly with their personal self-interest, and to the detriment of others.
And if you could be so kind as to pardon me for ignoring the vague undefined accusation you are hurling here.
Re this: "And finally no Middle Eastern country has been "pre-emptively" attacked."
Tell that to the Iraqis. Tell that to the U.N. inspectors who searched for, and didn't find, any WMDs in Iraq prior to the start of the war.
Since you didn't define which specific UN inspectors you are referring to here prior to the start of the war, they actually did find WMD in Iraq during Clinton's administration which was prior to the start of the war.
I also recommend reading Hitchen's interview So, Mr. Hitchens, Weren't You Wrong About Iraq?
Quote from interview: "The entire record of UNSCOM until that date had shown a determination on the part of the Iraqi dictatorship to build dummy facilities to deceive inspectors, to refuse to allow scientists to be interviewed without coercion, to conceal chemical and biological deposits, and to search the black market for materiel that would breach the sanctions. The defection of Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law, the Kamel brothers, had shown that this policy was even more systematic than had even been suspected. Moreover, Iraq did not account for—has in fact never accounted for—a number of the items that it admitted under pressure to possessing after the Kamel defection. We still do not know what happened to this weaponry. This is partly why all Western intelligence agencies, including French and German ones quite uninfluenced by Ahmad Chalabi, believed that Iraq had actual or latent programs for the production of WMD. Would it have been preferable to accept Saddam Hussein's word for it and to allow him the chance to re-equip once more once the sanctions had further decayed?"
Tell it to the American populace subjected to a series of explanations for why we are there, each one different than the next, each disproven in turn only to be replaced with a fresh rationale.
From the Hitchen's interview:
Wasn't Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations a bit of a disgrace?
Yes, it was, as was the supporting role played by George Tenet and the CIA (which has been reliably wrong on Iraq since 1963). Some good legal experts—Ruth Wedgwood most notably—have argued that the previous resolutions were self-enforcing and that there was no need for a second resolution or for Powell's dog-and-pony show. Some say that the whole thing was done in order to save Tony Blair's political skin. A few points of interest did emerge from Powell's presentation: The Iraqi authorities were caught on air trying to mislead U.N inspectors (nothing new there), and the presence in Iraq of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a very dangerous al-Qaida refugee from newly liberated Afghanistan, was established. The full significance of this was only to become evident later on.
Was the terror connection not exaggerated?
Not by much. The Bush administration never claimed that Iraq had any hand in the events of Sept. 11, 2001. But it did point out, at different times, that Saddam had acted as a host and patron to every other terrorist gang in the region, most recently including the most militant Islamist ones. And this has never been contested by anybody. The action was undertaken not to punish the last attack—that had been done in Afghanistan—but to forestall the next one.
Tell it to the U.S. soldiers who tore through the country all the way to Bagdad while encountering only minor resistence from an enemy that clearly was no great threat to the most powerful military on earth, a military that spends as much on national "defense" as the rest of the world combined. Tell those soldiers that the U.S. had good reason to fear invasion of its territorial boundaries by this hopelessly outmatched and ragtag army.
Who thought the Iraqi army was a threat to the US military? No one. Nor did anyone ever make the argument. This is a strawman. The argument was made however more generally Iraq was a threat to American interests in the form of attacking America's international trading partners, and funding and aiding terrorists responsible for killing American, Israeli and European citizens. Which are both acts of war that justifies a response. A war doesn't become justified if the foreign nation we are retaliating against has a strong army. Does that make any sense to you? Was Afghanistan's army a great threat to the most powerful military on Earth? No. Was the United States morally justified in attacking Afghanistan's military? Yes.
Re this: "I find Jim that most of your arguments on this forum are not very well thought out."
I find that you sometimes characterize an honest difference of opinion as a lack of thoughfulness on the part of those who have a different perspective and POV than you.
I find that you characterize what actually are poorly thought out and grossly ignorant arguments on your part to be a difference of opinion an excuse to not intelligently argue your thoughts. And I also find the excuse that we have a difference of opinion really to be a euphemism for relativism.
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