The Antiwar.com Money Trail?


Mike Renzulli

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With statements like this the term Gas Chamber Mentality seems to come to mind.

I understand your point of view just fine, Mike - with perhaps one big exception:

Some people associated with no State, but instead with an independent, international criminal organization, launch an attack on New York and Washington. They bring down a couple of huge buildings, and kill a few thousand people. The U.S. military then proceeds to bomb a bunch of people who had nothing whatever to do with these attacks.

Explain to me how this constitutes "self defense."

Hearing a coherent explanation of this point (though I doubt one is possible) might cause me to learn something I don't already know about your warped viewpoint.

JR

Really eloquent explanation, Mike. Now I understand - fully.

JR

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There is a vast difference between pacifism and nonaggression, and antiwar.com whitewashes that distinction. Their mission statement explicitly advocates “opposition to war,” and cites no exceptions. If the name given to their website is not proof enough, here’s a sampling of their credo, as evidenced by their “quotes” page.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

~Albert Einstein

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians.

~Barry Goldwater

The best defense is no offense.

~Dr. Ivan Eland

"Rules of engagement" are a set of guidelines for murder.

~Dr. Teresa Whitehurst

How can you make a war on terror if war itself is terrorism?

~Howard Zinn

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

~George Orwell

A rational army would run away.

~Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

No one wants to see innocent civilians die. However, when civilians are used as a cover for aggression, you either risk killing them or you lay down and surrender. The rights of the civilians are being violated by the original aggressors, not the people exercising their right of self-defense. (Of course, we should note that, in many cases, so-called “innocent civilians” are deliberately aiding the aggressors.)

Could any honest person with any knowledge whatsoever of the theory of libertarianism not understand this? I don’t think so.

Ludwig von Mises acknowledged this when he said:

To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war.

This is also a quotation from antiwar.com. They really should take it down, because it clearly implies that force against aggressors is justified. It shows the folly of all of the other quotes on their website which openly condemn acting selfishly—and morally--in the name of self-defense.

The obvious fact is that the explicit pacifism advocated by antiwar.com plays into the hands of the terrorists. If terrorists are not giving financial support to this website, they are missing a good bet.

The implicit moral philosophy of antiwar.com is self-sacrifice, i.e., if someone points a gun at you with the intent of killing you, you have no right to try to kill them first. You just have to either talk the aggressor out of killing you--or die. It is important that anyone new to Objectivism not confuse this kind of simple-minded idiocy with the ideas of Ayn Rand.

And, of course, pacifism and appeasement invariably lead to the exact opposite of what pacifists claim to oppose: more aggression, as we see with North Korea’s flagrant acts of war against South Korea. We may soon see a much more destructive demonstration of this principle if Iran continues on its current path of “peaceful” nuclear development, and—as antiwar dot com seems to hope—the U.S. turns its back on Israel.

I have numerous complaints about our government’s handling of the so-called “war on terror.” I have no doubt that our military and other government agencies occasionally engage in wrongful behavior, and I condemn that. On the other hand, I have to wonder how many Americans are alive today because we do not follow the claptrap perpetrated by websites like antiwar.com. It has been ten years since 9-11. Are libertarians so deranged in their hatred of all government that they do not see that our military and the efforts of agencies such as the FBI, with all their faults and missteps, may well be the reason they are alive today? No doubt the FBI, et. al., are guilty of improperly violating the privacy of private citizens and groups in some cases, and they deserve to be punished for that when it occurs. The fact remains that, given our current political climate and all the obstacles thrown in their path, they are dong an amazing job of keeping Americans safe.

The irony is that, because they have done such a magnificent job of preventing further attacks, people (many OL members included) have begun to think that the ‘war on terror’ is no longer a big deal, so we are free to lampoon the military and other agencies responsible rather than applaud their success.

How has the war on terror served the goal of self-defense? While Al Quaeda is a nongovernment operation, it can only survive with government protection and funding. It counts heavily on sympathetic regimes to provide them with financial support and safe harbor—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (and previously, the Taliban). And the brave terrorist operatives typically hide behind the cover of civilian populations, making it impossible to attack them without killing civilians. In many cases the civilians are also sympathetic and do their part to protect the whereabouts of the Islamists. The U.S. government has no choice but to target areas where intelligence data indicates Al Quaeda operatives are hiding regardless of whether civilians may be in harm’s way. It is sacrificial and immoral to put ground troops in harm's way when a foreign nation is protecting our enemies and bombs or drones can do the job.

Could any honest person with any knowledge whatsoever of the reality of international terrorism not know this? I don’t think so.

I have a multitude of complaints regarding the conduct of US foreign policy, starting with the fact that our “leaders” lack the moral courage to prosecute the war in a way that minimizes the risks to our troops. Instead, our soldiers are frequently and needlessly endangered in order to minimize the potential for civilian casualties and the resulting negative ‘world opinion.’ This amounts to pure moral cowardice on our government’s part. It is a wonder that the morale of our heroic troops remains as high as it is.

The inconsistency of our foreign policy is also abhorrent. The war in Iraq was a disaster from day one, and a monumental waste of thousands of innocent American lives—not to mention billions of tax dollars. It was a war founded on the corrupt, immoral premise of self-sacrifice for the sake of “democracy.” If stopping terrorism had been our actual motivation, Iran would have been the obvious target, not Iraq. Today, we remain mute against the suppression of freedom-loving protestors in Iran and look the other way as Syria slaughters its citizens. We turn on allies such as Mubarrak in Egypt and join the fight against Qaddafi—a disgusting, murderous thug if there ever was one--even though the Libyan rebels may well be sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The premise of antiwar.com seems to be an unconditional rejection of all forms of warfare. So these “libertarians” are not questioning whether our military action in Afghanistan was a valid exercise of “self-defense.’ They do not recognize a nation’s right of military self-defense. (Or if they do, they think it unimportant to clarify this, suggesting that any such claim is subterfuge and lip-service.)

It simply is not possible to oppose military force of any kind and yet be an advocate of freedom. No one is that stupid. (Even OL members who claim to not understand how the war in Afghanistan represented self-defense can be that stupid.) You cannot believe that people should be free from force, yet claim that a person has no right to stop force initiated by others. The brazen defiance of logic is too absurd. Those who say they support this explicitly pacifist website are sanctioning that premise. I have to question whether they can possibly hold such beliefs and also advocate liberty. I have to wonder if they believe in liberty at all. The policies they are advocating will obviously lead to the exact opposite—the unrestrained growth of tyranny.

Could any honest person with any knowledge whatsoever of history not know this? I don’t think so.

So what are we to make of the “libertarians” who support antiwar.com? If it doesn’t walk like a duck and it doesn’t quack like a duck, yet says “Yes, yes! Please believe me! I’m a duck!”—is it a duck? I don’t think so.

If not libertarians, what are they then? Your guess is as good as mine. And who cares?

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The war in Iraq, Dennis, is one of the many contemporary American wars fought over oil. If this weren't true the U.S. would have invaded Saudi Arabia instead. The reason you cited was pap for the public including the soldiers. There were also the "weapons of mass destruction."

--Brant

just like this Libya thingy, aka "light, sweet, crude"

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Regarding the subject of war:

‘Why are you killing me for your own benefit? I am unarmed.’

‘Why, do you not live on the other side of the water? My friend, if you lived on this side, I should be a murderer, but since you live on the other side, I am a brave man and it is right...."

Could there be anything more absurd than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and his prince has picked a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?

(Blaise Pascal, Pensées, c. 1660)

Pascal had a point; but, if push comes to shove and I am forced to choose, I would rather have the army on my side of the water killing innocent people on the other side, rather than having their army killing innocent people on my side of the water.

Not very principled, perhaps, but eminently practical, since I happen to live on this side of the water.

Ghs

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‘Why are you killing me for your own benefit? I am unarmed.’

‘Why, do you not live on the other side of the water? My friend, if you lived on this side, I should be a murderer, but since you live on the other side, I am a brave man and it is right...."

Could there be anything more absurd than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and his prince has picked a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?

(Blaise Pascal, Pensées, c. 1660)

Pascal's comments are apt to be misunderstood, so I should explain the context in which he made them.

Pascal was not protesting the injustice of wars. On the contrary, he believed that to judge the actions and laws of governments by rational moral standards would ultimately result in disaster, because people would quickly see that governments have no rational or moral foundation. Social chaos, born of disobedience and revolution, would soon follow.

People, according to Pascal, must be ruled by custom rather than by reason. Social order requires blind, unconditional obedience to established laws solely because they are established laws. Man-made laws have the force of habitual custom and are routinely accepted by the masses for this reason and this reason alone, according to Pascal. This is the “mystic basis” for the authority of law.

Philosophers who attempt to trace the authority of man-made laws to their objective foundation in natural law and reason will inevitably destroy the authority of de facto laws in the process. Even a cursory examination of various legal systems will reveal their relativity, inconsistencies, and how they were designed to serve the interests of the rulers instead of a greater public good.

Rather than pin the blame on a specific political theory, Pascal targets political philosophy itself as the source of the revolutionary impulse. The very process of philosophic inquiry, which attempts to probe to the moral foundation of human laws, will reveal that no moral foundation exists. Thus does political philosophy itself become the “art of subversion, of revolution,” as it attempts to provide a moral foundation for custom.

Pascal continues with this remarkable passage:

There is no surer way to lose everything; nothing will be just if weighed in these scales. Yet the people readily listen to such arguments, they throw off the yoke as soon as they recognize it, and the great take the opportunity of ruining them and those whose curiosity makes them examine received customs. That is why the wisest of legislators used to say that men must often be deceived for their own good, and another sound politician: When he asks about the truth that is to bring him freedom, it is a good thing that he should be deceived. The truth about the usurpation [in the founding of governments] must not be made apparent; it came about originally without reason and has become reasonable. We must see that it is regarded as authentic and eternal, and its origins must be hidden if we do not want it soon to end.

Ghs

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Now that's a first-class mind, George. Shame on me if I don't read more.

--Brant

but governments don't begin in philosophy; they end in it; philosophy is more historical than pre-historical (as he said); the philosophy of the Founding Fathers was only as an improvement of British governance and as it followed it to something better than it, it then followed it down in the natural triumph of democracy we see all around us in its essential fascist glory

Edited by Brant Gaede
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That is a most remarkable passage. Supports anarchism as a rational foundation for organizing society.

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That is a most remarkable passage. Supports anarchism as a rational foundation for organizing society.

It can support it as much as anyone wants; "rational" does not really apply. What we get is word battles while the Hun hums.

--Brant

was he afraid of communists?

Jesus, I didn't know of his genius!--what if he had lived another 20 years!

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Now that's a first-class mind, George. Shame on me if I don't read more.

--Brant

but governments don't begin in philosophy; they end in it; philosophy is more historical than pre-historical (as he said); the philosophy of the Founding Fathers was only as an improvement of British governance and as it followed it to something better than it, it then followed it down in the natural triumph of democracy we see all around us in its essential fascist glory

David Hume later expressed some of the same ideas that Pascal had written about many decades earlier. In 1739, for example, Hume noted this common piece of political wisdom:

No maxim is more conformable, both to prudence and morals, than to submit quietly to the government, which we find established in the country where we happen to live, without enquiring too curiously into its origin and first establishment. Few governments will bear being examined so rigorously.

Some four decades later, the English clergyman and political liberal Josiah Tucker complained that this wise maxim of politics -- "Not to be very inquisitive concerning the original Title of the reigning Powers" -- had been destroyed by John Locke and other defenders of natural rights, social contract, and revolution. The "Lockian System," according to Tucker, bases legitimate political power on consent, but this was a test that no real government could pass.

In 1781, Tucker published a remarkable critique of the American revolutionaries. He argued that the Americans, after defeating the British and while establishing their own governments, abandoned the selfsame Lockean principles they had used to justify their own revolution.

Ghs

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There is a vast difference between pacifism and nonaggression, and antiwar.com whitewashes that distinction. Their mission statement explicitly advocates "opposition to war," and cites no exceptions. If the name given to their website is not proof enough, here's a sampling of their credo, as evidenced by their "quotes" page.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

~Albert Einstein

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians.

~Barry Goldwater

The best defense is no offense.

~Dr. Ivan Eland

"Rules of engagement" are a set of guidelines for murder.

~Dr. Teresa Whitehurst

How can you make a war on terror if war itself is terrorism?

~Howard Zinn

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

~George Orwell

A rational army would run away.

~Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

No one wants to see innocent civilians die. However, when civilians are used as a cover for aggression, you either risk killing them or you lay down and surrender. The rights of the civilians are being violated by the original aggressors, not the people exercising their right of self-defense. (Of course, we should note that, in many cases, so-called "innocent civilians" are deliberately aiding the aggressors.)

Could any honest person with any knowledge whatsoever of the theory of libertarianism not understand this? I don't think so.

Ludwig von Mises acknowledged this when he said:

To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war.

This is also a quotation from antiwar.com. They really should take it down, because it clearly implies that force against aggressors is justified. It shows the folly of all of the other quotes on their website which openly condemn acting selfishly—and morally--in the name of self-defense.

The obvious fact is that the explicit pacifism advocated by antiwar.com plays into the hands of the terrorists. If terrorists are not giving financial support to this website, they are missing a good bet.

The implicit moral philosophy of antiwar.com is self-sacrifice, i.e., if someone points a gun at you with the intent of killing you, you have no right to try to kill them first. You just have to either talk the aggressor out of killing you--or die. It is important that anyone new to Objectivism not confuse this kind of simple-minded idiocy with the ideas of Ayn Rand.

And, of course, pacifism and appeasement invariably lead to the exact opposite of what pacifists claim to oppose: more aggression, as we see with North Korea's flagrant acts of war against South Korea. We may soon see a much more destructive demonstration of this principle if Iran continues on its current path of "peaceful" nuclear development, and—as antiwar dot com seems to hope—the U.S. turns its back on Israel.

I have numerous complaints about our government's handling of the so-called "war on terror." I have no doubt that our military and other government agencies occasionally engage in wrongful behavior, and I condemn that. On the other hand, I have to wonder how many Americans are alive today because we do not follow the claptrap perpetrated by websites like antiwar.com. It has been ten years since 9-11. Are libertarians so deranged in their hatred of all government that they do not see that our military and the efforts of agencies such as the FBI, with all their faults and missteps, may well be the reason they are alive today? No doubt the FBI, et. al., are guilty of improperly violating the privacy of private citizens and groups in some cases, and they deserve to be punished for that when it occurs. The fact remains that, given our current political climate and all the obstacles thrown in their path, they are dong an amazing job of keeping Americans safe.

The irony is that, because they have done such a magnificent job of preventing further attacks, people (many OL members included) have begun to think that the 'war on terror' is no longer a big deal, so we are free to lampoon the military and other agencies responsible rather than applaud their success.

How has the war on terror served the goal of self-defense? While Al Quaeda is a nongovernment operation, it can only survive with government protection and funding. It counts heavily on sympathetic regimes to provide them with financial support and safe harbor—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (and previously, the Taliban). And the brave terrorist operatives typically hide behind the cover of civilian populations, making it impossible to attack them without killing civilians. In many cases the civilians are also sympathetic and do their part to protect the whereabouts of the Islamists. The U.S. government has no choice but to target areas where intelligence data indicates Al Quaeda operatives are hiding regardless of whether civilians may be in harm's way. It is sacrificial and immoral to put ground troops in harm's way when a foreign nation is protecting our enemies and bombs or drones can do the job.

Could any honest person with any knowledge whatsoever of the reality of international terrorism not know this? I don't think so.

I have a multitude of complaints regarding the conduct of US foreign policy, starting with the fact that our "leaders" lack the moral courage to prosecute the war in a way that minimizes the risks to our troops. Instead, our soldiers are frequently and needlessly endangered in order to minimize the potential for civilian casualties and the resulting negative 'world opinion.' This amounts to pure moral cowardice on our government's part. It is a wonder that the morale of our heroic troops remains as high as it is.

The inconsistency of our foreign policy is also abhorrent. The war in Iraq was a disaster from day one, and a monumental waste of thousands of innocent American lives—not to mention billions of tax dollars. It was a war founded on the corrupt, immoral premise of self-sacrifice for the sake of "democracy." If stopping terrorism had been our actual motivation, Iran would have been the obvious target, not Iraq. Today, we remain mute against the suppression of freedom-loving protestors in Iran and look the other way as Syria slaughters its citizens. We turn on allies such as Mubarrak in Egypt and join the fight against Qaddafi—a disgusting, murderous thug if there ever was one--even though the Libyan rebels may well be sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The premise of antiwar.com seems to be an unconditional rejection of all forms of warfare. So these "libertarians" are not questioning whether our military action in Afghanistan was a valid exercise of "self-defense.' They do not recognize a nation's right of military self-defense. (Or if they do, they think it unimportant to clarify this, suggesting that any such claim is subterfuge and lip-service.)

It simply is not possible to oppose military force of any kind and yet be an advocate of freedom. No one is that stupid. (Even OL members who claim to not understand how the war in Afghanistan represented self-defense can be that stupid.) You cannot believe that people should be free from force, yet claim that a person has no right to stop force initiated by others. The brazen defiance of logic is too absurd. Those who say they support this explicitly pacifist website are sanctioning that premise. I have to question whether they can possibly hold such beliefs and also advocate liberty. I have to wonder if they believe in liberty at all. The policies they are advocating will obviously lead to the exact opposite—the unrestrained growth of tyranny.

Could any honest person with any knowledge whatsoever of history not know this? I don't think so.

So what are we to make of the "libertarians" who support antiwar.com? If it doesn't walk like a duck and it doesn't quack like a duck, yet says "Yes, yes! Please believe me! I'm a duck!"—is it a duck? I don't think so.

If not libertarians, what are they then? Your guess is as good as mine. And who cares?

Does Dennis Hardin have even the faintest clue what the phrase "individual liberty" means? I think not. In evidence I submit his ignorant and offensive post above.

JR

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Now that's a first-class mind, George. Shame on me if I don't read more.

--Brant

but governments don't begin in philosophy; they end in it; philosophy is more historical than pre-historical (as he said); the philosophy of the Founding Fathers was only as an improvement of British governance and as it followed it to something better than it, it then followed it down in the natural triumph of democracy we see all around us in its essential fascist glory

David Hume later expressed some of the same ideas that Pascal had written about many decades earlier. In 1739, for example, Hume noted this common piece of political wisdom:

No maxim is more conformable, both to prudence and morals, than to submit quietly to the government, which we find established in the country where we happen to live, without enquiring too curiously into its origin and first establishment. Few governments will bear being examined so rigorously.

Some four decades later, the English clergyman and political liberal Josiah Tucker complained that this wise maxim of politics -- "Not to be very inquisitive concerning the original Title of the reigning Powers" -- had been destroyed by John Locke and other defenders of natural rights, social contract, and revolution. The "Lockian System," according to Tucker, bases legitimate political power on consent, but this was a test that no real government could pass.

In 1781, Tucker published a remarkable critique of the American revolutionaries. He argued that the Americans, after defeating the British and while establishing their own governments, abandoned the selfsame Lockean principles they had used to justify their own revolution.

Ghs

In fact the principle is and must be, qua "consent," if the government doesn't violate your rights what are you objecting to? Now, if the government violates some rights by, say, taxation to fund it's activities does that mean it's illegitimate and cannot be bettered or we should bloody revolt? I think we should understand the real and, yes, moral purpose of government is to piss us off and keep us active in politics and vote the bad guys out and the good guys in and when the good inevitably turns to bad to REPEAT! The City on a Hill: We cannot get there from here; no one can, but we can get closer and closer, yeah.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Now that's a first-class mind, George. Shame on me if I don't read more.

--Brant

but governments don't begin in philosophy; they end in it; philosophy is more historical than pre-historical (as he said); the philosophy of the Founding Fathers was only as an improvement of British governance and as it followed it to something better than it, it then followed it down in the natural triumph of democracy we see all around us in its essential fascist glory

David Hume later expressed some of the same ideas that Pascal had written about many decades earlier. In 1739, for example, Hume noted this common piece of political wisdom:

No maxim is more conformable, both to prudence and morals, than to submit quietly to the government, which we find established in the country where we happen to live, without enquiring too curiously into its origin and first establishment. Few governments will bear being examined so rigorously.

Some four decades later, the English clergyman and political liberal Josiah Tucker complained that this wise maxim of politics -- "Not to be very inquisitive concerning the original Title of the reigning Powers" -- had been destroyed by John Locke and other defenders of natural rights, social contract, and revolution. The "Lockian System," according to Tucker, bases legitimate political power on consent, but this was a test that no real government could pass.

In 1781, Tucker published a remarkable critique of the American revolutionaries. He argued that the Americans, after defeating the British and while establishing their own governments, abandoned the selfsame Lockean principles they had used to justify their own revolution.

Ghs

How did the Americans have time in 1781 to do that? Just what did they do by then and how was it expressed?

--Brant

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Now that's a first-class mind, George. Shame on me if I don't read more.

--Brant

but governments don't begin in philosophy; they end in it; philosophy is more historical than pre-historical (as he said); the philosophy of the Founding Fathers was only as an improvement of British governance and as it followed it to something better than it, it then followed it down in the natural triumph of democracy we see all around us in its essential fascist glory

David Hume later expressed some of the same ideas that Pascal had written about many decades earlier. In 1739, for example, Hume noted this common piece of political wisdom:

No maxim is more conformable, both to prudence and morals, than to submit quietly to the government, which we find established in the country where we happen to live, without enquiring too curiously into its origin and first establishment. Few governments will bear being examined so rigorously.

Some four decades later, the English clergyman and political liberal Josiah Tucker complained that this wise maxim of politics -- "Not to be very inquisitive concerning the original Title of the reigning Powers" -- had been destroyed by John Locke and other defenders of natural rights, social contract, and revolution. The "Lockian System," according to Tucker, bases legitimate political power on consent, but this was a test that no real government could pass.

In 1781, Tucker published a remarkable critique of the American revolutionaries. He argued that the Americans, after defeating the British and while establishing their own governments, abandoned the selfsame Lockean principles they had used to justify their own revolution.

Ghs

In fact the principle is and must be, qua "consent," if the government doesn't violate your rights what are you objecting to? Now, if the government violates some rights by, say, taxation to fund it's activities does that mean it's illegitimate and cannot be bettered or we should bloody revolt? I think we should understand the real and, yes, moral purpose of government is to piss us off and keep us active in politics and vote the bad guys out and the good guys in and when the good inevitably turns to bad to REPEAT! The City on a Hill: We cannot get there from here; no one can, but we can get closer and closer, yeah.

--Brant

The truly tricky problem in the history of political theory has never been the problem of political obligation in a general sense. Laws prohibiting murder, for example, do not depend for their validity on the consent of the governed. You don't need the consent of a murderer before you can justifiably try him for murder.

Rather, the sticking point for consent theory has always been the problem of political allegiance. This is concerned with the moral legitimacy of a particular group of people who, by calling themselves a "government," demand the loyalty, obedience, and money of the ruled, and who enforce these demands at the point of a gun. In the Lockean tradition, broadly conceived, this is where consent of the governed plays a crucial role.

Ghs

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There is a vast difference between pacifism and nonaggression, and antiwar.com whitewashes that distinction. Their mission statement explicitly advocates “opposition to war,” and cites no exceptions.

Where did you find a defense of "pacifism" on antiwar.com? I read the mission statement you linked, but it doesn't advocate pacifism or even discuss it.

As far as I can tell, the folks at antiwar.com agree with the views expressed by Murray Rothbard -- and Rothbard was no pacifist.

For a discussion and criticism of Rothbard's views, see the first part of my article, "Thinking About War," which was originally published in Liberty Magazine in 2008.

http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/library/ThinkingAboutWar.html

Ghs

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There is a vast difference between pacifism and nonaggression, and antiwar.com whitewashes that distinction. Their mission statement explicitly advocates "opposition to war," and cites no exceptions.

Where did you find a defense of "pacifism" on antiwar.com? I read the mission statement you linked, but it doesn't advocate pacifism or even discuss it.

As far as I can tell, the folks at antiwar.com agree with the views expressed by Murray Rothbard -- and Rothbard was no pacifist.

For a discussion and criticism of Rothbard's views, see the first part of my article, "Thinking About War," which was originally published in Liberty Magazine in 2008.

http://www.ozarkia.n...ngAboutWar.html

Ghs

Dennis doesn't understand the meaning of the word "pacifism," just as he doesn't understand the meaning of the word "nihilism" or the meaning of the word "libertarianism." I think it's generally safe to assume that if he uses a word he probably doesn't have any idea what it means.

Helpfully,

JR

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I'm becoming more interested in the psychology that leads large groups of people to try to annihilate each other than the philosophy. Philosophies have changed over the centuries, yet war has been a constant in ALL of mankind's history.

I read an article somewhere that talked about fervent condemnation always being a prelude to war. Although I haven't thought this through completely, it sounds really, really spot on. Especially with a twist: You have two sides who disagree on something (usually they disagree over who controls a large patch of land or raw resources), but they pretend to disagree on something else. As the rhetoric heats up, they both fervently condemn each other over that "something else" as they gear up to fight over the real disagreement, which is treated as secondary in the rhetoric.

So how do you lather up that fervent condemnation? I will be writing about this over time. I've been learning some tricks, though, and they are not pretty. Crowd psychology is powerful stuff. Fervent condemnation in a collective never happens by accident and without hidden inducement. What's worse, from what I have been observing so far, both sides usually use the same dirty tricks on their populations. So the idea of good guys and bad guys is not as black and white as it seems when applied to entire cultures. The leaders and mass manipulators are the real bad guys.

And unless a person--even a really, really good person--is aware of what these manipulators are doing, it's easy for him to get caught up in the mass emotions flowing all around him. Does this make him a bad person? Not usually. He's more like a person who falls in a hole on the road when he wasn't looking. He only finds out the hole is there after he's in it.

I've been bothered for some time by the fervent condemnation qua fervent condemnation that is cultivated in Objectivism (usually on the fundy side, but elsewhere, too). It almost seems to be a mark of coolness within the subcommunity to morally condemn this or that in the most fervent manner possible. I just don't like that mindset and I don't like what it does to me. I start thinking about destroying stuff all the time instead of producing.

The few times I have actually had to destroy something (and I'm not going to go into details here, although I will probably write about them later), I managed to do it without the fervent condemnation that has made me sick in the head at other times. (Thank God I have never killed another human being, though.) For those times of destruction, just plain old garden variety condemnation was enough, and, since I distrust myself when I start hating too much, I made sure I thought it through "against myself" so to speak so I could be sure it was within context--at least as much as I could muster.

Even so, I have always had to vent after it was over to drain the spiritual poison and then try to get back to normal so I could find excitement in producing stuff again. Somehow, after a savage brawl or really nasty campaign where I had to inflict and endure real pain and suffering, the idea of playing trombone or writing a song or doing a recording session or translating bidding documents or writing a book, etc., were just not that interesting.

It's a hard road to get back to normal and have it feel good after the rush of fighting for destruction and destroying.

This is the psychological dynamic I find in Objectivism that I have never been able to overcome. I just can't fervently condemn stuff and produce at the same time. It doesn't work in my head.

And this is why I probably don't resonate with the spirit I have encountered at antiwar.com. I'm not talking about the ideas--some of which I agree with and some of which I do not. My problem is internal--emotional--more of a spiritual posture. They fervently condemn stuff all the time. There's that fervent condemnation raising its unsightly noggin-bone again. I can't produce anything if I spend time in that kind of environment.

Besides, from what I have seen, that shit can lead to war.

Michael

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One problem I have with the antiwar.com people is their decision to associate themselves with the ideas of Randolph S. Bourne. Like Murray Rothbard and many other libertarians, they love to quote Bourne's celebrated statement, "War is the health of the State." And so it is, as Thomas Paine and many early libertarians pointed out, long before Bourne happened on the scene. (As Paine once said, taxes are not raised to carry on wars; rather, wars are raised to carry on taxes.)

The problem is that Bourne was not a libertarian at all, but an early American progressive in the tradition of John Dewey and the Fabian Socialists in England. To this it might be said, "So what? We needn't agree with everything Bourne said to appreciate his observations about war and the state."

Well, maybe, but some additional factors need to be taken into account.

First, Bourne repeatedly emphasized that by "State" he did not mean "government." As a progressive, Bourne had no problem with a strong, expansive government, provided its powers were used for noble domestic projects instead of war. But he went much further than this. While opposing military conscription, Bourne called for a compulsory national service that would not only educate boys and girls in the proper progressive values but also enlist them in national projects for two years. His main article on this subject, "Universal Service and Education," was published in Bourne's book Education and Living (1917), which can be found here . (The chapter begins on p. 66.)

Bourne begins by invoking the beloved progressivist phrase "the moral equivalent of war" -- an expression coined by his fellow progressive, the psychologist and philosopher William James. The idea here is a simple one, and it grew from the reaction of anti-war progressives to WWI. In England, for example, the Fabians found themselves in a quandry. Although they supposedly detested war, they were delighted by many of its domestic effects, especially the nationalization of railroads and other industries. They therefore reasoned that the "moral equivalent of war" was needed to further the progressive domestic agenda. That is to say, they needed to produce the social unanimity and moral fervor that typically accompanies war but without engaging in a real war. They needed a moral equivalent that employed the same means for different ends. This is where our modern terminology comes from, e.g., a war on poverty, a war on drugs, etc.

You can read Bourne's article -- which is truly repulsive -- for yourself, but he basically includes two years of national service as part of American's compulsory educational system. All children should be compelled to attended public schools until the age of 16 -- Bourne suggests that private schools should be prohibited so everyone will be included -- and universal service should be included as part of the educational curriculum. [This is inaccurate. See the correction in my next post.]

In my judgment, this plan alone, even if we don't take other aspects of Bourne's progressivist agenda into account, so distances Randolph Bourne from libertarian principles that I cannot understand why libertarians would wish to affiliate themselves with his ideas. As for his ideas on war and the state, I will have more to say about this topic later.

Ghs

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Working from memory, I misstated some details of Bourne's proposal for national service. After calling for compulsory education until the age of 16, Bournes then advocates that two years of national service be imposed after this, between the ages of 16 and 21. Thus, contrary to my original account, national service is a separate obligation, not part of public education per se. Bourne calls national service a "logical outgrowth of our public school system." He writes:

This service shall be organized and administered by the state educational administrations but supervised and subsidized by the national government. The service would be peformed as national service, but its work would be constructive and communal in its purposes and not military. Special military training could be given as a branch of this service to those who were best fitted for it. But defense would would be but an incident in our constructive life, and not the sinew of our effort. (Education and Living, p. 72)

Bourne predicts wonderful results from national service:

This national service could do the things which need to be done, but which are not now being done. It could have for its aim the improvement of the quality of our living....I have a picture of a host of eager young missionaries swarming over the land, spreading the health knowledge, the knowledge of domestic science, of gardening, of tastefulness, that they have learned in school. (Ibid, p. 73)

Typical progressivist claptrap.

But we do have hosts of eager young people, products of our public schools, swarming over the land. They are called street gangs. <_<

Ghs

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Working from memory, I misstated some details of Bourne's proposal for national service. After calling for compulsory education until the age of 16, Bournes then advocates that two years of national service be imposed after this, between the ages of 16 and 21. Thus, contrary to my original account, national service is a separate obligation, not part of public education per se. Bourne calls national service a "logical outgrowth of our public school system." He writes:

This service shall be organized and administered by the state educational administrations but supervised and subsidized by the national government. The service would be peformed as national service, but its work would be constructive and communal in its purposes and not military. Special military training could be given as a branch of this service to those who were best fitted for it. But defense would would be but an incident in our constructive life, and not the sinew of our effort. (Education and Living, p. 72)

Bourne predicts wonderful results from national service:

This national service could do the things which need to be done, but which are not now being done. It could have for its aim the improvement of the quality of our living....I have a picture of a host of eager young missionaries swarming over the land, spreading the health knowledge, the knowledge of domestic science, of gardening, of tastefulness, that they have learned in school. (Ibid, p. 73)

Typical progressivist claptrap.

But we do have hosts of eager young people, products of our public schools, swarming over the land. They are called street gangs. <_<

Ghs

Lol...unfortunately thanks to the sexual predator who occupied the White House, William Jefferson Clinton, we also have:

The domestic Peace Corps

Posted on June 21, 201

Geez, this poster is right out of the Communist propaganda brochures! americorps.gif?w=297&h=288Most people are familiar with the Peace Corps, where idealistic young people can make a difference in underprivileged countries. However, not many know about the “domestic Peace Corps,” or AmeriCorps program. It works much the same way, sending members out across the country to help nonprofit groups do some good.

AmeriCorps officially began in 1993, when President Bill Clinton created the Corporation for National and Community Service. The corporation brought together two existing programs, VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) and NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps). Nonprofit and government organizations can apply to the CNCS for AmeriCorps members to spend a year working for their group. Instead of asking for grant money, they’re asking for manpower. If the corporation approves the application, it will hire new members for those positions. The federal government pays the members a living wage for the year and provides health insurance. At the end of their term, AmeriCorps members receive an educational grant or direct payment of a little over $5,000.

article here

Adam

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Some additional points about Randolph Bourne and war. I will try to be as brief as possible.

1) Everything that Bourne wrote about war was written during or shortly after WW1. And though some of his fundamental points are insightful and enduring, some are context dependent and do not apply very well to modern wars.

2) Bourne was a good writer, but his essay style sometimes hindered systematic reasoning. At times, for example, he speaks of the State (in contrast to government) as a "mystical" entity, a kind of transcendent idea that elicits herd behavior, compels uniformity, and stifles independent thinking. At other times, however, he treats the State in a more down-to-earth manner.

3) Bourne links war inextricably to the State. In his most important essay on this subject, "Unfinished Fragment on the State" (Winter, 1918, in Untimely Papers -- sometimes called "The State" or "War is the Health of the State" in later reprints), Bourne claims that "war implies an organized people drilled and led; in fact, it necessitates the state (p. 165)." He continues:

There is no instance in history of a genuinely national war. There are instances of national defenses, among primitive civilizations such as the Balkan peoples, against intolerable invasion by neighboring despots or oppression. But war, as such, cannot occur except in a system of competing States, which have relations with each other through the channels of diplomacy. War is a function of this system of States, and could not occur except in such a system." 165-66

4) This bit of intellectual legerdemain is what enables some Rothbardians to claim that they are opposed to all wars, even though they uphold the right of self-defense. If you oppose the State, as anarchists do, then you must oppose all violent conflicts between states, i.e., all wars. Q.E.D. -- or so it seems.

5)The claim that states, and only states, can engage in war has no historical or philosophical foundation. Private wars, such as the endless wars between monarchs and nobles throughout the middle ages, were discussed, sometimes in detail, by virtually every writer on the Law of Nations throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. (This was later called "international law," after Jeremy Bentham coined the word "international") Indeed, it was the widespread disgust with the chaos and indiscriminate destruction caused by private wars that generated the standard argument that only a "sovereign" can legitimately authorize a war; this was regarded, in effect, as a limit on war. This is why so many classical liberals, such as Adam Smith, referred to the middle ages as "feudal anarchy" and viewed the eventual triumph of monarchs over the nobility (in England, at least) as a good thing.

6) This brings us to the heart of the matter. As a progressive who favored extensive governmental power in domestic affairs, Bourne could not reasonably appeal to many of the standard classical liberal (i.e., libertarian) arguments and observations about war that had been employed for centuries. He could not appeal to the classic argument for free trade, for example, according to which nations that are connected by the mutually beneficial bonds of self-interested commerce will be less inclined to engage in war than will protectionist nations. As expected for a progressive, Bourne blamed "capitalists" for just about everything except bad weather, so for him to praise the benefits of self-interested commerce was a nonstarter.

(I don't have the passage in front of me, but at one point Bourne describes the moral enthusiasm for noble ideals that wars often generate -- national spirit in which the self-interested goals of individuals are subordinated to a greater good -- the "State," in the case of war. Unlike libertarians, Bourne regards this self-sacrificial spirit as a wonderful thing; the problem, as he sees it, is how to generate and sustain this spirit without war. Hence the notion of the "moral equivalent of war" that I discussed earlier. Here the collective good is society, as organized by a wise and beneficent government, not the State.)

(7) Classical liberals wanted to limit the power of government in both national and international affairs, and they spoke often and eloquently about the corrupting effects of power. But if Bourne had tapped into the rich tradition of classical liberalism and employed its important insights about power, he would have undermined his own progressivist agenda for a corporate society -- something that cannot be achieved without a powerful government. He therefore intoned that war is the health of the state -- which is necessarily true, given how he defined one concept in terms of the other. Bourne would never have said that war is the health of government, which, in this context, is the correct libertarian formulation.

Ghs

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A few more points before I call it quits for tonight.

Rather than embrace Bourne's claim that war is an activity peculiar to states, libertarians should brush up on the history of political thought. The notion of "war" was discussed extensively during the 17th and 18th centuries, and there was general agreement that "war" is properly viewed as a state of affairs that exists over time, rather than as a specific activity, e.g., fighting.

According to this conception, war is a state of affairs that continues to exist even when no actual fighting is taking place at a particular moment. To paraphrase John Locke, a state of war exists when there exists a sedate and settled design by one party to injure or kill another party. The parties involved may be individuals, groups, governments, or whatever. If one party, unrestrained and unconcerned with rights, is determined to inflict injuries on another party, then a state of war exists between those two parties, and the innocent party may defend himself with physical force, if necessary. A state of war continues to exist until the aggressive party renounces his plan, surrenders, is defeated or killed, etc.

As I discuss in "Thinking About War," this individualistic approach played a key role in the development of international law, as presented in the seminal and highly influential works of Grotius, Pufendorf, and many other natural law philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Before these philosophers discussed what governments (or states) can properly do in regard to war, they first analyzed what individuals can properly do when they find themselves in a state of war in regard to other individuals. If an action is improper for individuals, then it is also improper for governments, since all rights are ultimately the rights of individuals, and a government can claim no special or unique rights over and above the rights of its individual citizens. To give just one example: If it would be morally improper for an individual to kill innocent people indiscriminately in order to defend himself, then it must also be morally improper for a government to do so in a state of war. Actions that are unjust for individuals do not magically become justified when governments do the same thing.

I have simplified a complex issue, but I wanted to emphasize the superiority of this type of analysis, which may be called methodological individualism in the moral and political realms, over the ultimately incoherent holistic analysis of Bourne, according to whom only some mystical and ill-defined enitities called "states" can engage in wars. Rothbardians should look to their own intellectual forefathers for the foundations of just war theory, not to a confused progressive named Randolph Bourne, who wrote one striking sentence, "War is the health of the State," but who contribued nothing whatsoever to just war theory.

Ghs

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As illuminating as GHS's details have been about the State-"progressive" deficiencies of Randolph Bourne, I can't help but think that nearly all of them have ended up being beside the point of what Antiwar.com's principals may believe or not.

I haven't seen, frankly, any signs that any of Bourne's larger thoughts on government and its supposed societal-shaping utility have been taken to heart at that Website, either discursively or in editorial policy. The site remains, if it has any tenor at all, Rothbardian-to-paleoconservative in its outlook, welcoming a variety of political and stylistic takes, along with its being an invaluable digest of news. Its principals neither restrict their opinion blasts to those on the putative Left, nor decline to work with them on genuine antiwar activities — quite the contrary.

The brief biographical sketch of Bourne that they host — written by Jeff Riggenbach — emphasizes the personal and professional price Bourne had to pay for challenging the self-righteous world-molders who brought the U.S. into that first great crusade and conflagration.

I'd say his genuine skepticism and iconoclasm about war, however deeply or broadly rooted or not, and his famous (posthumously discovered) aphorism, are what the Antiwar.com principals respect. And it may even be simpler than that, with their needing a suitable figure of genuine antiwar resonance to name their not-for-profit foundation, which owns the Website.

In any event, GHS's perspective on Bourne is still welcome. Certainly by a few orders of magnitude more than the farrago of unsourced, unevidenced neoconservative blustering and smearing that heads this thread.

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I am not tired yet, so I will continue for a bit longer....

In criticizing Randolph Bourne as I have, I do not wish to suggest that his essays on war are not worthwhile. Quite the contrary. Some of his insights are brilliant (even if they are not especially original), especially those that deal with the psychological aspects of war. What primarily annoys me is not Bourne per se but how some Rothbardians have used his catch phrase, "War is the health of the State," as a virtual substitute for careful and systematic thinking about the complex moral problems involved in a theory of war.

There are orthodox Rothbardians, just as there are orthodox Randians, and I don't care for either faction. I have enormous admiration for both Rand and Rothbard, but I admire them as much for their pioneering spirits and efforts as for their ideas per se. Neither was willing to accept the intellectual status quo slavishly, without critical evaluation, and each blazed new trails that many of us have followed.

Well, Rand and Rothbard have now become the status quo in some circles. Their orthodox followers seem to think that their heroes did virtually everything that needs to be done in their respective fields, and did so without significant errors, so all that remains is for their disciples to apply the insights of the masters to particular issues. Perish the thought that these admirers should critically assess the ideas of their masters with the same rigor that the masters assessed the ideas of their predecessors.

I have often said that Rand and Rothbard made the libertarian movement an interesting place to be, even when it wasn't moving anywhere. In a talk that I gave shortly after moving to SF in 1994, I called the era of Rand and Rothbard the Heroic Age of modern libertarianism. This was the time, mainly during the 1960s '70s, and early '80s, when the solitary thinker -- the freelance, or market, intellectual -- could have an enormous impact. This was before academic specialization had permeated the movement,. It was a time when class divisions had not yet formed between academics and activists, a time before many libertarians had embedded themselves in universities and when freelance intellectuals, such as Roy Childs, could command a wide audience and enormous respect.

Things have changed considerably. The Heroic Age has ended -- the natural casualty of growth, success, respectability, and the desire for more respectability. We have moved from the Heroic Age of the interdisciplinary market intellectual to the Age of Specialization -- a time when libertarian academics talk mainly to fellow academics and when a state imprimatur, in the form of an advanced university degree, confers upon the recipient the qualifications needed to understand the mysteries of his craft.

Meanwhile, many lay libertarians, finding "academic" avenues closed to them within the movement and working from the assumption that all essential theoretical work has been completed, become activists who devote themselves to political causes. They will work to end war, even if this means aligning with the left; or they will work to make America free, even if this mean aligning with the right. Thus do both groups sacrifice their ideological identity, in the name of practicality, by diluting it -- thereby making their distinctive ideas invisible to the very masses they hope to reach.

As the fissure between academics and activists deepens, fundamental theoretical work remains frozen. Libertarian academics write specialized papers that few people will ever read, and libertarian activists immerse themselves in crusades devoid of intellectual substance. Now and then a promising young mind appears, determined to master the interdisciplinary skills that characterized leading figures of the Heroic Age, such as Mises and Hayek, but our potential innovator soon learns that his options are very limited. He must either pursue the academic route, where the specialized demands of post-graduate work will confine him to a narrow path and extinguish all hope of pursuing interdisciplinary work on a professional level; or he must take the route of the market intellectual, where he will soon learn not to give up his day job.

In this Libertarian Age of Specialization, there is insufficient appreciation for one of Adam Smith's most profound insights, namely, that the intricate and interrelated system of ideas that comprise libertarian theory (or what Smith called "the system of natural liberty") is a work of art -- a magnificent intellectual construction with an inherent aesthetic appeal. This is what initially attracts many young people to the ideas of freedom, according to Smith; they are captivated by the theoretical coherence and beauty of the "system of natural liberty" long before they become persuaded by arguments in its favor. Alexis de Tocqueville had something similar in mind when he wrote (in The Old Regime and the French Revolution) about freedom's "intrinsic glamour, a fascination it has in itself, apart from all 'practical considerations'....The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave."

For Smith, freedom, to be understood and defended adequately, must be studied from various perspectives via different cognitive disciplines -- philosophy, social theory, natural jurisprudence (which includes an understanding of natural rights), pyschology, economics, and -- last but by no means least -- history, including the history of ideas, institutions, laws, and customs.

This interdisciplinary approach, according to many leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, is essential to building and maintaining the intellectual foundations of a free society. And this is why the passing of our Heroic Age -- the age that produced brilliant interdisciplilnary work by Rothard, Mises, and Hayek, and others -- is a matter of concern for the future of the libertarian movement.

Well, well, well...I seem to have strayed way off topic, something that commonly happens when I permit my mind to race wherever it wants to go and try to keep up by typing as fast as I can. What you have read above is an outburst of spontaneous thinking written at breakneck speed. I think there are some interesting things here, so I will go ahead and post this, even though it doesn't have much to do with anything else on this thread.. But I should mention that, after looking over my remarks, I deleted a substantial chunk that discussed the conflict between Randians and Rothbardians and some harmful effects of this conflict. So what you see here is an abridged version of my random thoughts. Lucky you.

Anyway, my original point is -- or was supposed to be -- that the antiwar.com crowd should do some fundamental thinking and original theoretical work on war, rather than assuming that Rothbard did all this for them. For all the disdain they may have for true-believing Randians, true-believing Rothbardians are no better.

Ghs

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