Just curious. And if so, did it have any impact in shaping your libertarian views?
i got out this year.
and i would like to say that it didnt change my views. Though it wouldnt be entirely accurate and no way of telling just how much it changed my views. my views before i joined were almost identical to ron paul's platform exceptt foreign policy. i was an interventionalist!
the 2 big things was coming to the realization that i was in fact 100% a slave to the state and i never wanted to be like that again so its made me much more intolerant of rules/laws.
and the other was before i joined the only bright spot of government was our military. It took me like 2 days into boot camp to realize just how stupid our military is and how inefficient they are. and everyday i would learn something new about how awful our military is (meaning how it operates/efficiency) i was under the delusion that our military is effective.
I have a different perspective. The biggest thing the military did for my perspective was to get me to realize how valueless an individual is compared to the group and more importantly that the whole purpose of the military is to waste scarce resources whose unseen use would go to improve humanity. Because the alternative uses are unseen it is very easy for the violent to propagandize their own use of others resources over the individuals using their own resources for their own purposes.
you reached those conclusions before or after learning about economics? I never came close to thinking about the unseen until economics. Though it certainly makes it easier to understand what Mises talks about when he is describing socialism. My unit was about 35 men, and i know for a fact that my shop could of easily of ran with 5 - 7 people. thats 500-700% worse than what the free market could provide (im also talking an actual free market not contracting it out. Civilians employees were worse).
though i agree its hard to not realize just how worthless the military treats a man's life (our own men).
yah it made me realize the calculation argument and praxeology before being exposed to the austrian school. The knowledge problem too, probably.
I did not know of the Seen vs Unseen or anything like that. My economics training like most was from college where outside of micro-economics the other stuff is just wrong or worse anti-economic. I was just at an artillery base trying to see the giant flag in North Korea that Soldier of Fortune had placed a $2million bounty on acquiring because I was curious. I could not see how my presence or the presence of the US Military did anything to keep peace and was really not good for the people of the USA and especially the people of South Korea. I really had trouble being afraid of the North Korean hordes who at any time would come storming across the border through their own mine fields in vehicles without fuel, lubricants or spare parts. Then they would have to navigate the traffic and crowded streets of the massive city of Seoul. And then I returned to the USA to Ft Carson and really got bad. There the entire division had no real mission or reason to exist. I thought that given the uproar of losing a few dozen civillian jobs that the base and me were there to provide a reason for giving these 1500 people high paying jobs(Much higher than the junior officers and enlisted.). I did not get into Bastiat, Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, etc. until I went through the path of: Left wing to conservative, conservative to more freedom at like CATO, and finally more freedom to individual freedome and Austrian economics. That took about 12 years.
I kinda wish I did when I had the opportunity, I can say a lot of my years after college were wasted anyway.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
I was drafted and became a consciensious objector. My case was accepted and I didn't do a single day in slavery.
Malachi:Wow, thats old school. Are you a hippie? I am old but not that old. We had the draft longer than the US and the UK here. Together we go unsung... together we go down with our people | Post Points: 5