In WWII, we waited until Germany had taken over much of Europe, and didn't even enter the war until Japan attacked us. I believe that the U.S. has no right to police the world, but in the midst of Hitler's attempted takeover, was not military force the only possible option? Was there an economic option that could have been taken?
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
World War 1 started the whole mess!
Don't allow leftists to play games with definitions! Some of the libertarian-leaning leftists at this forum will try to redefine "left-wing" back to its original defition (Third Estate, limited government, free-markets, laissez-faire reforms, etc.). Fine! We non-leftists can't stop them from using their own personal definitions; they can use whatever labels they want to describe any concept they want.However, they have the audacity to then use their personal definition of "left-wing" (remember, the original definition, which is no longer valid) to prove that modern leftists are more libertarian than modern rightists! They will say that libertarianism is "inherently leftist" (again, using the original, no longer valid definition), and use that to insist that we should prefer and side with modern leftists over modern rightists.
Question their motives.
My understanding is limited, but I agree with your statement. The only way Hitler came to power was by giving people hope to get out of the horrible mess that they were in, which was caused by WWI. I have come to believe that the US intervened in WWI because of the progressive interventionest idealogy and the US only made things worse. The US and other countries taking sides in WWI was what led to the disasterous circumstances allowing Hitler to come to power (IMO). But let's say Hitler comes to power without WWI creating the German hope for a renewed Germany. Let's say Germans have faith in Hitler because of something else that destroyed their economy, and Nazi Germany begins invading. What was the U.S., to do in that circumstance? What are the European countries being attacked to do in those circumstances?
That's kind of like asking what to do about a madman with a gun. At that point, it is too late for options other than the user of force. The key is to keep him from getting the gun in the first place. In Hitler's case, his threat came from the acceptance of the fascist ideology, and the industrial resources of Germany. There were three ways that could have been prevented: advocating good ideas, refusing to trade with a rising dictatorship, and refusing to contribute to the economy of a dictatorship.
Well, the first thing you can do is, like other posters have said, is prevent him from coming to power by staying out of WWI. Second, you could open up your immgration to Jews and Gypsies in Germany escaping oppression. Third, the relied on slave labor for their economy, so they were doomed from the start. I'm sure other posters can provide better answers, as I'm getting ready to go to bed.
classiclib:My understanding is limited, but I agree with your statement.
Then you've just agreed that WWII was a mistake, any other conclusion would be a contradiction.
If WWI caused Hitler, that is an excellent argument against fighting a second war of the exact same nature. If wars ultimately lead to more wars then the obvious solution is peace.
The problem that Classiclib and Heroiclife are having is that they unwittingly accept a number of war propogandas as factual. Rather than creating a truly revisionist critique of the war, they have created a new revisionist justification for the same old establishment conclusion.
The argument is: The Bad Government created a bad situation, but since the situation was so far removed from the normal, good operations of society "extreme" measures must be taken to correct the situation.
That same argument can be, and has been, applied to that other Rooseveltian disaster, the Great Depression. Surely if government intervention into the economy caused the great depression then the obvious remedy is the removal of government intervention. A reworking of, or worse, increase in intevention is incapable of solving the problem. The same is true of military intervention in Europe.
Do not fall for the establishment lie that Hitler was an unprecedented evil. This is a line designed to fool the historically ignorant. After all, Europe seemed to come out of the whole Napoleon disaster alright. It certainly doesn't hold up in light of the Allied atrocities of WWI(and II).
Also, do not fool yourself into believing there was a libertarian way to fight WWII. Americans had no desire to die to save Europe from the fruits of its own wickedness, and rightly so. It took a foreign attack caused by a belligerent American foreign policy to trick Americans into giving up their good sense and giving into fear. And even then overt slavery was required to conduct the war.
Lastly, built into this anti-nazi sentitment is a pro-french and pro-englishment sentitment. Hitler was evil surely, but so were the damned French and English. Yet you dare endorse one over the other? You would shelter tyrants?
Peace
By setting an example of a society that doesn't tolerate physical coersion, and follows a foriegn policy of non-interventionism will progressives, radicals, and interventionists, just jump on the non-interventionist, free markets bandwagon?
How do you idealogically fight an enemy which brainwashes its citizens.
By the way, I'm not trying to be dense, just inquisitive.
classiclib: How do you ideologically fight an enemy which brainwashes its citizens.
How do you ideologically fight an enemy which brainwashes its citizens.
Citizens are always at war with their own states(even though they don't always know it).
The collapse of the Soviet Union pretty much sinks the theory of the invulnerable state. The interventionist argument suggests that the most coercive states are the most dangerous, but really they are the most vulnerable.
So then you would maintain that extremely coercive states cannot persist even through the use of fear and propaganda? Masses are easily manipulated, and I don't really understand how states manipulating the masses makes them vulnerable.
classiclib:was not military force the only possible option?
It rather pisses me off when I hear this question. Only possible option to do or prevent what may I ask?! To keep the Germans at bay - like the neocons like to think? Germany did declare war on the US but it's naive to think Hitler could have made it across the Atlantic when he could barely cross the English Channel. Of course you might mean to end the genocide and tyranny, but then military force was patently not the only possible option; after all we could have always done, oh I don't know... nothing! I simply fail to see how Americans were ever responsible for preventing the death of anyone with whom they had no contract to protect.
On the other hand I'm not terribly unsympathetic to the second of these causes (saving people's lives certainly seems like a worthy endeavor), and there is nothing unlibertarian per se with aiding someone who is being aggressed against by another party. The main problem occurs when government muddles up what would otherwise be a legitimate (consensual) rescue mission by forcing people to support it either by conscription or through taxation.
But even in restricting oneself to non-state military action for the purpose of helping the oppressed, an ideal situation is still nearly impossible to come by, since in war it is usually civillians who suffer the most. Furthermore the circumstances of most large scale conflicts are not so clear-cut as the Holocaust (the means and extent of which BTW were virtually unknown outside concentration camps until the Nuremburg trials at end of the war). In general the best foreign policy is and will always be neutrality.
Diminishing Marginal Utility - IT'S THE LAW!
There was a well-organised resistance movement within the upper echelons of the German armed forces, composed of Germany's traditional nobility, which wanted nothing more than allied support to off Adolf Hitler and take over the government in order to end the war.
The allies refused because they insisted on nothing less than the total destruction of Germany.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Solomon: classiclib:was not military force the only possible option? It rather pisses me off when I hear this question. Only possible option to do or prevent what may I ask?! To keep the Germans at bay - like the neocons like to think? Germany did declare war on the US but it's naive to think Hitler could have made it across the Atlantic when he could barely cross the English Channel.
It rather pisses me off when I hear this question. Only possible option to do or prevent what may I ask?! To keep the Germans at bay - like the neocons like to think? Germany did declare war on the US but it's naive to think Hitler could have made it across the Atlantic when he could barely cross the English Channel.
Hmm... you know this whole time I've just been playing devil's advocate, but I guess I can't stop you from getting angry. Anyways while I continue to entertain this idea, I'm going to further it a little by telling you Hitler was not too far from finishing an atomic bomb and some very high tech aircraft, and if the US hadn't stepped in when it did, well, I'll leave that up to your imagination...
I support the assertion earlier that Hitler was a madman, and there was nothing left to do but unite and stop him. Hitler motivated through fear and propaganda and there wasn't really a descent way to speak out without being snitched on. When you're worried about a Nazi soldier putting a bullet in the back of your head, morality kind of goes out the window, and self-preservation takes its place. This is how Hitler kept his people in line, and why he was nearly unstoppable.
I don't find anything wrong about fighting Germany in WW2.
What I find wrong is the use of tax dollars and slavery to do it.
Ego: I don't find anything wrong about fighting Germany in WW2. What I find wrong is the use of tax dollars and slavery to do it.
Thank you! Something I can agree with. I suppose that in a truly free society, the initiation of force would be outlawed. If Europe was made up of only free countries with the exception of Nazi Germany, any country could retaliate once Nazi Germany had taken the first step of invading a country. In this situation if Nazi Germany were to invade France for instance, France could retaliate with force. If France requested aid, other countries could assist France knowing that it would only be a matter of time before they were invaded as well.
Human nature is such that violence will always exist. You must have a plan to minimize it or choas ensues.
Of course fighting a war against Hitler would only be right if tax dollars were not used to do it. One alternative to armies would be privately owned security companies, which would act in the best interests of the company. It wouldn't be profitable for the company to create a situation worse than the one it entered into, because then people would stop funding it, and competing companies would get more customers.
Again, The Market for Liberty (and I think Hoppe's Democracy - the God that Failed and The Myth of National Defense) are still the best books on the topic.
Inquisitor: Again, The Market for Liberty (and I think Hoppe's Democracy - the God that Failed and The Myth of National Defense) are still the best books on the topic.
I began reading The Market for Liberty yesterday and I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I'll look into Hoppe's books.
classiclib:Of course fighting a war against Hitler would only be right if tax dollars were not used to do it.
Of course fighting a war against Hitler would only be right if tax dollars were not used to do it.
So if Truman nukes Hiroshama thats bad, but if I throw a nuke I built in my basement thats okay?
How will you fight this war against Hitler? By killing soldiers that aren't Hitler? By marching across land that isn't Hitlers? By bombing cities that aren't Hitler.
The volunteer army ideas does have a certain darwinesque appeal though, where people with more ideology than sense and more romance than morality would meet an early grave in a foreign land.
JonBostwick: So if Truman nukes Hiroshama thats bad, but if I throw a nuke I built in my basement thats okay? How will you fight this war against Hitler? By killing soldiers that aren't Hitler? By marching across land that isn't Hitlers? By bombing cities that aren't Hitler. The volunteer army ideas does have a certain darwinesque appeal though, where people with more ideology than sense and more romance than morality would meet an early grave in a foreign land.
The allies had no choice but to neutralize the threat. Nazi Germany initiated the conflict and Nazi Germany had the power to continue the conflict if there was no resistance. Hitler kept the German people from rebelling through fear. Through invasion they constantly replenished their resources so it's not like stopping trade to them would have mattered. War sucks, I get it. In the case of other big imperialists like Napoleon, Napoleon didn't have military might to take over the world although he might have if there had been no resistance.
The only way we won't have future Hitlers attaining the power he did, is by stopping initiatory physical coercion in its tracks. We create a society were taking over by force can only be detrimental to an individual, and you will have a society at its most peaceful and free state.
This isn't in regard to the atomic bombs:
Killing civillians in a war is certainly immoral, but that doesn't mean that you can't fight a war. If a man is holding a human shield while going on a murderous rampage, that doesn't mean you can't shoot him, even if it means thel the hostage is killed. All innocent people killed, including the hostage, should be blamed entirely on the murderer.
classiclib:Nazi Germany initiated the conflict
Nazi Germany initiated the conflict
No, the conflict was a continuation of WWI in 1914, the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the Napoleonic Wars in 1803, and the War of the First Coalition in 1792. Heard of Alsace-Lorraine?
After World War II Truman declared that any attempt to change any border from where they were set at the end of the Second World War would be met with total war. The problem with this that it makes no allowance for the very likely possibility that borders were where they were because of past wars of aggression.
This is what we saw in World War II. Poland and France both stole terroritory from Germany after the First World War. How then are either of them victims of aggression?
Hopefully you see why statements like, "The allies had no choice but to neutralize the threat" are complete nonsense.
JonBostwick: Hopefully you see why statements like, "The allies had no choice but to neutralize the threat" are complete nonsense.
Waiting helplessly to be pulverized by an overwhelmingly powerful force is nonsensical. How would you have stopped Hitler?
Truman and all governments make us say fubar a lot, but as I have said before, I don't want governments getting involved in the first place if it can be avoided.
Unfortunately, once Hitler was in power, it was already too late. The fear of being snitched on pretty much destroyed any hope of getting rid of the nationalist socialist government, so there wasn't really a way to educate the people about the dangers of allowing government to run their lives.
classiclib: How would you have stopped Hitler?
How would you have stopped Hitler?
It was FDR, not Hitler, that insisted on unconditional surrender. How would I have stopped it? By doing something the Allies never tried, negotiate.
A question for the belligerents, do you ever read LewRockwell.com? Theres happens to be an excellent Buchanan article on today.
JonBostwick: It was FDR, not Hitler, that insisted on unconditional surrender. How would I have stopped it? By doing something the Allies never tried, negotiate. A question for the belligerents, do you ever read LewRockwell.com? Theres happens to be an excellent Buchanan article on today.
Of course it's not a good war!!! There's no such thing as a good war!!
That's not my argument. But was it necessary? That's something you seem to be avoiding. Tell me, what would have happened had the allies not resisted?
As for negotiating, negotiations did take place in Europe before the U.S. entered the war (if memory serves me correctly), but Hitler never honored his agreements. Making concessions to a sociopath hellbent on global domination is downright suicidal.
classiclib:But was it necessary?
No.
Did it do more harm than good?
Yes.
classiclib:Making concessions to a sociopath hellbent on global domination is downright suicidal.
Global domination? You believe everything the government tells you?
I sort of find myself mostly agreeing with JonBostwick here after reading through this thread. Nothing can ever justify dropping a nuclear weapon no matter how dire the situation. I don't think people really understand the implications of what their saying when they defend things like that.
I think the main disagreements though are over a justification for intervention. There can be none. The thing is, we have to say that it must be up to people, individually, to decide. The state cannot decide for us, the problem is the state in the first place. Whether that's Nazi Germany, pre-war America, Imperialist Britain etc.
I think we can all agree that without these state factions arising there would be no war in the first place. So, now there there is inevitable war caused by state factions (i.e Nazi Germany) on a defenceless population, the question becomes, what would we do as individuals, as organised voluntary societies? NOT what should a state do to intervene. NOT what they should force us collectively to do under threats, propaganda or force. The government will always make things worse. It is a selfish, corrupt, greedy all-powerful Mafia. They are bound to further aggravate any situation. They are bound to grab land, create unjust sanctions, profit, lie etc.
So, could any voluntary organisation assemble any kind of challenging force? Probably not. That is not their fault, or the fault of those advocating anarchy, or minarchy, or general non-intervention and so forth. It is the sad fact of foolishly opposing a government military. I'm sure there might be international voluntary organisations which assemble efficiently to try to provide aid and relief to those oppressed. The point is, it is the state that gets us into these situations, knowing of the consequences and that they are the only ones with the violent persuasion to stop something, by force or threat of force.
So now we ask, OK what should a corrupt evil all-powerful state over *here* do to stop another corrupt all-powerful evil state over *here? Well, there is relentless negotiation, aid, incentives, diplomacy, active rescue and basically anything and everything it takes to avoid war and save lives. Government will NOT do this. They didn't do it in WW2. Even if they did actually try and it doesn't help, we can only blame the state in the first place. We shouldn't get hung up about arguments about what a free society should or should not do in the face of such corruption. We should stick to our morals, to our logic and reason. Don't get sucked in.
It is never a free society that provokes or leads to war. It is always the insidious lies and propaganda machine of the state. War can only happen with a state, through coercion and taxation. We must fight this primary evil first, wherever and whenever we can using education or peaceful protest etc. If that means individually refusing a call to arms and eventual imprisonment then so be it. One must never actively violate the non-aggression principal. The problem becomes when you try to extend to fighting oversees for some noble cause to the NAP. War is not noble. I personally disagree with the term 'war', since really it almost romanticises the notion of what is simply mass murder. All you are doing, in war, is murder; no matter how 'noble' you think your personal ideology or justification. That is just a pure fact, not a position. It can be logically analysed and empirically proven.
So I suppose I would say to you all, don't get hung up too much on the finer points of these arguments, keep in mind the great evil which is government and taxation itself. What happens when these warmongering idiots are at each others' throats should be a personal matter for you to decide. If my nation, Britain, came under direct attack from another nation, I would not fight unless my immediate family were directly under threat. I do not care for my country at all, not one bit. My country doesn't really exist, there are just people and guns and people with guns at the borders. It is not a 'right' or 'wrong' position on my behalf, since the only 'wrong' is the initiation of force in the first place. But I should be free to decide my own fate, as should my family. As should we all. That is the core issue, I believe. Sorry to waffle on!
Fin.
Classiclib, you have swallowed the lies of the State wholesale. Has it ever occured to you that Hitler would find it difficult even overwhelming Russia on its own? One of the reasons Hitler acted when he did was that both Germany and Britain were reaching their peak in the armaments race, after which point both would no longer be able to sustain their heavy war spending. Unless Hitler directly threatened the USA, it had no reason to enter the war. France, Poland etc. simply received their just dessert. Had their citizens not supported war-like governments in the past, neither would be likely to be aggressed. So my sympathy for either is limited in the extreme.
So the people of France and Poland got what they deserved? You think it was okay that six million people died in Poland? What about the younger generations who never supported the war? All I'm trying to say, is that if you have an enemy who is intent on taking as much land as he can, and he has no plans to stop, then it's beneficial for all threatened by him to stop him. Whether Germany was ever a threat to the US I can't be certain, but for the European countries being invaded, I think they had a right to defend themselves, just as Germany had a right to defend itself in WWI. I've said it before and I'll say it again; I don't like state run militaries and I would have preferred a voluntary force.
I just don't see what's so wrong with self-defense. Of course, in WWII the allies took it way too far, completely destroying Germany's infrastructure. I'm not trying to support that, I'm trying to support the act of self-defense. If we knew Hitler had the intention of invading the US (which we did), should we have not involved ourselves in an act of self-defense?
classiclib:just as Germany had a right to defend itself in WWI.
just as Germany had a right to defend itself in WWI.
No, it didn't. Germany, seeing the inevitable allied attack, preemptivelly invaded France. The Prussians had won the last war, so Germany was not shy about another.
England, for its part, fears the unifying of Continental Europe. That is why it always participates in Continental wars, not out any defensive purpose or any sense of loyalty to friends, but to prevent Continental Europe from forming into a competing Imperial Power. This is why it is happy to play the French and Germans against each other.
You are stuck in this idea that in war there must be a good side and a bad side. But its simply not true. Wars are not fought for any causes other than glorifying the State.
If someone threatens your home you have the morality clarity to know that it is proper to defend it. But in foreign wars that clarity does not exist.
A person's property can only be stolen by the invaders if it is not stolen by the owner's government first. Intervention will not defend the person's property, it will only strength the State the permently expropriates it.
Yes, it's always dangerous to personify any group... and it's especially true with the state.
My point is that the war was the outcome of the prior actions of European powers. It was a continental affair and should've remained such. No nation has the "right" to defend itself - only individuals do. States are aggressors by their very nature. There is this desire in painting the one side of the war as absolutely evil and the other as good and holy - some sort of perspective viewed through Manichean glasses no doubt.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Part of the meaning of my symbol is capitalism=peace. I believe the most peaceful society you're going to get is a society that doesn't tolerate initiatory physical coersion. Now before you guys start ganging up on me(as if you haven't so far), you should realize that the view I had is a widely held view. A lot of so-called libertarians believe in having a strong national defense.
I don't like the state!! I don't want it to exist actually so piss off! But if individuals believe that their individual safety depends on self-defense, how's that a bad thing? If those individuals happen to work together, an form something resembling a militia, is that such a bad thing.
What if a state has specifically threatened the region that you live in, but has not attacked yet. Let's say you know with near %100 certainty that the state will invade. Do you wait? Or at the point is it not a basic survival decision of flight or fight?
I guess I just want to know, when is it appropriate to engage in self-defense?
Help me out here guys.
A lot of so-called libertarians believe in having a strong national defense.
I thought it was self-evident that my view had changed. Oh well here goes. I don't believe any state should ever involve itself in war, because the state is naturally coercive, and can never truly be justified. There, you happy? I said so-called because people who claim to be libertarians, but believe in a national defense are not libertarians.
Now I'd appreciate it if you'd answer my questions please. When is self-defense necessary? If you can't answer in a post just recommend a good book on it.
Self-defense is never "necessary". It is justifiable when a legitimate owner acts in prevention of or in respnse to an impending or prior act of aggression. When it comes to states, I would say self-defense could only be justified if the state were capbable of legitimately owning anything, if it were autonomously responsible for its actions; if it were capable of acting at all. But since it is not - since only individuals are any of those things - I can not justify state warfare.
So, my libertarian view of war is, if the conflict is within our ability to prevent, we should do so for the sake of the civilians who would otherwise be killed or impoverished. If we cannot prevent it, we should not take sides. We should let the states slug it out, and may they damn well kill each other in doing so.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
classiclib, you may have been ganged up on, but at least your post wasn't ignored (like mine... hehe.)
classiclib:but in the midst of Hitler's attempted takeover, was not military force the only possible option?
Of course not. The better solution would have been to trade with the Germans.
classiclib:Was there an economic option that could have been taken?
Yes, to simply trade with everyone and to not have given aid to Germany's enemies. Also, as another mentioned, we should have opened our borders for immigration. We should still open our borders for immigration.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Now wait a second; what if the German government outlawed trade?