From the british tv comedy show Big Train
Good libertarian message. Can't think for yourself?: become a government parasite.
"Double the price of petrol. That will force everyone out of their cars! Less pollution. Less crowds! Get to work in half the time!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcAqR-Hs9II
Yeah, if someone equated my military service to being a parasite to my face we'd be fighting...
What was your "service" and how is it different than other government jobs?
I'm sure you think you are exceptional. But many of us have taken government jobs and know that it is not necessary to anyone even if it pays.
JohnSchreimann:What was your "service" and how is it different than other government jobs?
Because it's a valuable service. There's two kinds of government jobs. Those that are valuable services that shouldn't be done by the government and that free markets would provide, and those that are inherently agression and shouldn't be done by anybody. A lot of them, millitary and police, for example, are just and proper jobs in and of themselves, but when done by government become a mixture of good and evil.
Would you make the same complaint about firemen, that they are just parasites? Or do you agree that we'd still need firemen in a free market, and that those that work for government are still doing a legitimate service, even if it is within an illigitimate framework? Do you think that a free society would not need military services?
The state won't go away once enough people want the state to go away, the state will effectively disappear once enough people no longer care that much whether it stays or goes. We don't need a revolution, we need millions of them.
histhasthai: JohnSchreimann:What was your "service" and how is it different than other government jobs?Those that are valuable services that shouldn't be done by the government and that free markets would provide, and those that are inherently agression and shouldn't be done by anybody.
But judging within the military itself you could sort out jobs of this nature. Add to it the fact that the military has overhead and bureaucratic office workers that are as useless as any other type of government work. How can some sacred and some not if government is labeled as "service"? Though, military people seem to be the only ones who can say that word after they get done with the job no matter what they've done.
In defence of Big Train, the joke was not so much a political statement as an observation that the British army draws a disproportionate number of people from broken homes and with troubled histories looking to belong. It was both a worry and a regret that our defence relies on such people.
JohnSchreimann:But judging within the military itself you could sort out jobs of this nature...
I'm not sure what you meant by all that. The point is that there's two distinct issues that need to be evaluated separately: the legitimate service of military defense, and the illigitimate use of coerced support it recieves under government - along with the inefficiencies, rent-seeking, and overstepping from defense into aggression that accompanies it.
I meant that the military includes aggression related jobs as well as supposedly needed jobs.
Using this fact, it stands that the military service can be parasitical. As well, they will attract the same type of people that any other type of useless government bureaucracy does because the military has useless jobs within its industry. This is the very same way that universities hire greatly needed professors like mathematics and law professors... but also hire fluff professors who would never have any business in such jobs if not for the deep pockets of government. This is just economics. That this will happen.
That doesn't mean that there are people there that aren't needed or that the Anonymous Coward was not important if he indeed did some heroic act or some legitimately needed service for the country. There is no need to fight, as it were. Though that seems irrational in itself. The military is not a monolith but a very big industry.
If the firefighters were a federally funded industry, you'd better believe they'd have parasites and become ridiculous quick. And how do we know they don't already have them? The Dept. of Homeland security has made a joke out of police forces by making it a federally funded operation. Eventhough, like the military, this has turned into a nightmare in terms of the tactics they apply and probable inability to reverse trends in the future. But still, "police force" is now a big pork barrell program to hire more parasites in offices and more buildings for them to work in. I'm sure the old school cops are pretty well aware of what is happening to their work (though not all cops are particularly bright or even decent).
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."
krevno: In defence of Big Train, the joke was not so much a political statement as an observation that the British army draws a disproportionate number of people from broken homes and with troubled histories looking to belong. It was both a worry and a regret that our defence relies on such people.
This is not just a problem of Britain. It is not just a problem of the army. It is a permanent problem for any governmental bureaucracy.
JohnSchreimann: it stands that the military service can be parasitical. [...] That doesn't mean that there are people there that aren't needed
it stands that the military service can be parasitical. [...]
That doesn't mean that there are people there that aren't needed
It sounds like we don't really have a dispute here, then, except perhaps one of emphasis.
I am an Anarcho-Capitalist, yet I plan on joining the Marine Corps after college. Why? I love firearms and would love to learn how to use them. The stolen money to pay off my college loans wouldn't be too bad either. If I am sent to Iraq, Iran, Afganistan, or any country comrade Obama feels necessary to invade I will do anything in my power not to violate the property rights(the only rights) of others. If there was an oppurtunity to defend the flawed constitution I would do that too.
"The plans differ; the planners are all alike"
-Bastiat
Equating military servicemen to government parasites doesn't sit well with me at all. The joke was in bad taste, especially on D-Day.
It's highly offensive, but I find non-drafted soldiers to be hired murderers for the state. They do not deserve to have some arbitrary moral distinction made. The altruistic view of the military which assumes that soldiers are necessarily brave and virtous is nationalistic and nonsensical. Merely having a uniform on or wearing a funny hat does not magically change the moral character of a man. Of course, perhaps a greater degree of blame can be placed on the "higher-ups", but I reject the common view which essentially entirely exempts soldiers from moral responsibility for their actions.
Brainpolice:I reject the common view which essentially entirely exempts soldiers from moral responsibility for their actions.
I do too, but it doesn't change the fact that the profession of soldiering is not inherently immoral, nor the fact that the majority the actual actions of even US military members is, aside from where they get their paychecks from, virtuous. It's not the funny hat that makes it so, it's the nature of what they do. The fact that a good part of what the US military does do is illegitimate does not change that.
To claim that they're all nothing but parasites and murders is to make the same categorical error as to claim that they are all nothing but virtuous.
ChaseCola:I am an Anarcho-Capitalist, yet I plan on joining the Marine Corps after college. Why? I love firearms and would love to learn how to use them.
At the Appleseed Rifle Shoot I attended a couple weekends ago, something like half of the 45 attendees were Army or Marine Corps veterans. They ALL agreed that the training at the Appleseed weekend was light years ahead of their military training, and NONE of the veterans actually shot a qualifying score that weekend (210 or better on the "Quick -n- Dirty AQT"). With an Appleseed or two under your belt, and a little perseverence, you'll be able consistently to make body shots at 500m and head shots at 250m from the prone position, using a rack-grade rifle and iron sights--no scope needed. And all it costs is $70 and two days of your time!
The USMC will keep you for a minimum of four years, pay you squat during that time, and forcibly reenlist you at the end of it through their "stop-loss" program. If you deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan, which is virtually guaranteed, you'll almost certainly come home with post-traumatic stress, possibly bad enough to end in suicide.
Dude, don't do it. You'll learn to shoot better at an Appleseed. You'll make more money at Walmart, for crying out loud. And no matter what job you get, it's extremely unlikely to get you shot, ruin your life with PTSD, or end in suicide.
--Len
I will have completed college and would go through OCS and get officer pay, which starts at 40k. I know It's guaranteed I will be deployed, because Obama is a warmonger as well(at least I will get combat pay). Only like a third of troops get PTSD plus Im too tough for that(lol jk). They will pay for my college loans as well. I know there are plenty of private training programs, such as Blackwater, and others. But I don't think that can compare with the constant training that you recieve in the military. With an understanding of rights I will treat the civilians with respect and understand I am part of an occupation.
If your goal is to learn how to shoot then you'll probably be disappointed.
In the three years or so I spent in the 82nd Airborne I can't remember seeing our lieutenant ever firing at any of the live fire training courses we did, and we did a lot.
You see, that's not really their job. They are supposed to coordinate the movements of the various elements and are hardly ever (never) on the firing line.
Plus, we mostly did squad live fires and they would always get tapped to be a range safety. Platoon level they may have been able to pop off a few rounds but company or higher they had their ears glued to the radio handset and I doubt they even bothered locking and loading.
This is in an infantry company mind you, if you were in some pogue unit you'll only see the range once a year to qualify.
Combat is different, probably have ample opportunity to fire your rifle—but words can't even come close to describing how bad is sucks to have 30+ people shooting at you while watching RPG rounds bounce across the road in front of your truck. Major suckage there. Only good thing is I was about three feet off the bumper of the gun truck in front of me and the .50 cal kept their heads down. The two trucks behind me got hit by RPGs though.
Nobody died on that one but I've been on a few convoys where the convoy either directly in front of us or the one right behind lost people. They generally didn't mess with us too much because they loved to shoot up the fuel convoys so they would usually let us pass and hit the tankers.
So there you go...think about that before you go off and sign your life away for eight years.
Plus the fact this is a bullsh*t war which is the reason I'm no longer in the military...well, literally since the reserve unit I was in didn't know where I was while I was off war profiteering and discharged me for some odd reason. Not that I'm complaining.
Oh, and for all you haters, you ever consider that someone may have had a life before they saw the light?
ChaseCola:With an understanding of rights I will treat the civilians with respect and understand I am part of an occupation.
If you undestand that you're part of an occupation, then you realize you have no more right to self-defense while you're in Iraq than a burglar does while he's in your house. Do you really think that when they plunk you down in the middle of an exchange with insurgents that you'll throw down your arms and surrender like you should? Knowing they'll probably shoot you where you stand, or take you and kill you later on video?
There's just NO WAY to be a compassionate occupier. It can't be done. They'll constantly put you in the position that you must either murder or die.
Juan:The profession of soldier is really libertarian. I mean, soldiers kill innocent people including children because politicians tell them to. Soldiers are really virtuous people you know. We need more soldiers and less shopkeepers.
We should be proud of the military not because of the job they do but rather in spite of whet they are told to do. Not all soldiers "kill innocent people", just like not all soldiers are "virtuous".
At my university orientation week there was an Army Recruitment Stand where you could sign up (yes, even the college bound enlist). One day the Socialist Alternative Society decided it would be a good idea to protest the military's presence. The socialists all bound and blindfolded themselves and proceeded to shower themselves in 'blood' and pretended to 'die' in a macabre spectacle.
All this from a group of college students whose idea of hardship constitutes getting out of bed before noon.
Irish Liberty Forum
Good for the Socialist Alternative Society. Military recruiters should get the hell off our campuses.
JohnSchreimann: Good for the Socialist Alternative Society. Military recruiters should get the hell off our campuses.
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
Can't they advertise like any other organisation? Who else would you arbitrarily ban from campus? After all, it's our choice who we work for, ain't it.
Anonymous Coward:Oh, and for all you haters, you ever consider that someone may have had a life before they saw the light?
Of course the haters have not. Plus, you're useless to libertarianism, because in order to be a ideologue, you can't have any broader knowledge or life experience. That totally ruins fanaticism. If you're not going to be absolutely fanatical and radical, then you might accidentally increase the power of the state, and we can't have that.
The great irony of anarchism, is that Rothbard was a right winger at the beginning and end. Like SEK3, it's more important to talk about what he wrote, than how he lived.
liberty student: Anonymous Coward:Oh, and for all you haters, you ever consider that someone may have had a life before they saw the light? Of course the haters have not. Plus, you're useless to libertarianism, because in order to be a ideologue, you can't have any broader knowledge or life experience. That totally ruins fanaticism. If you're not going to be absolutely fanatical and radical, then you might accidentally increase the power of the state, and we can't have that. The great irony of anarchism, is that Rothbard was a right winger at the beginning and end. Like SEK3, it's more important to talk about what he wrote, than how he lived.
Nobody said he was worthless to libertarianism for having been in the military. You made that up yourself.
MatthewWilliam: Can't they advertise like any other organisation? Who else would you arbitrarily ban from campus? After all, it's our choice who we work for, ain't it.
Do most universities permit mafia recruiters? Just a question.
Frankly, there is no reason in 2008 for any branch of the military to have recruiters. Each branch has a website, for example goarmy.com . If somebody wants to join up they can fill out the necessary paperwork online, go to a local VA facility for the medical exam, submit their stuff online for any necessary background checks. If they pass all that, then they can go to their local reception facility for final checkout and induction. Keeping military recruiters in every town is nothing but unneccesary military pork and these recruiters would be better used on actual military duty.
Anyhow, everybody knows how to tell when a military recruiter is lying anyway. His lips are moving. Sorry, had to put that jab in there. :)
I do believe the military should have the right to leave literature on campus. They have as much right to speak as the Socialist Alternative Society.
By the way, to the youngin thinking of signing up. Don't do it. I did four years in the Army out of high school. I lucked out and never experienced combat. But even so, it ain't worth it. Your better off flipping hamburgers at McDonalds between college classes.
JAlanKatz: MatthewWilliam: Can't they advertise like any other organisation? Who else would you arbitrarily ban from campus? After all, it's our choice who we work for, ain't it. Do most universities permit mafia recruiters? Just a question.
The point is that universities (property owners) are the ones who decide who is and who isn't allowed to recruit on university property. Not the student body (the customers).
The armed forces are just another employment opportunity and should be treated that way.
ChaseCola: I will have completed college and would go through OCS and get officer pay, which starts at 40k. I know It's guaranteed I will be deployed, because Obama is a warmonger as well(at least I will get combat pay). Only like a third of troops get PTSD plus Im too tough for that(lol jk). They will pay for my college loans as well. I know there are plenty of private training programs, such as Blackwater, and others. But I don't think that can compare with the constant training that you recieve in the military. With an understanding of rights I will treat the civilians with respect and understand I am part of an occupation.
You're living in a fatasy world man. Most of my friends are vets who have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. All of them were and still are good men but most of them have told me stories of what they have done once they got over there. Being a "good" man and being a "living" man are two different things once you have bullets and rockets flying at you. I'm not knocking soliders. I'm the first in my family to have NOT served (not because I didn't want to but because I couldn't). Most of my friends are vets or are still in and the stories I've heard seem to be pretty common. Under the pressure you tend to do things you might not have done otherwise. When your life and the lives of your friends are on the line you don't care what happens to the people you are occupying. Property rights don't count, personal rights don't count. Staying alive is all that counts.
Think about it: You say you are an anarchist yet you are going to voluntarily sign up for the Marines to occupy another nation. Don't you see how crazy that sounds? The college money sounds nice but once the bullets start flying you are going to start wishing you were back at home accruing debt instead of Purple Hearts.
Buy a rifle, buy some ammo and go to the range. There are always plenty of people at a gun range who know what they are talking about can are more than happy to help you out if you need to learn to shoot.
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. " -- Samuel Adams.
MatthewWilliam: The point is that universities (property owners) are the ones who decide who is and who isn't allowed to recruit on university property. Not the student body (the customers). The armed forces are just another employment opportunity and should be treated that way.
As is the mafia. The mafia too offers employment, the mafia too has virtuous, family-oriented employees who are doing it for positive values. So the mafia is just another employment opportunity and should be treated that way.
Now, on your first point about customers and owners - you are a customer (student) too, are you not? So if the opinion of the SA students is irrelevant, why isn't your opinion irrelevant too? What entitles you to maintain that the military should be allowed to recruit at the school (at my expense) but does not entitle the other students to maintain that the military should not be allowed to recruit at the school? The final decision belongs to the property owner, but it would be a silly business owner who paid no attention to customer preferences, would it not? "Yes, the customers like lobster and will pay for it, but gosh darn it, this is my store, not theirs! The customers don't get to decide what I'll stock, and I'm going to continue to stock rocks!" Of course, the customer cannot force the store to start stocking lobsters and not rocks, but neither can the store owner force the customer to keep him in business. So why shouldn't the property owner take into account what the students desire? The students in your story were not forcibly preventing access, they were making their opinions known. Do you deny the right to free speech, or to make property owners aware of the desires of their customers? Again, if so, why are you entitled to do so?
Further, I'm not sure just who the property owners are. Is the school government owned, or is it private? If it is private, does it receive public funds? Government ownership, though, is based on money taken by taxation from its rightful owners, so in some sense the taxpayers own the school, or in the case of a private school, some portion thereof. Pacifists are taxed too, are they not?
MatthewWilliam: The point is that universities (property owners) are the ones who decide who is and who isn't allowed to recruit on university property. Not the student body (the customers).
Anonymous Coward: Oh, and for all you haters, you ever consider that someone may have had a life before they saw the light?
Liberty Student: Of course the haters have not. Plus, you're useless to libertarianism, because in order to be a ideologue, you can't have any broader knowledge or life experience.
The military is bullshit. What exactly does the military do besides start wars? I'm hard pressed to find out where all that food and equipment comes from. It robs everyone involved in peaceful exchange and then ruins this peaceful exchange by going to war.
The military is nothing but a glorified mob. Why is it that most people are so against elite/congressman robbing people, but( in all situations I have encountered) usually uneducated or economically lazy person joins a group and gives up any will of his own is praised.
If you want to end your self rule, go ahead, just don't do it on my expense. Anyone who joins the military after they are persuaded to a libertarian position is no Anarchist. The military is the only tool of power the State has, they have no legitimate authority. Anyone who actively joins the military is, by a moral standpoint, enslaving the people and causes them strife by using war as a tool to gain more power, even if they just get the general his coffee.
" Every raindrop says it is not responsible for the flood."
Democracy is nothing more than replacing bullets with ballots
If Pro is the opposite of Con. What is the opposite of Progress?
JAlanKatz:Of course, the customer cannot force the store to start stocking lobsters and not rocks, but neither can the store owner force the customer to keep him in business. So why shouldn't the property owner take into account what the students desire?
Your argument seems to be focussing on "opinion" and "desire" rather than concrete "demand".
In your example the business owner will happily switch from proving rocks to providing lobster because there is no market demand for rock. When the army rocks up at your college they are there because there are a number of consenting adults who wish to join. There is a demand. If no student shows an interest, the men with guns won't bother showing up. It is after all, just a small wooden stall among many others.
The 'opinions' of me and my fellow students indeed don't matter, especially when it comes to voluntary arrangements between other people. If some students think that multinationals are unethical, exploitative and evil, does that imply WalMart/McDonalds/JPMorgan shouldn't be allowed to advertise to prospective employees or potential buyers?
As to ownership, if it is a private institution (perhaps like Mises U. I suppose), the committee of owners of the university campus would have to give permission for any advertising to take place. If it is a public institution then the government owns it and will no doubt allow all "cross promotion advertising" activities. Army, police force, whatever. I am well aware that public schooling's function is to promote and perpetuate the state itself. Anarchists are taxed too, you know.
And no, I do not deny the right to free speech. I never suggested I did.
MatthewWilliam: Your argument seems to be focussing on "opinion" and "desire" rather than concrete "demand". In your example the business owner will happily switch from proving rocks to providing lobster because there is no market demand for rock. When the army rocks up at your college they are there because there are a number of consenting adults who wish to join. There is a demand. If no student shows an interest, the men with guns won't bother showing up. It is after all, just a small wooden stall among many others.
This point is questionable - the normal laws of supply and demand don't quite apply to the military. It may be far from cost-effective to send recruiters somewhere where no one is interested, but so what? It isn't their money anyway.
Now, you say that the store will stop selling rocks and start selling lobsters, in good time, as profit signals direct. Fine - but what is wrong with the customers also mentioning to the owner "Hey, we'd probably be a lot more likely to shop here if you had lobsters and not rocks"? That is, price signals are important and relevant, but there's no requirement that they be the only kind of signals. If the store owner has a policy - as the university does - that allows customers to walk around the store with signs saying what they want, then why not have signs that say "Lobsters not rocks"?
MatthewWilliam:The 'opinions' of me and my fellow students indeed don't matter, especially when it comes to voluntary arrangements between other people. If some students think that multinationals are unethical, exploitative and evil, does that imply WalMart/McDonalds/JPMorgan shouldn't be allowed to advertise to prospective employees or potential buyers?
This ignoes the fact that critics of multinationals are largely wrong, while critics of the military are correct in their assertions. But yes, I'd expect students who believe that to advocate that the school also not allow those companies, and that other students would argue the opposite side, and the property owner would eventually decide - exactly as is the case for the military.
MatthewWilliam:As to ownership, if it is a private institution (perhaps like Mises U. I suppose), the committee of owners of the university campus would have to give permission for any advertising to take place.
Yes, that is a good description of how things stand. My question was whether or not this was correct, given that the school is largely funded anyway by tax money.
MatthewWilliam:If it is a public institution then the government owns it and will no doubt allow all "cross promotion advertising" activities. Army, police force, whatever. I am well aware that public schooling's function is to promote and perpetuate the state itself. Anarchists are taxed too, you know.
Yes, anarchists are taxed too. That's why taxation is evil, and this paragraph is no defense of the current situation, whereby a group steals money to build a school, then attracts students to the school through the promise of getting something for nothing, only to then use the opportunity to recruit them as killers working for the original group.
You still haven't said if you would be outraged if students protested against allowing the mafia to recruit on campus. In fact, why aren't you advocating for that, if they don't presently recruit at your school?
MatthewWilliam:And no, I do not deny the right to free speech. I never suggested I did.
Ok, good. Then what do you suppose should be done about these students whose protests you dislike?
JohnSchreimann:Nobody said he was worthless to libertarianism for having been in the military. You made that up yourself.
I was being sarcastic.
Juan:Haha. This is really sick. It turns out that people who should be hanged for their crimes have the high moral ground while folks who point out that militarism is the opposite of libertarianism are haters (I know, I know war is peace and ignorance is strength)
It would be nice to think that former members of the military could become libertarians.
Anonymous Coward: Yeah, if someone equated my military service to being a parasite to my face we'd be fighting...
liberty student: It would be nice to think that former members of the military could become libertarians.
I was a former member who became a libertarian. In my case I was a paleo-conservative when I join the Army out of high school back in 1986. I left active duty in 1990. Thankfully I saw no combat.
I started drifting towards Libertarianism in the couple of years after I left active duty, particularly with the events of the Bush administration in 1991 and 1992. But I didn't really become a full fledged libertarian until the very late 1990's.
Today of course, I am extremely opposed to the military. Back then, I lacked the understandings that I have now.
Mark B.:Back then, I lacked the understandings that I have now.
Ok, back up a second here. You mean that you were a paleo who become a proper libertarian?
This totally undermines radicalism!