As I've mentioned before in another thread I've been studying history for a while now. I can't figure out where people get this idea that it is honorable to fight in a war. In fact I've pretty my view on war is almost completely a pacifist one. I do not feel that wars of aggression need to be fought. Nations need not be invaded by one another. Wars of imperialist conquest are just simply wrong and there are better methods of uniting a region rather than just war. I feel that the only wars that are really justified in history are revolutionary wars, or, rebellions. I don't think even those need to happen. I feel that revolutionary wars happen only because an imperial power is somewhere they aren't supposed to be, so, they pay the consequences. Other than that- wars are just wrong- unless you love fighting for the state or being some political pawn out there. I'd like to get some libertarian views on this. I don't know why people feel that it is honorable to fightin a war. Unless you really liked empire building I don't see what you would find honorable in fighting a war.
GilesStratton:It is honourable to put your life on the line for your wife or girlfriend, your children and your friends. Of course, it's not like libertarians would know this of course, they lack all three of those and the balls required to go into war alongside them.
Maybe you should take some time off, Giles. Might help your attitude.
Knight_of_BAAWA:Yes, because it's always the other side which is in the wrong. After all, the nazis were just protecting their wives from the evil Poles.
I never said anybody was right or wrong, I said they should be honoured for fightin for what they believed and putting their lives on the line for their friends and family. Perhaps you're just pissed off because not everybody buys into the line of the "true-believers" that soldiers are a priori bad (and involved in perfomative contradictions) and that Rothbard was not infallible.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
GilesStratton:I said they should be honoured for fightin for what they believed
Why is that honorable?
GilesStratton:and putting their lives on the line for their friends and family.
No, they put their lives on the line for the government officials. Not very honorable.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Spideynw: GilesStratton:I said they should be honoured for fightin for what they believed Why is that honorable?
Because it shows you're willing to put your money where you mouth is. Most self proclaimed "radical libertarians" on these boards are cowards. They profess their hatred of the state and go about destroying it by blogging. Good job guys, I hear Obama is about to capitulate and give you what you want. That's all very well, don't get me wrong, but Austrians love to speak about revealed preference, and if this is the case I'm not so sure you can legitimately say you hate the state. Your actions say otherwise.
I don't fall into this trap, because I just don't really care about the state.
Spideynw:No, they put their lives on the line for the government officials. Not very honorable.
I'd be willing to guess that protecting government officials isn't high on the list of most soldiers. I daresay various ideals and values they hold rank higher. I'm glad you didn't question whether or not it's honourable to die for your friends and family, but then again, perhaps your group of friends doesn't solely consist of weirdos with fake Russian accents who think it's moral to smoke. Although, that might explain why the Randroids think it's immoral to die for their friends, look at who they associate with.
GilesStratton:Of course, it's not like libertarians would know this of course, they lack all three of those and the balls required to go into war alongside them.
GilesStratton:Whether or not you feel that wars are justified, the soldiers involved certainly do, and often they're more than willing to fight for what they see as good.
This is precisely what I am talking about....
GilesStratton:So you can sit there at your computed desk and type about how tyrannical they are, but at the end of the day they've lost far more from the war of Iraq than you have.
This is because they are not warriors... they are not prepared for war....
It sounds like the ocean, smells like fresh mountain air, and tastes like the union of peanut butter and chocolate. ~Liberty Student
GilesStratton: Spideynw: GilesStratton:I said they should be honoured for fightin for what they believed Why is that honorable? Because it shows you're willing to put your money where you mouth is.
Because it shows you're willing to put your money where you mouth is.
If someone believes all Muslims are evil, and he or she is willing to put his or her life on the line to go and kill them, then that is not honorable. It is called stupid.
GilesStratton:Most self proclaimed "radical libertarians" on these boards are cowards. They profess their hatred of the state and go about destroying it by blogging. Good job guys, I hear Obama is about to capitulate and give you what you want. That's all very well, don't get me wrong, but Austrians love to speak about revealed preference, and if this is the case I'm not so sure you can legitimately say you hate the state. Your actions say otherwise.
As if dying for a cause is the only honorable thing to do or the only way to bring about change.
GilesStratton: Spideynw:No, they put their lives on the line for the government officials. Not very honorable. I'd be willing to guess that protecting government officials isn't high on the list of most soldiers.
I'd be willing to guess that protecting government officials isn't high on the list of most soldiers.
But it is what they are doing. It is irrelevant if they believe they are defending their friends and families, because they usually are not.
Spideynw:As if dying for a cause is the only honorable thing to do or the only way to bring about change.
I neither said, nor implied such as thing, my point was merely that if you are willing to die for a cause in which you believe, it can be called honourable. I don't see what's so difficult to understand about my point, much less when you applaud people's acts of bravery against the state. Of course, I think there's a good reason you question whether or not it's honourable to die for a cause whilst limiting your anti-state activism to sending letters to the nearest politicians.
Here's the thing, I'm not saying that I think the wars America is waging are good, I don't. As a rule, I'm against war, albeit to a lesser extent than most here. And yet, I can still support those people out there who have been lied to by those who they trust and are stuck in Iraq because of it. I'd hazard a guess that you'd have nothing but praise for the libertarian revolutions. Is this is so, the assumption is that you are completely correct in your view of the world, which is the same assumption held by soldier in Iraq. The difference is that they're willing to put their life on the line for what they believe to be correct, you blog about it.
Byzantine:Yet most of them are happy with the arrangement so long as they're getting paid
That doesn't show that freedom is alienable. Many fight out of some misguided sense of nationalism. If your qualificaition for slavery is that we must either do what the government says or be thrown in jail, then every one who is ruled in the world is a slave.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Anarchist Cain: Byzantine:Yet most of them are happy with the arrangement so long as they're getting paid That doesn't show that freedom is alienable. Many fight out of some misguided sense of nationalism.
That doesn't show that freedom is alienable. Many fight out of some misguided sense of nationalism.
correct liberty is not a good... it is not a transferable tangibility. A person could write a book about it or talk about it, but liberty is timeless, abstract, and not potential matter. It is actualized matter in the form of a person that much is for sure.
GilesStratton:I neither said, nor implied such as thing,
Uh, yes you did.
GilesStratton:my point was merely that if you are willing to die for a cause in which you believe, it can be called honourable.
But it is not. Again, dying trying to kill people that are Muslims, because you think all Muslims are evil, is not honorable. But you go on calling dying for being stupid honorable.
GilesStratton:I don't see what's so difficult to understand about my point, much less when you applaud people's acts of bravery against the state.
The state practices mass extortion and slavery. So yes, I applaud those that defy the state. Not one soldier in the history of the United States has died for freedom. They have all died for the state, the specific organization that commits mass atrocities. However, there are those in New Hampshire committing civil disobedience, and actually enduring the abuse of the state, to try and help gain more freedom. I find those people much more honorable than any soldier in the history of the world.
And, if I am able to move there in a few years, I may get an opportunity to commit civil disobedience as well. I find Gandhi to be the most honorable person in history that I know of., not because of his death, but because of his life.
GilesStratton:Of course, I think there's a good reason you question whether or not it's honourable to die for a cause whilst limiting your anti-state activism to sending letters to the nearest politicians.
As I have stated in another thread, education is power. Fighting and dying is not. But you seem to think that the only honorable thing one can do is fight and die. On one hand you say that you do not think dying is the only honorable thing one can do, but then you go on to make fun of me for sending letters to local politicians.
wilderness: Anarchist Cain: Byzantine:Yet most of them are happy with the arrangement so long as they're getting paid That doesn't show that freedom is alienable. Many fight out of some misguided sense of nationalism. correct liberty is not a good... it is not applicable to a tangibility. A person could write a book about it or talk about it, but liberty is timeless, abstract, and not potential matter. It is actualized matter in the form of a person that much is for sure.
correct liberty is not a good... it is not applicable to a tangibility. A person could write a book about it or talk about it, but liberty is timeless, abstract, and not potential matter. It is actualized matter in the form of a person that much is for sure.
@ Byz, does that mean slavery is ok as long as the slave is comfortable?
@ AC and Wild, Freedom is not inalienable, sort of, the problem is that the idealism is that all humans are free, some, like Byz, will choose slavery, so long as he is the house slave and not the field slave...
I believe that all humans have liberty, though many do not have the self respect to see it, and as they do not respect their own liberty, the do not respect others, and that is where this mindset comes in, where slavery is acceptable. These people cannot live in a free society, as they are the first to state there needs to be a law against ________, and blank is whatever they do not like about other people...
Harry Felker: AC and Wild, Freedom is not inalienable, sort of, the problem is that the idealism is that all humans are free, some, like Byz, will choose slavery, so long as he is the house slave and not the field slave.
You cannot choose to become a slave for like I stated, slavery is an involuntary state. Therefore Byz will choose to have an advisor/mentor who will governn him as to what is best and what isn't while still retaining the final decision making.
wilderness:correct liberty is not a good... it is not a transferable tangibility. A person could write a book about it or talk about it, but liberty is timeless, abstract, and not potential matter. It is actualized matter in the form of a person that much is for sure.
Exactly, if thrown in prison we do not say or imply 'hey give me back my freedom because you have taken it away from me'. We say 'stop extering your force upon me which denies me the enacting of my freedom.'
OK, I see how this is going, so given the general strategy of your replies and go along with it and win the debate:
Spideynw:I lack the balls to do anything so I pretend I'm morally superior to those that fight for what they believe to be good.
I win. See, I can ignore and misrepresent what you're actually saying too!.
Anarchist Cain:Therefore Byz will choose to have an advisor/mentor who will governn him as to what is best and what isn't while still retaining the final decision making.
I think calling him by his first name might be a bit rude giving the fact you don't know him, Mr Antine might be a more appropriate way to address him.