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Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Torsten — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:54:52 GMT

Ye're right. The problem with "just causes" is that you actually can use them to justify almost anything. And that includes all kind of atrocities. And that's what has also been done pretty often in the past.

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Malachi — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 02:33:25 GMT

Thats actually pretty easy. They (the PDA) are only justified if the accused is actually guilty. If they dont find the weapons, then they are in fact negligent, and must make the victim whole in the victim's eyes.

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Cortes — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 02:27:44 GMT

@Torsten, seems to me this is another ethical dilemma a la 24.

Say you have a PDA who believes he has sufficient cause to break into government/private property to obtain evidence to prevent an attack on innocents.

He is aggressing on what is presumably an aggressor's property. Yet if this is for just purposes, would it be a risk worth taking, and would it still be ethical to reimburse the damages done?

"Sorry we broke your safe and broke all your windows, Fidel. But, ya know, you were holding this nuke that we heard you were about to ship to that suspicious Chinese tanker off the coast of LA. Seriously, cut that shit out."

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Torsten — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 18:40:55 GMT

OK, the open source information gathering is for sure not aggression, even, if it is undesired by other parties.
Breaking into something to gain access to information is of course another matter. Something that is reasonably seen as aggression (by any organisation either private or governmental )

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Malachi — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 18:18:54 GMT

Agents with official cover conduct authorized meetings with agents from hostile intelligence services regularly. They engage in subtle games of exchanging calculated pieces of information, some true and many false or misleading. Then they analyze the information they received to try and figure out what the enemy wants them to believe, then they backtrack from that and combine it with other forms of intel to arrive at an estimate of the truth. Signals intelligence and sensor intelligence are both passive and therefore non-aggressive. Open source intel is non aggressive. An agent with non-official cover is a criminal, in the country he works in, but not everything he does is an aggressive act. Sometimes he or she just gets the right people drunk and listens to them.

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

vive la insurrection — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 18:17:30 GMT

The revolting sensation that would overcome my body for being a chickenhawk

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

gotlucky — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 17:34:04 GMT

Marko:

I think we should move down our analysis to the level of individuals or even just actions. Is this specific action just? Is this specific cause just?

That would be ideal.

Marko:

Personally I think we would do well to try to move away from thinking about war as something that involves two sides and nobody else.

Let me clarify what I mean:

For any given conflict (specifically a violent conflict), there must be an aggressor. Unfortunately, if I go into all the possibilities of aggression and proportionality regarding two sides (it only gets worse if there are 3!), I will just make things more confusing. So, I will only look at the basic principle involved. When a nation invades another nation (note that I am using nation in the sense of a group of people, not a nation-state), it must be aggressing against the invaded nation. And the aggression used against the invaded nation includes acts such as trespass and murder and, of course, the threat of murder. So we know that the people of the defending nation can kill the invaders legitimately. Only the defenders could be acting justly, as the invaders have already murdered and threatened to murder, and people may defend against these types of aggression.

As long as the people of the defending nation only use violence against the aggressors, then they are acting justly. The problem is when the defenders start using violence against people who have not aggressed against them. Then no side can be acting justly. But, you are right, that it really makes far more sense to look at the conflict and crimes on an individual level. I was making a generalized statement that it is possible for the entire defending force to be acting justly. But that rarely happens in war, if ever.

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Marko — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 17:13:12 GMT

There can only be one side that can be acting justly in a war, and as you have pointed out, when does that ever happen? I disagree with you that it must necessarily be the case that both sides must be aggressive, but in the real world, that it how it ends up.

Personally I think we would do well to try to move away from thinking about war as something that involves two sides and nobody else. For diehard anti-collectivists our analysis of various wars is often quite rough around the edges. For example we have the classic Rothbard Two Just Wars lecture that he concluded by saying the American Revolution and the War of Souther Secession were examples of two just wars (for the American and the Southern sides). And then we have the younger thinkers who are interested in this theme, Kinsella and Gregory who write that no actually not even the American Revolution was really a just war (I do not know what they say about ACW). But actually I think we should recognize that wars are not truly just for one side or the other side (which are never homegenous, but are always coalitions even just by social structure eg of officers and soldiers, or of planters and small farmers, or of aristocrats and serfs) but for every individual combatant separately. I think we should move down our analysis to the level of individuals or even just actions. Is this specific action just? Is this specific cause just?

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Torsten — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 14:53:26 GMT

However, as addressed above, many espionage tasks are performed in a de facto aggressive manner. Many are not.

Care to explain where you'd draw the line with examples? What is non-aggressive espionage as opposed to one that is not?

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Malachi — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 12:31:09 GMT

With respect to Paul, the problem isnt gathering intel so much as analyzing the intel we already have access to. However, as addressed above, many espionage tasks are performed in a de facto aggressive manner. Many are not.

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Torsten — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 12:13:12 GMT

Does anybody here equate intelligence gathering to military intervention, and on what level? Ron Paul has argued in favor of shifting the focus of US overseas foreign policy to intelligence gathering effectiveness, since poor coordination led to the WTC bombings.

If that "intelligence gathering" equates to espionage, stealing confidential information, then that for sure will be equated to aggression by the foreigners.

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Cortes — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 04:18:49 GMT

Does anybody here equate intelligence gathering to military intervention, and on what level? Ron Paul has argued in favor of shifting the focus of US overseas foreign policy to intelligence gathering effectiveness, since poor coordination led to the WTC bombings.

While nobody in government could quite 'streamline' the efficacy of intel gathering, since it is always proportionate to the ends the military want met (in civilian terms the gov't and military all too often make the intel "fit their thesis" to say what they want it to say), would not an intelligence community, part of State military or part of a PDA, be crucial to deterring and apprehending possible threats?

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Torsten — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 16:31:46 GMT

There can only be one side that can be acting justly in a war, and as you have pointed out, when does that ever happen? I disagree with you that it must necessarily be the case that both sides must be aggressive, but in the real world, that it how it ends up. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

Would you have examples for a side acting "justly" in a war? How I see war is usually the result of conflicts of interest between several parties. When they don't get settle diplomatically, the guns start talking. So I think there are justification for war possible assuming the principle of souvereignity that may have to be defended or have an obligation to act.

A libertarian solution to military ntervention would be quite easy I think. Those that think military intervention has to take place will simply have to assemble THEIR OWN resources and use that to intervene somewhere.

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

Centrist — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 16:09:11 GMT

[view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_09eMHzTnHg]

IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM

Re: What exactly do libertarians have against military intervention?

gotlucky — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:59:39 GMT

Troll, be gone!